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Horror Fuel

Cynema: Based On A True Story (Sort Of)

Inspired By True Events “Based On A True Story” “Based On True Events” “Most Of What You Are About to See Is True” “Some Of This Is Bullshit” “The Names Have Been Changed, Certain Dialogue Has Been Made Up” “We Have An Agenda And We Want to Entertain You” “You’ve Become So Ignorant to Real Events, You Wouldn’t Know What Was Real Anyway. Just Go With It” The Los Angeles Times recently ran a disturbing article on an equally disturbing trend quietly seeping into filmmaking. It’s been for some time, but as the general population falls into a deeper sleep, it’s almost imperceptible. The article is found HERE. The focus was the acclaimed “biopic” on Steve Jobs and is the latest film to take swipes at a dead man unable to defend himself. History is told by the winner. Or the one’s who control the information. Columbus Day has come under revisionist fire, seen as the celebration of a man

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Oct 13, 2015
Horror Fuel

An Open Letter to New Line “Cynema”: Take A Stab At Something Different

To: New Line Cinema From: B Harrison Smith Re: Friday the 13th: Tommy Jarvis vs. Jason Vorhees Make Tommy vs. Jason. You’re sitting a goldmine. I am told the rights to Friday the 13th are a mess. Paramount owns some, you own some. Some are parceled out to TV while the films retain others and the characters. I’ve heard one tale that both studios share custody over the franchise like a divorced couple. I have no idea if this is true. What I do know is that the ownership of rights has become so convoluted that no one seems to have a definitive answer. The legal octopus is strangling you from making another killing and I’m willing to bet it could be straightened out. At the risk of shooting myself in the foot and giving away my thoughts for someone to steal, here is a proposal to get Jason out of development hell. I attended two meetings in Los Angeles

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Oct 6, 2015
Horror Fuel

Video Game Review: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

“V has come to” is how the game begins. Such a simple phrase and yet has so much behind it. Minutes after “V has come to” the game ascends and shows us what we have in store. Big Boss, our main protagonist awakens from a 9 year coma in a hospital in Cyprus missing an arm and having a large chunk of shrapnel lodged in his head, Big Boss’ awakening is only cut short when the hospital is invaded by a covert military force dubbed “XOF” on the hunt to kill him. With the help of a mysterious man named “Ishmal” Big Boss is able to escape a narrow death. Soon later the halls of the hospital begin to fill with smoke and fire when suddenly a man covered in head to toe in fire arrives in the hospital and begins searching for Big Boss. The Man on Fire has Big Boss in his clutches until the “XOF” force returns

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Oct 1, 2015
Horror Fuel

Robert Altman & Popeye vs. Cynema

To Clear A Few Things Up A few myths need to be dispelled about the 1980 Robin Williams film, Popeye. It was NOT a boxoffice failure. It was made for 20 million and grossed well over 60 million. While deemed a “disappointment” by Paramount Pictures, it hardly failed. 2. It is NOT Robin Williams’s worst film. I will argue it is his best, hands down. Like Williams and its director, the film paid a price for breaking away from formula. Popeye is fucking art, so there, I said it. Popeye fought Cynema and lost the first few battles, but I think it won the war. It was Robin Williams’s first film, and almost his last. It’s been called a mess, incomprehensible, a misfire, a disaster and a bomb. Bear with me as I show how this unique film stands up against Cynema. I’ll also lay out how this film reflects the present attitudes between industry and audience. Years after I

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Sep 19, 2015
Horror Fuel

The 90s: Designer Horror

Jordache Horror Somewhere in the 80s, someone got the idea that horror should be less frightening and more sexy and trendy. I am not sure where it happened, but a good starting point might be Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The “World Premiere Video” back when MTV aired videos and before its implosion was the thing to see. Director John Landis was in between the smash hit horror classic, An American Werewolf in London and the public relations nightmare of Twilight Zone: The Movie. Michael Jackson was truly The King of Pop, and his LP, Thriller elevated MTV into something else…exactly what, I don’t know, but Thriller was more than a video. It was a pop culture event and it used horror as its spring board. Vincent Price became known to a the Pepsi Generation as “the old dude who “rapped” in Thriller and laughed at the end. Academy Award winner and makeup genius, Rick Baker did the makeup effects and suddenly

