Yup, It's October

I'm glad to see my favorite month of the year finally roll around....
Of course, before we start getting into the old fashioned Halloween fun, I must pause to acknowledge the death of a fine individual this week. Yes, I'm talking about comedian Greg Giraldo.


I've been a dedicated connoisseur of stand-up comedy for pretty much my entire life, and Giraldo is one of those comics who I could recognize as genuinely high-quality. I used to watch him on Comedy Central's Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn almost every night, and he would always get the best laughs. He brought a smart, slightly-dark, and generally moderate kind of outlook to the show, which was a nice balance to the more hard-leaning sentiments of panelists like Nick DiPaolo and the program's host, Colin Quinn. "Why doesn't Giraldo get his own show?" I remember thinking. "He's way better than these other dudes."

Of course, he later ended up becoming more well-known from those Comedy Central Roasts, not only due to his own hilarious performances, but also for writing a good portion of the better jokes delivered by other speakers. I mean, c'mon -- did you really think that Hulk Hogan could come up with his own clever insults for David Hasselhoff and Fara Fawcett? Nope, that was Giraldo writing half of that stuff.


Now, I'm not gonna glorify Greg Giraldo as some genius hero who did the world a great service by spreading an important message (that was Bill Hicks); I'm just SAYIN' that I'm a little sad he died. I admired the fact that he used to be an attorney and quit it to do stand-up instead. Ditching a pointless and stressful career to pursue something you love is more respectable to me than succeeding in said pointless and stressful career, even if it's really high-paying.

Like, I used to know a guy named Mike who worked the midnight shift at my local Speedway gas station. He was an interesting chap. He'd sit behind the counter all night reading these huge mythology and history books. I found out at one point that he actually had a master's degree in philosophy, and once worked in the legal profession. One day, he apparently just said "Screw this," and abandoned everything to pursue the simple life. We should all consider doing so. Why work 14 hours a day in an unpleasant setting when you can just sit around in a quiet gas station all night and relax with a book? Sure, the money is lousy, but whatever. Maybe if this whole radio thing doesn't work out, I'll one day go the Greg Giraldo route (with the CAREER, I mean -- not the whole dying at 44 deal).


Anyway, here's to Greg Giraldo, the funniest stand-up comedian to die from a drug overdose since Mitch Hedberg. Now check out a clip, why don't ya?

And here's one more:


Hey, as long as we're talking about dead people, here's a zombie movie. It's hilarious!

FleshEater (1988)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109809/


Netflix description:
A Halloween hayride becomes a night of never-ending terror as a group of libidinous teens out for fun fall victim (one after the other) to crazed zombies. Even though the authorities hunt down the undead ghouls, their total destruction is not, by any means, a foregone conclusion. Bill Hinzman, an alumnus from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, directs and stars in the film.

OK, so FleshEater is a zombie flick made by a guy named Bill Hinzman. Horror buffs might recognize him as the very first zombie to appear in George Romero's 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead. Yeah -- the cemetery zombie who chases Barbara to the farm house. This is that SAME guy!

Cool, to be sure; but is FleshEater anywhere near as good as NOTLD? The answer is a resounding HECK NO.

This movie is ridiculously bad. It's like some parody of 1980s horror pictures, packed with every cliche you can imagine. We've got teens (played by 35 year-olds) partying in the woods...inept police...a bad keyboard-only soundtrack...mind-blowingly terrible acting....It's all here, folks. Of course, the PROBLEM is that FleshEater is not supposed to be a parody. Yeah -- Bill Hinzman was sincerely trying to make a decent horror film, and just ended up embarrassing himself.

Anyway, Flesheater is about a bunch of kids who get attacked by a zombie while on a haunted hayride. One thing leads to another, and pretty soon, their entire town is overrun by the undead. A night of terror (VERY similar to Night of the Living Dead) ensues, and it all ends with a big twist (again, extremely similar -- nay, identical -- to the twist at the end of NOTLD).


Wow. I don't know what to tell you. FleshEater is absurdly cliche. It seriously IS like watching a parody of other, very crappy horror movies. Everything about this motion picture is poorly-handled and cheesy, and I wonder if its financiers (who paid up 60-thousand dollars to get the thing made) realized how funny the end result was going to be.

Personally, I think the whole deal was worth it, since the movie features a very prominent Night of the Living Dead graduate, and the experience is, admittedly, a fairly good time. With FleshEater, we get straight up, unabashed gory amusement. There's a ton of unnecessary nudity, buckets of blood, and a handful of shocking moments. Sure, the plot may be all over the place, with the focus randomly switching from one set of characters to another without warning or reason, but overall, Flesheater is surprisingly easy to digest.

Clocking in at less than 90 minutes, this one is worth checking out. Horror fans will find something interesting here, and casual viewers will probably get a few laughs. FleshEater ain't good; but it's good fun.

3 out of 5.

b.