“Gracious me. Was I raving? Please forgive me. I’m mad.”
The Scoop: 1989 R, directed by William Peter Blatty and starring George C. Scott, Ed Flanders and Brad Dourif
Tagline: Do you dare walk these steps again?
Summary Capsule: Demons + mental hospital + serial killer + mystery + exorcisms = 666
“You hear that? Sounds like somebody’s sheering.”
The Scoop: 2006 NR, directed by Jonathan King and starring Nathan Meister, Tammy Davis and Peter Feeney
Tagline: There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand… and they’re pissed off!
Summary Capsule: Genetic tinkering results in a woolly revolt
“However cleverly you sneak up on a mirror, your reflection always looks you straight in the eye.”
The Scoop: 1987 R, directed by Alan Parker, starring Mickey Rourke, Robert DeNiro and Lisa Bonet
Tagline: Harry Angel has been hired to search for the truth… pray he doesn’t find it.
Summary Capsule: If we were to combine Noir Week and Stephen King Week, this is the film we’d review.
“We’re being quarantined here. We’re being kept here to die.”
The Scoop: 2008 R, directed by Carter Smith and starring Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone and Laura Ramsey
Tagline: Terror has evolved.
Summary Capsule: College kids go off the beaten path in Mexico, and it certainly doesn’t come back to bite them in the bum. Oh, wait. Yes it does.
“You’ve just crossed over into… the Twilight Zone. “
The Scoop: 1983 PG, directed by Joe Dante, John Landis, George Miller and Steven Spielberg
Tagline: You’re travelling through another dimension. A dimension, not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!
Summary Capsule: Four mini-movies attempt to recapture the classic touch of Rod Serling’s series. Doesn’t work so much.
“It’s all true. God’s an Astronaut. Oz is Over the Rainbow, and Midian is where the monsters live.”
The Scoop: 1990 R, directed by Clive Barker and starring Craig Sheffer, David Cronenberg and Anne Bobby
Tagline: Lori thought she knew everything about her boyfriend… Lori was wrong!
Summary Capsule: Guy goes on a quest, of sorts, to join the underworld monster kingdom. This doesn’t go over so well with the locals.
“It will be dark soon. There is now way out of here. It will be dark soon.”
The Scoop: 1966, NR, directed by Harold P. Warren and starring Harold P. Warren, Diane Mahree, John Reynolds and Tom Neyman
Tagline: “It’s shocking! Beyond your imagination!”
Summary Capsule: Family is terrorized by a man with big knees, women in granny panties and a skinny, mustachioed guy who plays fingerpaints on his outerwear.
Actually, I think there may only be five total, so I guess that kind of takes the special out of it.
Bah! Whatever! Titles that work are just as lame as well though-out introductions! Let’s do this!
Oh, I will pause to mention that you are strongly encouraged to read first, and then decide whether or not you want to view. MRFH and its affiliates, subsidiaries and shadow governments are not responsible for any puking or nightmares that may result.
“Cause we all end up in a tiny pine box, a mighty small drop in a mighty dark plot.”
The Scoop: 2008, R, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman and starring Alexa Vega, Paul Sorvino, and Anthony Stewart Head
Summary Capsule: In a really messed up world, people buy organs, and when they can’t pay, they get repossessed. Oh yeah, and people sing about it.
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As some of you may recall, last year’s Whedon Week put me in a quandary: I try to contribute to all our theme weeks, but a bad roommate experience soured me on all things Buffy and I wasn’t really into anything else Joss did. I was ready to bow out with a graceful “So long, chumps!” when Justin suggested I take a look at the recently-begun comic continuation of Buffy. Reasoning that if nothing else, a recap of season 8 by someone who hadn’t seen an episode since season 3 would be good for a few laughs, I agreed, but after submitting the article figured that was the end of it. Flash forward one year and seven DVD sets later. Overcoming my aversion, I got into Buffy in a big way – I cherished seasons 1 through 3, enjoyed seasons 4 and 5, suffered through seasons 6 and 7. And make no mistake, they were BAD — I’ve been an apologist defender of many a shark jumper in my day, but even I can’t overlook the misery of season 6, or season 7 starting strong only to tank. And yet… and yet, from my uninformed perspective, the first storyline of season 8 hadn’t been half bad. Was there a chance for Buffy to return to its former glory? I don’t know, but I figure it’s time to revisit the series and find out. Join me, won’t you?
