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A few thoughts on Piranha 3DD. D. DD.

PIRANHA 3DD

1.5 Stars  2012/18/83m

“Twice the terror. Double the D’s.”

Director: John Gulager / Writers: Marcus Dunstan & Patrick Melton / Cast: Danielle Panabaker, Matt Bush, David Koechner, Chris Zylka, Christopher Lloyd, Ving Rhames, Paul Scheer, Katrina Bowden, Jean-Luc Bilodeau, Paul James Jordan, Meagan Tandy, David Hasselhoff, Gary Busey, Clu Gulager, Adrian Martinez.

Body Count: I counted 11

Dire-logue: “Josh cut off his penis because something came out of my vagina!”


I wouldn’t normally review this movie here, as fish don’t usually wield blades and have intricate revenge plots to settle (possibly excluding that shark in Jaws: The Revenge). But I hope that a few thoughts on my frankly miserable experience might save somebody else’s sanity, somewhere in the world…

Plus I did that Be careful what you fish for thingy some while ago.

Let us begin by stating that Piranha 3D (2010) was a horror film with a bit of comedy, whereas Piranha 3DD is a comedy with a bit of horror.

My misery began on a rainy Monday, when I drove my VW camper along the cinema to see an afternoon performance. During the ads and trailers, the sound seemed muffled and I hoped by the time the movie began it would work. Lo and behold, it didn’t. Only the music and added sound effects were discernible to the ear: All dialogue sounded like the actors were talking through gas masks. 35 minutes in, the techs couldn’t fix it and the showing was cancelled. We got refunded and home I went.

Having seen (though not heard) the first third of the movie, I thought “oh, it’s not as bad as it was meant to be.” Indeed, Piranha 3DD starts well enough, with a couple of tame fish attacks on a pair of trappers (Busey and director’s dad Gulager) and then ‘the van scene’, which was nicely done, although, again, very light on the bloodletting, something the 2010 movie was super liberal about.

When I went to a different cinema after work the next day, I re-enjoyed the first 35 minutes and then began to slip into a parallel state of being where I literally couldn’t believe that what was appearing on the screen had ever made it past any sort of editing suite. The subtle beginnings give way to an onslaught of ridiculous setups and, given the waterpark finale we were all salivating over the prospects of, a real damp squib of a finale.

The fish make it to the park and ‘the massacre’ scene occurs and is over and done with largely within 2-3 minutes. Shots from the trailer appear but there is no extra meat (‘scuse the pun) to them. The girl we see on the slide being attacked, for instance, there’s no preamble to it. Elsewhere, there’s a decapitation by driving a golf cart into what appears to be string bunting!

The mainstay from the first film is the nudity. If you thought it was crowbarred in before, it’s completely superfluous this time round. A montage of tits and vadge is shown near the start as Koechner’s agreeably slimy waterpark owner introduces Danielle Panabaker to the ‘adult pool’, which includes an underwater ‘Coochie Cam’. It’s entirely without point and weirdly off-putting.

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Finally, there’s David Hasselhoff. Introduced in a frankly bizarre scene where he composes a crappy my-first-Casio song about “love honey”, then attempts to spoof his Baywatch role, poses a lot, and is utterly unaffected by the carnage going on around him.

In conclusion:

  • The CG-fish look better
  • Too many principal cast members survive (and several of those that don’t aren’t even chomped by the piranha)
  • Nudity beyond requirement. Oddly, in the two sex scenes, there’s none!
  • The Hoff lives
  • Ving Rhames and Paul Scheer (Andrew the camera guy who literally disappeared in the first film) appear for all of five minutes.
  • This should be a horror film, not Porky’s Meets Piranha

A good first act notwithstanding, this is possibly the worst of the five Piranha movies. And that includes Roger Corman’s dodgy 1995 version.

Blurbs-of-interest: Danielle Panabaker was Jenna in the 2009 Friday the 13th redux; David Koechner was recently in Final Destination 5; Chris Zylka can be found in all three My Super Psycho Sweet 16 films; Clu Gulager played the dad in A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2. Writers Dunstan and Melton were the “creative” force behind The Collector.

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Hollow by name…

What? A Halloween-set film on Friday the 13th? What am I thinking, you may bleat…? I don’t want to over-do my love for Jason too soon. And there’s another Friday the 13th in July, so we’ll do it then, K?

