Bless the Child

Good evening Sporefans. Tonight we've got an extra special craptastic review for you because I'm feeling absolutely vicious tonight. Yes, tonight's movie is one that I'm going to rip to shreds, Hellraiser style! According to IMDB, the tagline for this movie is " Fear the Darkness. Fight the Evil. Bless the Child." and as if you needed to be told, the movie for tonight's review is "Bless the Child".













What do I have against this movie Sporefans? A better question would be, "what don't I have against this movie?". Its a piece of Hollywood schlock. Before I even get into this crapfest full of plot holes and wooden acting, lets take a minute to pick apart that "tagline". Three lines, each one is a command to the viewing audience. "Fear the Darkness!"... whooo boy, just drink in that original piece of work right there. "FEAR THE DARKNESS!" OOOOOOOHH!!! SCARY!

"Fight the evil!", again, more unoriginal crap. How about you, sir? Did you fight some evil today? No? You brushed your teeth and ate some cereal? How about you ma'am? Did you fight evil today? And by that I don't mean, did you do something worthwhile for mankind. I mean, did you go out and physically wrestle the devil himself. No? You didn't wrestle the devil? No? How are you supposed to fight the evil while you're afraid of the darkness anyway? Anybody got a mag-lite?

And finally "Bless the child!". How many of my readers are priests? No one? Hey, that guy has his hand up. No, you can't just use a priest in a video game, I don't' care how entertaining or free it is. If you can't turn tap water into a deadly weapon to be used against vampires, then its just not good enough to fight evil in the fearful dark of the darkness.

Am I to understand that this movie somehow wants me to grab a torch and a pitchfork and go out into the world quoting the bible to put a hurting on "evil"? Because that's what watching this movie makes me think of. If you're the type of person who thinks the devil is responsible for all the evil in the world, that today's youth is troubled because they're tainted with sin, and that things that confuse and scare you must be evil, than "Bless the child" is definitely for you. On the other hand, if you're, ohhh, I dunno... sane, you're not going to enjoy it.

Lets get to the rotten meat and rancid potatoes of the movie. The plot is that autistic child Cody O'Conner (played by Holliston Coleman) has "special powers". Cody's aunt, Maggie O'Conner (played by Kim Basinger) has custody of Cody after her mother (played by Angela Bettis) abandons her to score some more heroin. Or crack. Whatever.













Hold your tounge and say "truck" Cody.


Several years later, millionaire, cult leader and Satanist Eric Stark (played by Rufus Sewell of Dark City. Remember that movie? That movie didn't suck. What happened Rufus? What happened?) search for a "special child". He sends his patently ugly guy, Stuart (played by Eugene Lipinski) to collect and test children. Oh, and get this:

The children who are not "special" enough are killed.

Kind of goes against what you learned on Sesame Street and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood about everyone being special. Eventually when they stumble on upon the right one, they try and turn her to the dark side.














Wanna see my Darth Vader impression? "Luke the Evangelist, I am your father! HOOO-SHHHH!" What? Not funny? Then jump Cody, God will save you. Go on, jump. Here, let me give you a little push...

Oops...


To get to Cody, Stark marries Cody's estranged mother and feeds her some drugs and uses his evil Satan powers to somehow make her not look like a junkie. They barge into O'Conner's apartment, demand custody of Cody, and when Maggie refuses they kidnap Cody. When the police won't help...

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait one frickin' minute here. Despite the fact that the mother accompanies Mr. Satan worshipper to reclaim her blessed child, she still can't take the kid from her guardian's residence without a court order. If you want some facts, check out section 1 of this F.A.Q. on legal custody in New York:

"To obtain legal custody of a child, a parent must go to court." -http://www.empirestatecoalition.org/custody.html

Yeah. So, that guy... in the movie... Mr. Satan... just committed felony kidnapping, and the police are "helpless". That is one huge plot hole. If an inebriated movie watching fungus-man can pick out a legal issue central to the development of the story, something is wrong with the movie. Terribly, terribly wrong. Like, don't they-have-people-to-catch-this-type-of-thing-and-why-did-they-drop-the-ball-so-badly wrong.

Anyway, when the police won't get involved, FBI agent John Travis (played by the eternally typecast Jimmy Smits) offers to help Maggie O'Conner reclaim her blessed child. By, uh... not really doing a whole lot till the end of the movie. Then he shoots some people. Don't worry, they were all "bad". Sure, he could have been off collecting evidence, or interrogating witnesses and forcing them to talk by showing them Dennis Franz's ass, but he wasn't. Nope, all the work in this movie gets done by Kim Basinger, who starts hallucinating half way through the film.

Oh, I'm sorry. They were "visions".









Jimmy Smits play F.B.I. Agent John Travis. He does... stuff...


What other plot holes are there in this movie? Oh, lets see... First, Christina Ricci who has a minor part in the film is attacked by some "hoodlums" and killed in a subway. Mostly Ricci's character dies because O'Conner can't fire a gun. I could do an entire paper on the impotent phallic imagery throughout this movie, but that's another day. For now, lets go over the aftermath of the attack in the absolutely desolate subway platform. O'Conner walks up to Ricci's "corpse" and the head falls off. The problem? The only "hood" with a bladed weapon had a switch blade, everyone else had pipes and sticks. Have you ever tried to decapitate someone with a switch blade? Its really hard.

Not that I'd know that from personal experience, but I imagine that it would be really hard.









So, are you on "the drugs"? It's OK, you can talk to me. I'm "hip" as the kids say these days. Right? Right?


And certainly not something you could do either cleanly or during the several seconds that O'Conner spent being "woozy". I've seen more convincing acting from WWE superstar HHH, who's "wooziness" is part of any main event sleeper.

This leads to a whole string of plot holes. O'Conner goes to the apartment of Mr. Satan and tries to get her baby back. When she leaves her bag on the couch, Mr. Satan sits on it and apologetically hands it back to her. Somehow, not only does that slick devil know O'Conner had a gun in her purse, he was able to unload a snub nosed revolver one handed in less that one second and palmed the bullets, all before closing it neatly and tossing the bag to O'Conner. Looks like worshiping Satan allows you to bend the laws of time and space.

Stuart, the ugly child kidnapper who works for Mr. Satan knocks O'Conner out with some ether and a hankie. Evil. Then, to make her death look like an accident, they put her in a car with a bottle of Vodka, some pills and cut the break line and let it loose on what they're claiming is the Brooklyn bridge (its actually a bridge in Canada). How exactly is an unconscious woman capable of guiding the car enough not to just crash into the nearest truck and sustain a slight injury? Magic? Remote control Buick? Somehow she gets this thing up to a high enough speed to crash over the side of the bridge, but she's saved by an angel at the last moment.

