"Scream Queens" Episode 2.2: Glen Powell and John Stamos compare dicks at a sinister hospital. Also, there's a serial killer. And some butts.

 I was recommended Glen Powell's shower scene in Episode 2.2 of the horror-comedy Scream Queens.  I watched ten minutes of the first episode when it premiered in 2015, and turned it off, but for a shower-scnee, why not give it another chance?

The premise: this is a genre-bending horror-comedy about a serial killer stalking co-eds, all named Chanel, with the headmistress played by Jaime Lee Curtis, the Last Girl from Halloween.  

Scene 1: In the last episode, a swamp monster played by Jeremy Batiste killed a patient at the C.U.R.E. Institute, where "the incurable are curable." Wait, I thought we were at a college. The cop is not impressed, and thinks that Outcast Chanel did it. Evil Dean Munsch, played by Jaime Lee Curtis, thinks that the cop  is an idiot.

The other two Chanels also think that Outcast Chanel did it, out of frustration because she's so ugly no one will screw her: "The closest shes gotten to sex is when a bookshelf fell on her."  Why, did it have a book about sex? I don't get the joke.   And jealous because they scored hot dates with the Sleazoid Doctors, Brock and Cascade(Taylor Lautner, John Stamos, left).

Scene 2: The Sleazoid Doctors and Chanels are interviewing Tyler, played by Colton Haynes, who is covered with large orange tumors. Actually not disgusting.  So the Chanels have graduated with nursing degrees, and all gone to work at the Institute, and the headmistress became their boss?  That's not at all unlikely.   

His  regular doctors say that it is incurable, but the Sleazoid Doctors think that they can remove the tumors with a CO2 Laser.  Except they're are too expensive; there aren't any at the center. So just transfer him to a facility that has one.

Scene 3: A non-Chanel nurse and Chamberlain, played by James Earl, wonder why, if Evil Dr. Munsch was upstairs during the murders, she didn't hear the screams and growling?  She must be in on it.

Last season, she was in charge of a college, and plotted some crazy stuff, but the Chanels foiled her plan.  Dr. Munsch must have brought them here for revenge, sending the swamp monster  to pick them off one by one. So, what are her qualifications?  All she has is the honorary Ph.D. that the University of Pittxburgh took from Bill Cosby.

Scene 4:  Sleazoid Doctor #1 on his movie date with the Head Chanel. She reveals her favorite hobby: dropping popcorn on the floor, so the fatties feel bad about themselves.  He loves the idea!  

Meanwhile, Orange Boy and Outcast Chanel bond over stories of being the outcast in their cliques. He shows her a picture from before the orange tumors: he was hot!  She vows to get him the money for the CO2 Laser. 

More screaming after the break

"The Ritual": Guys lost in a bleak, cold woods with desperation-hugs, human sacrifice, and dicks from another movie

 

When American filmmakers want to set their horror movies in someplace remote and scary, they choose Appalachia.  Apparently the British choose Sweden.  First I saw Midsommer (2019), where some unsuspecting college students stumbled upon an ancient human-sacrifice cult in rural Sweden. Now-- or rather, previously -- The Ritual (2017), four unsuspecting middle-aged men stumble upon an ancient human sacrifice cult in rual Sweden.

The men are:

1. Phil, played by Arsher Ali, who gave us a nude scene in Beaver Falls.  

2. Hutch (Robert James-Collier).  James-Collier agreed to play a gay character in Downton Abbey because he needed a job, without realizing how horrible it would be -- people thought he was actually gay in real life!  Plus it ruined his career.  He's relegated to roles in trash like...um...The Ritual.

3. Sam Troughton, top photo, who has played gay characters several times.

4. Philip Hulford as the Monster.

Dicks from another movie after the break

"Saltburn": "Brideshead Revisited" for the post-gay genearation, with kink and penises

Whenever possible, I check out plot synopses, reviews, and trailers before watching a movie. Since Amazon Prime has been pushing Saltburn , I checked the reviews: "a spectacularly crafted masterpiece"; "brilliant"; "sick, savage, and satisfying"; "vibes forward" (I don't know what that means); "a febrile thriller."  Sounds like a mishmash of Brideshead Revisted and The Talented Mr. Ripley, a poor (well, middle class) boy longing for the unstated homoerotic tensions and sybaritic excesses of the Polo Club crowd.  Except set in 2016, not the Georgian Era.

Some of the reviews contained plot synopses, which allowed me to make my decision: don't watch, don't even look at a trailer.  Here's why. 

1.  The focus character, sort of, is decadent Oxford richster Felix, seen here eating a popsicle and reading a Harry Potter book like a modern day Sebastian Flyte.  He's played by Jacob Elordi, a bad boy in Euphoria.

