Total Crap Shoot Friday: George A Romero's Deadtime Stories: Volume 2

Happy Friday everyone! As a special end of the week treat, Sam and I are giving you a very awesome gift. Step up, ladies and gentlemen, because it's time for:

TOTAL CRAP SHOOT FRIDAY!!!!

You see, during the rest of the week, I at least have some sort of control over what movie I watch for you, either through my instant queue or reader suggestions. But, on Friday, I leave it completely in fate's hands. 

Using a random number generator, I find out which one of the 14 genres I get to watch. Then, whatever movie is in the numerical position it selects in the gallery view, I have to watch it. No matter what. Could be something awesome, like Machete or Steel Magnolias. More likely something terrible, though. 

For instance, this week's winner is genre 11-Horror, #212:

Yeah, there is a volume 1 and it's on streaming, but, the rules are the rules, so here goes.

If you don't know, George A Romero is the writer/director of the Night of the Living Dead series. Well, most of them anyway. He's something of a horror icon, but mostly his stock has been a bit on the decline recently. Probably because of projects like this one. 

I actually do love the horror genre. There's not much like a pants wetting good story to get the blood (and urine) a flowin'! But, you have to do it right using just the right amount of subtlety and finesse to evoke fear in the viewer. 

Oh, I get it. Instead of BEDtime stories, it's DEADtime stories. See, because that's way super scarier. Pretty sneaky, George!

He also serves as something of a narrator, introducing the stories and telling really lame puns. Or opening the movie with a gem like this: 

"Now I lay me down to rest, but there's a goblin on my chest. He's gray and ugly and very gory and he wants to tell me a deadtime story."

Approves

It's a 2011 trilogy of short films shot with very low budgets and telling tales that have pretty much been told elsewhere. And better. Also, since this is a nearly 2 hour movie, and they have to fit 3 stories in, it doesn't leave a lot of time for character development. In horror, you also have to make sure the audience relates to the characters and can easily put themselves into their place. If we're the ones in danger, it serves to heighten the fear.

The first short is titled "The Gorge" and features 3 cavers... going into a cave. They said their names, but I don't really care and it doesn't matter all that much, so I'll call them Huey, Louie, and Dinner. Down they go into the bowels of the earth, of course without telling anyone where they're going, since that would assassinate the plot and display a level of common sense reserved for monkeys. There's a cave-in that blocks their exit and Dinner gets his leg injured under falling rocks. If this is starting to sound familiar, then you're pretty much right. I'm sure it's not a intentional rip-off of the infinitely superior "127 Hours", but it sounds oddly similar. However, this did come out AFTER "127 Hours", so...

Except this one has way more cannibalism. You see, they're down in this cave for 27 or so days and you can only eat so many trapped hibernating fake bats that oddly resemble Peeps. And, although they have matches and candles (who brings candles on a daytime cave hike instead of flashlights?), they insist on eating the bats raw. Instead of using the matches or candle to cook it a little, since rabies is delicious.

Approves

So, after 27 days with no visible water source, food is of course their main priority. Dinner has developed a rather nasty case of gangrene and, short story long, he eventually lives up to his name. It's shown in most of its over the top gorn goodness, and it's just as awful as it sounds. And, as is want to happen in these types of stories, they get rescued shortly after the dessert course. Dinner is never found, so Huey and Louie get off a murder and cannibalism charge.

While recuperating in the hospital, Louie decides that Jell-o and hospital food is not to her liking as much as sweet, sweet human flesh. Now, having spent nearly 2 months in the hospital with Sam when he was born, I'm inclined agree with her. So, of course, she goes after Huey, takes a doggie bag of him with her (since it is a whole corpse and she's watching her figure) and flees the hospital to live out the rest of her life in a cave, trapping unwitting victims and snacking away. Which of course transforms her into some sort of sub-human goblin cave dweller thing, which I'm sure is a real side effect of cannibalism and 100% medically accurate.

