Finding art in ZOMBIE STRIPPERS! (2008)

As a horror fan, there are few things as satisfying as picking up the stupidest title and accidentally discovering a gem. Zombie Strippers is one of those gems. Hiding beneath a cheap grindhouse title and Jenna Jameson's lusciously inert breasts is, believe it or not, a small wonder. Initially conceived as a joke, because of course it was, Zombie Strippers tells a sleazy story with brilliant splatstick moments and existential flair, as any good zombie movie should.

The meat of the story takes place in a not-so-distant future where George Bush has won his fourth consecutive term as president (because Bush jokes were hilarious in 2008). As a result, the US is at war with literally everyone. We open on a military investigation of a research facility striving to make a super-soldier serum, which has obviously gone horrifically wrong. Thankfully, the army sent its sexiest unit to take care of business.

The push-up bra is standard issue.

During the initial tour before the zombies hit the fan, the scientists explain that the nature of the disease causes your usual brain-dead, flesh-hungry zombie fare only in the male subjects, whereas female patients maintain their conscious minds while reaping all the undead benefits--super strength, heightened agility, and a bloodthirsty drive to destroy. To make an overly long sequence short, one of the less sexy soldiers gets bitten during the extermination and goes staggering off into the city. He inexplicably stumbles into an underground stripclub, where Kat (Jenna Jameson) is our lithe, shimmery, gyrating introduction to Rhino's.

No matter how you may feel about Miss Jameson, she is an absolute rock star on the pole, and sets the stage for the kind of shiny cheesecake we're in for. She has incredible confidence and control of her body, strutting the stage with a presence that both exudes and transcends her porn star status. According to the behind the scenes, she couldn't be sweeter about sharing her sexy secrets--she actually helped the other girls in the cast with their own choreography on the stage.

The handful of side characters that keep the club running serve both as comic relief and occasional antagonists. Unfortunately neither path lands very well, but no worries since we don't see very much of them. There's the slimy owner Ian Essko (Robert Englund); a smooth black DJ as the voice of reason and possibly the only sane person in this universe; a madame who is cartoonishly Russian from her pastel Lycra pants to tales of squeezing vodka from potatoes in the old country; and a Mexican janitor played by a Puerto Rican actor who is forced to caricature being Mexican to the point that it runs screaming past parody straight into blatant racism.

This is his big monologue.

The real magic lies backstage in the dressing room. Here we are introduced to our girls, each completely unique in their own shallow way. First there is the previously introduced Kat, the star of Rhino's. When she isn't tearing up the stage, she hangs out in her separate VIP dressing room, reading Nietzche and contemplating her own futile existence. She's an intellectual stripper, man, and Jameson plays it surprisingly well. She is not the hooker with the heart of gold by any stretch; rather she is an enlightened woman living in a dystopia who doesn't have the patience for anyone else's sensitivities. She's never cruel beyond mild cattiness or chilly determination, but she doesn't go out of her way to be nice, either. Her pep talk to the newbie stripper Jessy about what it takes to be a real dancer is blunt but not malicious, and is actually precisely the advice you would hope to hear from a veteran stripper. 

"First lesson: quit your bitching."

Next is Jeannie, Kat's rival and apparently the least popular stripper at the club, though God knows why since she's got some of the most stunning cleavage I've ever seen. (Maybe it's her penchant for corsets in a house full of nylon bikinis.) Whatever the reason, Jean mostly serves to shoot Kat dirty looks throughout the movie, inevitably leading to a big-breasted showdown.

Ugh, what a cow.

The "lesser" strippers are lesser only in that they don't get nearly as much screen time as they probably deserve. Gaia is set up as an empty-headed sweetheart with self-esteem issues that aren't revealed until it's beyond being relevant, while Sox is more memorable for her crush on Kat than anything else. That, and being a fucking Amazon princess.

Tall girls represent.

Then there's Lillith (Roxy Saint), my personal favorite of the ensemble in spite of and precisely because she's a ham-fisted cartoon of The Goth Chick. She's got the punky schoolgirl outfit, the cigarette-stained grumbling, the heavy nipple piercings, the spidery eye makeup that would make Helena Bonham Carter blush. She even employs a little silver pistol on a chain into her dance routines because she is just so hardcore. I fucking adore her. It shouldn't come as a surprise that Roxy Saint is also a punk rock singer, and a few of her songs are stripped to throughout the film, adding a grimy, sexy flavor to some of the gorier dance scenes. Like Sox, she harbors her own admiration for Kat and is the first gleeful converter to the undead.

SUCH ANGST!

Somewhere in the middle is Berenge, a lapdancer who is physically incapable of caring about anything. She is set up to be a much bigger character than she actually turns out to be, and in the end, the film really doesn't need her beyond faithfulness to its source material (which I'll get to).

Finally, there's Jessy, who is arguably our central protagonist, but it's hard to tell since this movie doesn't stay focused on any one character for too long. She is a good Christian girl who is hoping to raise money for her grandmother's surgery by stripping. This character could, and should, be dead on arrival, but this otherwise walking cliche has a self-aware earnestness with a just a hint of world-weariness that's endearing. She's an innocent without being an idiot.

Just a small town girl, living in a zombie world....

Unfortunately, she's got a literal ball-and-chain dragging her down--her bumbling boyfriend Davis, who keeps following her around the club and being a general skeeze. One second he's pleading with her not to take her clothes off for strangers, the next he's slinking into the shadows to enjoy the show. Just like a dude. Even though Davis is just as useless as any of the other men in this picture, he at the very least serves for Jessy to show her strength. When he begs her to not strip, she hears him out but sticks to her conviction. She doesn't even apologize for his hurt feelings. She makes it clear the whole ordeal has nothing to do with him, and that her grandmother's well-being is "more important than staying pure for you." That's a shockingly progressive direction for a goody-two-shoes character in a movie called Zombie fucking Strippers.

Back to the plot, such as it is. The infected soldier hangs out at the club, the virus quietly consuming him. When Kat struts out for another dance, he rushes the stage and proceeds to rip her throat out. Everyone looks on in horror, but are surprised to find that Kat recovers from her wound quite quickly. In no time, she's ready to take the stage again, gaping flesh wound and all.

And she fucking KILLS IT.

Jenna Jameson decomposes beautifully over the course of the film, but these initial scenes are just stellar. The virus has turned her into a vicious, tireless beast, her feral dancing becoming both erotic and frightening. With her black eyes and deranged grin, not to mention the blood streaked all over her golden flesh, she is a full-on predator on the hunt for meat. And the fellas can't get enough!

