Howdy there, Scream Freaks! This week your host with the most was trying to enjoy some “Zombeavers” on Netflix, when all the fun was suddenly sucked out of the room when my girlfriend, Mandy, saw her one hot button trot across the screen. “They have a dog in this movie?” she gritted, “You know they’re just going to kill it. That’s the only reason why any animals are in horror movies anymore!”
Now, if you recall our review of “Monster Dog,” you’re aware Mandy is a big animal lover and never wants to see any harm done to them, but come on – it’s a movie! It’s not a real! It’s just a bunch of animatronics and CGI shit all over the screen whenever you see a poor critter taken out as a warm up to the characters you’re about to watch get slaughtered. And what about those characters? We can watch people get sliced and diced in every sick way imaginable, but as soon as an animal is found dead on screen – BOOM! Demands are made to change the movie, pouty walk outs happen, and sometimes tears come on like tsunamis.
You remember “Shark Night”? We were psyched to see that when it came out, but holy shit, it was Niagra Falls the moment that hick throws the poor dog into the shark infested waters toward the end. Of course, I don’t budge from the theater because I’m too cheap, but I’ll be damned the dog lives and even helps kill a shark! Rejoice from Mandy, right? Nope. Just a lot of swearing at the filmmakers for putting her through such a traumatic experience. Same thing happened when we saw “Cowboys VS Aliens” at the theater. She found it impossible to enjoy the movie, because the filmmakers let the audience think a dog was killed for about half the movie before showing him alive and well at the very end. What the fuck? It lived, right? What’s the problem? But no, now it’s all about the dog’s owners were killed in the movie and who will take care of it now?
I gave up my side of this argument a long time ago.
What’s even worse is she has her favorite horror movies of all time that actually contradict this whole attitude toward critter deaths in movies. Like John Carpenter’s “Halloween.” Holy fuck, Michael Myers fucking strangles a dog on screen, and the characters even talk about him eating dogs! But it’s not a problem, because, “They’re just showing what an embodiment of evil he is,” she says. That’s why she has no problem watching it every Halloween. And “Jaws” is another favorite of hers. We just watched the 40th anniversary screening at the theater, and I remind her every time that there’s a dog that goes missing in it, and we can easily assume the shark at it. But nope, not an issue. It’s insinuated but never shown. Wow, kind of like you insinuate these ownerless pets in movies will never find anyone to care for them and die alone?
And forget seeing any movie where the animal is the bad guy (besides “Jaws” of course). You couldn’t pay her to sit through “Cujo” or “Prophecy.” She played with the idea of watching “Jurassic World” with me, but dropped it altogether once I warned her how they feed the dinosaurs. We can watch people get chomped in half by CGI dino teeth all day long, but we draw the line at off screen goat feedings.
To bring an end to this rant, this is just something personal your host deals with when watching horror movies and most of my friends think it’s hilarious. Now, this is obviously a long running gag (for me, not so much Mandy) that’s been going on for years now, but I have come to respect Mandy’s feelings on the subject despite my annoyance at some of her viewpoints. Maybe she’s right, and horror could maybe lay off the deaths of poor innocent varmints and just give us more human deaths with depth and character that do a better job of driving the story. We can still have our killer animal movies of course, like giant alligators or rabid rabbits needing to be blown out of their damned existence, but let’s take a proactive step back from our monsters and killers slaughtering an animal for the sake of doing it. But at the same time, remember . . . it’s just a movie! It’s all fake with animal owners getting fat checks off professionally trained critters and special effects guys playing with make-up and pixels. Except “Cannibal Holocaust.” Those were real animal deaths. And so was “The Giant Gila Monster.” The star actually told me they blew that critter up for the film, because it was the days before animal rights. Damn.
By the way, did you ever see “The Beyond”? Remember that great scene when the blind woman is hunkered down next to her seeing eye dog and trying to find the evil force in the room with her just before her dog is possessed and shockingly eats out her throat! That was cool.