At the same time, Agent Travis is having some sort of crisis of faith, so another angel appears to cheer him up in the guise of a creepy janitor. They make some banter about faith, and I think it went something like this:

*disclaimer: Text does not reflect actual dialogue. Spored_to_Death was too drunk when watching this part of the movie and made most of it up.

Agent Travis: Man, things are really bad. I feel so alone in the world.

Creepy Divine Janitor: No man is alone if he has faith! Have faith, and you will never be alone.

Agent Travis: Huh... thank you. I feel much better now.

Creepy Divine Janitor: I mean it. You're never really alone if you have faith. You're not alone when you're raiding the fridge at 2 in the morning either. You weren't alone when you stole those cookies when you were 7...

Agent Travis: Hey, this is actually kind of creepy...

Creepy Divine Janitor: ...and when you shower... and while you sleep. I just wanted you to know... you're not alone.

Agent Travis: Uhhh... I gotta go do... uh... cop... stuff... now. Right now, as a matter of fact.

Creepy Divine Janitor: See ya.


The remainder of this predictable flick follows O'Conner and she stumbles about trying to get her kid back. The movie would have been OK, except Blackcloud had to ruin it for me. We had a little discussion during the scene where O'Conner confronts Capitan Satan in his Posh apartment. It went something like this:

Blackcould: God I can't stand Kim Basinger. She's so wooden.

Spored_to_Death: Wha? Whaddya mean? She's fine. You know.... OK.

Blackcloud: No she's not. You're just being a typical guy.

Spored_to_Death: I don't get it.

Blackcloud: If you weren't so busy staring at her chest, you'd see how bad she is.

Spored_to_Death: Fine, lets put it to the test.

Spored_to_Death rewinds the movie and uses his hand to shield the lower half of the screen from his vision.

Basinger: (from on screen) Close your eyes baby.

Spored_to_Death: HOLY CHRIST ALMIGHTY THAT'S AWFUL! AAAAAAHHHHH!!!

Blackcloud: Told you.


From that point on I had to watch the rest of the movie with the veil of Basingers... natural charm... removed from my mind. And in retrospect it was like that episode of the twilight zone where the dummy changes place with the ventriloquist, but there was no ventriloquist. Just a giant blonde block of animated wood.

Another great thing I noticed is that Cody gets noticeably less autistic as the movie progresses. At the beginning she can barely function, but by the end she's mostly normal. Looks like exposure to Satan makes you smarter.

The movie thankfully drew to a close as Smits began shooting Satanist who were conspicuously unarmed. Basinger gets her baby back, Cody doesn't join the dark side, and Capitan Satan gets blown away. Everything is wrapped up in a neat package, and I'm $2.95 poorer for the experience. And much, much drunker.










The movie has reached critical mass! Run!


I think that one of the telling aspects of this movie is... its box office business. According to IMDB, Bless the Child made $29,374,178 in theaters. Too bad it cost $40 million to make it. So add in all the people who bought the DVD, and the fact that I rented it from On-Demand, and I estimate Bless the Child made abooooouut... $29,374,180.95.

Anyhoo, if we estimate and make things easier, Bless the Child made $29,375,000 before it was pulled from theaters. If you divide that by $7.50, which I estimate was the price of admission in the year 2000, then the total number of people who went to see Bless the Child was 3,916,666.6666666666... people.

...

Boy, that's a lot of sixes!

Now, I'm not going to post the youtube trailer to this piece of crap movie. Instead, I'm going to post the trailer for another movie that I ordered which will be infinitely better than Bless the Child. You may have to verify your age to watch it, but how can you pass up the opportunity to watch the trailer for...

Anus Magillicutty.

And as always, check out the Sporeboard for comments and other cool stuff.

Creepshow 3

Welcome back Sporefans. This week we have a long awaited and totally unexpected sequel to a franchise thought long dead. According to the trailer I viewed before renting this movie (gotta love On-Demand), "in 1982 George Romero and and Stephen King made a horror classic". It goes on to say, "Now, 32 years later comes the latest installment in this horror masterpiece". Already there were some problems, and the movie hadn't even started yet.

Number one: This movie was made in 2006, and released in 2007, so even at the latest its only been 25 years since the "horror classic" was first created. As we all know from grade school, 25 does not equal 32.

Number two: There was another installment of this movie series in 1987. So if you want to get really picky its only been 20 years since the last installment.

Number three: You shouldn't be claiming that your movie is the latest installment of a horror masterpiece if it sucks. But does it?

Intrigued, I hit the button and ordered...













Creepshow 3!

Unlike the first two movies, Creepshow 3 doesn't have an all encompassing Wraparound story that ties in the independent sections of the film. Instead, Creepshow 3 ties all the stories together internally, making character's from one story appear as background character's in another section. This is a bold new idea, especially because this "franchise" is now operating without the two big names associated with the title. Actually, according to Wikipedia, James Dudelson is the only connection this movie has with the first two, as he owns the rights to the franchise. Miss the 80's much James?













Check out the creepy hot dog vendor. Looks like Kenny from South Park gone bad.


I'll go over each section of the movie, since you're probably not going to watch it and I can't ruin anything for you. Besides, each section does, for the most part, stand on its own as a story.

First up is "Alice", a piece that was supposed to remind you of Alice in Wonderland, but is actually just a cheap rip off of the Adam Sandler movie "Click".

Stop.

Now take a moment to reflect on exactly how sad something has to be to rip off an Adam Sandler movie. As "Pinhead" would probably say, "Revel in the sweet, sweet suffering."... go on, revel in it. I'll wait.

Done revelling? Good.

Alice (played by Stephanie Pettee) is a normal bratty teenage girl. Her father gets a remote control in the mail and whenever he presses a button on it, strange things happen to Alice. Also, for no apparent raisin, this causes her to melt. Eventually she gets all goopy and the strange doctor who lives up the street changes her into a rabbit, for no apparent raisin.













Now ve melt you... in the meltorium!


Alice is the weakest part of the movie, and really doesn't make much sense on its own. It also doesn't make any more sense when you watch the rest of the movie. Yeah. Sit back and suspend your disbelief like David Blaine over the Thames. Remember kids, its not really magic, its just a test of endurance. Just like watching some of our fine cinema at Spored to Death publishing.

The next segment is "The Radio" where a drunk loser named Jerry (played by A.J. Bowen) buys a radio that tells him to do things. Now, if you've ever seen any movie where an inanimate object tells you to do things, you would know not to do them. It always, Always, ALWAYS winds up badly. Good thing Jerry doesn't have much to live for anyway.









