Dog Farm Takeover - The Info Zombie Celebrates Jeffrey Combs

      Greetings to all the fine pooches of Movies at Dog Farm.  This is your temporary (g)host, the Info Zombie.  There is nothing wrong with your web browser. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. I am controlling transmission. If I wish to make it louder, I will bring up the volume. If I wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. I will control the horizontal. I will control the vertical. I can roll the image, make it flutter. I can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the text below, sit quietly and I will control all that you see and hear. I repeat: there is nothing wrong with your Dog Farm. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery that reaches from the inner mind of The Info Zombie to — The Outer Limits. 
 

     Or at least the Dog Farm, anyway.

Jeffrey Combs as Dr. Herbert West, Re-Animator

     In true Halloween fashion, Brandon and I are switching bodies.  Bodies of text, that is.  I am submitting this to the Dog Farm readers, and Brandon will cook up something good for those hungering for brainy stuff at The Info Zombie.  Since Brandon does such an admirable job examining horror movies, I will not try to emulate the outstanding work he produces.  Instead, I will celebrate a horror movie icon.

     Let’s give a strong, Dog Farm bark to Jeffrey Combs.

     Trained on the West Coast, Combs graduated University of Washington’s performing arts program and transitioned to the stage.  In 1981 he appeared in his first film role as the drive-in teller in Honky Tonk Freeway.  From that nominal role grew a career of being the most recognizable face in horror films.

     Combs, best known for the Re-Animator series, has appeared in five adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft works.  Splitting time between stage, television, and film, the actor has portrayed some of the great authors including Edgar Allan Poe, Lovecraft, and even L. Frank Baum.  He’s been in space on Star Trek and even animated in several forms including The Question of The Justice League, and the Autobot Ratchet.

Jeffrey Combs has portrayed (from left to right) author Edgar Allan Poe, the alien Shran on Star Trek: Enterprise, and the voice of The Question on The Justice League

     A go-to actor for Stuart Gordon, others including Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson tapped the actor for some small roles made big courtesy of Combs.  He often plays the determined, quiet type with a severe intensity.  Combs’ portrayal of Herbert West crafted the archetypal performance of the eccentric genius.  Even his delivery in the forgettable Would You Rather (2013) comes off with an undercurrent of odd that causes hairs to stand erect.  Watch House on Haunted Hill (1999) to get Combs delivering a nightmare generating performance sans dialogue.  His stare from behind Dr. Vannacutt’s surgical mask holds the intensity of a bullet in the chamber on a one-way ride.

As Dr. Vannacutt in House On Haunted Hill (1999)

     Although his career has since shifted to voice overs for cartoons, the star has performed in short films, video games, and theme park rides.  As of this article’s production, Combs will be appearing in films like Art School of Horrors (2015).  This year will mark the thirty-third of film work for this actor celebrating six decades of quality living.

     We can’t get Jeffery Combs an Academy Award©, but we can do the man a solid by visiting his website, renting his movies, and giving the man some notice on social media.  Don’t let someone who has entertained us so well go on without some slight recognition.  If you catch him at a Horror Con, let him know how you appreciate his work.  Best of all, a spike in his movie sales and rentals will show the industry that we know how to treat our valued actors.

     We now return you to your regularly scheduled Dog Farm.  As we say over in the scholar’s cemetery, Keep rising from the graves of ignorance, my Zombies!

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     Thanks for sharing with the Dog Farm, Carl!  My post for The Info Zombie is forthcoming...
 

MADF Update: Lord Of Tears (2012)

The Owl Man Cometh!

    Lord Of Tears is gathering steam.  One particularly exciting development is that the movie has been accepted into the San Diego Comic Fest for a screening in October.  Even better news:  you can pre-order your copy here and see it months before that.  You want to be on the bleeding edge of the new hotness, right?
 
    Director Lawrie Brewster was kind enough to provide the Dog Farm with some fantastic pics of the movie's creepy Owl Man taken at a Victorian Children's Hospital.  If you really like that iconic Owl Man costume - and you know you do - it could be yours for a price.  Check out the details at the link for pre-orders  above.

     The trailer has garnered praise from some genre heavy hitters, as well.  Much to my delight, a quote from the humble Dog Farm has somehow been posted on the Lord Of Tears Kickstarter page above a quote from Barbara (Re-Animator, From Beyond) Crampton.  How can I not support a project that's done me the solid of putting me on top of the lovely Ms. Crampton?  Cheers, Mr. Brewster.

Movies At Dog Farm Slips On A Bloody Banana Peel - Funny, Yes?

 "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
                                                                                                - Mel Brooks

Fisting in New Zealand!  Dead Alive (1992)

     I'm courting disaster by attempting to define a subgenre, but I struggled with devising post topics for the Ultimate Gore-A-Thon  because I wasn't really sure what I felt defined a gore movie.  The term always makes me think first of movies that use graphic, over-the-top violence to comedic effect - movies like Re-Animator (1985), Evil Dead II (1987), or Dead Alive (1992).  So why is that?

How are those eyebrows not funny?  Blood Feast (1963)

     Well, maybe it's because Herschell Gordon Lewis is the Godfather of Gore, and I can't help but giggle every time I watch one of his movies.  Granted, he was initially just fishing around for a hook when the popularity of the nudies he was producing began to wane, but I find it nearly impossible to watch his seminal Blood Feast (1963) and imagine that the absurdly exaggerated violence on display was seriously intended.  The campy, po-faced presentation of all that luridly colorful gore is precisely why his movies have endured.  You're either in on the gag, or you're not.  If you're not, then you're probably offended.

     To me, the key distinguishing characteristic of a gore movie is that it's more concerned with the aftermath than the action.  A gore movie isn't as concerned with the violent act as it is with the bloody red remains of said act.  A gore movie is determined to let the camera linger lovingly on the mess.  A gore movie is the cinematic equivalent of your buddy blowing his nose, then spreading the tissue wide and saying, "Hey!  Look at this!"
 

Doesn't like fart jokes.  Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

    You know it will be gross, but you can't not look.  It's a testament to your own constitution if you can look and just laugh it off - juvenile, but also comedic.  Comedic gore is a fart in a crowded elevator, intended to either make you snicker like a ten year old or to turn away in disgust because your sensibilities are too fine.  I like a good fart joke.  Funny is funny.  If you laugh, it was funny - no further analysis necessary.  If you've got too big a stick up your ass to enjoy a good fart joke, you're probably not going to like gore movies, either.

    So what's your definition of a gore movie?  Is it movies like Saw (2004) or Hostel (2005) that plumb the depths of photorealistic carnage?  Or maybe it's the elegant beauty of Dario Argento's stylized ultra-violence?  How about tacky cannibal gut-munchers like Cannibal Holocaust (1980) or perhaps the graphic extremities of nearly unclassifiable genre fare like Excision or American Mary (2012)?  If it's the indisputably comedic gore of Japanese genre movies like Machine Girl (2008) or RoboGeisha (2009), maybe you're seeing the same dark humor I am.

     A valid argument can be made for any of these movies epitomizing the gore genre.  I suspect my compatriots in the Gore-A-Thon will address many of these titles with their own posts over the next two weeks.  I look forward to reading them as much as I hope you do.  Shower me in blood, folks!  Help me up from the floor if I slip in the puddled gore!

     . . . but only after you've enjoyed a good laugh at the expense of my personal tragedy, of course.

     By the way, who farted?

A head giving head - the funniest visual pun in any movie ever!  Plus, it gives me an excuse to show Barbara Crampton nude!  Re-Animator (1985) Click the title for an extended clip.