The Adventures Of Flu Boy And Grouchy Girl

Nobody does Valentine's Day like Kindergarten classes. Two weeks before V-Day, our son was given a list of his classmates' names and instructions to produce a hand-addressed valentine for each child. Ten pounds of construction paper, doilies, glitter and glue sticks later, the lad had 18 identical valentines for his classmates, each one bearing the recipient's name in my son's large-but-legible handwriting. His Special Friend Claudia is not in his class, and he wanted to do something extra-nice for her, but not at school because he didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings so her mother and I arranged a meeting at her house after school on Valentine's Day. We arrived and he tripped up the steps bearing one single pink rose in a vase and a box of chocolates for Claudia, they did their little shy exchange and then he went tearing off to play guns and knives with Claudia's little brother while Claudia sat at the kitchen table and catalogued her V-Day loot. What we didn't know was that while Little Nigel gave Claudia a rose and some candy, she gave him a whopping case of the 'flu. A kid with the 'flu is among the best examples of chaos theory I have ever experienced because as soon as a kid says "Mommy, I don't feel good", life as you know it ceases. Then begins the process of Trying To Get The Kid Well, which is fraught with both Dreadful Knowns and Super-Dreadful Unknowns that affect aspects of life that you never would have thought to associate with a limp kid on the couch for a week or so. The first day of Little Nigel's symptoms, he was very lethargic and had a fever, didn't want to go to school but wasn't really coughing or having gastrointestinal issues so I labeled it "the sniffles" and got lucky enough to have Grandma whisk MaryJane off for a day of errands so he just crashed on the couch and zoned out to Hannah-Barbera's Finest in peace and quiet. On Day Two, his fever spiked and he lost his voice so it was Doctor Time, where they swabbed his nose and determined that he had the 'flu and prescribed Tamiflu, told me to keep him out of school and resting until Monday and to control his fever with Tylenol or Motrin. The whole time we were at the doctor's office, MaryJane exercised her very best two-year-old efforts to destroy the place while I tried to prevent the destruction at arm's length because Little Nigel was lying limply in my lap. Then we were off to get the medicine, so I strapped Hurricane MaryJane into a shopping cart and put Little Nigel into the cart as well and cruised around the store getting soup, juice, tissues and Tylenol while they filled the prescription. $80 later, we headed home to dose the lad. I'll say this--that Tamiflu stuff works pretty well because by Day Three he was peppy enough to start bouncing off the walls again, albeit more slowly and punctuated by short periods of stillness. He also felt well enough to eat something, but after one taste of the Danny Phantom Chicken Noodle Soup he thought was such hot stuff in the store and insisted (weakly) that we get, he labeled it "icky". Now, because the cart was full of children I only bought the bare necessities and assuming that he'd be chowing down on Soup N' Crackers for the forseeable future, I got six cans and pretty much nothing else so Flu Boy was stuck with Danny Phantom, no matter how icky he is. After the diagnosis, nobody would take MaryJane off my hands so she had been knocking heads with Flu Boy since Day Two and by Day Four she was royally sick of Speed Buggy and quiet time and so she elected to entertain herself by bothering her brother, dropping one Lego at a time onto his sleeping body until he woke up in a poky plastic pile, building a "tent" that she wouldn't allow him to enter and begging him to read to her and getting angry and storming around when he wouldn't because he had lost his voice. Nothing is funnier than a two-year-old girl wearing a Shark Patrol t-shirt and a Disney Princess pull-up storming around and yammering loudly in Danny Kaye Gibberish language with the occasional real word thrown in for context, but she didn't find it funny that I found her funny. As Warden of this den of snot and conflict, I had to figure out how to keep Grouchy Girl out of Flu Boy's face and still keep them both in a 400 square-foot area, so I showed Grouchy Girl how to use the remote control to the Spongebob Squarepants DVD player in Flu Boy's room, permitting her to watch Curious George Goes To The Hospital 87 times in a row while Flu Boy crashed on the couch. This gambit worked for about nine hours, which is approximately 300 viewings of Good Old George and a good day's rest for Flu Boy. During that nine hours there was a freak dust storm that I somehow missed between teaching basic remote techniques and talking Flu Boy into accepting the bald fact that we would be eating chicken soup until we could get back to HEB, which to him equaled The End Of Time. The dust storm kicked up all kinds of pollen, mold and other Certified Lung Clogging Crap into the air, sending anyone with sinuses into Allergy Hell, rendering Grandma utterly