You’re not that bad because Alex Magana makes films. He’s like how Alabama can look down on Mississippi. It has been a Horrorthon tradition that I review his “art”, but it is difficult. 1 Million people watched this short, which tells me that WE NEED A DRAFT! Being an Alex Magana fan is like being proud of your artisanal meth pipe or bragging about doing a TED talk about the THIRD time you got gonorrhea. I do have to admit that his film does have beginning middle and an end; so, it is a short film. Someone has to review it and who else would do this to themselves, but me????
The Teacher begins with two teens warning each other that if they don’t finish their homework, The Teacher will kill them. One of them does not finish her homework; so, she gets killed by the eponymous Teacher. I do have to admit that for Alex this is good because unlike the Smiling Woman crapfest, The Teacher has rules and a Strumplepeter message. Therefore, it does have some literary ancestry. It is still awful, but not as awful as what he usually does to us. It’s like a jab to the eyes rather than his usual Mortal Kombat finishing move to the eyes. Enjoy…I guess.
Horrorthon is in full swing; so, it’s time to review a classic: Children of the Corn from Night Shift. Night Shift is an anthology devoted to failure. It’s all about Men not measuring up and people getting hurt by their failings. Poor Stephen, he needs a hug. Children of the Corn was published in 1977 in Penthouse…the 60s and 70s were weird. I’m not anti-p0rn because I really don’t care, but why mix it with literature? Was it that the WWII and Boomer generations wanted a one-stop shop? If so, why not merge the p0rn, literature, fishing gear, and fire extinguishers?
If you’re reading an early King novel, be prepared to be depressed because it is always a gruesome and unhappy ending because a guy failed. Children of the Corn is no exception. I wonder if Night Shift wasn’t this clever anthology I always thought it was, but was actually Stephen King’s clumsy pitch meeting short story compilation? Many of the stories that were adapted to film were way better written. To be honest, the film versions of Stephen King’s short stories are usually significantly better than his books.
The plot is that Burt and his wife Vicky are trying to do a cross country trip to save their marriage. Once they arrive in Nebraska, they get trapped and sacrificed to a pagan corn god who likes to use children as his henchmen- a typical Nebraska custom. The Cornhuskers draw a big crowd, but in the off season, it’s always about the pagan corn god murders. During the Cornhusker season, the residents still do sacrifices, but the victims are deep fried with the other Fair Foods, which means that the victims are all A salted and Battered. *BOOM*
There are a few more details that I am leaving here like the He Who Walks Behind the Rows etc., but once you’ve seen one pagan corn god, you’ve seen them all.
Stephen King has had addiction issues his entire adult life. He’s very open about it. In fact, there are at least three books he’s said that he doesn’t remember writing because he was using more blow than Julie on The Love Boat- the books are The Shining, Misery, and The Tommyknockers.
The plot is that a spaceship crashed long ago in Maine and it takes over the brains of the lifeforms who interact with it. The main characters are Roberta AKA Bobbi who literally stumbles on part of the ship, starting the plot because it starts infecting the town. Gard, a four alarm alcoholic/poet and Bobbi’s former lover, comes to help her and is immune to the ship’s affect because of a steel plate in his head.
As the story progresses, the ship changes the town folk both mentally and physically. The townies make all kinds of wacky and interesting inventions without knowing how they work, lose most of their teeth, and they develop pig-like faces. I told you that he did a lot of cocaine when he wrote this book.
The townies use Gard to help them dig out the ship and there are MANY chapters on the digging logistics. It’s fair to say that Gard spent most of his time in this book as an alcoholic day laborer (maybe he even did some work on my upstairs bathroom because that was done really shitty). I think that you could actually say they were entire chapters just devoted to his digging and things like that; man, Stephen really needs an editor with a spine.
A classic Stephen King plot device is that there are people who power up a haunted house and Tommyknockers uses that to an extreme! Even before I became an engineer, I wonder if Stephen understood how batteries worked? Can you imagine what he did to his kid’s Christmas toys?!