Jerry... jerry... you forgot to put fresh batteries in me.


"The Radio" is probably the best segment in the movie. Sure its been done to death, but at least it was coherent. I also liked the product placement for "Arrogant Bastard ale" in the movie. As an arrogant bastard, I'm proud to say that I enjoy Arrogant Bastard ale. If you're an arrogant bastard like me, you too should try Arrogant Bastard ale. Keep in mind I get no compensation what-so-ever by plugging that product, I just really like it. (Hint, hint.)

After "The Radio" draws to its predictable conclusion, we're treated to "Call Girl", a story about a killer call girl who winds up paying a visit to a "vampire". At least, that's what Wikipedia is calling it. I'm thinking it was just some type of toothy monster. Meh. Cutting to the chase this is what happens: call girl meets boy, call girl kills boy, call girl takes a shower in dead boy's bathroom, boy is a "vampire", "vampire" kills call girl. End.









Is this a vampire? I thought they only had 2 fangs. I better check with the experts on this one.


Story 4 is the "Professor's wife", and is really kind of funny. Two former students are called to see their old college professor as he's about to be married. The students are suspicious because the professor was fond of practical jokes, and suspect that the bride to be is actually a robot. While the professor is away they decide to "disassemble" her to see how she works.

Guess what.

...

Wow Sporefans, you're really good at guessing games. You are correct: she is not a robot. The two students dismember an actual human being who just happens to be very dumb. Luckily, the professor knows someone with an advanced voodoo kit and resurrects his zombie bride. Better wed than dead I guess.









Think the professor can fix her?


I hope the doc signed a prenuptial agreement, because I have a sneaky suspicion that things will turn sour soon after the honeymoon. Or during, depending on how warm and humid it is where they choose to have their honeymoon. Really, I could make scores of zombie honeymoon jokes here, but I've already worked that angle to death. It doesn't take any brains to know that these jokes have come back on more than one occasion.

The last segment is "Haunted Dog" and no, it doesn't have anything to do with either dogs or "Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai". Nope, its about a haunted hot dog. Or poisoned. Or something.

A doctor working off public service hours at a free clinic gives a hot dog to a homeless guy. The homeless guy eats it and dies. Then the homeless guy haunts the doctor for giving him the poisoned/cursed hot dog. I've got huge problems with this one.

So what's the moral here? Is the doctor supposed to eat the hot dog and die? Is that any better than being haunted by a homeless guy until he dies from a heart attack? And what about the homeless guy? He ate the hot dog, and it was his choice to do so. He died by his own hand, so why does he haunt the doctor? Are homeless guy's really that hard to shake off out in the West? The only thing that I learned definitively from this tale is that you should never eat anything from a street vendor's cart.

So that's it for Creepshow 3. It really wasn't all that bad. Really. Of course, the last thing I saw before this was "Die Hard Dracula", so my sense of taste and sound reasoning skills were probably still destroyed from the last review. I've seen better, but damn have I seen far worse than this. Far, far worse. Of course, if you have a few bottles of Arrogant Bastard ale on hand, this movie will seem great.

Bottom line? See it. Drunk.

Check out this movie I found about the dangers of eating hot dogs from street vendors. Now you know the risks.

Now you know.

And you can post about it on the Sporeboard!

Die Hard Dracula

Welcome back Sporefans. I know that I've been AWOL lately, but we do have a new review for you. Sit back and enjoy, because this week we're covering the 1998 movie "Die Hard Dracula"!











At first glance, it looks like this movie intends to mix "Die Hard" with "Dracula". Unfortunately, that is not the case, as the only thing that Die Hard Dracula has to do with Die Hard is the title, which is a sad thing because this movie would have been much better with a cheesy John McClane rip off as the star.

Die Hard Dracula attempts to retell yet again the story of Dracula with a modern twist. Again. The movie starts in the past where a king attempts to have his "kingly privileges" with one of the local peasant girls. She runs to the old abandoned castle where the king stabs her on top of Dracula's coffin. A bloated and ugly Dracula (played by Ernest M. Garcia and Chaba Hrotko and Tom McGowan) emerges and proclaims "How dare you screw on top of my casket!" and kills the king. Then he turns to the dying girl, and makes her into his bride.










Dracula: Vampire or Creepy Pervert? Is there a difference?


Cut to present day America. Some kids are out on a boat water-skiing. Julia (played by Kerry Dustin), a Californian bimbo, decides that she doesn't need a life vest because she's too cool for that. She dies.

Julia's boyfriend Steven (played by Denny Sachen) is mortified by her death. And what does every red-blooded American guy do when his girlfriend dies? He goes to Europe. Steven wanders around Europe for a while, getting wasted and lamenting Julia's death, waking up in a European gutter every morning until he has an accident and wanders into a small village. Once there, Steven finds the local inn, where the innkeeper's daughter Carla, recently came back to life for no apparent raisin. Coincidentally, she looks exactly like Julia, which is probably because she's played by the same actress.










Carla's turn ons are "not being turned into a vampire" and "being turned into a vampire". Confused? So is she.


Also coincidentally, this village sits in the shadow of a castle occupied by Dracula.

Dracula has been looking for a place to obtain blood for his wife, who is a constant pain in his undead ass. While he's out he meets a peasant girl, drinks her blood and turns her into one of his wives. You would think that he would have learned his lesson after the first one, but Dracula seems to be a sucker for peasant girls.










Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... Dracula?


Unfortunately, the peasant girl is one of Carla's friends. Steven and the local cronies decide to enlist the help of Dr. Van Helsing (played by Bruce Glover), the worlds most famous vampire hunter. Van Helsing shows up at the inn and reveals that he knows magic; the David Blaine kind, not the Harry Potter kind. Van Helsing makes fools of the local villagers by using slight of hand and making fire without a flint. Afterwards the local villagers become his loyal peons.

Dracula shows up at the pub, dressed as an ordinary hunter. I guess he was trying to get away from his horrible wives for a while. This prompts Van Helsing to test whether or not this strangely dressed man is a vampire. So, Van Helsing saunters over and makes idle conversation with Dracula, and performs several "tests" on him. Its like that scene in "The Lost Boys" where the Corey twins try to find out whether or not Max is a vampire, except that the sound is awful and its not funny. Also, Dracula is most definitely a vampire. Here are some of the things that didn't convince Van Helsing that he was sitting across the table from a vampire.

-Obvious fangs.
-Orders a bloody steak.
-Can't touch silver without screaming.
-Doesn't like Van Helsing's crucifix.
-Doesn't let Van Helsing see if Dracula has a reflection.

Oh, yeah. There was one other thing that stuck out.

-His name was frickin' "Dracula".