Till then, enjoy the starstudded tame-fest that is The Hollow:

THE HOLLOW

3 Stars  2004/15/83m

“Terror rides again.”

Director: Kyle Newman / Writer: Hans Rodionoff / Cast: Kevin Zegers, Kaley Cuoco, Nick Carter, Stacy Keach, Judge Reinhold, Lisa Chess, Nicholas Turturro, Eileen Brennan, Joseph Mazzello, Shelley Bennett, Melissa Schuman, Natalija Nogulich, Blake Shields, Ben Scott.

Body Count: 5

Dire-logue: “Teach me the meaning of the word BONEyard…”


Zegers, Cuoco, Carter, Mazzello, Brennan, Keach, Reinhold! You seldom see such a well known cast roster in a slasher film, even less likely one that ended up premiering on TV.

This is a tame little affair concerning The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow and his return to decapitating glory when ancestors of his move to the origin town. Kevin Zegers is affable enough as Ian, the put-upon great-great-great-something of Ichabod Crane, who is tormented by Stacy Keach’s drunken spouter of olde tales who says ‘ye’ a lot and refers to Ian as ‘Teacher’.

When, as ever, nobody listens to the old man’s blithering and demands that the town calls off its traditional Halloween night festivities (including a hay ride through the haunted woods), the pumpkin-headed horseman turns up wherever horny teens dare to tread and relieves them of their noggin.

Backstreet Boy Nick Carter plays the arrogant jock and love rival of Ian’s for the affection of a pom-pom waving pre-Big Bang Theory Kaley Cuoco. One would think that if an unknown had played the role, he most certainly would’ve joined the legion of the beheaded but his survival is one of the main flaws of the movie.

Reinhold and Brennan have comparatively little to do in their respective roles as Ian’s strict football coach father and a random old woman who owns the land that the hayride tromps through. She appears for all of five minutes and phones in all of three lines that have no bearing on the plot whatsoever. Joseph Mazzello, grown up from his role as “annoying kid” in Jurassic Park is another “name” with next to nothing to do. But at least he, unlike Carter, has the decency to croak early on.

A body count of five means there’s little in the way of imaginative grue, but The Hollow is entertaining insofar as its family-friendly horror status allows it to be but its resistance to pile on the cliches or let itself get too carried away with gothic theatrics make it a fun flick, if not a particularly memorable one.

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Blurbs-of-interest: Zegers was also in Wrong Turn; Cuoco in Killer Movie; Keach was also in Children of the Corn 666; Eileen Brennan has a similarly minimal cameo in Jeepers Creepers; Reinhold made his big screen debut in send-up Pandemonium (Brennan also made a cameo in that); Melissa Schuman was the lead in The Retreat.

Stock Background Characters 101: The Goth

In this feature, we examine the lesser beings of the slasher movie realm, which, if you’re making your own slasher film, could provide a good cast roster for you.

No killer or final girl profiles here, this is a celebration of those underlings who made the most of their fleeting flirtation with stardom. And usually died.

Time to paint your nails and get moody with THE GOTH

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Overview: Who didn’t have dark and dismal moments in their teenage years? Some of us repress, some of us do all we can to fit in, and some of us paint our nails black, die our hair black, and wear lots of black. And talk about vampires n’ shit.

Unlike many of the Stock Background Characters we’ve already covered, Goth’s are fairly commonplace folk. Hell, I dabbled way back when (much to the displeasure of my devout Christian parents). But we’re talking slasher movies here, where character type is stereotype and nothing more.

Linguistic Snapshot: “What’s the point in running – we’re all gonna die sooner or later anyway? Death is beautiful, might as well get stabbed now than succumb to some horrible flesh-eating disease in a few years.”

Styling: Black. Black. Black. And maybe some deep reds. Hair cannot be natural colour. Heavy boots are the preferred footwear; fishnets for girls; dark glasses; silver jewelery galore; black lipstick; piercings; tats.

Hallmarks: Goths are largely depressed/ing backgrounders; outsiders to the main gaggle of teenagers. On the outer rim of the social collective, they’re there usually to make comments about how hopeless the situation/circumstance/life is.

Despite rarely surviving the murder spree of the picture’s loon, The Goth(s) can sometime provide valuable insights into the dilemma. It’s worth noting, however, that they – like Nerds, Geeks & Dorks – are coded almost sexlessly. Sure, they’re usually played by good looking actors but, in terms of the plot, they rarely, if ever, get any.