While his stories have recurring plot devices, the heroic journey for his characters changed with his personal change in fortune. The stories in Night Shift and the others from the early part of his career were all about failure: failing your loved ones and failing to maintain control over your life. In those years, the heroes could only succeed by sacrificing their life. The way to stop from harming everyone around them was through suicide because “blood calls to blood” i.e. the family curse. I think that it is clear that the Blood is alcoholism and drug abuse- it’s inherited. When he was failing in life, suicide was described as the only option because the hero was the doorway to misery and I can tell you from my childhood an alcoholic father is definitely the doorway to misery.
After 1979, his career took off and his bank account to pay for copious amounts of cocaine. However, the happy endings became the standard. Money can cure a lot problems, but blood calls to blood and the demons will always remain, but that is what made this book stand out because like his novels in the early part of his career- the hero dies. He can’t save Bobbi and this book was at a high point of addiction. It seems clear to me that it crossed his mind that he couldn’t live with his addiction and that death was the only exit.
Tommyknockers is a messy beach read that is mostly entertaining. If you’re like on a vacation with some real downtime and the Wi-Fi is broken or you’re really into aliens, give it a read.
“Steven Kang’s Sharks of the Corn” is a Tim Ritter film. I watched this movie with Lisa and she said it was “Something.” I agree. It is hard to describe SOTC because it’s unclear what it was about because I don’t believe that Tim knew. The movie was NOT about sharks in the corn because most of the film took place in cars, living rooms, backyards, and a helicopter- Yes, a helicopter.
This film also forces us to discuss an uncomfortable topic – Generation X nudity. There is A LOT of Generation X nudity in this film. The amount of Gen X nudity that is acceptable in 2025 is… carry the one…integrate the function… ZERO! It is ZERO! They take their clothes off so much in this film that you’d think the corn had poison ivy on it! The people in this film have grandchildren. You know how awkward Thanksgiving will be now that nephew Tommy knows what Auntie Carol’s boobies look like?!! Enough already! Your days of cavorting naked in cornfields ended when the Counting Crows disappeared from the charts and kids who look like you called you Grandpa.
Aside from the nudity, the movie failed because it could not embrace its title. The movie should have been 80 minutes, but it had 40 subplots – all boring. If the movie stuck to its title, it would have been fine, but this movie had more detours than downtown Houston. “Sharks of the Corn” is the equivalent if “Snakes on a Plane” spent 80% of its runtime at H&R Block. Getting competent tax preparation is important, but it is not appropriate to film tax preparation, if your film is about sharks in a cornfield. At one point in the film, a mafia family was involved, but they were dressed like the costumes were from Party City and a kid was dressed like the Hamburgler. *Sidenote* I’m kinda hungry. I have no idea what that subplot was about and I don’t care.
The plot was more of a gooey subplot mess, but I think there was a shark god in the corn and I cannot do better than that description. There is a serial killer shark god prophet who converts the often nude Gen X cop to worship the shark god??? Sadly, this is typical of Tim Ritter – he can’t edit. His other films have equally long runtimes and I can’t believe that they needed that much time. NO WAY! Tim, I feel like you are the evil mentor for Alex Magana. I think Alex is a better filmmaker than you are and Alex is AWFUL, but not the worst- not anymore! Why do you rank lower than the man who gave the world the “Smiling Woman” series because his films are at least brief and on topic. I think the “hero” won in the end, but I can’t tell.
Happy Horrorthon! I have seen a lot of bad movies over the years, but this might be the worst movie ever made. “The Room” by Tommy Wiseau is provably better than “Shark Encounters of the Third Kind” because much of “The Room” took place in rooms; whereas, this “shark horror film (note the poster above)” took place mostly on land, kitchens, parking lots, docks, and a creepy onanist’s basement. There is actually a scene where an incel guy slowly walks down the stairs to his “Man Basement” and puts in a VHS tape, sighs, leans back, and…. he watches a documentary on alien abductions. Yep, that’s all he was up to…watching a documentary. “Shark Encounters of the Third Kind” sponsored by the Carpal Tunnel Foundation of America.