. 

2, Felix feels sorry for the sob stories of  poor-but-honest classmate Oliver (Barry Keoghan, who has received awards and appeared on a list of the greatest living Irish actors),  So "Come out to Brideshead...um, Saltburn with me."

Oliver doesn't want to date Felix, he wants to be him.  So he does something too disgusting to mention here.  Really, really disgusting.   I'm not kink shaming: probably 3/4ths of the population will get physically sick just by reading about it, but if it's your thing, fine.   Why not just give him a blow job?

3, Felix conquered, it's time to coerce Cousin Farleigh(Archie Madkwe) into sex.  Then Felix's sister, with another really, really disgusting kink.  

4. Felix gets tired of the lies, deceptions, and disgusting kink, and orders Oliver to leave Saltburn.  But Cousin Farleigh ends up dead.  Then Felix!  Now, of course, Oliver has to stay to find more family members to do disgusting kink with. Then Venetia kills herself!

5. Oliver is running out of family members.  He tries to seduce Mom, but she refuses.  Wait, dude, you forgot Dad and the Butler  Then Dad, tired of the lies, deception, and dead family members, bribes Oliver to leave.  He does.

6, But when Dad dies, Oliver returns, forces Mom to sign Saltburn over to him, and kills her.  Now he is the master of Saltburn, so he dances around naked.  

Actually, this looks sort of interesting, an a post-gay, everybody-does-everybody way.  Maybe I'll watch, but skip over the disgusting kink scenes. Or I'll just fast forward to the last scene with Barry Keoghan dancing naked like a sybaritic sycophant.

Dicks after the break

"The Final Girls": Psycho-slasher parody with two queer characters and Adam Devine's bulge

In The Final Girls (2015), not to be confused with Final Girl (2015), actress Amanda and her daughter Max are driving home from an audition that she bombed.  She complains that she is typecast as a "scream queen" due to a role in the famous psycho-slasher movie, Camp Bloodbath, back in the 1980s.  She was the Final Girl, the one who didn't have sex, and therefore got to live.  

But not in real life: at that moment, they get into a car crash.  Mom dies!  

 Three years later, Max is in college, studying with her Love Interest Chris (Alexander Ludwig) and a couple of female friends, when horror fan Duncan (Thomas Middleditch, below) talks them into going to a midnight showing of the movie and its sequel.

Remember, Max is still mourning her mother.  Why go to a movie where a psycho-slasher is trying to kill a younger version of her?  But she goes.  Otherwise be lousy story.

Suddenly, zap!  They are trapped in the movie...and the psycho-slasher is stalking them, too!  They have to use their wits and knowledge of the genre to defeat him.

The first character they meet is Kurt (Adam Devine), an obnoxious jock with the inflated ego and braggadochio of Adam's usual characters, but much more mean-spirited.  He is also apparently bisexual -- he hits on boys and girls both, and thinks that gays "have a cool lifestyle."  Interestingly, instead of a homophobic slur, he tells Chris to "suck a turd." 

Like most psycho-slashers in the movies of the 1980s, Billy (Daniel Norris) targets teenagers having sex, so so when Kurt strips down to his bulge while his girlfriend waits in the next room, Chris the Love Interest rushes in to distract him.  Try showing him your dick -- oh, wait, the killer is attracted to gay sex, too.

The other queer character is Blake (Tory N. Thompson), who also black.  You know what happens to the black guy in psycho-slasher movies, right? Gulp! 

Next the visitors from our universe try warning the characters about the psycho-slasher.  Remember, Max is interacting with the movie version of her own mother, so she'd rather not see her skewered.

The plan backfires: everyone runs away screaming.  

Kurt and his girlfriend try to drive away, but they hit a totem pole and die (Kurt is pretzeled).   But in the original movie, they survived!  The intruders have tampered with the plot, and now all the rules are off.  No one will survive.

Well, some survive.  You'll have to watch the movie to find out who. 

Beefcake: Quite a lot of Adam.

Heterosexism: No one actually has sex, for obvious reasons. Some girl boobs.

Queer Characters: Kurt and Blake,  through queer codes instead of self-identification.  But this is supposed to be the 1980s, when you were lucky to get that much representation.  Writers M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller are a gay couple, and speaking to their own experiences as horror fans.  

My grade: A-

J. Gaven Wilde and the Stalker: How many pervs can one small town hold?

 

I heard that J. Gaven Wilde wrote, directed, and stars in a movie about a cannibal stalking South Carolina.  It might be interesting to see the work of a young screenwriter, so I looked it up:  Stalker (2020) on Amazon Prime.  Or so I thought....