Fear-rection.

When the other girls catch wind of the secret to Kat's makeover, they begin converting to zombie-ism for a taste of the power. Kat's posse swiftly overtakes the club's line up, and infected male patrons begin piling up in the basement like rabid dogs. It is up to the remaining survivors to deal with the sexy zombie menace, and if they can't reason with them, they'll have to shoot their way out. Typical silly splatterfest ensues, with a few sets of glitter tits to spare.

Believe it or not, Zombie Strippers is based on what some people would call art. Back in 1960's France, a fella named Eugene Ionesco wrote a little farce called Rhinoceros at the height of the absurdist movement in theater. The play tells the story of a man named Berenger, an everyman who prefers to drown his first-world sorrows and spin philosophy at the local tavern rather than face any real responsibility in life. One day, his musings are interrupted by a passing rhinoceros, which is later rumored to have formerly been a person. Over time, more people in town mysteriously transform into rhinos, rampaging through the streets and destroying property. The remaining non-rhinos try to rationalize the bizarre events and attempt to figure out a cause, but one by one they surrender their humanity to become something else.

Soon the town is lousy with rhinos, all except Berenger and his lady love, Daisy. The two decide to make the best of things and try to go about remaining human despite being surrounded by dangerous animals that were once their neighbors. Over time, the transition to rhino-hood becomes more and more attractive to Daisy, and she eventually leaves to join the herd. Berenger struggles to hold on to his humanity, finding himself seduced by the call of the rhino as well. In the end, he decides to resist temptation and actively fight against the rhino invasion.

The play has a few themes floating around, but the most central is the notion of conformity. Ionesco presents us with normal people who inexplicably become beasts, and the remaining humans willingly follow them--not all at once, but slowly. Through conversation and persistent rationalization, they convince themselves that making the change is simply better than remaining what they are, as if it's a new level of enlightenment, a superior state of being. The play speaks directly to the insidious nature of Nazi propaganda, but could just as easily be applied to any number of hostile movements throughout history--the Salem witch trials, the Satanic Panic of the 1980's, even now with the marketing of our most recent election--a hideous idea that presents itself as profound logic, taking root in the impressionable individual and gradually creeping into public consciousness as the status quo. Berenger represents man's resistance to savage herd mentality, and he ultimately finds direction by pointing away from everyone else.

In these modern times, zombies are an ideal replacement for rhinos. Since Romero's triumphant premiere, they have always represented our most base selves, stripped of empathy and reason, hungry for domination (and flesh). Zombie Strippers takes this and cranks it up to maximum parody levels, but the themes remain the same. You could even dig a little feminist message out of the fact that the base male is a mindless drone whereas females can retain their speech and get bitchy superpowers.

Wanna lapdance?

Personally, in 2018, the zombie theme is largely played out, and by now even the most inventive twist still often rings a bit stale (with a few choice exceptions). But sometimes art doesn't strike at the right moment and takes a few years for anyone to recognize it for what it is. I believe Zombie Strippers is ripe for a comeback, not only for its timely political unrest, but also for its feminist themes, however flimsy they may be in context. For me, I always enjoy an ensemble of beauties taking on their shitty situation, so Zombie Strippers fills a void for me in the same way that Showgirls does, even if the amazing quality and vibrancy of their female cast doesn't get near as much screen time. 

Blood is Thicker -- Families in Horror

The year is coming to an end, and you all know what that means: the days are growing shorter, the nights are filled with twinkle lights, and every radio station plays songs that involve more bells than usual. Yes, it's the holiday season, the magical time of year from November to New Years when we gather together to endure the company of our families. If you're fortunate enough to be apart of a family that is just as happy and adorable as your Christmas cards, then bully for you, it's another year of wonderful memories to be shared. But for many of us, the pilgrimage to Grandma's house is filled with misery and dread.

Not to brag, but nearly every gathering among my extended family has been punctuated with a memorable bit of unpleasantness--from the Christmas when a great aunt sized up my perfect cousins' accomplishments against my own for everyone to hear, to the Thanksgiving when my mother's sister took too many Quaaludes and passed out in her mashed potatoes at the dinner table (bonus points for the Easter that my mother-in-law told me, in grave detail, all the ways in which her pets had passed away over the years--here's a hint, none of them were from old age).

For as traumatizing as it can be to actually live in a fucked up family, there is something compelling about seeing them on film. Whether it's wacky comedies or Oscar-bait drama, genetically-shared dysfunction lends itself to all the best parts of a great movie: an ensemble of quirky characters, long-stemming grudges and deeply-held alliances, dark secrets revealed, and more than a few painfully relatable moments. When translated to horror, the family dynamic is transformed into something entirely new and even more fascinating. It introduces the idea that evil can be ingrained, instructed, and even nurtured.

Rob Zombie's premiere to the world of film took the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the Manson family and blended them together to make a malicious technicolor hick stew. House of 1000 Corpses introduced us to the Firefly family, consisting of Mama Firefly and her grown children from multiple fathers, at least one of them being bred from the repulsive clown Captain Spaulding. Otis is the philosopher of the family, preaching venomous nonsense to the terrified cheerleaders he keeps tied up in his room. Baby is the only girl and wears it proudly, emulating her sultry mother and Hollywood vixens as she lures in passers-by (and cackling maniacally as she scalps them). The other Firefly children--bear-man mechanic Rufus and mute giant Tiny, plus the scattering of mutated fetuses that are preserved in jars around the house--lurk in the background, adding to the weirdness. The Devil's Rejects only brought us closer to the Fireflies when Otis, Baby, and Spaulding go on the run, taking us on the road with them as they evade capture from a sheriff with a grudge, with a few face-skinnings and familial spats along the way.

The contrast between the two films is stark and many fans will loudly proclaim their preference of one over the other. I feel they work as a series if you look at them as two completely different perspectives of the same thing. House of 1000 Corpses is a "normal person's" view of the family, a collection of grotesque figures who act completely unhinged in every conceivable way. The colors are harsh neons cutting through inky darkness, reality upturned by unexplainable visions. The experience of spending an evening with the Fireflies is not unlike Captain Spaulding's funhouse murder ride, over-the-top horrors popping out of the darkness to disturb and delight.