Downfall: Most slasher flick’s rarely develop the Goth character beyond any sense of be-downbeat-then-die, although there are a few notable exceptions. Take Molly in Ripper: Letter from Hell as a prime example of Goth as heroine: she dresses for the part, has a bad attitude, and is generally pessimistic about the situation (having been the sole survivor of a previous massacre). Under normal circumstances, Molly would be scheduled to die early but emerges as the final girl. Or is she killer? Actually, if anyone categorically knows what the hell goes on at the end of Ripper I’d be obliged!

One of the heroines of See No Evil is also a tattoo-plastered goth chick.

Elsewhere, Goth characters die un-sensational deaths at the hands of the killer. They are usually drawn as pacifists, even enfeebled people, without much pluck. Taryn, the junkie sub-criminal of Elm Street 3 ‘dreams’ herself into a tough goth counterpart and spars with Freddy in a suitably grimy dreamscape but eventually falls foul of her unreconciled drug addiction.

In Urban Legend, Lithium-toking Tosh (genre fixture Danielle Harris) is the final girl’s roommate and the killer manages to pass off her murder as a suicide; wannabe-killer goth Damien (Alexis Arquette) is done in by the reanimated Chucky when co-goth Jennifer Tilly resurrects him. Then there’s goth-duo Ian and Erin of Final Destination 3, who, while not buying into it, have a few decent theories about Death and its proposed plan to eradicate them.

Genesis: It would seem as if the first goth-like character in a slasher film was awkward-inmate Violet from Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning. While not adhering to the later conventions of ‘goth’, which seemingly came into being in the 1990s hand-in-hand with the grunge movement, Violet is a moody, difficult teen (but she’s at a halfway house for such problem youths so she’s working on it) who robot dances to horrendous neo-rock music and has a post-Madonna dye-job.

In Friday VIII we get JJ, guitar-rockin’ cross between punk and goth who bites it way too early. Then there’s Taryn, and Arab from Sleepaway Camp III in the morphing period between 80s spandex rockers (see also Dokken’s hilarious Elm Street 3 music video for ‘Dream Warriors’). It’s also worth chucking in Ally Sheedy’s neigh-vocal Alyson from The Breakfast Club, as important a teen movie as there could be for the 80s. The chick from Detention (pictured (very) top right) is undoubtedly based on her.

Legacy: In the post-Scream movies, female goths started to grow into the frame with regularity. Tatum from Scream (Rose McGowan, who dated and I think maybe even married Marilyn Manson) is adorned with hints of the look, then on to the aforementioned Tosh, Molly in Ripper, and those we see dotted throughout the genre today. Though there’s still some way to go in terms of gender equality: goth girls vastly outnumber their male counterparts in the way that nerd boys have very few female equals

sbc-gothgirls

Laurie, in Halloween II (2009), has turned from bookish schoolgirl to full-fledged goth-chick, so much so that she becomes almost unbearable as a character (let alone the heroine). Rob Zombie packs both films full of such characters, affiliating them with white trash backgrounds.

A trio of ‘comedy-goths’ appear in Brit-slasher Tormented, who crop up around the edges and saying terribly cliched things about death, music nobody understands, and voicing their feelings about how misunderstood they are. With the rise of “Emo” as a sort-of insult on the back of the whole “goth thing”, characters who dress in black and talk about magic and psychic stuff are treated like moronic idiots and made fun of. Curiously, the trio of dim-bulbed goths in Tormented are allowed to survive (though one is deafened by over-loud music forced on him).

Conclusions: To be a goth, or to not be a goth. It’s interesting that there have been a couple of final goth girls in recent years (though neither were particularly likeable or memorable) and that not everybody whose parents disapprove of the clothes they wear, the colour of their hair, and Slipknot, is with certainty doomed.

That said, it’s still safer not to stand out from the crowd. THAT said, it’s safer still not to go to the party at the old cemetery (sucky, if you’re into all that shit) or explore the rundown old school.

Life is full of dark shit, make sure you don’t get so dark that you become full of blades.

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Oh, how we laughed. Then died.

Happy April Fool’s Day.