useless and triggering a chain reaction of consequences that hit this place like Chernobyl was just down the block. Hubby, who was just recovering from a sinus infection, got out his DayQuil and tea again, sighing a little as he resigned himself to another week of seeing little pink Christina Aguillera monsters at the corners of his monitor all day long. I went into Total Shutdown Mode and slept all day Sunday, leaving the poor snot-crusted Hubster to deal with the fact that by now, Grouchy Girl was bored with George, but not with sitting on Flu Boy's bed and working the remote. Her solution: Ask Daddy to change the disc every 90 seconds. Grouchy Girl was also feeling the effects of the dust storm, but they were limited at first to mild snot and red eyes, which left her even grouchier and more high-maintenence because now, in addition to begging Daddy to change the disc, she was also shagging into the living room screeching "SNOTTY NOSE!" periodically. On Monday, Flu Boy was cleared to go back to school, but either the dust storm or the Tamiflu had given him a case of what he likes to call "the squeezies" and he was truly afraid of a Horrible Embarrasing School Moment so I let him stay home another day. Hubby was off work and with everyone feeling so awful I expected him to stake out the big chair and 'Quil the day away, but he had some Truck-Related Shenanigans to do so he grabbed Flu Boy and headed out as soon as the shower unclogged him enough to breathe. I was still stuck in Allergy Hell and on Benadryl, which makes The Wiggles much more fascinating but makes doing anything but watching The Wiggles seem like designing and constructing an ampitheater all by yourself. Grouchy Girl, who stayed home with me, took advantage of my zoned state to go into Flu Boy's room and take apart all of his puzzles and spread the pieces evenly over the entire room. Sorting puzzle pieces on Benadryl is like watching old people get it on and trying to sort puzzle pieces while on Benadryl and while Grouchy Girl is screaming for you to stop is like watching old people get it on in the mosh pit at Ozfest. One nap later, Grouchy Girl had forgiven me for destroying her destuction, Flu Boy was home and I was trying to come up with a meal consisting of sour cream, eggs, graham crackers and Danny Phantom Chicken Noodle Soup until Hubby unearthed a box of frozen fish sticks, which he cooked and served while I was trapped in a seemingly endless telephone survey about my mouthwash choices. On Tuesday, Flu Boy went back to school to find that 75% of his class plus his teacher were absent due to either the 'flu or the effects of the dust storm, so he was in for a day of worksheets and the frantic flailings of the 20-year-old student teacher they managed to find to fill in for the remnants of all three Kindergarten classes. By Wednesday, we'd made it to the Ninth Circle of Allergy Hell, which was enough to drive Grouchy Girl to utter flatness and me right along with her so both of us lay on the couch together and I provided commentary for The Wiggles while she hugged onto me and groaned. We got through the day, one tissue at a time, until it was time to go fetch Flu Boy and hit the little grocery store here in town, which is going out of business and had been hit by every Mother Of A Flu-Ridden Kid already, so they had sour cream, eggs, graham crackers, canned chili and pretty much nothing else. Lacking the strength to come up with anything really creative, I boiled up some macaroni and served it with spaghetti sauce, thinking that the kids love spaghetti and they love macaroni and cheese, so this should be Kid Heaven, right? Wrong. I hadn't counted on Chunky Mushroom. Some invisible, silent-to-adults agent of Kid Wisdom whispered to my children that Mushrooms Are Not To Be Trusted and they revolted en deux, Flu Boy by going fetal on the couch and hiding from his dinner under a big blanket and Grouchy Girl by flicking mushroom parts at the back of my head and whining "I don't like dis...I don't like dis...I don't like dis..." in a monotone until I whisked it away and gave her some Jell-O out of sheer desperation, an act that backfired almost immediately because that same agent of Kid Wisdom encouraged her to quietly dump the Jell-O onto the floor as revenge for exposing her to mushrooms while I was under the covers with Flu Boy, trying to convice him to emerge by telling him that I'd gone outside and burned his dinner in effigy. We both emerged to find Grouchy Girl covered in red slime cooing proudly about her latest work of nihilist art, the Jell-O Floor Sculpture. I got The Whinamic Duo into the tub for de-sliming and they happily played together in the tub UNTIL I turned my back for fresh jammies, which was the opportunity they had been waiting for to dump a gallon of water over the side and use the distraction to pull The Great Tub Escape, fleeing through the Jell-O-covered kitchen where Grouchy Girl slipped and fell, producing a perfect Jell-O butt-print, a thousand tears and a need for re-tubbing, after which both children were put unceremoniously to bed early, because I had Officially Had Enough.