Meanwhile, Devil's Rejects takes a less spectacular approach. The Fireflies are the same people, only now we see them the way they see themselves--murderers, yes, but not cartoons. They're sloppy, grungy, regular folks from the sticks with questionable interests and zero social skills. Their reality isn't heightened because this madness is just what they do: manipulate those unfortunate enough to encounter them and take all they can get before taking flight again. Their actions are monstrous, but Devil's Rejects shines between the carjackings and taking of hostages when we get the chance to know them as people.

They defend their home and each other with a hail of bullets. Otis and Baby squabble like kids in the backseat. Otis and Spaulding maintain a palpable "fuck you Dad!" rivalry. Mother Firefly speaks of her children's exploits with all the gooey pride of a mommy blog. They're a real family, and it's endearing to see who they are when they're not putting on a spookshow for their captive audience. That's probably why it's a little heartbreaking that the inevitable shootout with the police ends in their bloody deaths, but it is interesting that in this moment, reality is heightened. Because if you were a murderous maniac from the boonies and your years-long spree finally came to the end at the wheel of a top-down car headed towards a roadblock, wouldn't you imagine yourself going out guns blazing and "Freebird" blaring as you speed into oblivion? Of course you would.

Spider Baby is one of those movies that may have been lost to time if not for a Blu-Ray release in 2015, and even now it's still not exactly revered. I wouldn't have known about it were it not for a small review I read that I can't even remember the source for, and thanks to my Shudder subscription (they don't sponsor me or anything, but seriously, it is SO worth $4.99 a month), I was treated to the mad delights of the Merrye family.

The Merrye children are afflicted with a disease so peculiar and rare that it's named after them. The beginnings of puberty are a difficult time for all of us, but imagine if it only got worse from there (well, worse than adulthood). Merrye syndrome kicks in during the early teen years, the victim's brain degenerating to childishness with further regression leading to a completely feral state. Unfortunately for the players in Spider Baby, the Merrye children are already well into the stages of their disease.

Eldest son Ralph (an explosively expressive Sid Haig in an early role) is the most far gone, regressed to complete muteness and his brain reduced to a primitive state (the language of the 1967 film is decidedly more colorful). Sisters Elizabeth and Virginia are more lucid than their brother, but the evidence of their degradation is even more eerily apparent. Pretty, soft-spoken Elizabeth is dainty and polite, an otherwise perfect debutante if not for her limitless capacity for hatred. Most fascinating of all is wild-eyed Virginia and her obsession with spiders, her favorite game being to sneak up on people and trap them in her web. My favorite moments in the film spring directly from Virginia: her dark features, vacant yet calculating expression, coquettish sultriness, and most of all, the delicious way she says "spiderweb."

The members of the family that have made it to adulthood--thus total savagery--are kept locked away in the basement while the children's father lies decomposing in the upstairs bedroom. All of this madness is kept under control by the family's loyal caretaker Bruno (Lon Chaney), but just barely: Ralph has the mind of a toddler and the appetites of a grown man, while Virginia has a habit of "stinging" people with butcher knives. Bruno is already reaching the end of his rope by the time distant cousins arrive sniffing after the family estate. He does his best to portray the children as innocent victims of a misunderstood disease. Despite his efforts, the children undermine his claims at every turn, offering their guests roasted alley cat and engaging them in games of "playing spider" before the really freaky stuff starts. Realizing the grim future for his beloved wards should the truth reach the public, Bruno knows the only thing to do is to finally end their suffering, and his own.

Spider Baby has certainly not aged well in a politically correct sense, with terms that we have virtually outlawed today being thrown around like confetti. But the heart of the film, and its entire appeal, lies in its preternaturally talented young cast, especially the two sisters. Elizabeth with her blonde hair and prim white dress, her kitten-soft voice cooing, "Don't you just hate her?" Virginia with her twitchy yet graceful movements and intense gaze, only showing her sweeter side in the presence of her spider friends. It's a shame that the actresses playing Elizabeth and Virginia didn't rise to the cult status of their male costars, because they truly shine as haunting icons on par with the Grady sisters as some of the greatest terror siblings put to film.

Despite and perhaps because of their condition, the siblings clearly care for one another, and their shared adoration for Bruno causes them to trust him completely, even as he tearfully leads them to their deaths. Their ending, like the Firefly family, is surprisingly bittersweet. The movie is still somewhat obscure, not showing up on as many "top ten" lists as it deserves, but it does still maintain a charming website that provides in depth information on the film itself as well as behind the scenes goodies. And, like all the great campy classics, it did inspire a musical adaptation.

And speaking of musicals...

Takashi Miike is responsible for some of the most traumatic horror films to come out of Japan in recent memory, and that's saying something given the wealth of nightmare fuel that wonderful country has blessed us with over the years. His most notorious works are Ichi the Killer and Audition, both renowned for their graphic depictions of torture, deeply flawed characters, and all-around insanity. My personal favorite of his work brings the agony and the ecstasy together in Imprint, a gorgeous installment of Showtime's sorely missed Masters of Horror series. Despite his talents in the horror community, Miike has never been a slave to genre, most notable in his home country for action films, which quite often veer into bouts of comedy, fantasy, and cartoon physics. This is to say that, if you know the man's work, then you know to expect the unexpected.

The Happiness of the Katakuris takes a detour from these other families in that they are not introduced to us as murderous outcasts, but instead must rise to madness. The Katakuris are a simple family with a simple dream of trying to get their isolated bed and breakfast off the ground. Patriarch Masao (Kenji Sawada) places all his hopes on the lofty promise of a highway being built in the area, but the reality of constant work and nothing to show for it hangs heavy on his family. Finally, one day, a guest appears--unfortunately, he's picked this as the site of his suicide. The family is devastated when they discover the body, but are even more distressed at the idea of word getting out that their first guest died on the property.

They bury the body and no sooner are they done than another pair of guests arrive, only to promptly drop dead during their stay as well. The Katakuris are innocent bystanders in the ensuing string of unfortunate incidents, trying desperately to maintain normalcy while cleaning up after their guests' tragedies. And what better way to keep a smile on your face than a rousing sing-a-long? The film doesn't reveal itself to be a musical until the bodies start piling up, but when the lighting changes and everyone starts singing and dancing their feelings, boy howdy.