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Sep 1, 2015
Horror Fuel

Consuming Cynema PART II

The Remake The road to the remake is a winding one. There is no clear pathway toward the answer of whether they are good or bad, needed or unwanted. They exist. They will continue to be made because there is demand. My previous article opened with a quote from George Bush’s post 9-11 speech which hinted at “living life” is a series of consuming events that follow an image that has been dictated to us by a media assault that has shaped us since birth. So what does that have to do with filmmaking and entertainment? Does art imitate life or the other way around? Why is Disney the Mecca of family vacations? Who said women are to look a certain way, smoking is glamorous, drinking a soda makes you like Michael Jackson or Beyonce? We have a new generation growing up with incredible access to entertainment. Cell phones, tablets, video game systems and computers allow instant access to everything,

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Aug 24, 2015
Horror Fuel

Big Apes, Big Cynema

Dino! “When Jaws die, nobody cry . When my Kong die, everybody cry.” – Dino DeLaurentiis, producer Younger viewers have almost no idea who legendary producer Dino DeLaurentiis was. Some saw him as the Italian forerunner of Michael Bay; creator of expensive, big budget, soulless films followed by similar producers like Alexander and Ilya Salkind, Peter Guber and Jon Peters, Jerry Bruckheimer as well as Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. DeLaurentiis said this about his humble beginnings in film: “After the war, there was no industry. We lost the war. We had our whole city destroyed. No money. No studio. No film. No camera. No equipment. We would shoot in the street. We had no actors. Nothing. But we wanted to do movies. And we did the best movies in the world. If you lived in a provincial town like Torre Annunziata, where there was nothing to do in the evening but go to the movies with your friends, the

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Aug 21, 2015
Horror Fuel

Cynema: Godzilla vs. Gino

Go Go Godzilla “We spared no expense.” – Sir Richard Attenborough, Jurassic Park Rumors circulated Hollywood since the early 1990’s of an American Godzilla movie. Writers and directors left the project and by 1996, Toho and Sony/Tri Star came to terms and the producing team of Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich were anointed to bring a full fledged American Godzilla film to the US masses. He would attack New York City; it would boast a big name cast and incorporate state of the art visual effects. There would be no man in a giant rubber suit in this film since Jurassic Park raised the bar for giant reptilian creatures. Toho Knew In the wake of the successful 2014 reboot (which had its own issues), it seems like a cheap shot to take yet another swipe at the much maligned (and deservedly so) 1998 mess. This time it’s to see how this film fits the Cynema paradigm. It’s not Godzilla, it

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Aug 20, 2015
Horror Fuel

Jaws the Worst

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Reviews The picture above is a series of stills from the ending of “Jaws The Revenge.” People rip on Ed Wood’s hubcaps and pie tin flying saucer’s in his “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” However, Wood had about 200 bucks for his effects budget. “Jaws The Revenge” had about six million and you get what’s in that picture? Cynema: The cynical contempt for an audience in the making of product that is devoid of creativity, passion, production value or respect while having the financial and creative means to do better. This Time It’s Ridiculous…Imagine you are sitting in an office at Universal Studios. You approve film projects pitched to you. Here’s the challenge. Without any knowledge of the previous Jaws films, someone pitches you the plot for a fourth installment to the famous shark series. Would you or wouldn’t you give 20 million dollars to make this movie? Here’s the pitch: “We get Lorraine

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Aug 15, 2015
Horror Fuel

Cynema: Ed Wood–Hollywood’s Whipping Boy

No Respect Apparently Michael Medved, the respected film critic gets the credit with dubbing Edward Wood, Jr. the “worst director of all time” by referring to Wood’s crowning film achievement, Plan Nine From Outer Space as perhaps the worst motion picture ever made. This is not only to come to the late Mr. Wood’s defense, but to also show how off the mark Mr. Medved was in his 1980 book The Golden Turkey Awards. Wood is the antithesis of Cynema–his passion and love for film makes him one of Hollywood’s greatest directors. Say what you want about Plan Nine, Bride of the Monster or Glen or Glenda…bad films, yes. Bad directing, absolutely. However Ed Wood was not a cynic. This column will show why films like Jaws The Revenge, Godzilla 1998 and other big budget films are far worse than anything Ed Wood ever put out, including Plan 9. By many accounts, including his own, Plan 9 From Outer Space