Approves

"If you're done screaming..." says George in a smug way. "Really?" says me in a resigned way. "Om nom nom" says Sam in a creepy way. (As an aside, if you're concerned, Sam can't see the screen, and I have earbuds in. He never sees nor hears the movie, unless it's a children's movie... Stay tuned for that)

On to #2: "On Sabbath Hill". This one follows the story of a family man and university professor who happens to be a complete jerkface. Let's call him Professor Joe Schmuck. After a montage of him getting ready for his day, he proceeds to his job at "Sabbath Hill University". (as a rule, I tend to avoid places named insert vaguely ominous first word Hill, like Sabbath Hill, Silent Hill and Cyprus Hill) There, he belittles a student in the middle of class who was sick the day before and actually had the decency to call him and let him know why. Finally, he leers at another female student, named Affair Bait who you know he's just going to have an affair with, since that's how things work in these types of movies.

Cut to said affair. She's upset at the end, and not for the reason that I experience the most. It seems she's pregnant and there's no doubt it's his. Look, I know you're not going to listen to me, sir, since you're a fictional character and probably going to get what's coming to you, but don't be a total monster and ask for an abortion, ok?

After he asks for an abortion, she storms out of the sleazy hotel room, as he says, "Don't stop coming to class."  Oh, Professor Schmuck, you cad! The next day, she doesn't miss class. Or her head with the pistol she brings. Some of Ms. Bait's classmates want to go to her funeral. No dice, we're having class and don't you miss it! University of Phoenix is suddenly sounding pretty good.

Now with 100% less on-campus suicides!

Our plucky hero starts hearing voices. Oh, yes sir, Prof. Schmuck, she's haunting the crap outta your cheating butt! All sorts of weird things start to happen, and he starts seeing Ghost Bait everywhere, but especially in class. Eventually, there's a ghost baby birth in the middle of an exam and it's just as awful as it sounds. Prof. Schmuck can't take this anymore and he follows Ms. Bait to that big quad in the sky.

On the bright side, no class Monday!

"Fasten your seat belts, we're off again!", says George superiorly. "Oh, no, really?", I say mockingly. "Zzzzzzzz", Sam says snoringly.  

#3 "Dust" It's a dark and stormy night at Ellerton Research Laboratory. (No, I kid you not. They really pull out that cliche.) The kind of night that permeates into a man's soul. Intrepid security guard Dumpy McDumperton walks his beat at the Lab. Working the night shift, Officer Dumpy struggles to pay his cancer stricken wife's medical bills. Bills that weigh him down, saddle him to a life he never chose and can never leave.

Sorry, enough of the noir stuff. A scientist that looks about 12 sits late at night working with... wait for it... martian dust. As in, from Mars. No, I'm not kidding. Dr. Doogie Howser tells ol' Dumpy that this stuff is the bomb at curing cancer, but not yours, cannot have. 5 points if you can guess where this is going...

Yep, he totally steals it.And injects a turkey baster full of the stuff into her morphine. This has solid plan written all over it, Officer Dumpy! Well, it does work. It completely cures her cancer, except it turns her into a raging nympho.

Cut to old people doing it. Yes, it is a gross as it sounds. The things I do for you people... Come to find out, the effects are also temporary. So, Dumpy has to steal more, until Dr. Howser catches him in the act. Our brave protagonist has no choice but to hit the good doctor over the head so hard it knocks his eyeball out. Cleanly. Yes, severing the optic nerve. Now, I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen. Ever. You fail anatomy.

Of course, at this point, he's way in over his head, and he does the sensible thing. He goes to the nearest police station and turns himself in. No, just kidding, he wraps the body up, puts it in his car and drives it home. They put Doogie's remains into their giant floor freezer which in every movie ever is only used for storing murdered corpses wrapped in plastic tarps. Seriously, my in-laws have one, and I'm not going to dig through it anytime soon.

Sears' new CorpseChiller 5000. In stores now!

More old people grossness. I know nothing turns me on more than a heaping dose of martian dust and murder. Oh, and as an aside, Mrs. McDumperton has also developed a mean raw meat eating habit.Oh, yes, two cannibal stories in one night!

Except this one has way more necrophilia.Well, this one quickly devolves into a zombie flick and it's so underwhelming and sloppy that I'm just going to give up on it.

"Stay scared", says George pompously. "I have to start first.", I say sleepily. "Poop", says Sam's pants nosily. 

And that about sums it up. Happy Friday the 13th everyone!