STILL unsure of the undead condition of his dinner guest, Van Helsing gives Dracula the ultimate test. He gives him some garlic bread. After the Count freaks out and leaves without paying, Van Helsing is now sure that he's a vampire.










I don't know. Could this guy maybe, possibly, kinda be a vampire? Maybe?


Van Helsing and Steve... (I love the way that fits together: Van Helsing and Steve. Like Bob Dylan and Frank the pizza guy. Anyway Van Helsing and Steve..) set off to Dracula's castle. Somewhere along the way Van Helsing must forget that he already determined that Dracula is a vampire, because they walk in on the Count and his bride necking. Get it?

...

Anyway they figure it out... eventually... and spend the rest of the movie making inept attempts at breaking and entering into the Castle to A) defeat Dracula. B) rescue Carla. and C) Make off with Dracula's gold. No, this isn't a multiple choice question, they're attempting all 3 goals.










The dynamic doofi.


In the end, Dracula wins. Yes, you heard me right, Dracula bites Carla and then Dracula has his brides turn Van Helsing and Steve into vampires, and then they dance. Roll credits.










Feel the power of the dark side!


Now you can imagine my disappointment with this movie. It had such potential, and it was squandered. There were no scenes with a barefoot hero tossing a vampire corpse down an elevator shaft with a message written in blood on it. Think about that Sporefans, it works on so many levels. It could have read "Ha ha ha, now I have a mallet and a wooden steak". Dracula could have eaten the message too, it was made of blood! But, no, this movie had to be mediocre. It had to be a regular vampire movie. How bad does a movie have to stink to make "Dracula 3000: Infinite Darkness" look good by comparison? "Pretty frickin' bad!", that's how bad.

Still, they did have a flying coffin. That was pretty cool.










The only way to fly. Blah!


OK, until next time Sporefans. Keep reading. Keep watching. And join the Sporeboard. If you're good, I'll post the short story I've been working on for the last three weeks on the Sporeboard. Yes, I've been cheating on you all... with fiction.


OK, I couldn't find a video of "Die Hard Dracula", so I found something better. I found the best thing Christopher Lee ever did. Ever. Debate over. There is no topping this. None. This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

The Sporeboard

Well, its done. The votes are cast. The ballots totally totaled. And here it is, Sporefans. I give you

THE SPOREBOARD!

I want to strongly encourage all of my readers to join the Sporeboard. Now you don't have to use that lame "Comment" button on the bottom of the blog, you have an entire board to let your voice be heard. I'm going to make a discussion thread for each new review, so you'll have plenty of room to post what you want to say.

Join up now. Meet other Sporefans. There are more of them than you think. Post stuff. Post more stuff. Go crazy with it. Totally abuse your workday lounging around the boards. As new innovations come up I'll try and work them in. In the meantime, enjoy!

One day left

There's only one day left to vote on where you want the new Message Board to be held. So far Google groups is winning at 63% of the vote. Get your votes in quick!

Coming up soon, there will be the new message boards, I'm expecting a guest review of "Hercules in New York", and as soon as I finish my creative writing assignment I'll get to work on a review for "Die Hard Dracula".

Sleepaway Camp

Welcome back Sporefans. I know that we've been gone for a while, but we're back with another exciting review for you. This week is a classic movie from 1983. Some of you may remember the title "Sleepaway Camp", but for those of you who don't know this movie, think Friday the 13th but without Jason... or his mom.

Sleepaway Camp stars Felissa Rose as Angela and Johnathan Tiersten as Ricky, two young cousins who have arrived at a Summer camp full of hormonally driven teenagers, questionable camp councillors, and a greasy cook who "likes em' young". Its not surprising that soon after the camp opens people start to have horrible fatal "accidents". Accidents that are covered up by the shady camp manager.

Also, take a minute and check out Felissa Rose's myspace.

Now, before I get too far into this review, I just want to say that I really had not seen this movie before and honestly did not know the ending. An ending, which, was summarily spoiled for me when someone brought up that Robot Chicken had actually done a parody sketch on this movie, which I had in fact seen, but had not remembered when I was watching the movie due to my inebriation. Click here to see the parody of the ending for yourself.

Now some of you may ask why I would review a movie who's ending is so available to the public? If everyone knows how the movie ends, who am I saving from having to watch this movie? And why would I purchase this movie in the first place?

Well I have an answer for you Sporefans. I bought and watched this movie... to save America from Scurvy.













Arrr... beware the Scurvy, dogs!


That's right, by purchasing this movie, I've kept it in the hands of people who can truly appreciate cinema of this caliber. If I had not purchased this movie, there's no telling what would have happened. But it would have happened exactly like this:

Picture a typical day in the supermarket. A woman and her children are shopping for groceries on a limited budget when the woman makes a choice that many parents make these days: to sedate her children using the television. Because of her inability to buy top quality Disnified entertainment, she sifts through the bargain bin and lazily selects a few movies with titles that sound like they would appeal to small children.

Movies with titles like "Sleepaway Camp".

And like many parents these days, this young mother is too busy yelling at her children for throwing cans of vegetables at each other and daydreaming about Brad Pitt to read the back of the box, and is blissfully unaware that she had purchased an "R" rated movie containing violence, bloodshed, and murder. All of which this woman might consider all right for her children if it weren't for the one scene of full frontal nudity.

The woman, in a fit of all American outrage, would then return to the shopping establishment and demand of a pimply faced clerk not only a refund, but satisfaction for the trauma caused to her children by the shocking fact that someone didn't have any clothes on for three and a half seconds.

The pimply faced clerk, who is not given the authority to act of his own accord, would then contact a manager to help him with the situation. The manager, being too busy trying to hook up with the new cashier would distractedly tell the clerk to "give her something to shut her up". Having a juvenile sense of humor, the clerk offers the woman a pair of melons to give to her kids as a healthy token of apology for her inconvenience. The woman, who now perceives herself as the moral victor in this struggle against naughty bits, proudly marches out of the store with her melons held up victoriously before her.















Man, what a pair of melons.


Not only until one of her children makes the comment, "Wow, those are some nice melons, Mom", does it occur to her that there was some sort of innuendo that could be attached to her free fruit.

With a renewed sense of moral indignation, the woman contacts a lawyer, who immediately sues the store for ten million dollars on the basis that the fruit was a form of sexual harassment. Not satisfied, the woman then launches a campaign to rid the United States of America of fruit that has sexual connotations attached to it. The group calls itself Mothers Against Sexual Harassment Through The Use Of Fruits And Vegetables, or MASHTTOUFAV.















You knew this would be on the list.