Miike runs the gambit of any good musical, from the longing "I want" song to the operatic dialogue exchange set as lyrics. The soundtrack ranges from effectively hilarious to surprisingly touching. There are not one but two love ballads in this flick, which beautifully juxtapose one another in style and sincerity. The first involves single mother Shizue seeing a handsome naval officer and the two professing their instant attraction through song, literally flying on wires across a rose-filled ballroom. It's cheesy and completely over the top with no hint of reality, and that's entirely the point: the officer turns out to be a con man, and it's evident from the get go that his grand gestures are all bullshit. Meanwhile, the second love song is between Masao and his wife Terue, supporting one another at their lowest moment through a disco ballad that's shot with all the soft-lit loveliness the 70's could offer. It's still cheesy, but it's a more palatable kind of cheese: the cheesiness of true affection between two people who are going to stick it out till the bitter end. It ends up being kind of beautiful and awfully sweet.

Also worth mentioning, this clip is the film's opening scene, and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything that follows besides setting the bar for insanity.

Please, do yourself a favor. Just watch it.

We all think our families are crazy. We all watch the Hallmark movies every year and wonder how great it must be to be apart of a happy (white upper-middle class Christian) family like that, but we all know the hard truth. Nobody is perfect, so certainly a collection of people from the same gene pool forced together in one room can't even come close. But family is what you make it, and often that means setting aside your differences and coming together for a common purpose, from outrunning the cops to withholding a family secret to burying a body or five. Thankfully, for most of us, it can be as simple as avoiding another dinner that ends with Mom crying in the backyard.

Hidden Horror -- The Beaver

Some movies defy genre--others deliberately misrepresent themselves in order to appeal to a broad audience, only for the observant viewer to recognize them as dark, terrifying journeys into the human condition. I'd like to introduce you to one of the most unique horror films hiding in your Netflix selection, The Beaver.

Let me take you back to 2011, where Academy darling Jodie Foster and universally-beloved auteur Mel Gibson came together to produce a hilarious look at depression from a delightfully original angle that delivers a message just about anyone can relate to: when you hit rock bottom, sometimes the only thing to bring you back is the magic hiding inside your own diseased mind.

There are many incorrect statements in that last sentence.

How can I begin to describe The Beaver? Start with the atmosphere of What Women Want (troubling behavior played off as adorable comedy), plus Little Miss Sunshine quirk (look at this charming broken family!). Sprinkle in some light humor and some harsh truths, but apply both generously so that they barely compliment one another. Bake at 475 under Jodie Foster's unsettling gaze for 90 minutes, and you get something close to The Beaver. But be careful biting in...there's a secret filling inside.

It's very telling that the last exchange in that jolly little lie of a trailer is Gibson asking Foster, "Where do we start?" and she replies, "We start with the good part." Jodie has clearly learned a thing or two about marketing your passion project in Hollywood: fill the trailers with your fun elevator pitch and inject every frame with that fresh-from-Sundance feel, and you've got yourself the indie darling of the year. Very good, Clarice. So, let's do that--start with the good part.

The good part is that no matter how you feel about Mel Gibson, as far as acting goes, this is his best work in years. Granted, a good portion of that is owed to his ability to project a vaguely drunken Michael Caine impression through an eerily expressive beaver puppet, but still--if you can somehow break your gaze from the cold dead stare of those button eyes, you'll see the actor is still very much alive back there. And to the film's credit, that is clearly its ultimate purpose: to remind us all that Mel Gibson is still a shining talent despite being also being a racist lunatic. (Supposedly, production on the film began before the troubles, but was pushed back from release directly because of Gibson's ruined reputation.) The whole cast is solid, and includes Jennifer Lawrence and the late Anton Yelchin as the moody teen lovers a few years before their respective franchises took off.

Jodie Foster is pulling double time as director and actor, and she is predictably competent at both. I am not exactly a fan of her directing style--she has a taste for awkward moments that I (a lover of awkward moments) can't bear to sit through. But for every sour note she holds on for too long, there are many lovely scenes throughout her films that coax you back in until the next big cringe. A moment in The Beaver that sticks out to me is when Anton Yelchin catches a glance of Jennifer Lawrence between classes, looking positively dreamy in her pretty summer dress, beachy blonde curls swept to the side--moments later he receives a text from her, a triple-chin selfie with her tongue hanging out. It's only a few seconds and it's quickly lost within a montage of other cutesy scenes, but it's a charming moment that subtly communicates a great deal about Lawrence's character and their relationship.

That's just what we love about you, Jen.

Now, to address the beaver in the room. I would like to commend this film for being as sensitive as possible to the issues it addresses, taking the time to properly explain and define exactly what is being portrayed. There are many scenes depicting depression that feel experienced and honest, a lived-in kind of devastation that's palpable onscreen. The puppet therapy thread is somewhat less authentic, taking on more of a My Strange Addiction vibe than a legitimate (albeit rarely used) medical practice. Despite its flaws and the odd creative license here and there, they clearly did some research, and I have to give them props for that.

So...that's the good part. I wanted you to know that before we dive in. I want you to get marinated in that offbeat dramady flavor so we have some solid ground to start from. I want you to get the feeling I experienced going in, and that feeling is smug. I thought I knew what this movie was. I remember the buzz, all the snarky jokes we made at that cutesy trailer. We were all vaguely curious, but in the end no one saw it (maybe one of the copies Jodie had personally mailed out to members of the Academy got a watch, out of politeness), and it has become one of the few Gibson exploits we have collectively chosen to forget.

Years later, I was still smirking as I put on the movie for the first time. I was assured that I understood the way films work and what to expect from a movie involving whimsical alternative therapy. Well, just hang on, friends. I haven't even gotten to the synopsis yet, and I do mean the real synopsis, not the sweet morsels the trailer or some pedestrian critic's 2011 review will feed you. Nope, you're getting the whole plate.

Walter has a nasty case of rich white man depression. He runs a toy company that's on the rocks, he barely knows his kids, and his marriage is strained seemingly beyond repair. Not much is said on whether this is a result of the depression or the cause of it, but all are clearly deteriorating under Walter's mournful thousand yard stare. After being unceremoniously kicked out of the house, he stops at a liquor store on his way to a motel, where he discovers a beaver puppet in the garbage. The night involves a few clumsy attempts at suicide before Walter hears the puppet speak to him, channeling a grumbling Cockney life coach that motivates him to piece his life back together.

What a fun way to work through your devastating mental illness.