Before we begin, a word about “canon.” In the years the show was on and since, there’ve been no end of Buffy spinoffs, from novels to video games. Dark Horse published a comic from 1998-2003 that ran 63 issues, plus various and sundry miniseries and one-shots, telling stories set throughout the show’s timeline. While all of these projects are officially licensed, they’re considered at best sort of apocryphal Buffy tales. Basically, the only stories that “count” are those Joss Whedon has personally decreed so; according to the man himself, “Canon is key, as is continuity. If you are a massive nerd. Which I am. I believe there’s a demarcation between the creation and ancillary creations by different people. I’m all for that stuff, just like fanfic, but I like to know that there’s an absolutely official story-so-far, especially when something changes mediums, which my stuff seems to do a lot.”
So for your edification, here’s a listing of all the canon Buffyverse material, from Joss’ mouth to your ears:
-Every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel
-BtVS Season 8 comic
-Angel: After the Fall comic (essentially Angel Season 6) and Spike: After the Fall miniseries
-Tales of the Slayers miniseries (stories about various Slayers throughout history)
-Tales of the Vampires miniseries (stories about various vampires throughout history)
-Fray miniseries (Whedon’s comic about a Slayer in the far future)
-The Origin miniseries (a comic intended to retell the events of the original movie to bring it more in line with the show. Of it, Whedon has said, “The Origin comic, though I have issues with it, CAN pretty much be accepted as canonical. They did a cool job of combining the movie script (the SCRIPT) with the series, that was nice, and using the series Merrick.”)
With that out of the way, let’s move on to “The Chain.” This is a Whedon-penned story from issue 5, immediately following The Long Way Home. That, by the way, is apparently going to be the structure of Season 8… a longer multi-issue arc, followed by a done-in-one issue. Let’s see what the first has to offer:
We open with a horned demon looking at me and growling, “Buffy Summers…” Nice try, demon guy, but being blonde, asskickers, and dynamite in the sack are where the similarities between Buffy and myself end. Ah, never mind- our beastie Yamanh, who enjoys pillaging, snarling, and speaking in the third person, proclaims Buffy dead while hoisting her body over his head for emphasis. While he’s yammering, “Buffy”’s internal monologue tells us the funny part of all this, namely that she’s never even met Buffy. Flashback: a fairy (the creepy kind, not the Tinkerbell variety) is telling notBuffy she needs to leave immediately. Oh, and they’re underground. notBuffy says she can’t, she has to stop Yamanh’s army from storming the surface. Another flashback takes us to lunchtime at a Catholic school. Several girls are complaining about everyone getting detention because one classmate is a ho, when one of them suddenly chokes and flies back from her seat. Those peanut allergies are a bitch.
We then jump settings AGAIN, this time to Giles (yay!) saying now he’ll tell us about the chain. Which he spectacularly fails to do, as the very next panel has our unnamed protagonist telling us being awakened as a Slayer was like having your ear bitten off by Mike Tyson. (Honey, considering how Tyson usually treats women, consider yourself lucky.) Cue a television commercial starring Andrew and one of the season 7 newbies whose name I can’t recall because only like three of them had personalities. It’s a lot like the cheesy commercial from Ghostbusters, except this one is promoting a “1-800-CHOSEN-1″ hotline for girls who are having strange dreams and breaking vases to call. It’s… too awesome to put into words, especially Andrew’s 1950s sweater vest and pipe.
Cut to our (brunette) heroine being briefed by Rona on being a Slayer, followed by 2-page training montage. Narration confirms that our girl is a Slayer who was chosen for the worst celebrity impersonation gig ever, namely distracting bad guys from the real Buffy’s whereabouts. She mentions another imposter is on assignment partying in Rome and dating “the Immortal,” which internet research tells me is a nod to an Angel episode. And may I just offer that if I’m one of two impersonators and I spend my days fighting demons underground while my counterpart Lohans it up in Rome, I’m putting in for an immediate transfer.
Back in the caves, our protagonist cuts a random demon’s hand off, magnanimously adding that she left him one to wipe with. Forget wiping, what if that was his “me time” hand? That’s cold. She tells him to warn Yamanh that Buffy is coming, which in most cases would constitute what we call “piss poor strategy.” But since we know her job is to intimidate malcontents by pretending to be the real deal, it makes sense. More random cuts: Giles explaining that a chain connects Slayers throughout the world and history, followed by some noobs being surrounded by vampires. Our girl punches a vamp who’s about to bite one of her teammates but gets bitten herself for her trouble. Still, they manage to dust him before being drained, while a teammate named Simone whines about wanting a gun. notBuffy and friend commiserate over their shaky start.
Next: Rona gets to the point, namely that our protagonist could pass for Buffy if she dyes her hair and pads her bra. (And on a show where Sarah Michelle Gellar was rarely the chestiest female in any given season, ouch.) She clarifies that it’s deep cover and unbelievably dangerous and adds that notBuffy may be wondering, why her… because she’s strong enough to handle it, or so weak that she won’t be missed? Rona’s comforting non-answer is that there is no truth, just what notBuffy chooses to believe. So… the weak one, then. Cut to our heroine in the caves passing a test by some Futurama-looking slug creatures, and it’s worth noting that the “test” consists of them crawling all over her naked body, then proclaiming she passed once they finish copping a feel. I understand that’s how the DMV does it too. Blah blah, the fairies and the “slimefolk” don’t get along, but notBuffy Aragorns them that if they don’t learn to work together, they will surely fall to Saur-… uh, Yamanh.
Troops sufficiently rallied, we now see the brunette lying on the ground immediately post-activation. As her classmates check to see if she’s alright, a semi (accidentally?) drives through the outdoor lunch area. notBuffy kicks her friends out of the way only to be hit and thrown a Wile E. Coyote-esque distance away. In case we haven’t gotten the theme of the issue yet, someone skips over “Do you need an ambulance?” to immediately ask “Who the hell ARE you?” At that, we’re back in the caves a final time. The fairies, slugs, and others are battling demon hordes while Yamanh kicks the crap out of notBuffy. Her internal monologue notes that famous names can invoke both great and terrible things, but in reality millions of unnamed people go into making one particular person known. As Yamanh lifts her above his head in triumph (catching up to the beginning of the issue), a band of Slayers rapels down from the surface to help. Tossed aside, our heroine reflects that names aren’t important, it’s the chain that connects each of us — you either feel its tug or you ignore it. notBuffy doesn’t care that she be remembered, and we still don’t know who she is… but eyes closing for the final time, she reminds us what’s truly important: she knows who she is.
Final reaction: I hate to say it after the fairly strong opening storyline, but this one’s a bit of a mess. It’s a shame because there’s a good germ of an idea at the core, and it clearly wants to end on a poignant note, but the execution is lacking. I think the problem is that there’s too much going on for one issue to contain. A nameless girl being trained to impersonate a famous leader; philosophical musings about the chain that binds together all Slayers; a demon uprising threatening to spill over into the outside world; an underground world of various creatures who have to learn to cooperate? All good-to-decent ideas, but trying to fit all of them into 22 pages leads to a thousand abrupt cuts between scenes- before we start getting invested in one we’re jerked off to another, set at a completely different time with only a vague theme tying them together. None of it’s bad, but it needed another issue or two to breathe; imagine “Graduation Day,” one of the best 2-part episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, compressed down to 30 minutes. That’s “The Chain.” It really does have a pretty emotional ending… more’s the pity the rest of the issue doesn’t live up to it.
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As a bonus, here’s a recap of “Antique,” a story from the Tales of the Vampires miniseries. To date it’s the only canonical story to take place between the end of the TV series and the beginning of Season 8.
We open with Dracula (last seen in season 5 episode “Buffy vs. Dracula”) speaking to an unseen person. As you’d expect if you’ve read or seen ANY story with Dracula in it, the gist of it is “I’m so cool and terrifying and powerful, fear me if you dare.” He concludes by reassuring his audience they won’t be harmed, so not to be afraid. The fact that the response is “We’re not” should give you an idea of just who those “guests” are. And yep… Drac is irked to hear it. Throwing in a free display of shape changing (the standard bat-wolf-fog combo), he concludes that as three helpless young women, of course they must be lying. At this point we finally see Dracula’s audience, which to no one’s surprise is Buffy and two rookies. It’s interesting to note that while past Slayers have tended to be both young and attractive, the activating of all potentials seems to have lifted that restriction, because one of them looks okay but the other is in definite fug territory. I’m actually surprised Dracula let her in his castle.
Still miffed that he’s not throwing the fear of Satan into these cocky wenches, Dracula keeps talking until the ugly stepslayer interrupts, causing him to use the Force to make her parrot back whatever he says. The writer seems to be making the point that homely chicks are susceptible to manipulation by handsome men, which… duh. Alcohol helps too. Anyway, the art briefly changes, showing Drac as a balding, white-haired old man, a fact Buffy throws in his face. The hypnotized uggo babbles about how letting people finish talking shows respect, which: hee. Buffy exposits that the Count has something of hers and she wants it back. Dracula (handsome again) claims not to know what she’s talking about but is interrupted by a voice asking, “Master, have they gone yet?”
Yep- it’s Xander, decked out in his finest Renfield servant gear. Dracula laments that he told his “manservant” to wait with the brides, but Xanfield complains that they’re scary. Buffy demands Xander get over here, which the enthralled minion is having none of. Finally Drac offers a compromise, and the compromise is this: Buffy and friends allow Xander to remain, and in return Dracula will make their deaths as painless as possible.
Oh good, fighty time! As horse face continues babbling in the background, Dracula tackles Buffy out a window, and the ensuing full-page shot of his castle is pretty impressive… you half expect to see Simon Belmont fighting skeletons on a turret somewhere. As they fall, Drac warns Buffy that these children follow her now, but soon enough they’ll start to see her as ancient and obsolete. Hmm, projecting much? He cautions, “Overstay your welcome, and you’ll become a tall tale for children. Fodder for terrible films and television serials. All because you committed the one cardinal sin – you aged.”
Buffy is, as always, irritatingly dismissive of anyone telling her the truth, delivering a head lock (to… someone who can turn into mist?) while boasting that only old people talk about aging. Luckily she’s interrupted by Xanfield slapping her in the face. Irritated, she asks whether Dracula taught him that, to which he replies “No. I believe that is his natural instinct.” Bwa-ha-ha! Anyway, she accuses Drac of keeping Xander as part of some midlife crisis and again demands his release. The Lord of Vampires balks, but then remembers his hot wives, and castle, and garden, and shipping company, and finally acknowledges he can afford to lose his manservant. Oh, Xander… even when you’re evil, you get no respect.
As Xanfield blathers on that Bela Lugosi’s hair is ridiculous and in no way resembles his master’s (heh), the Count asks for a moment to say goodbye. Against all odds, it’s strangely touching as Dracula thanks him for being there, and listening to him when no one else would, and teaching him to ride a motorbike. He invites Xander to visit anytime he wishes, then watches forlornly as his manservant shuffles off to become Buffy’s manservant again. Taking a seat on a bench, Dracula again allows his illusion of handsomeness to drop, exposing us to an aging, decrepit, and above all sad old man. And with that, we’re out.
In my opinion, quite a good story, especially for only being 10 pages. It’s impressive for a writer to make us empathize more with the homicidal monster than the selfless heroine, but Drew Goddard (stellar first name, DG) pulls it off. Buffy actually is pretty unlikeable (when she says “You have something of mine,” do you get the sense she’s exaggerating? I don’t), and you sort of feel like hypnotized thrall or not, Dracula actually appreciates Xander more than Buffy has in ages. Hell, if he’s been there a year, why is she just getting around to rescuing him now? Letting the ultimate evil enslave your friend for three months is fine, six months okay, but a year? That’s pushing it. My guess is that Buffy just got tired of Willow nagging her. As one does. Anyway, a fun story (which you can read for free HERE) that supposedly sets the stage for one of Season 8’s arcs. Here’s looking forward to it!