The Case For Bliss

We get hundreds of catalogs in the mail and most of them are interesting only for the truly absurd Objects De Crap that they attempt to foist on an unsuspecting public, particularly during the holiday season when spending $200 on a reproduction Leg Lamp from the flick A Christmas Story seems almost reasonable. Then there's the Bliss catalog, which sells the most extravagant face, body and hair potions imaginable. I have neither a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it out of, so the idea of spending $125 on one ounce of moisturizer from La Mer is totally alien to me, never mind if it has sapphire extract or whatever in it. However, I was washing my hair yesterday when I noticed something interesting. I bought some shampoo and conditioner over the internet that was supposed to help with unexplained hair loss (Rudy's Emu Oil products). When it arrived, I was sharp enough to write the date on one of the bottles and yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the purchse. The shampoo, conditioner and treatment serum cost me $40 including shipping and handling. I have quite a bit left in all three bottles and I have also used it on my son's hair because both he and I are mildly allergic to sodium lauryl sulfate,an ingredient in almost every shampoo on the market except this stuff (apparently). $40 a year is not an extravagant sum to spend on hair care products that address a specific problem and WORK, by the way. When I was still buying shampoo form the grocery store, I would frequently use it as bubble bath and/or body wash/and or dish soap, so we'd go through a couple of bottles a month at $2 a pop. I do not do that with my fancy-pants shampoo. Six months ago I bought some expensive facial care products from Origins ($60). I still have 3/4 of the jar of gommage, and about 1/4 jar of moisturizer left and I use those products according to the labels, gommage twice a week (for sun damage) and moisturizer twice a day. When I bought the stuff, the saleslady gave me free samples of facial wash containing mushroom extract, which makes me feel as though I'm washing my face with something I should be using to flavor the gravy. I still have a tube and a half left out of three even though I have used it five times a week for six months! So that $125 ounce would probably last for at least six months. If I bought a kit of products from that particular purveyor, it would cost about $300 and last for a year. If one were to spend that kind of dosh on a "system" it is unlikely that any further impulse facial care purchases would be made until the "system" ran dry. For a regular woman over 35, $300 a year isn't so very much to spend on facial care, is it? Especially if the stuff is megasuperluxurious and also works wonders. I'd bet that the average woman blows $300 a year on impulse-buy grooming supplies that make no claims whatsoever except "on sale". Since my purchases from Rudy's and Origins, I have spent zero dollars on shampoo, conditioner, facial wash, exfoliant or facial moisturizer and I still have enough of the stuff to see me through a number of future months. So, if you just HAVE to have that kit from La Mer, go ahead and get it and don't buy anything else until you've used it all up. And if your hair is falling out, just go see Rudy.