Have you woken up to a pie in the face? Been told some bizarre fact about someone that you naively took as gospel? Or did a group of your peers play a joke on you so damaging that at this very moment you’re sketching out ideas for a gruesome revenge scenario?

Hey, it happens! Just take a look at these five gags that went “a bit wrong”…

Kenny Hampson and The Corpse Lady of Terror Train (1980)

Why: Prank-loving med student Doc (a yet-to-be-semi-famous Hart Bochner) masterminds a cruel initiation gag on shy, magic loving dork, Kenny, to induct him into their fraternity.

The Joke: On the promise that if he ventures upstairs to the bedroom of a (frat?) house, Kenny will pop his cherry with campus hottie Alana (Jamie Lee Curtis), who’s only been clued in a little ways in the plot. She hides behind a veil and says things like “kiss me, Kenny,” while the skinny lad disrobes and climbs into bed with a figure whom he believes to be Alana. And Alana and her gal-pal Mitchy think it’s just a friend of Doc’s.

Instead, the girl in the bed is a dismembered corpse pilfered from a hospital morgue. Kenny almost gets down and dirty with it before she quite literally falls to pieces in his arms and then freaks out in some weird disco spinning motion that sees him entangled in a veil while his frat-brothers-to-never-be burst in and laugh and point.

The Revenge: Three years later, Kenny’s back from the mental hospital and he’s still understandably pissed and homicidal. Doc, Alana, and friends have boarded an excursion train to celebrate their graduation costume-party style and it’s not long before members of their clique start disappearing until only Alana is left to fight off Kenny…

The Learning: Pick your victim carefully. If he appears to be your typical introverted nerd, chances are he’s a raging ball of anti-populous fury who might snap if he’s rejected and ridiculed one more time.

Marty Rantzen and The Naked Shower Humiliation of Slaughter High (1986)

Why: Marty (Simon Scuddamore) is the requisite bookish nerd at Doddsville High (which looks suspiciously like Surrey, England), who annoys the wrong group of popular jocks and their bitchy girlfriends.

The Joke: In retaliation, they decide to play an April Fool’s prank on him by setting him up with campus hottie Carol (Caroline Munro) – seeing a theme? – only to find that after he strips naked in a shower stall, the curtain is ripped back and her group of friends are there with a camera and hose him down. On this occasion, the group are caught and given detention by the coach and so nasty leader Skip sets about resetting the scales and this ends up with Marty getting doused in acid that disfigures him.

The Revenge: Ten years later, the popular group receive invites to a bogus reunion party at the now abandoned school, where Marty – donning a suitably eerie jester mask – soon locks them in and unleashes a veritable cornucopia of fatal ‘jokes’ on them: Poisoned beer; an acid bath; electrified bed… until it’s just him and Carol left alone in the old school.

The Learning: Similar to Terror Train, hell hath no fury like a nerd scorned – or, in this case, scorched. And that groups of jocks are unbelievably stupid.

Cropsy the Janitor and The Wormy Skull in The Burning (1981)

Why: Mean-spirited summer camp custodian, Cropsy, ritually torments the kids of Camp Blackfoot. We don’t see any of this but it’s related later around a campfire. He used to freak them out with his oversized pair of pruning shears. Either way, the campers hate his ass.

The Joke: A group of teenage boys decide to get their own back on the Crospter by creeping him out, possibly in the hope of inducing some sort of coronary. One of them sneaks into his on-site shack and deposits an item at the foot of his bed before going back outside where the group begin tapping on the window. Gently at first and then louder until the man awakes and is greeted with the sight of a worm-infested skull with a candle inside it. Freaking as required, he spills the skull on to his sheets and is soon engulfed in flames. Turned into a “fucking Big Mac” with no hope of skin graphs restoring his appearance, he’s finally released from the hospital five years later and the only thing on his mind… is MURDER!

The Revenge: Crospy crashes another summer camp in the vicinity and stalks and kills various teen campers, using his trademark shit-scary shears to slice, dice and snip shrieking teens to death, including the memorable five-for-one raft scene.

Strangely, Cropsy’s revenge is of the scattergun approach. He targets campers. The particular group responsible get away Scot free (bar one who happens to be a counsellor at the new camp) and the unknowing, innocent, holidaymakers of Camp Stonewater become is hapless new prey.