Some of you might be like- “Case, you always judge these films really hard and these people have feelings… probably.” Hear me out, the Polonias (this films’ director/producer) and Alex Maganas (Smiling Woman creator) of the world don’t care about my feelings when they make these terrible things. I was thinking: is there a way that I would be able to give this film a positive review? I think so: if my neighbor had a three year old and this three year old told me, “Mr. Casey, I made a movie and a boom boom.” I’d watch the movie with his family and cheer him on, but this is not the case here. So, this movie gets no breaks from me. Really, look at the villains!
This Alien Has EVIL Potholders! I believe this is the plot: the villains are NOT the sharks. The villains are aliens who are doing a reconnaissance mission to earth and there are sharks involved somehow – rarely. Mostly, this film is a big honking crazy mess. The poster is not terrible…. so there’s that.
Another observation: the film is really into doing closeups….A LOT. For example, they spend a lot of time on this actor’s face (below). He is definitely NOT a shark. You wonder why this movie only has 8 minutes of shark scenes. I think the shark scenes were too expensive and you need to make more time for Oven Mitt Alien guy (above).
There is really no reason for you to watch this film. I’m sure that you have done something good in your life- spare yourself.
Happy Horrorthon! I’m writing this in July because I enjoy it, not this particular short- this short is garbage trash. It got 1.2 Million views and I’m certain at least 3 of those views were On Purpose! Mustafa Nohekhan should be featured on the Real Men of Genius ad campaign. Here’s to you Mr. Super Low-Budget Horror Film Maker [sung]. It’s hard to make a movie when all you have is your iPhone, Party City makeup, and some leftover jello for blood from your Sunday picnic, but you showed them- YOU SHOWED THEM ALL! Here’s to you – God of the bloody goop and unpaid crew. Mr. Super Low-Budget Horror Film Maker because when your critics said that this film couldn’t and shouldn’t be done. You responded, “I can do it!” They responded, “But why?”
This short does have a beginning, middle, and an end. The protagonist, an actress, says bloody mary in a mirror and is killed by “Mary” between takes. The acting is worthy of the finest 7th grade home movies. It has a we’ve got an iPhone let’s make a movie vibe. If you don’t want to take my word for it and wish to watch this piece of cinema- Here is the link:
GUEST REVIEWER ALERT!!! Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Plex!
This episode was really two storylines that had very little to do with one another; so, I’ll have to do like a story A and a story B. Story A shows Gordon (Scott Burkholder) and weird friend pining for a blonde bombshell ice skater. This entire scene is really creepy. Why? Neither of these guys went to the skating rink to skate or watch a game. They are literally just there to watch people. Yikes!
Super creepy Rob Lowe likes to go to the rec center and watch folks swim just like these guys who go to the rec center and watch people ice skate
Gordon has an OK job. He is not particularly handsome, but he’s not the worst. Anyway, he’s lonely. Gordon decides to use a dating service that has him lie on a video to get women. This could’ve been a cool plot line, if the dating service was run by the devil and he was selling his soul, but nope, it was just a dumb dating service. Then, out of nowhere, he was dead the whole time. So, huh?
Story B has an unattractive woman named Mary who gets convinced by her pretty coworker to get bizarre plastic surgery to be beautiful, but she’s actually not beautiful. It was so convoluted that it was really hard to follow.
The story B also had a sub plot that the real estate place where Mary worked was hiring pretty women to sleep with the clients to close deals. After Mary beautifies herself, she agrees to prostitute herself to close a real estate deal, but then the client thinks she’s ugly and she dies. Yep, the plot was schizophrenic. I was going to use a flow chart to follow it, but I can’t spend more time on story than the writers did.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!
Gavin MacLeod of the clan MacLeod declares (after the song number) “There can be only one!”, runs amok
This episode should be called- Lying Liars Who Lie!!!!