Otherwise, be sure you’re caught up with the rest of Screaming Soup! Season 2, use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Howdy there, Scream Freaks! Hold onto your butts, because we present an all NEW episode of Screaming Soup! This time we get a visit from non other than our mad scientist Doc Rex who brings a crate of his nutty inventions for the gang to mess with. Let’s just hope our favorite rapper Eb’nstein doesn’t accidentally bring the Howl-Inn Grub and Spirits down before it’s all said and done!
In the meantime, we’re dusting off a classic B-movie for a review that’s classic Blaxploitation at its finest. I still remember how funny the trailer was the first time I saw it, but this thing just becomes a lame duck by the end for reasons I’ll sure you’ll find entertaining in the vid. Enjoy!
And a special shout out to the Grim Reaper from Your Final Answer. He was nice enough to record an alternative take on the Screaming Soup! Anthem which rivals the musical talents of William Shatner, and brings the show to a whole new level . . . of hell! Seriously though, check out the Reaper’s website (paradeofhorrorables.com), and subscribe to his Youtube page!
Otherwise, be sure you’re caught up with the rest of Screaming Soup! Season 2, use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Howdy there, Scream Freaks! Well, you didn’t ask for it, but you got it! I’m talk’n about 4 more Screaming Soup! Presents Bruce Campbell Takes It In The Face! With all the buzz surrounding the long awaited follow up tothe Evil Dead series this fall on the Starz network, we couldn’t help but re-watch our favorite Bruce Campbell moments in what can easily be disputed as horror’s most successful offbeat series.
Now, it’s no secret director Sam Raimi gets his jollies beating the shit out of Campbell in his movies, but we never really noticed before just how much of these gags land square on his iconic chin. When you see them all at once, it’s fucking hysterical! That’s when we got to thinking and looked for other movies where Campbell’s “Oh!” face served as a bullseye for gore, inspiring an idea for some comedic videos. After succesful research combined with the whole psycho babble about sexual subtext in the horror genre, we present these awkward moments in a hilarious new light with the vids right below. (Click HERE to see Bruce Campbell Takes It In The Face part 1-3)
Otherwise, be sure you’re caught up with the rest of Screaming Soup! Season 2, use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
You know, when we decided to be horror hosts, we knew it would come with its own unique challenges. For one, how do you stand out in a digital world where anyone and everyone with a computer and camera can be a self-claimed host or reviewer? You’ve got everything from talking heads in bedrooms to elaborate green screen productions with some of the zaniest characters emerging from people’s darkest psyches. In the past, horror hosts have been everything from vampires, ghouls, and hillbillies to space travelers and even puppets entertaining fans worldwide with their own zany brand of jokes and criticisms. What had horror fans not seen yet?
We can still remember when we were originally planning on Screaming Soup! being a live action production built in a garage. We were going to take the old school approach with a sad greased face actor playing Deadwest, and Billy would have been a homemade hand puppet. Thank goodness someone slapped us upside the head and reminded us we were artist and should try saving time and money by animating our idea. We researched that suggestion a bit and realized they were on to something. We can’t find any evidence of there ever being a long running animated horror host show. Sure, there are horror hosts with mini-animated adventures like comedy sketches on their primarily live action shows, and the Crypt Keeper even had an animated series for kids, but we couldn’t find a host who was fully conceived for an original cartoon series that poked fun at popular B-movies.
Thus began the thousand mile journey with a single step. Inspired by the quick and simplistic animation style of shows like “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast,” we set out to create a whole world from scratch on paper and the computer. A good 2 years was spent building the essential foundation of the series, doing everything we could while juggling our day jobs and family duties. After drawing, scanning, coloring, and animating hundreds of animation cells for our characters, we then had to teach ourselves how to animate on the computer which resulted in the pilot, Screaming Soup! Deadwest Screams at Deadgirl. We remember how good it felt to finish that first episode and be able to tell we achieved something special. It was even more gratifying to present it to our friends and hear them validate our show’s art and humor.
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
Until we pick this conversation back up, be sure you’re caught up on the rest of Screaming Soup! Season 2, use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Howdy there, Scream Freaks! I’m sure you’re anxiously reading through this blog to be in the loop of all the latest Screaming Soup! news going on, but there’s unfortunately not that much to share this week. Don’t get me wrong, we’re busy with bringing you all the fun we can pack into a animated horror show, but there’s not much we can share at the moment without slipping some spoiler alerts!