Walter returns to his home mere hours after being ejected from it, speaking through the puppet and bearing a stack of informative index cards stating that the puppet is a prescribed therapy tool and that any communication should be addressed to the beaver. His family's reaction is decidedly mixed--his younger son is enchanted while his eldest is repulsed, and his wife waffles somewhere in between. Meanwhile, Walter's co-workers are instantly accepting of and delighted by the beaver. The business is booming on Walter's idea for a beaver-themed tool kit, which somehow becomes a hot-selling item due to the sensationalism of the company's CEO speaking through a puppet. (And, I don't know, kids like building things? And beavers? Sure.)

Walter's life is making a dramatic turnaround with the beaver's help, but soon it becomes clear that he is having trouble disengaging from the beaver's personality. It eventually comes out that the puppet was never prescribed by any doctor and that Walter sort of came up with this method on his own. Despite lying to everyone and essentially using the puppet as a way to "switch off" for a few months, the beaver isn't wrong when he says that his methods are working. Oh, and there's a whole subplot about how Anton Yelchin hates his dad but loves Jennifer Lawrence, and she's this troubled popular girl/secret graffiti artist whose brother died. It barely matters.

Now at this point, I'm sure you're really starting to wonder where I'm going with all this. You're thinking this sounds like typical film festival fluff, a sugary vanity project hoping to mend an admittedly talented maniac's lingering popularity. This isn't horror, not even close. There is no way this quirky family drama could suddenly veer into violent unhinged insanity.

This guy wouldn't just go off on you like that.

Perhaps you best turn back now, keep your impressions of this silly little movie as they are and carry on living your life. Then maybe, one slow Sunday afternoon, you'll forget my words of caution and find the movie on Netflix, and out of bored curiosity you'll put it on. Then you can experience for yourself the profound horror of watching that innocence of yours shatter into screaming little pieces by the time the end credits roll.

There are signs fairly early on that something is amiss within the film. Walter's downward spiral happens in the first few minutes, perhaps to prepare us for the rough road up ahead. But we've all seen our share of funny suicide attempts in offbeat movies before--this is rock bottom, the darkest hour, nowhere to go but up. Surely, we will all learn something from this experience. We meet the beaver and things begin to improve. Work is great, home is great...it is a little weird that he keeps the puppet on during sex, but the music in the montage is telling us that all of this is going just swell.

But then, at about the midway point of the film, there is a scene in which Walter and his wife go out to dinner, and she requests that, just for tonight, he take off the puppet. It does not go well.

The dark underbelly of Walter's recuperation is quickly swept away as a standard mid-movie montage of sadness rolls by, but you sit there not absorbing it. You're haunted by what you've just seen, downright chilled. Things got real there for a second. All the whimsy got sucked out of the room and replaced with inexplicable dread. You can't just go back to caring about Anton Yelchin's girl troubles. There are dark clouds up ahead.

Walter eventually realizes that the beaver has become its own independent personality, and it has no intention of ending their therapy. The beaver considers him a lost cause and plans to completely take over his body like a parasite consuming the host. Walter finally wakes up and has a Tyler Durden moment, getting into a literal fistfight with himself. By the end, both man and puppet are bloodied and broken, but still breathing.

And then, dear friends, the moment comes when this movie reveals what it has been all along: a charmingly bizarre descent into utter madness.

He cuts off his arm.

He builds a tiny coffin measured to fit his arm, and then he fucking cuts it off.

In a movie where Jodie Foster weeps in a fancy restaurant and Chekov makes out with Katniss in front of a graffiti mural, a man banishes his alternate personality by hacking off one of his own limbs with a buzz saw. The film closes with a tender scene depicting Mel Gibson finally getting along with his son as a shiny new prosthetic lies across his lap, but you're likely too busy still screaming into your fist to notice because HE CUT OFF HIS FUCKING ARM!

If you're a normal person, you won't watch this movie, but supposing you do, you'll walk out of it saying, "Well it was a weird journey but I think he's really gonna turn his life around." But if you're like me--the horror fan--you'll come out gobsmacked and strangely delighted at having the rug pulled out from under you this way. Granted, it is slightly troubling that the ultimate message seems to be "Hey, maybe if you actually had something to be depressed about, you'd find more reasons to realize life isn't so bad," not to mention the implication that mental illness is as easily removed as a limb.

Thank goodness you took action before the infection could spread to your brain.

Nonetheless, it is hard to not be impressed how horror elements are placed disturbingly close to family-friendly sweetness. And I'm not just talking about a man who saws off his own arm in his goddamn garage sweet Jesus, but moreso the havoc depression can wreak on a good life from the inside out. These moments are sickeningly familiar for many people, and they're portrayed with dismal sincerity. Maybe you didn't have a panic attack in a public place, or punched yourself into submission, or began projecting a more charismatic personality in your daily life, but maybe you felt like doing it more than once, and that can be pretty frightening.

But don't let those tender truths distract you from the fact that this is a body horror film masquerading as a heartfelt comedy, in which a man is slowly consumed by a hostile spirit trapped in a puppet that wants to be human. It perfectly explains why Walter found the puppet in the trash, presumably dumped there by a former victim that managed to escape the beaver's seductive force before it was too late. Change the music and add some ominous shadows, and this easily becomes a horror film. As it is, it's another one of Jodie Foster's unsavory cringe-fests with a particularly bizarre edge. It does kind of make you rethink Home for the Holidays, although that movie hardly needs help being scary.

This movie is a nightmare for everyone in it.

You may feel you don't even need to watch the movie now that it's been thoroughly spoiled for you. Maybe this review was enough. Maybe it's enough just to know what happens in the final fifteen minutes of The Beaver. But should you find yourself faced with this innocent-sounding title during that kickback Sunday movie binge, remember my words of warning, and prepare yourself for a bizarre horror gem hiding under a cute poster in the comedy section.

Remaking -- He's a MANIAC (1980), MANIAC (2012) on the floor

The horror community is abuzz right now over the upcoming release of IT, the glossy remake of the iconic 1990 miniseries. The full trailer dropped recently and depending on your feelings about the original film, you're either optimistic or deeply cynical towards what the new version will offer. Aside from some of the inherent flaws of modern blockbuster horror (gritty filters, jump scares, etc), I find the trailer to be promising and I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing the new film. But then, I'm usually open-minded when it comes to remakes. My peers in the community are less trusting of studios to redesign a classic, as they should be. We've been hurt before and we have every right to be bitter, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we should write off every makeover of something familiar. After all, if we can tolerate 400 different versions of Alice in Wonderland, surely we can be open to a new point of view on a single film.