There are three stories all of which have pathological liars. The first story is “Paroled to Love” and it is beyond impossible. Gloria Baxter (Vicki Lawrence) is a criminal defense lawyer who just got a pardon for her embezzling client Eddie (Richard Kline). As the plot would have it, Eddie and Gloria love one another, but Eddie has a secret: he done did it and Gloria thought he was an innocent man!
Sidenote: as you may know, I was a criminal attorney for a number of years and in all of those cases, I can’t say that I had no innocent clients because I had one. One!
When I told my criminal defense attorney public defender friends that I had an actually innocent client, they told me to hold on because they needed to get recesses in the courthouse so that all of the PD’s could come out and hear this tale that sounded like lore! These attorneys had been doing criminal defense for decades and never had an innocent client! There was a crowd of over 70 attorneys, both public and private! They listened rapt to every detail of my story like I was Gandolf telling the stories of the rings!
I told them that I had documented proof that the police officer had not only lied, but falsified his police report, you could feel their goosebumps. Several of them begged me to just let them sit next to me as co-council or let them file a motion for me for free just so they could be part of this once in a career event. So, why in the world did Gloria not just presume that Eddie was not only guilty but a liar? Was this her first case? Was she hit on the head with something hard? Was her law school in Candyland?
Yes, Eddie lied to Gloria so she would get him a pardon when in fact, he was an embezzler, and she insists that to have her love he must go back to jail. At first, Eddie refuses, then she changes her mind, and Eddie decides to change his mind and go back to prison! It’s weird for many reasons: lawyers can’t date their clients and once a pardon is issued, it can’t be revoked! Once a pardon is accepted- It’s over.
The second story with a lying liar who lies is the Phyllis Faraday (Carole Cook) storyline. Phyllis wants to get a part playing of Florence Nightingale so decides to be a fake nurse for the Doc in order to get practice. Sadly, there was a shuffleboard accident and she did not set a compound fracture properly, the patient became septic, died, and the show was renamed The Death Boat. The show still had song and dance numbers, but they were all by Adele.
JK, she meets a guy who’s a rancher out of Wyoming, who thinks she’s an actual nurse and he falls in love with her after 24 hours because he thinks she’s a tenderhearted nurse. However, she is not a nurse and must confess this.
But did she really need to confess anything? I mean, this guy fell in love with her after 24 hours. How do you know that he won’t fall in love with the cab driver who picked them up for the ship and took them to their hotel or a cashier or anyone he meets for any period of time over 60 seconds?
The last storyline of lying liars who lie was probably the most weird, but it did allow them to have their required vaudeville acts of impressions and singing. Doris (Leia’s Mom) and Marsha (Marilyn Michaels) started a talent company with Julie. Gotta say, Julie seems agitated – I wonder why? Could it be????
Unfortunately, Doris and Marsha booked all of these celebrities to go on the cruise, but they sent them on the wrong cruise. They sent the stars on an Alaskan cruise and they didn’t bring any warm clothes which makes me wonder. Are they all dead? Is this like “Alive?” Why would that cruise ship take these stars aboard, when they were not on the manifest? What kind of a rogue cruise ship was this? Was it, in fact, a ship devoted to human trafficking? Are all these poor Hollywood stars now in some bizarre salt mine fighting to the death for the amusement of The Rumble on the infamous Money Plane???
I couldn’t find the “it’s rumble time”GIF
Doris and Marsha decide to do the most obvious thing: they pretend to be all these different Hollywood stars with OK impressions and then do a song number. Honestly, they might as well do that. It’s so hard for this show to contrive credible reasons for a song and dance number for every episode that I’ve seen so far; so, why not this?
GUEST REVIEWER ALERT!!! Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Plex!
Judy (Siobhan McCafferty) is living a very terrible life. Tom (John DeMita), Judy’s husband, is a spoiled manchild hiding out in school to avoid working. Tom’s parents live with Judy and Tom and they treat Judy like an indentured servant. Judy’s only escape for a better life is to buy lottery tickets and apply to appear on gameshows. Like all Freddy’s I’ve seen, the initial story was not bad and should have remained 22 minutes. However, I will say that in NO WAY was this a horror script at all. It was meant to be a mediocre Twilight Zone script or that should’ve been where it was pitched. In fact, the only real blood was at the very end of the episode where Freddy squeezed a fake heart with blood in it. Really, that was it!