Scene 1: A scary brutalist office building.  Bad boss Steve (Chad Ayers) calls his wife with an scheme to get out of their financial problems: fire Marc and steal his bonus!  We don't see Marc's face or hear his voice as Steve tells him that a woman filed a sexual harassment complaint against him, so he's fired.  Wait -- wouldn't Marc contact human resources, which would want to interview the woman, and Steve's story would fall apart instantly?

As Marc storms out, Steve chortles with glee over his villainy.  

Scene 2: One year later, Thursday.  Steve's wife Wendy drives up to their elegant Tudor house and finds a vase of flowers on the front porch: "To my love, see you soon!"  Steve comes in, and she demonstrates her latest self-defense move.  This will be important later.

Steve wants to know who brought the flowers. "But...I thought you...no, no, no!"  Wendy calls the police to report some guy who's been leaving notes on her car and sending her flowers.  But he never threatens her, so there's nothing they can do.

She sees a flashlight outside, grabs a gun, and rushes out to shoot and kill -- the meter reader!  The Stalker calls: "Did you think it would be that easy?  Our fun has just begun!"  He examines a photograph of the family.

Scene 3:  These are bad dudes, not the least remorseful over killing an innocent man.  They simply load the body into the trunk to dispose of.  Whoops, their teenage sons, Hayden (Jimmy Ace Lewis, left) and Josh (J. Gaven Wilde, below), want to know what's going on!  

"We're going to the lake house.  Load up the luggage, but not in the trunk!" 

Scene 4: The Stalker breaks into a house where a scruffy guy (Leon Lewis) has fallen asleep in front of the tv, and smothers him to death.  I guess so he'll be close to Steve and Wendy's lake house.  Definitely not the guy who was fired in Scene 1. He'd be going after Steve, not harassment-flirting with Wendy.

Not-fun fact: If  you search for "Leon Lewis" on Google, you get a thousand pictures of a half-naked woman.  Who knew that Leon was a girl's name.

Meanwhile, Steve and Wendy arrive at the lake house, send the kids inside, and go off to bury the hapless meter reader in the woods. 

Scene 5: Friday. An interminable shot of the lake and a mailbox. Wendy cooks breakfast: scrambled eggs and nothing else.  Ugh! You get a better free breakfast at Holiday Inn.  The boys want to know what they are doing at the lake house. "Having fun. Shut up."  But Hayden is missing a big party, and Josh is missing a big soccer  game. "Tough. You're not going."

Scene 6: An interminable aerial shot of the town. Pizza Perv (Troy Fromin, who is apparently heterosexual) leaps out of his car, licks his hair, and holds the door of the Donut King open for Wendy.  He trots in after her, smells her hair, and photographs her butt.  Instead of punching him, Wendy promises to order from his pizza place for dinner.  She gets a call from the cable guy, and gives him her address loud enough for Pizza Perv to write it down. Not a suspect -- the stalker already knows where she lives, and besides, he's as dumb as a fence post. Why steal her address when she'll give it to him when she orders the pizza?

She orders two dozen donuts -- six each!  

Scene 7: Josh, the younger son, goes next door to invite Mr. Walker (the dead guy) to dinner.  The Stalker left him there instead of disposing of the body.  He even left the tv on.  No answer, so Josh leaves, and the Stalker peers out from behind the blinds.  Darn, I thought he would attack Josh.

Meanwhile, Cable Perv (Jared M. Reeder) knocks on the door, looking for Wendy.  Steve is suspicious, but he explains that he is the cable guy. 

 Still creepy, though: he congratulates Steve on landing such a "nice lady,"  fondles her photograph, and asks "So you and the boy are gone all day, leaving the beautiful lady alone, snark snark."  Is every guy in town absurdly over-creepy?  How do they keep their jobs?

Scene 8:  Josh, the younger son, is canoeing by himself. Always take a buddy, dude.  Uh-oh, a perv is watching him.  He runs home, terrified.  His parents dismiss his concerns: "It was just a deer."  Wait, you know you're being stalked, but you don't believe that your kid is being watched?  I'm getting more annoyed with these people than I was at the murder. 

Scene 9: Wendy actually orders a pizza from the Pizza Perv who smelled her hair and photographed her butt. He tells his associates "Don't wait up," certain that he's going to get laid.  

Meanwhile, a buddy is on the phone with Hayden, the oldest, trying to convince him to duck out and come to the party.  "There will be girls there!"  Teenage boys do everything in order to meet or impress girls, got it.  The buddy will even come and pick him up.  Isn't it like, hours away?

When Pizza Perv knocks on the door, the boys answer.  But he will only give the pizzas to Wendy, because she wants his bod.  Wendy is actually nice to him, but shuts the door before he can get around to requesting sex. 

More after the break