That is why I have decided to start a new segment centered around this redheaded stepchild of a subgenre that is so near and dear to my heart: the horror remake. Welcome to Remaking, where we take a look at remakes, reboots, and reimaginings without getting really mad about it.

We can all agree that the best remakes go after material that isn't that well known or successful, films that were lacking in some way but still memorable and could use a second draft. John Carpenter's The Thing and David Cronenberg's The Fly are prime examples of this and are usually the first to reference when talking about beneficial remakes. Both directors took schlocky childhood favorites and brought them into the 80's with incredible special effects and gutting new pathos. They recognized that a relic of the atomic age could be reapplied to a new generation, old imagery being paralleled with modern fears.

Enter Maniac, possibly the most demonized slasher film of its time, and its perfect reapplication to the internet age.

Both films tell the same story. Frank is a lonely man who has a nasty habit of compulsively murdering women. He keeps mementos of them by taking their scalps and their clothes in order to decorate mannequins in their image. Over the course of the film, he builds a collection that begins to crowd his apartment with bloodied plastic ladies. He eventually meets a beautiful photographer and they start a seemingly sweet relationship. But Frank's demons continue to eat away at him as he whispers to his mannequins and suffers flashbacks from his traumatic childhood. We learn that Frank's mother was a neglectful prostitute and he is haunted by abuse from his broken home. The climaxes of the two films are different--both involve his girlfriend realizing what he is and all hell breaking loose--but it all ends with a mortally wounded Frank taking shelter in his apartment, only to watch his mannequins to come to screaming life and dismember him. The cops find Frank the next morning having succumbed to his wounds, his doll collection looking on in silence.

Don't let anyone tell you that either film is a fun watch. If Maniac were a carnival ride, it would be one that broke down years ago, boarded up and covered in "do not cross" signs. We, foolish thrill-seekers, hop the fence and get in the cart anyway, only to be slowly wheeled through a dark tunnel that we steadily realize isn't a ride at all but a tour through the cavernous home of a psychotic bum, and somehow he's been expecting us. The experience of watching the movie is much like taking the hand of a lunatic and letting him show you around his world. Try to smile politely when he introduces you to his girlfriends.

If there is one thing distinctive about the original Maniac that sets it apart from other grindhouse fare of its time is that it never loses focus off of Frank. A lesser film would spend more time getting to know the pretty ladies he's stalking, maybe check in at the police station for any hot leads, leaving time for only a few terrifying glimpses of our killer before the big showdown where the monster is finally vanquished. Maniac does not follow the rules, let alone narrative beats. The only outsiders we spend any amount of focus on happen to be victims of his stalking, seen through windows or looming just over their shoulder. What little we know about these doomed women is learned all while we're biting our nails waiting for Frank to strike. We don't get to see them as people with lives--only prey completely unaware that they're being hunted. We are in Frank's head, and that is where we must stay.

Sadly, this innovative point of view is precisely what sank the film. The only thing most critics took seriously about Maniac was its somber depiction of violence, adding it to an already substantial pile of slasher films to play scapegoat for all the modern world's problems, and dooming the film to a vile reputation even all these years later. (It always amuses me how critics have skewered just about every psycho killer movie as uncultured trash, yet still maintain that Halloween--the demon seed that arguably started this whole slasher craze--is untouchable, a masterpiece never to be rivaled in all the history of cinema.)

They failed to recognize that Frank is a far cry from other crazed villains seen before. He's not Norman Bates, with disarming good looks hiding a split personality. He's not Michael or Jason, bloodless immortal machines who kill without passion or reason. There are no pithy one-liners or philosophical musings or peals of evil laughter. Aside from Tom Savini's head getting blown off, there are no spectacular kills designed to titillate the audience. Compared to its flashy contemporaries, Maniac may be the most utterly joyless slasher film ever made.

Frank Zito is, in a word, conflicted. Yes, we see him slaughter and scalp women, but we also see the emotional turmoil he goes through in the aftermath. One of the first scenes in the original movie depicts Frank strangling a prostitute, only to instantly vomit and dissolve into sobs just after the light leaves her eyes. When we hear his inner thoughts, they are an untraceable blend of guilty conscience, crazed motivations, and somewhere in there, the remains of a man trying desperately to hold on to the last shreds of his humanity. He knows what he's doing is wrong and he hates himself for it, but he feels he has no choice. He's compelled, he's addicted.

His flavor of crazy stands out from the rest because he is so human. He has no distinct personality disorder we can prescribe, nor any single traumatic moment we can truly sympathize with, yet we do. There are many painful little moments in Frank's life that are almost too familiar--a gentle rejection from a love interest, a flippant comment from a stranger, a late night alone in an empty apartment. Perhaps that's why Maniac is such a hard watch: there's a moment, maybe several, that cause you to stop and say "I can relate to that." Maybe you didn't go and kill anybody over it, but Maniac suggests that none of us are as far away from it as we would like to be.

The 2012 remake took this "portrait of a serial killer" a step further by making the camera Frank's literal point of view. We as the audience become Frank, and for the next 90 minutes, we take on the everyday life of a demented killer. We see the twitches of pity and discomfort in other people's faces as they speak to Frank. We reel in confusion when terrible memories come to him. We see every moment of horror that he inflicts upon his victims, we experience every crazed outburst in the guilty aftermath, and we endure the company of his macabre housemates. We look in the mirror and we only see Frank. We are in his head, and that is where we must stay.

The most interesting difference between the films is in the physical appearances of the actors portraying Frank. The 1980 version's killer was a schlubby sweaty oaf, bulky with a weird face and haunted eyes, intimidating in every conceivable way. The kind of man any woman would be wary of passing on the street. The kind of man that causes the whole audience to point and say "Ooohhhh, that's him! There's the creep!" (No offense to the late great Joe Spinell. He's a fantastic actor and he cleans up just fine.)

Meanwhile in the 2012 version, we get a skinny nerd with an unsettling gaze. It reveals a lot about what has changed during the years between the films, how we have realized as a culture that our monsters do not always initially appear to be monstrous. And I'll just go ahead and get this off my chest: I've always found Elijah Wood to be a little creepy. I love the man, I like his work, he's a talented actor and seems like a perfectly nice guy. But there's always been something about him that seems...off.