We can say the show will be much more animated as we post these remaining season 2 episodes. Funny to think we originally set out to simply animate the same frames over and over again to keep production time lean, but we can’t help but push ourselves artistically with every review to see how far we can experiment with such a limitless art form. Especially with the great support from you Scream Freaks out there. You inspire us to want to give you bigger and better adventures and reviews every episode and that’s a great feeling!
But yeah . . . nothing much else to mention than that. Sucks, I know, but not every weekly blog can be a winner I guess. But how about this tid bit – watch for Funnybone in these latest episodes of Screaming Soup! and pay attention to what he’s doing. That might just give you clues to future events about to unfold for the worse at the Howl-Inn!
Other than that, be sure you’re caught up on the rest of Screaming Soup! Season 2, use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Howdy there, Scream Freaks! Continuing our graphic celebration inspired by Free Comic Book Day at the beginning of the month, we turn our attention to reviewing a more obscure treasure where horror meets comics in “Cellar Dweller,” a page turning tale where a necronimicon knock-off is used for inspiration creating a comic and results in an awesome looking 80’s monster tearing through all walks of artists! Definitely worth a look see.
You’ll see us rummage through some really strange and unbelievable comics while reviewing this movie, and before you ask, they’re all real! Even the Fright comic with the weird moon butt plug cover. How crazy is that shit? What’s also real and crazy, but in every good way possible, is Bob Burden’s Flaming Carrot comics. Those stories are a great read from an amazingly talented guy who had a lot of influence on us and our brand of humor through the years. We highly recommend picking up back issues of that masterpiece however you can!
To follow up this marvelous sequential creature feature, have a read through our Graphic Headstone archives and check out our interviews with some of today’s comic book talents working on independent horrors to mainstream titles. I’m sure some of them wouldn’t mind saving time with a monster that just created work out of thin air!
Oh, we almost forgot to thank TommyNC2010 for his hilarious rap he did for us as the introduction to this month’s episode. An all around cool guy who can now add Screaming Soup! to along with his other accomplishments such as appearances on MTV and Comedy Central’s Tosh.0. Click HERE to check out his Youtube channel.
Other than that, be sure you’re caught up on the rest of Screaming Soup! Season 2, use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Howdy there, Scream Freaks! We’re still on a comic kick after all the fun we had on Free Comic Book Day, so we thought we’d turn our attention to producing an all new Tribute video to spotlight one of our more favorite comic book heroes, Swamp Thing! Before I was formally introduced to the classic line-up of Universal monsters that were the staples of most horror fans’ childhoods, I was exposed to the exciting world of monsters through DC Comics’ Swamp Thing. He seemed to be everywhere when I was knee high to a grasshopper. He had 2 monster bashing movies, thought provoking comics for a more mature audience, a gimmicky toyline, a cartoon full of colorful characters, and a live action TV series which is the focus of our Tribute.
Only one man has dared to wear a thick rubber suit in sweltering Florida heat for hours at a time, and his name is Dick Durock. He was there with Wes Craven in the beginning, the charmingly campy sequel, and the 72 episode long series on the USA Network from 1990-93. While heavily dubbed and hidden behind the image of other actors playing Swamp Thing in his human form, Dick luckily got to shine in the TV series as a leading man and costume stuntman. Despite the series’ rocky start with it being more reminiscent of the Twilight Zone with Swamp Thing acting as host in the peripherals of stories, the series finally figured things out by season 2 and threw Swamp Thing more in the spotlight. Of course a hero is only as good as his arch nemesis and Swamp Thing’s is the mad genius, Anton Arcane. Stiffly portrayed by Louis Jourdan in the movies, Arcane was now a much livelier and thrilling character played by Mark Lindsay Chapman whose performance is unparalleled! We’re normally against seeing the good guy fight the same bad guy again and again, but we can’t get enough of Dick and Mark battling it out every episode. While Dick was in the previous movies, it was his chemistry with Mark in the series that inspired this Tribute video we’re proud to present now. Hope you enjoy!