United by a common sense of perceived slight, the members of MASHTTOUFAV launch an all out campaign to rid the U.S. of melons. But even this does not satisfy their desire to rid the world of plant matter that resembles or is associated with naughty bits. Soon, bananas and pears are banned, cucumbers and zucchini are squashed. Even the apple, main component of the former all American apple pie, is outlawed for its association with Adam and Eve.















Pears resemble the female form... kind of...


MASHTTOUFAV finds new allies in the meat industry, who rush in to fill the void that was once occupied by the now forbidden fruit. Meat pies soon replace apple pie as the most American food, and signs that formerly read "Meat and Potatoes" now read "Meat: The food of a better morality".












Apple pie? That's obscene!


Soon after, a terrifying new plague sweeps America. Its symptoms are dark purplish spots on the skin, especially the legs, spongy gums leading to tooth loss, bleeding from the gums and all mucous membranes, pallor, sunken eyes and in the most extreme cases the opening of healed scars and the separation of knitted bone fractures. The cause of the plague is largeley unknown, but it strikes everyone across America with frightening speed. Pharmaceutical companies, unable to find a cheap and effective way to combat this new disease develop costly drugs that can only treat, but not cure this disease.

Little did they know that they were affected with Scurvy, a simple lack of Vitamin C. Well, I guess the pharmaceutical companies knew, but everyone else was in the dark, much like they were in the dark before John Woodall made the first observational attempt to combat Scurvy in 1614.

As you can plainly see, the reason that I watch these movies is not always to get a review out of it, or for cheap laughs; but sometimes to protect us from our greatest enemies, ourselves.

No, wait. I was wrong. Its for cheap laughs.




And now, instead of another youtube link, this week we have a poll. In order to expand our services, Spored to Death Publishing is looking to open a bulletin board. And you, the Sporefans, get to vote on where we're going to post it. So far its a choice between Google Groups and MSN Groups. Take a look at both and vote for the one you prefer.

Godzilla X Mechagodzilla

Spored to Death: Welcome back Sporefans. This week we'll be reviewing the second movie in our two part Mechagodzilla and mechanical monster special, "Godzilla against (or VS or X depending on who you ask) Mechagodzilla". Now last week I announced that I was reviewing the 1993 version of Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla, but as it turns out I was mistaken about what version I had. I actually had the 2002 version of this fight, and, well... I hadn't actually watched it until just before I began the review.













Spored to Death: Joining me once again this week will be two of the finest villains ever to associate with a towering metallic doppelganger, Dr. Who and Madame X from "King Kong Escapes".

Madame X: Thank you Spored to Death. I hope that this will fulfill our contractual obligation to you and your company. Now, about our fee? I think...

Spored to Death: We really shouldn't discuss money until after the review Madame, its very uncouth. Rest assured that we here at Spored to Death publishing are prepared to compensate you for your valuable time. Speaking of which, can you hand me that bottle next to you?

Spored to Death: Oh yeah... that's the stuff. So where is Dr. X? He also has to be here for the review.

Madame X: He said that he would be a little late. Are... are you drinking?

Spored to Death: Wha, me? No, I would never do that. Not on the job. My profession is a sacred and time honored tradition that I take very seriously. Hand me that ice bucket, would you?

Dr. X: I have returned! And now I have a surprise for you all. Do you remember last week how Spored to Death insulted my mighty Mechani-Kong? And you, Madame X! You claimed that I was attracted to machines and insulted my honor! Now you shall both pay dearly for your insults.

Spored to Death: Oh hey doc. Did the Daleks keep you from getting here on time? I hear they can... oh yeah, you're the other Dr. Who. Sorry, my mistake.

Madame X: What do you mean? Explain yourself!

Dr. Who: After the movie last night I took the liberty of taking my newly restored Mechani-Kong to the North Pole! I was able to use my upgraded Mechani-Kong to extract element X from the polar ice cap, and now I shall show you the fruit of my labors. Mwahahaa!

Madame X: Are you mad? Element X is highly radioactive! You can't handle it without proper protection!

Dr. Who: Ha! What do you know? You are no scientist! And now you shall both witness the awesome power of element X!!!

Madame X: No don't! You'll kill us all!

Spored to Death: Huh? Did you say something? I'ma... just a little drunk... you know...

...

Spored to Death: Heya, Doc... if I'm not mistaken, isn't that the titanium ball that the Russians sunk at the North Pole? The one with the Russian flag inside?

Dr. Who: What? No, its element X you fool!

Spored to Death: Then why is it a perfect sphere? And what's that seam?

Madame X: There's a little button here. See, if I press it... oh look, a little Russian flag! And a little note too! How cute!

Spored to Death: Congratulations Doc. You just un-claimed the North Pole. Hahaahaaa!... Why is that so funny? Anyhoo, don't we have a movie to review?

Madame X: What are you talking about, you drunken fool? Didn't you notice that he just tried to kill us?

Spored to Death: Yeah, but he's so bad at it. So this week we're reviewing the 2002 movie, "Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla". Its a fine piece of film, if you're into giant monsters and robots, but I was left with the feeling that I've seen a lot of this content in a non-Godzilla environ. This new Mechagodzilla movie strikes me as a fusion of old school Mechagodzilla with Neon Genesis Evangelion. There are a lot of similarities, such as locking struts on the robot, a limited battery life, detachable conventional weapons, and the fact that Mechagodzilla is reconstituted from DNA taken from the first Godzilla that was killed in Tokyo bay and is now a cyborg organism designed to fight its own kind. So, yeah, its exactly like Evangelion.










Neon Genesis Mechagodzilla anyone?


Madame X: I am confused? Why do they speak in the movie of this being the second Godzilla attack on Japan? Were there not other Godzilla movies where the monster attacked Japan before this?










Two noticeable cameos in the movie are New York Yankees star Hideki Matsui and this guy here, Takehiro Murata who was the star of Godzilla 2000.


Spored to Death: I'm glad you brought that up. Apparently the writers were looking for a fresh start with this new movie, and decided that this would be a direct sequel to the 1954 Godzilla movie. They acknowledged that there were other movies that coincide with this movie as a series, such as Mothra and War of the Gargantuas, but all of the Godzilla movies up until this point have been forcibly forgotten. Think of it as a cinematic lobotomy, or that sequence in the X-Men comics that got rid of the non-adamantium clawed wolverine because things were getting too wacky.

Spored to Death: So on to our brief synopsis of the film. Godzilla makes his "second" attack on Japan and the Japanese are powerless with their Maser technology. This is made apparent as the Anti-Megalosaurus Force suffers massive casualties before the title of the movie is even hits the screen.

Dr. Who: Ha! Those puny tanks are no match for a monster. But even more impressive is my Mechani-Kong!

