Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 10/4/24
CW McCall Appreciation Day edition
The Bunker is in emergency provisions gathering mode right now. Not for the toilet paper; we’re still working off that initial pallet from four years ago. I’m referring to “the good candy,” which will be gone by October 15th, leaving only bags of Smarties and that weird, off-brand taffy that sticks to the wrapper and has the tensile strength of Spider-Man’s webbing.
We are a Dots and Tootsie Roll bunker, which is nice, because those giant bags are usually around until that time, but I don’t trust any of you during an election year. I’m sorry, but I’ve seen how some of you stress-eat, and I don’t like it. The very idea of selling five-pound bags of individually wrapped Snickers bars four weeks before the general election seems like a ploy from Big Candy to fatten us up, were it not for the fact that our election day and date precedes fun-size Krackles by about two hundred and fifty years give or take.
I think it’s best if all of you just ship me your Halloween candy, where it will be properly disposed of in a timely manner. But please wait until the temperature drops down below 80 degrees. No one likes squeezing melted chocolate out of those little wrappers; what am I, an Apollo astronaut or something?
Texans are funny about weather. We are the only people I know who get excited about the very thought of a change of seasons. This is not unlike the delusional rewiring of the frontal lobes of fans of the Chicago Cubs—hope springs eternal, and no, THIS is the year we make it to the World Series, right? That’s Texans with Autumn. “Oh, snap, it’s coming! I just know it. I’m getting out all of my turtlenecks! Mull some cider! Rake some leaves! Let’s DO THIS!”
Those same people in December, standing on their mostly green front lawn in their T-shirts and cutoff shorts: “Seventy-one degrees! See!? We’ve got seasons!”
Love is Love
Years ago, now, when gay marriage became legal in the country, the Justice of the peaces (Justices of the peace?) decided that they would not perform any same-sex marriages in Wilbarger county. That’ll show ‘em!
I believe that the LGBTQ+ community has the right to be as miserable as the rest of us, and so when the county clerk’s office called and asked if I’d be willing to perform gay marriages, I said, “OF COURSE I WOULD,” because I’m not a monster, see?
It's not hard work. It’s a simple, not preachy service, and it puts a little money in my pocket, but that’s beside the point. It’s really about letting everyone participate in the things that make this country (still) awesome; namely, the right to choose who you love and spend your life with.
At this point, I’ve officiated more gay than straight marriages. It’s time for me to start developing a new side hustle; geek wedding planning. I’ll be a part of your Star Wars or Star Trek or Universal Monsters wedding, full costume, custom vows, etc. and I’ll lean into it, unlike that poor family reverend you always see in those photos they run on the news with the caption, “Super Couple Throws Super Wedding in Metropolis, Illinois” and there’s always a picture of the bride and groom, dressed as Lois and Clark, and the padre’s in the picture behind them with a really uncomfortable look on his face, like lightning is going to strike him at any moment.
Don’t let a tourist muck up your special day. I’ll marry you as Lex Luthor! Solomon Grundy! Gorilla Grodd! You want Star Wars? I’ll get the Modal Nodes to play your reception! Star Trek? I speak Klingon!
Now, I won’t be cheap. But I will be the perfect go-between for you and your baffled family. Think it over. In the meantime, look at the new happy family!
Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review
Note: We did not intend to kick off this month’s first weekly report with a lackluster review of a long-awaited and much beloved property, but in the last decade or so, the deluge of horror films and TV series in October has become frankly too much to keep up with. It’s imperative that you make the best choices for yourself, given that there’s only 31 days in October to begin with, and how exactly can you watch everything on your list and still go grocery shopping? It’s in the spirit of full disclosure that we weigh-in on the offering below.
Salem’s Lot (HBO)
In this slick and stylish remake of Stephen King’s vampire opus of the same name, Ben Mears is an author with a flagging career, so he trucks it back to his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot, where his parents died, to dredge up some inspiration and lay a few ghosts to rest, as well. It would have been a lot easier without all of those pesky vampires that the monstrous Barlowe is making out of the townspeople.
Writer and director Gary Dauberman was my hero. He made my least favorite Stephen King book into IT in 2017 and he fixed all of the novel’s problems by hacking the book to bloody ribbons and reassembling it into two movies. The second half of IT wasn’t as good, but it was still a worthy magic trick and he managed to hit just about every one of Stephen King’s touchstones, which is a big part of the movie’s success. He also cut out a lot of town history that was interesting in a book, but a terrible idea on film. Finally, he changed the ending from the worst Stephen King ending ever to a great, if a little derivative, denouement that sets up the second movie nicely.
Yeah, he didn’t do any of that with this movie.
The thing about Salem’s Lot is that it’s not complicated. Structurally speaking, it’s Dracula, in fact, a very straightforward story with no real surprises for anyone. I don’t know why this book continues to be so hard for people to put onscreen. The 1979 mini-series, all told, is only about two and a half hours long, and it manages to make different mistakes (starting with the design of Barlowe), but you at least get some of the backstory, albeit at a glacial pace owing entirely to when it was made.
You need Ben Mears’ backstory. It’s integral to the book, and in King stories in general. He kills a lot of characters, and that’s effective because he makes you care about them before he has a vampire rip their throat out. Ben is our POV character and the lens through which we meet the town and its
Dauberman excised about 95% of Ben Mears’ reason for being there in the first place. This speeds up the movie, but it makes Mears, played by Lewis Pullman with a stone-faced intensity that would make Buster Keaton wince, nothing more than a cursor for the plot. He shows up and hovers over a scene, maybe getting a few lines out, and then suddenly, he’s dating the librarian and wow, that was fast. And the vampire stuff starts up right away, so people are dying while you’re trying to find an emotional onramp to the story.
Here's what they got right: the vampires and Barlowe in particular are a total apology for the 1979 special effects. There are some genuine, if not exactly original, scares of both the “ooh, creepy!” variety as well as the “jump scare” kind. All of that is great. You see a bit of it in the trailer. Don’t worry, it won’t spoil anything; it can’t. There’s zero suspense in the film. Oh, Jordan Preston Carter as Mark Petrie, the Monster Kid who was also into magic, was really good. I wish he’d been in a better version of this story.
Despite all of that, I liked Salem’s Lot better than the TV series. Make that, I liked it differently. You could probably make a chimera version of the story by using all of the stuff from the TV series to fill out the character development between the hot vampire action, which was really well-done. It just wasn’t nearly enough to hold the story together. Vampire lovers are going to watch Salem’s Lot regardless, so if you have to do it, get it over with now. You will want better movies as we creep towards the 31st. Treat this like a warm-up for the big show.
Well if ya get too much candy deposited just give me a call and I'll launch a mothballed
Bombmarc missal from the DEW line which will end in a poof-soot above yer bunker. 90 proof sunglasses advised if you are to go out and watch the event. Leading into which, I did a night or two ago watch Salem's Lot after recording off Crave. In updating my movies seen database I wrote a curdling 3 lines of horrorful description, not wishing to spend the praise you did on it. Fortunately the night before I'd watched Carpenter's 1984 The Thing so had my fill of good horror. As for the Barlowe fella, I thought he was hawking Barlowe's Guide to Vampires after a poor performance on his Guide to Extra Terrestials.
Good on you, brother.