This week the crew finds itself still minus Becca thanks to the crazy world we live in right now. However, good friend of the show and familiar voice to the listeners Issac Cain stepped in to help John, Jerry, and Richard discuss 1986’s horror classic, The Fly.
So, starting with the shameless plug… We did an episode of The Assignment: Horror Podcast focusing on 1977’s The Haunting of Julia. As we were going over the films many attributes, another film came up as we were discussing films that had a very well executed aspect of intentional ambiguity about them. When done right, it’s something I love to see in a film.
Now, I can tell I have you thinking two things here. First, you’re wondering what the Johnstown Monster is and, second, you’re wondering what mystery about it has been solved. A headline like this is the kind of thing you expect from a Nessie or Bigfoot site when writing their latest article about how they’ve solved the mystery of the monster’s identity and determined the Loch Ness Monster is an overweight eel that hasn’t had sex in over fifty years. This would not be that type of mystery solved article.
No, this is about a movie. This is about the identity of a movie I’ve been trying to find the identity of for decades now. The mystery for me was what was the name of the movie I watched many moons ago in my long-forgotten youth. The answer I have finally found is 1971’s The Johnstown Monster.
[I should note up front that at the time of this writing I have not seen Avengers: Endgame, so you don’t have to worry about spoilers.]
This is the weekend. It’s finally here. Almost one full week shy of exactly eleven years ago, Iron Man landed in theaters across the country and started us on a trip that is finally seeing its end. From Iron Man to Captain Marvel, 21 films have been made that have brought us to this weekend and film 22. We are at Avengers: Endgame.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, from social media to the workplace, there are people who want to downplay what this is. Some are just being deliberately insulting trolls or outright jerks, disparaging the nature of the genre and the fans who enjoy it. Some are simply playing the ‘I’m too cool to be into this popular film series stuff to that level’ bit. Then there are those who are not fans- outside observers as it were -who genuinely don’t understand why some of their friends, family, and coworkers are losing their minds this weekend.
There’s little that can be said to the first two groups. They are what they are. As for the third group, I can assure you that, yes, what is about to happen in movie theaters across the country this weekend is absolutely a big deal. Here’s why. By the time we’ve all watched the last of the credits roll on Avengers: Endgame, we will have witnessed something that has never been done in the history of American cinema and, as far as I know, the history of cinema anywhere else.
On April 16, 1988, 31 years ago in Japan, an animated film, an early film for the just shy of three-year-old Studio Ghibli, opened in movie theaters in Japan. The film was based on a 1967 semi-autobiographical short story, Hotaru no Haka, from writer Akiyuki Nosaka. The story itself had become well known in Japan, and Akiyuki Nosaka had reportedly turned down several offers to turn his story into a live action movie or television film believing that live action would not capture the intended spirit of the story. He had never considered animation, but first the pitch from Studio Ghibli and then the early storyboards convinced him that the story could not be properly told at that time in any medium other than animation. There are probably a lot of people all around the world who are glad he came to that conclusion, because had he not done so we would never have seen Grave of the Fireflies. Of course, that’s as much a blessing as a curse for some.
The lineup for films in the ConCarolinas Short Film Festival. Actual times will be posted soon.
To the victor go the spoils; not to mention the eventual writing of the histories. One of the things this leads to is everyone and their brother pointing to various things that were “the beginning of the end” for the loser that weren’t seen as anything of the kind at the time and, frankly, may not have actually been anything of the kind. When it comes to WCW, the eventual postmortems on the company began to create narratives about many people and events; some of which have already easily been proven to be not wholly accurate.
Radioactive zombies. People talk a lot about that kind of thing. Well, people I know talk a lot about that kind of thing. They think it would be really cool. It’s not. Do you know what you get with radioactive zombies? You get Nightmare City and being locked into a cycle of terror, carnage, death, and unresolved endings brought about by bad writing and a horrible gimmick twist that should have gotten everyone involved smacked until the stupid came out of them.
What’s that? You don’t know what Nightmare City is? Then let me tell you about it. There will be some huge spoilers coming, but, trust me, you won’t care if this movie gets spoiled for you or not.
Chandler's Bar & Grill 