New Year's Revolutions

Why do people even try to keep New Year's resolutions? The act is doomed from the outset. Most New Year's resolutions are made a) while drunk, b) in front of loads of family members and c) in a loud tone of voice. Drunk people make bad decisions and everybody knows it, therefore it's much easier to shuck the guilt on January 1st when you can say "I was drunk, so it doesn't count." Many of the family members present at New Year's resolution declarations are teenagers who are most likely not drunk and therefore will remember and repeat ad nauseam everything you said until your resolve collapses in a fit of pique and you light up/chow down/lunge for the remote/consume enough Jagermeister to quell your urge to strangle any teenage wiseass that dares to quip in your general direction. Anything declared in a loud tone of voice, even when alone, is null and void as soon as the echo is gone--that's just a fact. If one says loudly that one is never going to do a particular thing, like as not one will find oneself doing exactly that on the City Hall steps at high noon. An insidious aspect of this fact is that sometimes it can take years to swing back around to kick you in the ass, sometimes decades, and by the time you find yourself enmeshed in whatever you said you'd never do, you will have forgotten all about it and there will be some former teenage wiseass right there to remind you. Some people really do try to keep their resolutons, usually with hilarious results. My sister-in-law quit smoking at midnight on January 1st. By 10:00am she had washed and folded every item of clothing in the house and she had a nice tic going in her face. By 1:00pm she was soaking already-clean dishes in the bathtub in boiling water and bleach and looking very sweaty about the temples. By 4:00pm she was frantically vacumming out and Febreeze-ing her SUV in a superhuman effort to keep herself from leaping into it and heading pell-mell for the convenience store, and her eyes were twirling like pinwheels. My husband quit smoking about eight months ago, and he did it without any fanfare whatsoever by choosing to extend a period of abstinence brought on by a sinus infection indefinetely. He never said "I quit" or "I'm going to quit" because he never ever EVER says things like that, he just goes ahead and does things and waits for us slowfolks to catch on. It is interesting to note that while I admire the hell out of his ability to just get on with it, it kind of ticks me off that he is so successful at affecting change. I despise change, even when it is inevitable/obviously necessary/the only thing between me and death, so there is always a lot of screaming involved with me making even the smallest change to the status quo. Kids love routine, and so when their routines are based on my flawed ones, it becomes doubly difficult to change them. My kids are used to being able to graze their way to fullness, sometimes eating every fifteen minutes until bedtime, so it is now a great shock to my five-year-old when I deny him a bowl of yogurt twenty minutes after he ate a hot dog sheerly because I want him to be hungry three hours from now when I present him with a plate of meatloaf. "Do you want me to STARVE to DEATH?" he wails in protest. The two-year-old is in the middle of a Picky-Pants Phase, wherein she will beg for chow and then refuse it once she's eaten about a third of an ounce of it. This morning I refused to grant her loud request that the bowl of Cheerios that she had eaten four individual O's from be removed from her sight posthaste. Instead of wailing like her brother, her method of protest was simple, elegant and effective--she poured the bowl into her own lap while staring me down like Spartacus. It is clear that the girl takes after her father and the boy takes after me. She got the job done, and he's still waiting for meatloaf.