Maybe it's those icy blue eyes of his--beautiful and chilling in their intensity--or maybe it's the way that sometimes his laugh sounds like the cackling of a perverted goblin. Yet at the same time, he's such a sweet-faced, slightly-built, soft-spoken man. He couldn't hurt a fly...or maybe that's just what he wants us to think. Somehow the 2012 version is more frightening for me because Elijah Wood is such an unassuming killer. This is the creeper of the new millennium. I've gone to school with that guy. Hell, I've dated that guy. That sweet babyface that hides something darker, that at any moment could go over the edge. Wood's Frank is that boy next door who seems a little weird but is probably harmless, but deep down you hope you never end up alone in a room with him.

 
To say Frank has issues with women would be putting it gently, and it is here that both films' most stunning set piece is put to brilliant use. Both films share the common element of mannequins bearing the bloody scalps of dead women posed around Frank's apartment. Grisly and beautiful, the mannequins are totems of Frank's sins and witnesses to his misery. They are his stand-ins for true companionship as well as his ultimate undoing.

Frank can't deal with living breathing women--to him, they only exist to torment: "Fancy girls, in their fancy dresses and lipstick, laughing and dancing...I know how it is with their hairs and their looks and they...they can drive a man crazy!" He tries instead to recreate them to suit his needs, taking the parts he likes and filling in the rest, stapling their essence to a plastic body he can pose to his liking. Still he knows they're no replacement, merely imitations of the creatures he so desperately pines for, yet can't connect with. He can't meet a woman or even DIY one without seeing them through his own broken lens, sticking himself in a cycle of longing and rejection that can only be quelled through violence.

Much like American Psycho, Maniac telegraphs its feelings about misogyny by marinating the audience in the worst of it, an approach that can and has been misinterpreted as a celebration of violence against women. But just like Patrick Bateman, Frank is no hero to anyone. He is a pathetic human being, his toxic view of women stemming directly from his own insecurities and twisted self-awareness. It's hard not to watch either version of Frank and hear echoes of men's right activists, and suddenly we're looking in on the private life of one of these guys that believes he is personally persecuted against by all the women around him. The message of the film really shines in Frank's final moments: he sees his mannequins become their living selves as they tear him apart like a doll, ripping open his flesh to reveal a plastic shell beneath. Perhaps only in that moment does Frank discover what he truly is: a creature that only appears to be human but houses a hollow chamber filled with angry voices.

Maniac was seen as another tasteless slasher upon original release, and until fairly recently was obscured by the deluge of similar video nasty titles of the time. The remake enjoyed mild success on the indie circuit, and word of mouth combined with a run on Netflix Instant escalated it to modern classic territory. It is a shame that the film didn't get the attention it deserved in 1980, or even now since the 2012 version is still considered something of a hidden gem. Both films attempt to express something deeper than hacking up pretty girls, but are so brutal in their execution that they almost go too deep. They are not slashers in the Friday the 13th sense, but something closer to Henry, an unrelenting examination of the grimiest pits of humanity. They are certainly not for those looking for a rollicking good time at the talkies, but highly recommended for the horror fan who is more fascinated by the what goes on inside a person's head than what comes out of it when it explodes.

All that being said, who doesn't love watching a head explode?

Period Pieces -- Movies to Watch When You're on the Rag

(Disclaimer: The following contains candid references to menstruation.)

It's that time of the month, ladies! I'm talking cramps, bloating, mood swings! I'm talking a typhoon of hormones and phantom baby rage let loose upon your uterus, with your own personal crime scene to admire every time you go to the bathroom! That's right, it's your period, and it's happy to see ya!

Despite the week-long maelstrom they bring with them, periods really are an amazing phenomenon. It's our uniquely feminine connection to the earth, the will of the tides, the waning of the moon. Even in such an unpleasant state, I can't help but get a sense of my feminine energy being recharged, this pain representing a sort of rebirth. My time of the month is when I feel most female, and that in itself is a beautiful thing.

All that being said, it still really fucking sucks. For me, the first day is always the worst. It's like a vampire is literally draining me dry from my most vulnerable place, taking all my energy with it. All I'm good for that horrible first day is curling up with a heating pad and watching some movies. And since I tend to watch stuff that fits my mood, this monthly celebration of womanhood deserves female-driven films dripping with blood. Here are some of my recommendations for your next camp out in the Red Tent.

CARRIE

The pinnacle of all period movies, Stephen King's Carrie as imagined by Brian de Palma is an absolute classic. But that's not the one I'm talking about. I love it to pieces, but it also makes me cry, and given my delicate state, I'm especially vulnerable to such emotional outbursts. So how do I enjoy the ultimate menstrual movie without weeping? Simply pop in the 2002 made-for-television remake and get ready to have some fun! This movie jazzes up Carrie's powers with bad CGI, beating the 2013 movie to the punch, and threw in a modern touch and a few jokes for extra flavor. The result still doesn't hold a candle to de Palma's masterpiece, but it's more like the Lifetime version of Carrie, cranking up the melodrama and tasking pretty good actors with terrible dialogue. Angela Bettis (May, The Woman) makes a fantastic Carrie, playing it as a true weirdo outcast, all wild hair and jittery meltdowns. Margaret White as portrayed by Patricia Clarkson (The Green Mile, Easy A) is somehow more chilling than ever, all soft soothing tones as she recites archaic verses before throwing a sudden cold slap to the face--plus the horrified way she says "Internet!" is truly priceless. Add appearances by horror alums Jodelle Ferland (Silent Hill) as a young Carrie and Katherine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps, American Mary) as one of the mean girls, and you've got yourself a fine addition to the long line of King adaptations that tried to be truer to the book and ended up forgotten by everyone but thinkpiece writers who grew up with cable.

GINGER SNAPS

Let's see how Katherine Isabelle likes it when she gets a period! Another great film where the plot is kicked off by someone's first blood, Ginger Snaps takes the idea of menstruation and blossoming womanhood and turns it rabid. I don't know anyone who enjoys getting their period, but I certainly didn't know anyone in school who never wanted one in the first place. It's a rite of passage, a sign of growing up, and something every girl wants to experience at some point. From Ginger and Bridget's point of view, becoming a woman and becoming a monster are one and the same. Neither of them intend to grow up, or at least go anywhere the other won't follow. When Ginger is bitten by a werewolf on the eve of her first period and has no choice but to become both, the true horror emerges from how much she likes it. She's suddenly more interested in boys than having suicide photoshoots with her sister. She relishes the power that comes with this body, but when it begins to turn on her, she is powerless to stop it. You could pick apart the parallels between lycanthropy and femininity all day, from a body charged by the moon to a hunger for sex that borders on bloodlust. Ginger Snaps pulls all the humor and tragedy of The Curse together into one sweet package.