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Aug 14, 2015

More from Product

Horror Fuel

Cynema: Based On A True Story (Sort Of)

Inspired By True Events “Based On A True Story” “Based On True Events” “Most Of What You Are About to See Is True” “Some Of This Is Bullshit” “The Names Have Been Changed, Certain Dialogue Has Been Made Up” “We Have An Agenda And We Want to Entertain You” “You’ve Become So Ignorant to Real Events, You Wouldn’t Know What Was Real Anyway. Just Go With It” The Los Angeles Times recently ran a disturbing article on an equally disturbing trend quietly seeping into filmmaking. It’s been for some time, but as the general population falls into a deeper sleep, it’s almost imperceptible. The article is found HERE. The focus was the acclaimed “biopic” on Steve Jobs and is the latest film to take swipes at a dead man unable to defend himself. History is told by the winner. Or the one’s who control the information. Columbus Day has come under revisionist fire, seen as the celebration of a man

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Oct 13, 2015
Horror Fuel

An Open Letter to New Line “Cynema”: Take A Stab At Something Different

To: New Line Cinema From: B Harrison Smith Re: Friday the 13th: Tommy Jarvis vs. Jason Vorhees Make Tommy vs. Jason. You’re sitting a goldmine. I am told the rights to Friday the 13th are a mess. Paramount owns some, you own some. Some are parceled out to TV while the films retain others and the characters. I’ve heard one tale that both studios share custody over the franchise like a divorced couple. I have no idea if this is true. What I do know is that the ownership of rights has become so convoluted that no one seems to have a definitive answer. The legal octopus is strangling you from making another killing and I’m willing to bet it could be straightened out. At the risk of shooting myself in the foot and giving away my thoughts for someone to steal, here is a proposal to get Jason out of development hell. I attended two meetings in Los Angeles

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Oct 6, 2015
Horror Fuel

Video Game Review: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

“V has come to” is how the game begins. Such a simple phrase and yet has so much behind it. Minutes after “V has come to” the game ascends and shows us what we have in store. Big Boss, our main protagonist awakens from a 9 year coma in a hospital in Cyprus missing an arm and having a large chunk of shrapnel lodged in his head, Big Boss’ awakening is only cut short when the hospital is invaded by a covert military force dubbed “XOF” on the hunt to kill him. With the help of a mysterious man named “Ishmal” Big Boss is able to escape a narrow death. Soon later the halls of the hospital begin to fill with smoke and fire when suddenly a man covered in head to toe in fire arrives in the hospital and begins searching for Big Boss. The Man on Fire has Big Boss in his clutches until the “XOF” force returns

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Oct 1, 2015
Horror Fuel

Robert Altman & Popeye vs. Cynema

To Clear A Few Things Up A few myths need to be dispelled about the 1980 Robin Williams film, Popeye. It was NOT a boxoffice failure. It was made for 20 million and grossed well over 60 million. While deemed a “disappointment” by Paramount Pictures, it hardly failed. 2. It is NOT Robin Williams’s worst film. I will argue it is his best, hands down. Like Williams and its director, the film paid a price for breaking away from formula. Popeye is fucking art, so there, I said it. Popeye fought Cynema and lost the first few battles, but I think it won the war. It was Robin Williams’s first film, and almost his last. It’s been called a mess, incomprehensible, a misfire, a disaster and a bomb. Bear with me as I show how this unique film stands up against Cynema. I’ll also lay out how this film reflects the present attitudes between industry and audience. Years after I

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Sep 19, 2015
Horror Fuel

The 90s: Designer Horror

Jordache Horror Somewhere in the 80s, someone got the idea that horror should be less frightening and more sexy and trendy. I am not sure where it happened, but a good starting point might be Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The “World Premiere Video” back when MTV aired videos and before its implosion was the thing to see. Director John Landis was in between the smash hit horror classic, An American Werewolf in London and the public relations nightmare of Twilight Zone: The Movie. Michael Jackson was truly The King of Pop, and his LP, Thriller elevated MTV into something else…exactly what, I don’t know, but Thriller was more than a video. It was a pop culture event and it used horror as its spring board. Vincent Price became known to a the Pepsi Generation as “the old dude who “rapped” in Thriller and laughed at the end. Academy Award winner and makeup genius, Rick Baker did the makeup effects and suddenly

