Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

We've all been traumatized. And what we do with the hurt from that trauma defines who we are. Do we look inward and heal or do we take that hurt and turn it into anger and take it out on the world? Admittedly there are parts of the show that are really kind of starting to annoy me a bit. Chad is starting to certainly grind on my nerves. As much as I like Roberts, her primeval bipolar Lead Heather act has become such a cartoon I’m waiting (no, check that, hoping…) for a real person to emerge from behind the mask, pulled away by Fred and the Scooby Gang. I can see critics watching “Scream Queens” balking about how heightened the performances are (purposely exaggerated) making the characters so fake and unrealistic. Chad, for instance, never talks as a normal human being would. His face, speech, words, and whole idol worship of himself is equal to how Chanel is presented herself. When Chad breaks up with her over and over again she reacts like a spoiled little brat who di

What puzzled me most about the developing episode of Hell Week , as opposed to the Pilot episode, was the subservience accepted by the independent and initially defiant Kappa hopefuls played by Skyler Samuels and Keke Palmer. Skyler is the final girl, the pleasant, dignified, strong protagonist with a solid relationship with her widower father played by Oliver Hudson. Palmer is the take-no-shit, attitudinal friend to Skyler who decides, against her better judgement, to follow her to KKT. Both appear to be set up as antagonists to the old mistreatment through sorority hazing, Kevlar against Chanel and her sock puppet suckups played by the likes of Abigail Breslin, Billie Lourd, and Ariana Grande. Grande put in basically a cameo in Pilot because she is introduced to the devil and meets hell. Skyler as Grace, hoping to bring class and integrity back to KKT, seems like the perfect candidate to valiantly defy and resist the Chanels and proclaim victory. With a tough ally in Palmer's Z

Hell Week ended on an intriguing note. The slasher film prides itself on the twist, the surprise that takes you aback, with a character or two revealed as more than he or she appears. Nick Jonas has primarily been a minor secondary character among the vast ensemble. What a series can do, that a film often can't, is grow characters and develop them beyond just background shadows and bit players, allowing the chance to initially see them one way, as a caricature or genre stereotype, with that merely serving as an introduction, a starting point. The clay that hasn't been molded completely. Jonas is Boone Clemens, frat brother to the narcissistic Chad who realizes he's gay. When Boone wants to lay in bed with Chad both speak on a different time when a sexual attempt was made. When Chanel barges in to apologise for breaking up with Chad, she sees the two of them, but Chad downplays it because he is so completely full of himself, he calls her out as homophobic and that he can

Some things (criticisms, maybe) that are a bit bothersome in the first two episodes— Pilot & Hell Week —to me were how a few of the characters were drawn in the show early. Seeing Curtis as this dean looking to tear down the bitchy, vicious Kappa sorority sisters system, hoping to undermine the preppy, elitist, “me” image that casts a shadow of regal, arrogant prestige many girls seem to envy and covet was a pleasure for someone like me who obviously despises all they stand for, but the show also has us look behind the curtain to see her in a different light when she isn’t opposing Roberts’ Chanel Oberlin. Curtis’ Dean Cathy Munsch is presented also as a maneater. She is shown smoking some grass in bed with Chanel’s “popular stud” boyfriend, Chad Radwell (Glen Powell). Chad speaks of himself in the third person, is never shy about commenting on his status as the envy of all, and sits comfortably on his pedestal despite adversaries towards diminishing that idol he has created

 & How the Slasher Hasn't Quite Died Yet Being a fan of “Harper’s Island”, I did wonder who might attempt to try again with a slasher television series. I always felt that there was a chance with the right brains involved to make it work. I think, despite its inability to survive, “Harper’s Island” was a good show but the way it was orchestrated didn’t seem to indicate a second season would justify its existence…its conclusion felt like a definitive close. I’m unsure if there were ideas already in store or order for the second season, so the show ending didn’t necessarily bring about real vitriolic allegiance picketing those who pulled the purse strings that might warrant a return. I think with the American Horror Story folks at the helm (or as influences), the show might find and sustain an audience as each season would go in a different direction with new characters and situations driving the locomotive and tossing coals into the furnace. “Scream” on MTV this show is

 Because I just couldn't stop fucking writing... I was looking through the last few years of Decembers and I was startled to notice that I hadn’t written an official review for Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974). It is a film I think is one of the best horror films of the 70s, not just of the seasonal killer-in-the-house variety. I think Clark left a great legacy behind him with three very interesting horror films, a wonderful Sherlock Holmes film, three raunchy and lovable sex comedies, and a beloved Christmas family film. And yes, there were some ill-advised and regrettably ill-conceived “Baby Genius” movies that didn’t bookend his career on the right note. But I think Black Christmas, among others, is one hell of a way to start early in your career. Some gripe and complain about the use of humor in Black Christmas, but I think there’s some real genius in the way he balances it all. Look at how the girls of the sorority give their denmother a gown as a present (for which she tr