Other than that, be sure to catch up on all the latest Screaming Soup! episodes so far for season 2! Please use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Howdy there, Scream Freaks! Once again we find ourselves coming face to skull with the curious cats surfing the net wanting a conversation with the web’s #1 animated horror host show, and we were all too willing to shoot the shit. This week we’re interviewed by our friends over at the Earth Station One Network who are hot on reporting all things geek! In retrospect, we probably didn’t talk enough about the show itself which is our bad, but live and learn you know? We’re sure they’ll be more to come. Click HERE to listen to this exclusive interview from earlier in April’15.
This interview was made possible from our brush with ESO co-host Michael Gordon who we first heard about after reading his indy comic “Tiki Zombie” which is a fun story he came up with about a bartender named Tiki Z who is cursed with a giant tiki head and protecting the island he lives on from all types of crazy characters with bad intentions. You should contact Michael directly and get a copy today! Below is our artsy thank you we sent him for bringing us onto the show with Tiki Z having to break up a drunken brawl Deadwest has in his bar. Michael was so impressed, he said he’d print it in his next Tiki Zombie comic he’s working on. Cool, huh?
Other than that, be sure to catch up on all the latest Screaming Soup! episodes so far for season 2! Please use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Howdy there, Scream Freaks! Free Comic Book Day is mere hours away, and we couldn’t be more excited since one of our favorite passtimes is reading horror comics. We just dig losing ourselves in a good scary read chock full of crazy creepy art that’s as wild and horrific as creators want to be. We especially enjoy franchise related comics that help buffer the dead time between horror powerhouse sequels like Freddy and Jason which seem to take longer and longer to film. We’ve collected and read numerous “Tales From the Crypt,” “Swamp Thing,” “Army of Darkness,” “Hellboy,” and have been recently turned onto other popular long running books like “The Goon.” If you’ve kept up with our Twitter, you’ll see we currently read and give our 2 cents on comics like “Puppet Master,” “The Fly: Outbreak,” “Re-Animator,” and “Big Trouble in Little China” which have all been great revivals of cinematic characters we know and love. This is just a great time to be both a comic and horror fan!
To celebrate comics this month, we will be screaming Tribute to an under celebrated monster TV show 5/10/15, and review a graphic horror movie that’s sure to be a winner of an episode 5/20/15. So, be on the look out for those treats heading your way! And if you haven’t checked out our past interviews with horror comic artists and creators, then click HERE to visit our Graphic Headstone page!
Other than that, be sure to catch up on all the latest Screaming Soup! episodes so far for season 2! Please use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Howdy there, Scream Freaks! Whoo doggy, it’s been one busy week so far, but we ain’t tired yet.
To kick this shindig off, we have an all new episode of Screaming Soup! for ya that’s a rocking celebration of the one and forever awesome Alice Cooper! Fuck 11, we’re jamming our Howl-Inn jukebox to freak’n 12 and enjoying some of Alice’s most memorable tunes while reviewing his 80’s horror flick, “Monster Dog.” Full of music, laughs, and glam rock werewolves, we’re sure you’ll enjoy this obscure treasure we stumbled across.
And if you’re interested, Tommy Finton of Youtube’s “Tommy Talks” has just conducted the first publically released video interview with us here at Screaming Soup! and spends an hour chatting with us about Screaming Soup’s inspirations, goals, and general opinion on the horror genre. Tommy’s been a real pleasure to meet, and we’ll be tuned in to see him guest on Comedy Central’s “Tosh.O” Tuesday 5/5/15 at 10pm EST. You can check out his Youtube channel HERE.
Other than that, be sure to catch up on all the latest Screaming Soup! episodes so far for season 2 and don’t forget to check out the newest additions to our Gallery for you art fans out there! Please use our social buttons in the upper right corner of the site and follow our tweets, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like our Facebook, watch and share all our vids, and keep that fan mail coming.
That’s pretty much it for now, so I’ll see ya’ later Scream Freaks!
Screaming Soup! 