TEETH

I think every girl has felt the storm brewing inside her once a month and wondered what her ladybits could be capable of if given the right tools to lash out. Teeth takes a legend as old as time and puts it in the modern day, hilariously bestowing vagina dentata upon a young abstinence advocate. This is another about the geyser of complications that comes with budding womanhood, most of it stemming from the chaos going on in your nethers. Teeth beautifully renders one of the more delicate horrors of being a teenage girl, especially growing up with a Christian identity. You aspire to purity and marriage while the motives of the mystery in your pants invades your every other thought, and should you choose to act on those desires, you face a multitude of risks even more severe than sinner's guilt. Dawn (Jess Weixler) has one of the most satisfying arcs I've seen in a horror film--starting out as a timid girl afraid of the potential of her own body, coming away at the end transformed into a liberated, powerful praying mantis of a woman with one hell of a secret weapon.

EXCISION

What woman hasn't discovered an especially gnarly glob of raspberry jam in her panties and taken a second to marvel at the repulsive wonders of the human body? A polar opposite to the protagonist of Teeth, Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord) is fascinated by her own body, right down to the gory details. One of the unsung heroines of feminist horror, Pauline makes every effort to reject any hint of traditional femininity. She's enamored with blood, purposefully unkempt and gleefully crass, most of her antics in direct rebellion against her prim mother (Traci Lords). When she decides to lose her virginity, she marches right up to her chosen mate and bluntly declares her intentions. What she doesn't mention is that she's scheduled their hookup during the heaviest day of her flow. The tryst that follows is a highlight in a film that's stuffed with amazing moments, cutting between the blood-soaked passion pit in Pauline's head and the squelchy reality in a dingy motel room. The disgusting delights of this film only escalate from there. In an industry that's lousy with flawless hotties being hot for hotness' sake, it's so refreshing to have a female protagonist that is just a powerhouse of gross and flaunts it shamelessly. For once, the outcast girl is not the shrinking violet in need of some gentle soul to notice her, but instead a sexually-charged psychopath who dreams in giallo gore. Definitely the kind of girl I can get behind when I'm feeling a weird mix of profoundly unattractive, inexplicably horny and capable of terrible things.

JENNIFER'S BODY

Ever get to a point in your cycle where you just want to rip a man apart based on the simple truth that he doesn't have to deal with this shit? And does that thought lead to remembering all the other things men don't have to deal with, like catcalls and bra shopping and sneezing right after applying mascara and systematic oppression dating back to time immemorial and suddenly you find yourself staring daggers at your fiance and digging your fingernails into your thigh to keep from scratching his eyes out? Or is that just me? Anyway, Jennifer's Body is a great way to take that fantasy for a walk and have a few laughs along the way. Jennifer (Megan Fox) is the girl we all hated in high school, outrageously beautiful with her pick of any boy she lays her sultry blue eyes upon, her seductive ways hiding a fragile ego and girlish naivete. When a satanic ritual goes sour because she lies about being a virgin, Jennifer develops demonic powers and starts feeding on local boys, working her way toward the one thing she could never have: her best friend's boyfriend. Jennifer's Body has some interesting things to say about the more poisonous aspects of female friendship, despite a few kinks in the flow (I'm looking at you, girl on girl makeout scene that was only included for the misleading trailers and you know it), but like Ginger Snaps it speaks to the little ways girls can grow apart as they grow up, sometimes over something as petty as our own insecurities. At the end of the day, it's just so much fun to watch lovely Megan Fox unhinge her jaw and slurp up boy blood, and it's a lot healthier than taking out those jolts of misandry on the men in your life.

THE DESCENT

Six women go spelunking into an uncharted cave full of dead ends, tight tunnels, deep pools, and unknowable darkness. If you've studied your literary analysis, you'll recognize this as six characters in search of an exit from a giant vagina. (The sheer imagery of the blood swamp at the climax is enough to give any menstrual girl a nagging sense of deja vu.) Make those characters kick ass women--each with a well established personality and active purpose among the group as well as driving motivation based on interpersonal relationships with one another as well as survival--and you really can't get much more girl power than that. Throw some mole people into an already harrowing situation and we've got a wild ride ahead. This film is so intense and definitely the biggest downer of the list, but it's hard not to get jazzed up watching these women dangle over chasms by their bare hands and wriggle through tunnels with little more than a "woohoo!" once they get to the other side. It's not many horror movies that can claim to be more terrifying before the monsters show up, but The Descent understands that the true horrors come from what you bring with you down into the cave. (That's another vagina metaphor for you.)

DUMPLINGS

With all the age-reversal pills and potions on any given skin care aisle, it's enough to drive any woman insane searching for the ultimate product that would return everything she has lost between the lines on her face. It's hard to shake the feeling that maybe the answer lies in a more ancient, infinitely more barbaric solution. Effortlessly cool spinster Aunt Mei (Bai Ling) has a business selling homemade dumplings guaranteed to restore beauty and vitality to the women who eat them. The only catch is that the secret ingredient is a bit hard to come by...aborted fetuses don't just grow on trees. When one of her customers, Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeung), craves a stronger product, Mei tells her the only solution is a rarer variety of meat--one that comes at an unspeakable cost. Dumplings examines the roles women are expected to fill--to be beautiful and to bear children--and wonders what happens when a woman chooses priority of one over the other, and what she would do to keep what she has worked so hard to claim. Feminine fears are in injected into every frame of the film, from the paranoid suspicion of a husband's infidelity, to the profound horror of realizing that you are the source of that strong fishy smell wafting through the room. Plus it's hard not to notice the delicious imagery of fetuses being re-purposed as filling for suggestively shaped pillows of dough. Whether you choose to watch the original short included in Three...Extremes (which I recommend) or the full-length film, this movie is a deliciously uncomfortable journey through the body when we see it as magic, a vessel charged by the power we feed to it.

So how ya doing, champ? Has the storm subsided, or does it still feel like goblins are chasing cave divers through your guts? Pop another Midol and take a hot bath, you beautiful menstrual monster, and never be ashamed of what you're going through. We may not be able to discuss Shark Week at the water cooler, but we can at least feel that female power and inherent understanding through the movies, the bloodier the better. Never forget the ancient power given to you, how it has frightened and fascinated men across the ages, and always remember that if you can withstand this torment from within, you can face anything waiting for you out there. Solidarity, my sisters! Let us not bleed alone!