The Christmas Pageant

The Kindergarten classes at my son's school held their Christmas Pageant yesterday. I went to this gig alone because I couldn't get my husband out of REM sleep and I foisted the two-year-old off on Grandma because I figured there would be enough chaos over there without MaryJane The Hurricane skipping around. I also made a conscious decision not to bring a camera because I wanted to enjoy the program as a whole and not spend it trying to get a shot of my kid in antlers. I was the only person there not loaded down with recording equipment, jockeying for position and threatening to raise the school's insurance rates by climbing up on tables and leaning forward slightly, like being two inches closer to the action was going to elevate the quality of the result from merely awful to Oscar-worthy. The sight of a grade-school cafetorium packed with parents all leaning forward and peering through viewfinders was surreal to say the least. The kids all trooped onto the little stage, kitted out in various Christmas-y getups and we all spent five minutes waving to our kids and focusing the various cameras. Then they cranked up the music and fifty little kids started swaying and tunelessly singing We Wish You A Merry Christmas while a group of tinsel-covered little girls formed a sort of chorus line at the front of the stage, if chorus lines were comprised of heavily medicated mental patients, that is. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer was next, and eight tiny pretenders lined up behind a tiny Santa Claus (who was largely concerned with not choking on his enormous beard) and began bobbing up and down and making vague hand gestures reminiscent of hula dancers as they crooned about poor old Rudolph while a couple of "elves" threw brightly wrapped boxes at each other. My son was in this group, playing Dasher and bobbing away like mad when he wasn't chasing boogers. I am certain that most of pictures the other parents got of this number feature my son in the act of nose-mining. Away In A Manger was next, featuring cows, sheep, Frankincense, kings, shepherds and a large tinselly star, but lacking Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus. Frosty The Snowman, complete with Kid In Snowman Drag, was next. "Frosty" stood stock-still while a line of children supplied him with felt buttons, broomstick and Magic Hat, prompting "Frosty" to bust a move to thunderous applause, at least until his costume, which was held together with happy thoughts and Velcro, burst open and all the kids in the immediate vicinity tackled him in an attempt to stuff him back in. The teachers waded in and extracted "Frosty" and lined the kids up again using dark looks and more vague hand gestures. A rousing rendition on Jingle Bells finished off the mayhem and all the parents unravelled their surveillance equipment and squired their offspring homeward. It was interesting to note that while all of the parents had been instructed to send their children to school "wearing their Sunday best", the concept of "Sunday best" ranged from little girls in full makeup and taffeta party frocks to the kid who came to school in his pajamas. My son's idea of "Sunday best" was khakis, white shirt, crocodile belt that his Grandpa made for him out of a belt that his father wore in 1956, elaborately crafted hairdo and his "tie", which was the necklace that he got for Christmas last year, worn under hs collar so that just the Iron Cross pendant showed. He looked like an off-strip Vegas magician minus the cape full of rabbits, but he chose the outfit himself, which made him feel great and powerful. Adding to the surreal and somewhat psychedelic atmosphere was the fact that nearly every little boy in the show was wearing those light-up sneakers and with all the bobbing and tackling going on up there, I am suprised that nobody had a seizure over all those flashing sneakers. All in all, the event was extremely amusing, and the real stars were the four teachers charged with executing a coherent program featuring fifty little children and countless boogers.

A History Of Bad Dates

Usually, it's chicks who have major shit to kick regarding rotten domestic partner "dates", but in our case, I'm the roach in the fondue pot of romance. I can't even blame the kids because I was screwing things up long before there were any kids to blame! It's not like I want to ruin the infinitesimal portions of "us time" that we get, but it is invariably my bad, so to speak. We always celebrate our wedding anniversary on the day after Thanksgiving because I am terrible with dates and we got married the day after Thanksgiving, so why not hook the two events up if that will help me to remember that we actually did get married at some point in time. This year I thought I had it all goof-proofed by accepting a very generous offer extended by a couple of friends of ours to take the kiddies on an evening adventure so Husband and I could go out to dinner and a movie, something we haven't been able to do for a very long time since we got on the Baby Train. I researched movie times and planned everything out carefully and discussed it all with Husband so he could greenlight everything. On Thanksgiving Day, I broke from my usual behavior and ate a ton of food, so much that I put myself into a Food Coma for the rest of the day and woke up Friday with a major Food Hangover in the form of the worst tummyache in my personal history. I couldn't imagine riding in a moving vehicle, let alone eating dinner anywhere but the Antacids section of a Walgreens. So our "romantic anniversary" consisted of Husband periodically holding back my hair and fetching me cups of peppermint tea in between watching his Battlestar Galactica miniseries in the living room while I writhed around on the bed within hitting distance of the porcelain goddess. Sadly, this is just the latest in a series of disastrous non-outings produced by something stupid I did/thought/felt/didn't do. Early in our marriage, before the Baby Train pulled out of the station, there were several incidents that cemented my propensity to mess things up without meaning to. During the heat of the summer, we went out to lunch at the local Chinese restaurant and then went to the movie theater next door and waited in line in 100-degree heat to buy tickets. When we went from the 100-degree outside into the 70-degree theater lobby, everything started to fade away and get far and wee and I passed out cold in the theater doorway. Some light patting from Husband brought me around enough to realize that I was going to be very very sick in the immediate future, so I dragged myself to the nearest trash can and yarked my guts out while astounded children and parents stepped over my prone form and the theater manager wrung his hands and offered to call for an ambulance. Husband assured him that I did not need an ambulance and carried my semi-conscious body out to the car and drove me home while I cried out of absolute mortification. The concensus was that too much MSG, caffeine and heat had caused the event. A few weeks later, the same exact thing happened, minus the yarking but including passing out in the theater hallway, taking an innocent bystander down with me as I clawed my polyester blouse open (I would have gotten the bra off too if Husband hadn't stopped my impromptu strip show). That time I insisted on staying for the movie because it seemed smarter to stay in the freezing-cold theater instead of lamming it back out into the heat. I don't remember anything about the movie, but I do remember that Diet Coke never tasted so good. After that, I always wore loose, cotton clothing and carried water with me when we went to the movies in the summertime, so it wasn't until I was eight months' pregnant with our son that another movie theater incident ocurred. I was expecting something to happen because it was July in Texas so it was hotter than the hinges of Hades, but I really wanted to see this particular movie(Artificial Intelligence) so I shoved all my fears down and soldiered on. By this time that theater manager knew what he was dealing with and provided me with a stool to park my pregnant butt on while Husband procured tickets and soda, but even that stool didn't stop me from graying out just a bit and I kept that trash can handy just in case. We made it into the theater without any actual passing out or throwing up (I'm sure the theater manager was relieved) but after the movie was over, some wag behind me bellowed "That was the dumbest movie I've ever seen!" I was awash in tears (eight months pregnant, emotional storyline and Haley Joel Osment at the bottom of the ocean for a thousand years--you bet I was crying!) and so I turned around and started hollering at the guy until I was gently dragged away by my ever-patient Husband. After our son was born, it was difficult to get out to the movies at all, and a lot of times I was just too tired to go but reluctant to say anything until the last minute, which is when my Husband adpoted the attitude not to anticipate or get excited about any outings until we were in the car and well on our way because there was a good chance that I'd flake out. That was a good attitude to take, because all through my second pregnancy I had serious morning sickness and was not about to venture into a situation where there was an 80% chance of public vomiting. Now that our daughter is two, the concept of getting out to the movies together is actually feasible, IF I can get someone to babysit and IF one or both kids isn't incubating some ghastly illness and IF I'm not exhausted from running around holding a potty chair under our daughter's small rear end and IF a whole bunch of chaos factors decide to give me a break. I really thought I had it knocked this time. I hadn't considered that I might eat myself stupid!

