The Son of Madblood: Endless Nights...

So, gang - I'm still hard at work looking for just the right movie for our next BIG EPISODE. Although I do think I've hit on what we may show for our Anniversary Special. In keeping with the nature of the traditionally-styled "Anniversary Show", we here at Madblood Manorette (or is it "Mansionette" - it seems to change at will) will be in a reminiscing mood - inviting our audience along on a strange and spooooky trip through some of the many high-points of this past year on The Son of Madlood. Ah - the fun! Ah - the nostalgia! Remember that time Igor couldn't stop bleeding on the 'There Will Be Mad-Blood" Episode? Of course you do! And, since re-living so many of these acme moments will most likely take up a huge chunk of our running time, I was thinking of showing something short for this one - something not feature length. I mis-remembered the length of The Demon Lover (aka Demon Tower aka Coven aka Demon Master) - it felt very short.. I guess it's just the thinness of the story that allows it to take up less space in my brain. It seemed like a good fit: throwing a party/raising a Demon.. a little kung-fu.. sounds like anniversary material to me. But, alas - it turns out to be a whopping 83-ish minutes so we'll have to save that one for another time. Plus - it's hard to imagine watching it without the augmentation of the fabulous Demon Lover Diary making-of-documentary.

So - time constraints led me to checking into the Masters of Horror series that I had shied away from until now - I just had such a hard time with those DVD covers and how they all just looked like cheap doo-doo:

Just... not good looking, kids.

But- I finally listened to Igor and gave The Screwfly Solution a chance despite it having all the earmarks of disaster: Jason Priestly and Elliot Gould? Not exactly horror-dudes.. Joe Dante? When since The Howling has anything of his been SCARY? Well not until now - because I found this to be completely scarifying. On the surface it doesn't sound like much: a virus is turning the male population into religiously-fanatical killers of women and scientists Gould and Priestly do the race-against-time trying to stop it. Priestly's wife and daughter go on-the-run in an attempt to escape the break-down of society. As sci-fi it could have been ho-hum but, instead, Dante pulls the focus from the science and why-for of it all and zeroes in on the horror: the ugliness and brutality of blind rage on a grand scale. And, by tapping it into the real horror of violence against women it all becomes shiveringly unsettling.

It's a hard one to watch - and whereas most of Dante's work (including this series' Homecoming) has too much of an over-abundance of humor and goofiness to be that horrific - in this one any traces of humor that are there in the beginning are quickly drained out as the situation escalates and becomes more desperate and dire. It's a disturbing vision and with an aspect of sadness surprising for a piece in this genre of t.v.-series-horror. There's a lot touched on and hinted at: domestic violence, sublimated gender-fears, eco-horror - it feels big enough to have been a feature but this hour-long running time keeps the momentum at such a pitch that it only adds to the feeling of dread and scares.

Unfortunately - my liking this one has awoken a desire to see MORE of these badly-box-arted shows and, so far - it hasn't payed off as well as this.. Too much - looks, feels, sounds, acts like television and short-films. There's a few I'm looking to sink my worn teeth into still...

So - that could be the one for the Anniversary Episode, kids.. now - just gotta get it together for the Not The Anniversary Episode Episode.. Maybe it'll be The Funhouse.. I'm going to re-watch Hatchet For The Honeymoon (as a PRE-Anniversary theme? It works, right?) and more.. Possibly looking for something with a theatrical/traveling show/vaudeville backdrop.. Any suggestions, kids?

One more thing, gang - starting REAL SOON: Your faithful servant, I, the Son of Madblood - will start writing about each previous-Episode film that we've seen in the order we saw them in..

First up in the "reviews" section will be: