Who Thought "Strippers versus Werewolves" was a Good Idea?

I've been watching this film for about 15 minutes, and the insult level is like Bernard Manning defecating on the graves of every ancester I've ever had.

I've been known for saying how much I enjoy cheap Brit Horror genre flicks, and efforts like, say, "Community" with Jemma Dallender, are characterful, quirky and enjoyable. They even sometimes manage to be disturbing too, witness "Sawney, Killer of Men" as well as the aforementioned "Community" with its human-nourished super cannabis plants.

"Strippers versus Werewolves" however, is like a Hollyoaks producer thinking that he needed slightly stronger stroke material, and getting on the phone to Ali Bastian's agent while sucking on a pair of transparent heels.

Ms Bastian, who unbelievably is the second most credible actor in this movie - behind a tying Sarah Douglas from Supermaan 2 and a Steven Berkoff who shows up for five minutes presumably to pay for printer cartridges for his latest theatrical script - teams up with such luminaries as the "Injury Lawyers 4 U" man and a bunch of what look like Page 3 girls trying their "hands" at acting.

Thrown in some Queen Vic background extras in speaking parts, and prosthetics stolen from a skip behind a hairdressers, and you have a feast of cretinism that a hydrogen bomb couldn't erase. For some reason I find the most hateful thing being the scene wipes consisting of a silhouette of a stripper, or crappy claw marks.

It really marks it out as a production of quality.

The ironic thing is that if it is designed to have a titiallatory air about it, then anyone who gets off on this movie must have a ridiculously low level of eroticism, because the whole movie is more vanilla than ice cream. I've had more hardcore experiences buying Barr's Cherryade for 29p in Poundstretchers.

The fact that it's on SyFy, rather than the Horror Channel, tells its own story.

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 16.07.14writing, am writing, horror, sci fi, 

Farscape - The Peacekeeper Wars

Just turned on the (rather lacklustre these days) SyFy channel, which has taken a break from showing Asylum mockbusters or American shows that last one "season" to giving us a late festive season  repeat of "Farscape - The Peacekeeper Wars".

It's episode 2 tonight.

It was a wonderfully welcome sight when it happened; who can forget the ruthless cancellation of the show on the apparent cliff hanging disintegration of Crichton and Aeryn. Actually Farscape had long since past its best at the halfway point to series 2, and I thought series 3 was bobbins, with great characterisation abandoned in favour of utter confusion. But the final series was moving in the right direction, and folk were mighty unhappy when the Sci Fi channel decided to cut its throat.

So, three or so years later, after a Fan campaign etc etc, we got Peacekeeper Wars. I enjoyed watching it at the time, but now, well, it hasn't lasted well.

I think the problem is the story. Seemingly the writers compressed the 22 episode arc for the intented Season 5 into the 4 hour format, and did so in such a way as to leave the actual storyline incomprehensible. It's also very weakly written, and really rather soppy too.

Farscape was initially like a Blakes 7 with tentacles, nobody wanted to see weddings and kissy kissy and mawkish scenes with baby's being named after bravely deceased characters. Sikozu's treachery is completely inexplicable and unexplained in any satisfactory way, and no-one gives a monkeys about the peacegiving jigsaw faced aliens. Or Stark. Especially Stark.

And how does Aeryn manage to give birth without removing her leather one piece outfit? How? Probably in the same way they managed to shove every single character that had ever been on the show ever into the script, and never mind if they were dead! Oh look, and now there's more slush, between D'Argo and his son Jothee this time. Get off!

In truth Crichton's shtick and pop culture referencing had long since begun to irritate me. But luckily, we still had Wayne Pygram's Scorpius - one of Sci-Fi's great anti-heroes - or is it an anti-villain? - and Rygel, one of Sci Fi's great characters full stop. At least someone had remembered how to write for them.  And the Worm-Hole ending isn't bad, really. But then they have to go and ruin it with the baby stuff.

I will leave you with one thought. The interesting resemblance between Captain Bracca, and Richard Hammond from Top Gear.

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 05.01.14

Early Thoughts on Blake's 7 Reboot

Lots of chat about possible casting in both SFX and Digital Spy for this new crew of "One Innocent and Six Criminals" the showrunners have released. Obviously mainly about Avon, who I suspect given his unavoidably English anti-hero persona will get the Damian Lewis - Andrew Lincoln - Johnny Lee Miller second-level-brit-actor-in-usa-tv-show-to-give-it-gravitas position. But they won't want him to overshadow whoever they pick to play Blake, who is going to have to a rather tougher character to justify the show being about him. The original show was "Avon's 7" very early on in the piece.

Perhaps the rest of the casting will have the BSG formula of altering race and gender, and note they also have to find an extra character from the beginning to properly make up the 7 who escape en-oute to a penal colony - they are keeping the start of the story the same evidently. Zen could appear as a Bishop style Android perhaps, or an early entrace for Tarrant or more possibly Deyna.

And there is also Servalan to consider as it is unimaginable such an iconic female character should be missing from this reboot, but Morena Baccarin has just essentially played a rather similar looking character in V, so they might have to go in a slightly different direction from Jacqueline Pearce's unforgettable creation. But I hope they don't.

Above all, the show must be kept gritty and dark, but without the seeming self importance that has always put me off BSG. Do we have to ram Post 9:11 and Iraq slash Afghanistan metaphors into everything?

Let the story tell itself, without signposting "ALLEGORY! ALLEGORY! ALLEGORY!" over every damn thing.