Extreme Makeover--Horror Picks

I ran across two flicks yesterday that had really great ideas and/or set-ups, but ended up being less-than-great due to short-sighted production choices. It's Makeover Time!

The Funhouse (1981) Tobe Hooper directed this very simple story about four teenagers who decide to spend the night in a carnival funhouse, witness a murder, then attempt to escape the perpetrators. The idea is a great one and the flick manages to achieve some real tension and pathos, but not in the places one would expect. This flick deserves to be remade, amping up the relationship between the Surviving Virgin and her little brother and the relationship between the Bad Dude and his family. Setting a horror flick in a funhouse is a great concept that the filmmakers did not have the time or resources to fully explore.

Idle Hands (1999) While destined to become a cult classic because of the cast, which includes gorgeous Jessica Alba, hilarous Seth Green, incredibly gifted Elden Henson and always watchable Devon Sawa, the fantastic idea of someone having a demon-possessed hand got lost in a mishmash of not-believeable character relationships, one-liners and general booger-flicking teen-movie shenanigans. A remake would probably not fix these problems, but making a television series out of it might provide the amount of time required to explore the history of this particular demon, who chooses the laziest person it can find, takes control of his or her hand, and goes on a killing spree, dragging the rest of the person along against his or her will. I just felt like the story got chopped off (bad pun) when it came to generating good reasons for the characters to do the things they did. Also, I adored the character of the Airstream-trailer-driving, totally focused demon hunter, played to the hilt by Viveca A. Fox. What I really wanted to see was now-one-handed Devon Sawa boarding that Airstream with Debbie The Demon Hunter to continue the search for Demons Everywhere, guided by his two angel pals (Seth Greean and Elden Henson).