Spored to Death: Young pilot, Maser operator and screw up Akane Yashiro (played by Yumiko Shaku) gets the brilliant idea to shoot Godzilla in the eye. Godzilla then decides to show the AMF why its a bad idea to shoot a giant radiation breathing lizard in the eye and squishes a bunch of them. Akane is disciplined for "missing" Godzilla, and given a desk job for four years. In the meantime, a scientist specializing in cybernetics named Tokimitsu Yuhara (played by Shin Takuma) works with a special team that makes up the greatest minds in all of Japan. Their goal is to create Mechagodzilla and defeat Godzilla once and for all.










Hey, I heard you survived that fight with Godzilla! So where's the rest of your... oh... uh... this is kind of awkward.


Dr. Who: Bah! Their scientific knowledge is laughable. In my day it only took one scientist to create a giant robot. Now it requires a team? Laughable!

Madame X: And why does Tokimitsu get to bring his daughter with him on the project? Is this bring your child to school day? Are you still drinking?

Spored to Death: Who me? Nah. I never touch tha stuff. Anyway, that chick Akane gets all, like, into this 80's training montage for four years so that she can pilot the Mecha-ni-godzilla. I dunno what push ups have to do with flying a giant robot, but she does a lot of them. Shouldn't they like, have some sort of simulator or something? I mean, uhh... what was I talking about?










Training is fundamental in becoming a Mechagodzilla pilot. Or boxer coming out of retirement. Or a ping pong champion.


Dr. Who: You were talking about how the girl was training to fly the robot. Preposterous! Giant robots need no human pilots. What kind of incompetent scientist makes a robot without a computerized brain? Has he never heard of vacuum tubes?

Spored to Death: Actually Doc, they got microchips now. The only thing they use vacuums for is to clean the house. Aw man, have you seen that new Dyson vacuum? That thing's pretty frickin' amazing! You know... they cost like an arm and a leg...












Its like a Dyson vacuum, except this one crushes your house instead of cleaning it.


Madame X: Are you all right? You're turning red. And your speech is slurred.

Spored to Death: Better never, baby! Got that... uhh... I mean never better. You know that right? What I meant. By that? Course you do, sugar-lips. Now as I was sayin', the chick Akuna... no, Aka... Abracadabra does a bunch of trainin' to fly the robit, an then she changes in the guys locker room fer some raisin. Guess they only got one locker room in Japan... er, the movie... or the military in the mov.... eh, you get the picture.

Spored to Death: Then they, like, get some planes and cables and SPORED, and airlift Mecha-no-godzilla to the fight... and he's got one of those freezer beams and SPORED, but it goes all angry and like, tries to be Godzilla again.










What is it she has to fight again? Dracula?


Dr. Who: You mean that the genetic computers that ran from the original Godzilla's DNA triggered a genetic memory which caused Mechagodzilla to turn against its creators. HA! These scientists of the future are truly pathetic. My Mechani-Kong would never turn against his creator!

Spored to Death: Yah! That thing. With the geneto computer an' the memory and such. Anyhoo, you should totally go see the movie while its in the thea-rers. Man, I need some more ice, its all startin' to melt on me here. So doc, that science-guy in the movie says' he's imma..immune to scurvy. Issat a science thing doc? You immune ta scurvy?

Dr. Who: That was just a line from the movie.

Spored to Death: Oh yeah, you can't be 'mune to scurvy, lookit your teeth. Ha. HA! Bad dennal plan innat evil mad scientist union? Gotta be.

Madame X: You're drunk. I think that this review is over. Can we just get paid and leave now?

Spored to Death: Whattabout that... uh... that guy... who's like... "Cut the crap! We're fighting Godzilla here!" Like he's gonna win... Haahaahaaaa! Like he's gonna win. Oh, I gotta write that one down somewheres.

Spored to Death: 'Sides... gotta ask the doc about the Mech-uh... robot... Godzilla.... comparison. Whadda think doc? Which-a-one's better? New or old?

Dr. Who: The new mechagodzilla does have an impressive array of weapons, and is much faster and more agile than the older model... but its lack of automation and the fact that it was build by human scientists makes me think that the old Mechagodzilla was the superior model.

Spored to Death: And, uhhh... Medem.... Madame X... you got... any.... uh. Say some stuff. Gotta wrap it up here.










There goes one giant lizard.

.....

How do I get home from here?


Madame X: The movie was a much better story than the older version. The costumes were not as unpleasant, and I really identified with the strong female lead.

Spored to Death: Really now! So I guess... uh... yeah, well that's kind of hot. Inna conclusion... gotta watch it again. Thanks fer comin' and doin' the review. Imma just gon' lie down here... and type tshiss out inna mornin'

Madame X: What about our money? You promised us compensation!

Spored to Death: Oh... that. Yeah. Well, we ain't got no budget... so there's no money. But, as far as I'm con.. concerned... you guys are honorarory Spored to Death publishing reviews. Reviewers! That's what I meant. Reviewers. You guys are hon... hono... yeah, you ROCK!

Madame X: Wait till he passes out, then grab his wallet.

Dr. Who: Agreed.






Quick note Sporefans. We're going back into our Fall schedule soon, so there will be less frequent reviews. I'm going to try and get one more really good review out before the end of the Summer. But don't fret! Even though I'll be too busy to make my review quota as usually as I can in the Summer, there will still be plenty of that Spored to Death Publishing goodness for you to read.

Just... a little less frequently... that's all.

Terror of Mechagodzilla

Spored to Death: Welcome back Sporefans. This week we have the first half of a two part special review. We're going to be covering "Terror of Mechagodzilla" from 1975 as well as the 1993 version of "Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla". To help me with these two reviews, I've decided to call in some experts.













Spored to Death: What's that? Where did I find "experts" for a movie of this caliber? Well, some of you may recall that I once did a review for "King Kong Escapes", featuring two incredibly memorable characters, the villains Dr. Who and Madame X. So it is my pleasure to welcome both Dr. Who and Madame X to the Spored to Death publishing offices.










Dr. Who and Madame X. You may remember them from "King Kong escapes".


Madame X: Thank you Mr. Spored to Death. I'm glad that we could help with the review.

Dr. Who: What? Why are we here again? My Mechani-Kong is getting all rusty, and I need to get back to work on it.

Madame X: Shut up fool! We have to fulfill our contractual obligation, or we can't get the funding to rebuild Mechani-Kong and continue extracting element X from the North Pole.

Dr. Who: Oh no! Not the funding! My research is too valuable to stop now!

Spored to Death: Thank you both for joining me here. I'd like to discuss the movie at hand. Our first feature is "Terror of Mechagodzilla", a film I'm sure you're both aware of.