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Sep 1, 2015
Horror Fuel

Consuming Cynema PART II

The Remake The road to the remake is a winding one. There is no clear pathway toward the answer of whether they are good or bad, needed or unwanted. They exist. They will continue to be made because there is demand. My previous article opened with a quote from George Bush’s post 9-11 speech which hinted at “living life” is a series of consuming events that follow an image that has been dictated to us by a media assault that has shaped us since birth. So what does that have to do with filmmaking and entertainment? Does art imitate life or the other way around? Why is Disney the Mecca of family vacations? Who said women are to look a certain way, smoking is glamorous, drinking a soda makes you like Michael Jackson or Beyonce? We have a new generation growing up with incredible access to entertainment. Cell phones, tablets, video game systems and computers allow instant access to everything,

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Aug 24, 2015
Horror Fuel

Big Apes, Big Cynema

Dino! “When Jaws die, nobody cry . When my Kong die, everybody cry.” – Dino DeLaurentiis, producer Younger viewers have almost no idea who legendary producer Dino DeLaurentiis was. Some saw him as the Italian forerunner of Michael Bay; creator of expensive, big budget, soulless films followed by similar producers like Alexander and Ilya Salkind, Peter Guber and Jon Peters, Jerry Bruckheimer as well as Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. DeLaurentiis said this about his humble beginnings in film: “After the war, there was no industry. We lost the war. We had our whole city destroyed. No money. No studio. No film. No camera. No equipment. We would shoot in the street. We had no actors. Nothing. But we wanted to do movies. And we did the best movies in the world. If you lived in a provincial town like Torre Annunziata, where there was nothing to do in the evening but go to the movies with your friends, the

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Aug 21, 2015
Horror Fuel

Cynema: Godzilla vs. Gino

Go Go Godzilla “We spared no expense.” – Sir Richard Attenborough, Jurassic Park Rumors circulated Hollywood since the early 1990’s of an American Godzilla movie. Writers and directors left the project and by 1996, Toho and Sony/Tri Star came to terms and the producing team of Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich were anointed to bring a full fledged American Godzilla film to the US masses. He would attack New York City; it would boast a big name cast and incorporate state of the art visual effects. There would be no man in a giant rubber suit in this film since Jurassic Park raised the bar for giant reptilian creatures. Toho Knew In the wake of the successful 2014 reboot (which had its own issues), it seems like a cheap shot to take yet another swipe at the much maligned (and deservedly so) 1998 mess. This time it’s to see how this film fits the Cynema paradigm. It’s not Godzilla, it

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Aug 20, 2015
Horror Fuel

Jaws the Worst

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Reviews The picture above is a series of stills from the ending of “Jaws The Revenge.” People rip on Ed Wood’s hubcaps and pie tin flying saucer’s in his “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” However, Wood had about 200 bucks for his effects budget. “Jaws The Revenge” had about six million and you get what’s in that picture? Cynema: The cynical contempt for an audience in the making of product that is devoid of creativity, passion, production value or respect while having the financial and creative means to do better. This Time It’s Ridiculous…Imagine you are sitting in an office at Universal Studios. You approve film projects pitched to you. Here’s the challenge. Without any knowledge of the previous Jaws films, someone pitches you the plot for a fourth installment to the famous shark series. Would you or wouldn’t you give 20 million dollars to make this movie? Here’s the pitch: “We get Lorraine

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Aug 15, 2015
Horror Fuel

Cynema: Ed Wood–Hollywood’s Whipping Boy

No Respect Apparently Michael Medved, the respected film critic gets the credit with dubbing Edward Wood, Jr. the “worst director of all time” by referring to Wood’s crowning film achievement, Plan Nine From Outer Space as perhaps the worst motion picture ever made. This is not only to come to the late Mr. Wood’s defense, but to also show how off the mark Mr. Medved was in his 1980 book The Golden Turkey Awards. Wood is the antithesis of Cynema–his passion and love for film makes him one of Hollywood’s greatest directors. Say what you want about Plan Nine, Bride of the Monster or Glen or Glenda…bad films, yes. Bad directing, absolutely. However Ed Wood was not a cynic. This column will show why films like Jaws The Revenge, Godzilla 1998 and other big budget films are far worse than anything Ed Wood ever put out, including Plan 9. By many accounts, including his own, Plan 9 From Outer Space

Continue reading →
Capt McNeely
Aug 14, 2015
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