Back to the show, Judy gets called to be contestant on a gameshow, but it gets…weird. Not scary weird, but weird. The game show became a “Pit and the Pendulum” knock off where the host asked Judy personal questions and every answer led to her family members being NOT KILLED, but scratched. They could’ve had the deaths off screen. The show goes on and she wins the gameshow, but instead of the show allowing her to evolve and leave her abusive husband and in-laws, the story continues into ….. time travel. For real, the story took a turn into time travel, which is impossible. Look, I’m an applied physicist- let time travel go because It does not work. Let it go! You can’t save Kennedy! LET IT GO!
Once again, the story ached to end at the 22 minute mark, but had to keep going and where did it go? Time travel. Judy gets the money, stays married, and spends a lot. Then, her older -self time travels by “I went a long way”… so like Trader Joe’s and back because that is difficult with the small-ass parking spaces! Anyway, the older Judy warns her that her husband will cheat on her and she’ll stab him to death. Her older self advises her to give the money away and she’ll be happy. THIS IS STUPID! She was poor at the beginning of the story and miserable! Hey writers, weren’t you there?!!! Simple solution: just get a divorce – California is a no-fault state- Move on!
The problem with this show is that instead of doing re-writes, they took 22 minute stories and doubled them in the stupidest ways possible.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!
This Week, Captain Stubing is unimpressed by proof that God exists…
This episode had surgery, singing, and supernatural beings who did not impress Captain Stubing. I assume Stubing runs into angels on earth just on his way back from shuffleboard- they’re just old hat to him. There is a sexist and abusive husband Jim Markham (Donny Osmond) married to Lori Markham (Maureen McCormick- He wishes!). Henry Beemus (Henry Gibson) and Charlie Dobbs (Keenan Wynn) are two crooks who want to smuggle gold using nativity figurines and Nuns to unknowingly move the stolen gold through customs – this plot annoyed/tired me; it tannoyed me A LOT. The Nuns were traveling with a choir of Dominican children one of whom was deadly ill, requiring surgery!!! Lastly, an Angel with limitless powers was played by Mickey Rooney.
Jim wanted a traditional wife, but Lori wanted to keep her career. He was abusive even by 1970s standards because everyone wanted to hit him. He kept this bitter storyline going until Lori helped Doc Bricker cut into a Dominican Choir Boy’s throat to allow him to breathe! Yes, The Love Boat became The Mercy Ship!
Questions: why was there no blood on any of the scrubs after the surgery? They cut a hole in a kid’s throat! Then, Jim’s heart was changed because he found out that his wife helped save the Dominican Boy’s life. Hold on, did he not know she was a surgical nurse?! If Jim thinks this was something, wait until your wife tells you about the multiple gang related GSWs she has to treat every Wednesday night!
The Dominican boy’s plotline was interminable and there were great lamentations that his tracheotomy was going to prevent him from singing. Duh! He has a hole in his throat! Along with the throat hole plotline, there were the two thieves Henry and Charlie. These storylines just annoyed me. Mostly, they were just weird foils for Mickey Rooney to work his divine powers.
Speaking of powers, Mickey Rooney’s powers were endless: he healed the Dominican boy, allowing him to sing, he created ornaments out of thin air, he transported matter with his mind, he remade people’s thoughts, and spoke to planets! A fair number of these miracles were witnessed by Captain Stubing and he was as casually impressed as I am when I get a 5 dollar off promotion for Civilization VI on Steam. Captain Stubing barely shrugged.
The episode ended with Mickey Roony’s disembodied animated head atop the ship’s Christmas tree. It was just his head and it winked and smiled at them! Save yourselves! RUN!
There was a lot going on in this episode, but overall it was enjoyable if not hyper-strange.
Through the Shattered Lens 