Mechagodzilla in "Terror of Mechagodzilla". Boy I really typed the word Mechagodzilla a lot in these last few days.


Madame X: Of course we're aware of it. You made us watch that dreadful film. Your people will be severely punished once we have extracted element X from the North Pole!

Spored to Death: Yeah, sure, whatever. Anyway, lets have a brief recap for our readers, so they know more about the film. It starts with a group of scientists from the "Ocean Exploitation Institute" who are looking for the remains of Mechagodzilla on the ocean floor.

Dr. Who: Don't you mean the "Ocean Exploration Institute"?

Spored to Death: No, they said "exploitation". The crew of exploiters are attacked in their submarine by a giant dinosaur and killed. The movie then shifts to an Interpol Agent, Jiro Murakoshi (played by Katsumasa Uchida) and a young doctor biologist named Akira Ichinose (played by Katsuhiko Sasaki) who investigate the disappearance of the submarine.

Dr. Who: What an upstart! That little pup knows nothing of real science.

Madame X: And his clothing is painful to the eyes.

Spored to Death: Agreed, his clothing is painful; as its some sort of mind bending 70's plaid, hewn from genetically altered sheep and created on a dimension beyond our ken. It has to be, because no clothing from this world should be that painful to look at.










Ichinose: Hey man, check out my new suit. You like it?
Murakoshi: OH GOD MY EYES! I'M BLIND!
Ichinose: So... you don't like it?


Spored to Death: Murakoshi and his badly attired compatriot Ichinose eventually track down the theories of Dr. Shinji Mafune (played by Akihiro Hirata). When they arrive at Mafune's house they meet his daughter, Katsura Mafune (played by Tomoko Ai) who informs the duo that Dr. Mafune is dead. Dr. Mafune is actually alive and in hiding. He has been working with aliens and fostering his plan for revenge on the scientific community and the world... using his dinosaur Titanosaurus!










Scary sea-horse monster Titanosaurus. He sounds like an elephant with his... ummm... you know... well that part caught in a bear trap.


Dr. Who: I can respect a man who lusts for revenge. Ichinose was thrown out of the scientific community for being too far advanced beyond his fellow scientists, and I can definitely empathise with that. But he is a fool for entrusting his revenge to a biological monster. Better if he were to build a robot monster out of cold hard steel!

Spored to Death: Speaking of monsters made of steel, or in this case space titanium, the aliens have salvaged Mechagodzilla from the ocean floor and have repaired it. They now seek Mafune's help. Mafune pioneered a way to control Titanosaurus, and the aliens seek to capitalize on his advanced remote control technology. Mafune is obligated to help the aliens, as they rescued his daughter from death by making her into a cyborg!










Of course she is a cyborg. Look at her outfit. It is made of metal. Therefore she is a cyborg. Beep. Beep. Beep.


Dr. Who: Now there is a girl I can truly admire! She is beautiful and deadly, and has a heart as cold as steel.

Spored to Death: Actually she's made of space titanium.

Madame X: You would be attracted to a robot girl, wouldn't you? You scientists are all the same: technophiles!

Dr. Who: And what do you mean by that?!

Spored to Death: Let's remain on topic, shall we? We're talking about the movie "Terror of Mechagodzilla". Eventually Dr. Mafune jumps the gun, and unleashes Titanosaurs upon the people of Japan. For those of our reader's who don't know, Titanosaurus is a giant two legged seahorse looking creature that makes a sound like a drowning elephant.










Dr. Mafune: Soon I will have my revenge! Mwahahahahaa! What are you looking at? Haven't you ever seen a mustache before? Aha! Now you are on my revenge list. REVENGE!


Dr. Who: No! I demand that Madame X retract her statement! She's making me sound like some sort of freak for being attracted to a cyborg... er, cyborg-girl. That's what I meant. Cyborg-girl.

Madame X: Maybe its because you are a freak!

Spored to Death: I think that we're getting...

Dr. Who: What did you say?

Madame X: Shut up you! Or I'll cut the funding to your precious monkey robot and we'll scrap the whole thing.

Dr Who: ......Yes, ma'am.

Spored to Death: .......

Spored to Death: Anyhoo, Godzilla shows up and defends the city against Titanosaurus. The aliens then move up their plans to unleash Mechagodzilla upon the world. Ichinose figures out that Titanosaurus is weak to sonic waves, and the scientists build a sonic wave oscillator, which is later sabotaged by Katsura.










This will be the last time Godzilla appears in a film as a pure protagonist. Enjoy it now, for soon the Heisei series will be upon us like a nuclear disaster!


Spored to Death: Eventually Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus show up and have a large fight with Godzilla. The humans help out by using their newly repaired sonic wave oscillator to stun Titanosaurus, which gives Godzilla the opportunity to win the fight. There's actually a really good scene where they do several jump cuts between the helicopter with the sonic oscillator and Mechagodzilla's missile hands that really builds tension, and Godzilla steps in at the last second to save the humans. A really good shot considering that this is a Kaiju movie.








Its a Kaiju Handicapped match! Watch out Godzilla, we hear that Dr. Cube is somewhere in Tokyo with a steel chair!


Spored to Death: So lets go to our experts for some opinions. Madame X, what did you think of the movie?

Madame X: Why is Japan full of American cars? They're everywhere in the movie. And what's with that cyborg-girl? She only has three outfits! That's ridiculous! In my movie, I had a different outfit for every scene, but I guess they spent all the money on American cars. I guess that's what happens when you don't have a good agent!

Spored to Death: Dr. Who, any thoughts?

Dr. Who: Yes! I have many, for I am a genius! Hahaha!

Spored to Death: I meant on the movie.

Dr. Who: Of course! I knew that! I think that Titanosaurus is a big waste of time, but it was on screen more than Mechagodzilla through the whole movie. Also, even though I think that Mechagodizlla was much better than Titanosaurus, Mechagodzilla is still vastly inferior to my Mechani-Kong!

Spored to Death: What do you mean?

Dr. Who: Well just look at it. Only aliens would concieve of such a clunky design for a robot. It appears that Mechagodzilla has a hard time moving. Such design flaws are truly the mark of inferior scientific minds!

Spored to Death: But... its just a big robot version of Godzilla. That's basically the same thing you did. You just made a big robot version of King Kong.

Dr. Who: Shut up! You know nothing of my work!

Spored to Death: But... I reviewed your movie.

Dr Who: Shut up! Shut up you! As I was saying, my Mechani-Kong is far superior to Mechagodzilla. Not only does it have lazers and grenades, but it also has a hypnotic flashing light which I can use to control King Kong through voice commands! Can Mechagodzilla do that? I think not!