Pick O' The Flicks--Odd Horror Plus

Dueling Bloggers! Not really, but my favorite movie-reviewing sister posted a list of her Top 50 Horror Flicks (www.celluloitering.blogspot.com) Most of the flicks she picked I would have picked as well--she knows her stuff, she does--so I thought I'd add to her list with a few flicks that she didn't include but I would have, and a few just-plain-strange flicks that most sane people have probably forgotten all about.

The Omen (1976)--This movie still scares the pants off me. Richard Donner pioneered the modern American "set piece death scene" in this flick, the best example being David Warner's amazing decapiation with a sheet of glass.

Brain Damage (1988)--Tagline: "It's A Headache From Hell!" Actually, that's not strictly true, as anyone who has unearthed this weird little movie knows. Average-guy Brian finds himself saddled with a strange little penis-shaped pal named Aylmer who squirts joy-juice into his head so Brian will be happily out of it while Aylmer eats other people's brains. Aylmer has a funny sort-of British accent, for some reason. Oh, and he likes to sing. Frank Henenlotter writes, directs, produces and provides the voice of Aylmer under an alias.

Bug (1975)--I slept with the lights on for weeks after seeing this flick when I was a kid. Basically, Bradford Dillman discovers some truly ugly mutant alien bugs that eat ashes and set things on fire whenever they feel like it, sooooo he decides that the really really smart thing to do would be to allow them to mate with regular Earth cockroaches in an old diver's helmet. The Late Great William Castle, Master Of Maximum Marketing Ploys co-wrote the script and took a giant cockroach on a tour of theaters showing the flick. Jeannot Szwarc directed, so there are lingering pullaway shots of Patty McCormack all grown up (and on fire), and emotionally intense, sweaty close-ups of Bradford Dillman observing the roaches getting it on.

Theatre Of Blood (1973)--Vincent Price plus Diana Rigg plus William Shakespeare equals a majorly creepy-silly flick. There are some truly distubing scenes in this movie, not the least of which is Diana Rigg in reverse drag.

Hostel (2005)--American college students are busily pissing all over Amsterdam when they hear about a hostel in Slovakia that is supposedly jam-packed with loose hotties, so of course, they just have to go and get a piece! The first half of this flick plays just like any other piece of vintage slasher crap. The second half will have you on the edge of your seat, and possibly puking into your popcorn. Eli Roth, aided by whispers from Quentin Taratino and lots of influence from Japanese horror master Miike Takashi, presents a flick that exposes just exactly how clueless Americans are about attitudes and living conditions in other parts of the world. This movie is a must-see for any horror maven.

Misery (1990)-- "I'm your number one fan!" Novelist Paul Sheldon has the bad fortune to get into a car accident in the snowy Colorado mountains and be "rescued" by his "number one fan" Annie Wilkes, who is, to put it mildly, crazy mad insane. Directed by Rob Reiner and written by Stephen King and William Goldman, Misery is incredibly frightening and incredibly funny at the same time. Kathy Bates won an Oscar for her portrayal of Annie Wilkes, and she earned it!

Saw (2004)--While Saw smells strongly of Seven (1995) it manages to be original in the execution. The character of "The Jigsaw Killer" is probably the coolest Bad Dude since Michael Myers busted out of the funny farm. His reasons for putting selected subjects into situations in which they could live or die depending on their reaction to the "fight or flight" instinct are ostensibly philanthropic and provide a mirror for the current plague of "diseases", addictions and bad choices excused by a social climate that doesn't just tolerate, but actually celebrates victimhood. The film even gives "Jigsaw" an arc of competency, as his first attempts at creating "teaching" situations are fundamentally faulty. It isn't until someone actually survives one of The Jigsaw Killer's games that he is able to recognize that his subjects require the sounding board of social interaction to enable them to recognize his message. First-time director James Wan made this movie at a lightning pace "on spec", which is to say that he took no up-front cash for his work, and the script managed to draw stars like Cary Elwes, Monica Potter and Danny Glover.

Videodrome (1983)--David Cronenberg's tale of media exploitation was way ahead of its time, as many of Cronenberg's movies are. Now that "reality television" is on every channel in some way, shape or form, it's not difficult to see where Cronenberg was coming from, particularly when it comes to shows like Survivor, in which the participants either rise or sink to whatever occasion is concocted for them by the network. The visual effects in Videodrome are remarkable for the time, and still pack a punch today.