Spored to Death: So, Dr. Who, tell me... when you got the idea to hypnotize King Kong and give him voice commands, how did you know that Kong would understand English? Or Japanese? I mean, he is a giant gorilla.

Dr. Who: .....

Spored to Death: Dr. Who?

Dr. Who: Shut up! You don't understand the power of Mechani-Kong! Mechagodzilla pales in comparison to its power!

Spored to Death: I'm sure that if we you ever cross paths with a giant robotic plumber that Mechani-Kong will be of great help by kidnapping the giant metal princess and throwing giant barrels at the robot plumber as he tries to rescue her.

Dr. Who: What are you talking about? There are no such things as giant robot plumbers!

Spored to Death: Looks like we're out of time folks. Join us next week for part 2 of our Mechagodzilla movie review special with our guests Madame X and Dr. Who. Until next week Sporefans, good night.










Dr. Who: Katsura, if you're reading this... call me.

Madame X: Give it a rest you old goat!


And now for your youtube link. Enjoy:









And now, a special preview of next week's review:

Dr. Who: And now you shall both witness the awesome power of element X!!!

Madame X: No, don't! You'll kill us all!

Spored to Death: Huh? Did you say something? I'ma... just a little drunk... you know...

Coming soon...

Sorry Sporefans, but Tuesday night's post will be a little late, as its part of a special review. We've got a 2 part review coming up for 2 Mechagodzilla movies, with some special guests. Stay tuned this week for part 1 of 2!

Kairo

Greetings Sporefans. This week we'll be reviewing a movie that could arguably be one of the worst movies to come out of Japan since "The X from Outer Space". Strap yourselves in, because this week we'll be taking a look at the movie "Kairo", which translates into "Circuit". The movie was remade in the U.S. as "Pulse", and from what I understand, the American translation has been given pretty lackluster reviews.













For those of you who haven't seen either version of this movie, and for those of you who have seen this movie and are still confused about what the SPORE is going on, Kairo is about creepy Japanese ghosts that come out of the computer and depress the crap out of you.

Seriously, that's what this movie is about.









Oh god, I'm so depressed!


The premise of Kairo is that the afterlife has become full, and souls are escaping into this world because there is no more room for them. The dead souls get on the Internet and form a plan so ridiculous that it could only be unintentionally mimicked in an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Because killing people would only create more ghosts, the ghosts decide to make everyone in the world immortal: by trapping them in their loneliness.

This ghost plan hinges on the Japanese culture's sense of fatalism. Kairo follows a cycle where someone finds some ghosts online, they become obsessed, the build a "forbidden room", then they encounter a ghost or a trapped soul, then they turn into a trapped soul and someone else stumbles upon them. Lather, rinse, and repeat until the Apocalypse is complete. No matter how much you think a character might want to survive, they all lose their will to live and are reduced to a stain on the wall, whispering "help me" for all of eternity. Its really kind of sad when the crux of your movie is undone by the concept of free will. Oops.









Man, I hope that we don't get depressed. Maybe we should do it now... just in case. No? Oh... well that's depressing.


That's not to say that there are no scary moments in this movie. There are a couple of pretty scary scenes in the beginning, but as the story progresses they become few and far between. The movie mostly focuses on the "survivors" as the struggle to keep the will to exist alive within them. Those who fail usually rake their own lives, but there is one scene where a victim literally spontaneously ceases to exist and becomes dust. Its actually pretty silly.







The girl in the back ground is about to not exist any more. Prepare yourself for spontaneous non-existence!


It seems that the will to survive is somehow tied into a character's need to be with other people. The more lonely and isolated the character feels, the more likely they are to succumb to the "undeath" that spreads over the world. The affected characters are put in situations where they are with other people, and yet they somehow still feel lonely. This is pretty frustrating to watch, as the young couple who met right before the apocalypse falls apart when the girl wants to be with her dead classmates more than the living boyfriend she just met. Behold the horror of motivation! Or lack thereof.

While this movie isn't really scary, what I did find interesting is that I could easily generate a list of things that Japanese people seem to be afraid of by watching this movie. As a matter of fact, I did make a list of things that Japanese people appear to be afraid of, at least according to the movie "Kairo".

By the way, this list is in chronological order, so it was written as the movie was playing. If you're brave, watch the movie and see if you can pick out the scene's where I came up with the items on the list.

• Computers
• The Internet
• Ghosts
• Children
• Phones
• Reflections
• Duct tape or Red tape
• Stains on walls
• Libraries
• Critical Mass
• Hair
• Televisions
• Death
• Loneliness
• Separation anxiety
• Living
• The phrase "Tasketke!", which translates into "Help me!"
• Spontaneous non-existence
• Wind
• Depression
• Empty arcades
• Shadows
• Static
• Rooms
• Suicide
• Seeing yourself online
• Losing your girlfriend to a ghost
• Silence
• The Apocalypse
• The future
• Spilling gasoline
• Acknowledging death
• Blurry ghosts
• Plane crashes
• Dust

As you can plainly see, the movie Kairo depicts the Japanese as hopelessly neurotic. Not only are the characters afraid of all of the following, encountering some of the items in the above list will drive them into a fit of depression and eventual suicide... or spontaneous non-existence. Afterwards they either become whispering stains, or very blurry ghosts, and either choice leaves them horribly depressed.

There is a convention in the movie where one of the characters states that ghosts look like everyone else, unless you notice them. But the movie goes on and destroys that notion, as most of the ghosts in the movie appear blurry or walk really funny. I don't know about you Sporefans out there, but If there was a blurry person standing in front of me I think I might notice that. Sure, they get clearer as they get closer, but they all move in that creepy dead person walk the Japanese are so fond of portraying. That might just be a giveaway that you're staring at a ghost.








Can you tell if this blurry chick is a ghost? Or a girl? For those of you who said probably, you're probably right. The rest of you will be depressed and turned into stains.


I also noted that as the movie continued, the Internet as a conduit for souls was phased out of the movie, in favor of a "contagion" theme brought about by contact with souls in the forbidden rooms. I guess this is necessary, as webmasters and Internet service providers who got all depressed and turned into stains or ghosts wouldn't be around to maintain the Internet.










I totally knew this would happen! Why didn't we do it when we had the chance?! WHYYYYYYYYY??!?!?!!!

I'm so depressed now.


In short, if you're afraid that the Internet might be making you lonely while simultaneously connecting you to everyone in the world, you might be influenced by this movie. The rest of you will be too busy on MySpace. You're probably better off not watching this movie, as the concept of being horrified by spontaneous non-existence is really very si...



Click below if you want to see a ghost. Warning! This is creepy!