An Annoying Autobiographical Pause--I was a huge special-effects makeup fan when I was a teenager, back in the days before CGI took over from good old-fashioned latex and corn syrup. I'd watch any piece-of-crap flick if it featured makeup by Tom Savini, Dick Smith, Rick Baker, Werner Keppler, Stan Winston, William Tuttle or any other major makeup magician. Great makeup has catapulted many a crappy movie to cult status(Friday The 13th--I'm looking at you!) Here are a few flicks that are awful, awful movies with fantastic makeup effects:

The Incredible Melting Man(1977)--Makeup by Rick Baker. An astronaut survives a terrible space accident and becomes a blood-craving, human-being-shaped Jell-O mold. Remarkable ONLY for the amazing makeup effects achieved by Rick Baker, but they are truly remarkable, especially when you consider that a great deal of the movie is shot in daylight.

The Burning (1982)--Makeup by Tom Savini. This flick has incredibly good makeup and some really interesting death scenes that were achieved using inventive and never-before-used techniques. Also, it features Holly Hunter and Jason Alexander, both of whose characters actually survive, which is a departure from the usual Everyone Dies Save One philosophy adopted by most slasher flicks.

Pumpkinhead (1989)--Makeup by Stan Winston. A breakout flick for robotic effects. While Winston is not credited for makeup, all of the special effects artists were trained by him, and it is rumored that a number of the special-effects devices were taken home and retooled by Winston because they weren't up to his standards. Lance Henriksen, at his oily best, stars as a father who summons a vengeance demon to avenge the death of his son, only to turn around and try and stop it while he has Eyes Of Laura Mars flashes of the hideous grueling deaths of the people he wanted to kill in the first place.

It's Alive (1974)--Makeup By Rick Baker. Mutant killer baby runs wild in New York City. This awful movie, written and directed by Larry Cohen, is basically saved by Rick Baker's amazing makeup and creature creations, although it manages to achieve true pathos for about twelve seconds at the end.

The Stuff (1985)--Makeup by Ed French. Tagline:"Are you eating it, or is it eating you?" Another flick from auteur Larry Cohen. Ed French pioneers camera techniques that have since been used in modern classic horror flicks such as Nightmare On Elm Street. Also, there are some neat uses of pneumatic devices combined with stop-motion photography.

The Alligator People (1959)--Makeup by Dick Smith. A terrific example of Dick Smith's early work, The Alligator People is really all about the makeup and set a standard for makeup and special effects in the schlocky quick-flicks of the 1960's.

Maniac (1980)--Makeup by Tom Savini. This flick is so bad it is nearly unwatchable, but for the prosthetic effects and magical cinematic sleight-of-hand. However, it is flicks like this that paved the way for decent movies like Henry:Portrait Of A Serial Killer. It also paved the way for a slew of rip-off-flicks that follow the formula of Guy Gettin' Revenge For Terrible Childhood And/Or Gross Bodily Mutilation By Teenagers. Shot and released within weeks of Friday The 13th, Maniac has much better makeup effects, probably due to a major dose of mojo brought on by the rush of creativity generated by the challenges that Friday The 13th presented for Tom Savini. The highlight effect is a gunshot-to-the-head achieved using a plaster-lined latex head mold of Savini himself, a load of chicken guts and a real shotgun. The Mythbusters would be proud!

Now that I have two small children, I don't get out to the movies very often and rentals tend to favor Pixar and Disney instead of hard-core modern horror offerings. Besides, I have to be in a certain mood to absorb a horror movie that I want to hit me with everything it's got the first time I see it and truly, after a day of wiping orfices, breaking up arguments over what crayons taste like and picking up teeny-tiny toy shards I'm not really up for seeing someone's viscera thrown about with abandon. I got lucky when my husband rented me Hostel--the kids were on a sleepover with Grandma and he had little interest in watching the film so I was able to watch it alone, in the dark, for maximum impact. After reading about some of my sister's horror picks that I haven't seen, I really want to go and rent 'em and send the kids to Grandma's!