The Learning: Think through your prank logically. Is there a chance it could go awry and end up maiming somebody? ‘Cos if it does, odds are they ain’t gonna be pleased about it. Also, some victims go so batshit crazy that they’ll take revenge of anyone they can…

The College Kids and The Fake Campus Massacre of Final Exam (1981)

Why: Why not? it seems. The brothers of “the wildest frat house on campus – yeeeaaaahhh!!!” decide to fake a fucking MASSACRE just so their lazy president can cheat on a test and keep his car.

The Joke: So, while a group of masked assailants “gun down” random students at the front of the school, walking bouffant, John, oh-so-cleverly marks his own test paper with the perfect score and hides it in the completed pile while everyone’s attention is focused on what’s happening outside.

The Revenge: Weirdly, in this case, the prank doesn’t affect the killer at all. Instead, it serves to prevent the local cops from taking seriously his arrival on campus when the bodies start piling up – fortunately those of Lazy John and a couple of his idiotic frat brothers included.

However, sucks to be one of the other poor schmucks stuck on campus with an anonymous, unmotivated psychopath.

The Learning: You might think your little joke is a victimless crime, but the joke’s on you if you need help further down the line and nobody believes you! At that point, you become the boy who cried wolf and, frankly, you deserve to be throttled with gym equipment.

The Frat Party and The Photo of the Creepy-Voiced Priest in Happy Hell Night (1991)

Why: Again, getting into the fraternity/sorority of your choice trumps all semblance of sense and rational thought in the American – or Canadian – college system. Fuck the consequences, I want in!

The Joke: Two pledges, cool, calm, collected Sonny (Franke Hughes) and his dorky friend whose name I’ve forgotten, are tasked with breaking into the local mental asylum and taking a photograph of imprisoned legendary Satanic priest, Zachary Malius, who had murdered several frat brothers 25 years earlier.

The Revenge: Of course, Malius escapes – after killing the dorky one – and heads straight back to the frat house where a big party has just finished, leaving a handful of amorous couples alone in the dark. One by one, they all get offed in various ways, each time left with a little fortune cookie style quip from the E.T.-voiced loon: “No TV! No sex! No way Sam Rockwell is ever gonna live down being in this!”

The Learning: A simple frat joke can still be a deadly one. Responsibility is key. In fact, Sonny almost does the right thing and considers the whole shebang an immature waste of time as it is. But when your dad is Darren McGavin, there’s a little bit of pressure applied to conform. So, suck it, horny teens!

* * *

There we have it, just SOME of the jokes that didn’t go as planned. Other notable examples include breaking into old buildings with bloody histories to steal ornaments n’ such, pretending to be dead, pretending to be alive, tricking your friends, scaring your parents/siblings/housemother…

The list is endless so stick with whoopee cushions and custard pies.

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Mother loves you. A lot.

This Sunday is Mother’s Day. In the UK anyway.

Mama gives you birth, feeds you, clothes you, wipes your eyes when you cry, cooks, cleans, drives you places, and loads more. Her love is endless. Sometimes TOO endless. How far will she go to prove her love for you?

In the realm of the slasher film, Mom isn’t always a safe haven, or someone who was murdered – which haunts the final girl, or a critical, bitchy victim of the knife…

Sometimes Mom is a little looney tunes.

Mrs Voorhees (well this was an obvious choice): Friday the 13th

Who does she love? Jason. Her only child (until Jason Goes to Hell at least).

Why is she so pissed off? Because the counsellors weren’t paying attention, they were making love when mongoloid Jason was drowning in Crystal Lake.

What does she do? Pamela first offs a horny couple of teenage counsellors the very next summer. For the next twenty years or so she prevents the re-opening of Camp Crystal Lake and, when it finally forges ahead in 1979, she murders seven staff members. All in the name of Jason.

How dangerous is she? Axes, knives, machetes: Mrs Voorhees is fond of the cutting-implement cache. She worked at the camp so knows her way around. Plus she’s fuck-ass crazy and thinks she IS Jason.

Mrs Bates: Psycho

Who does she love? Norman, we would think, but she scarcely shows it, ordering him around from beyond the grave.

Why is she so pissed off? This is something explored over the various sequels. Seems like the near-incestuous relationship with her own son, the departure of her husband, and being poisioned by her own kid and left in the fruit cellar when guests are over may have contributed… Death is a bummer.

What does she do? She makes Norman dress up as her, talk in her voice to hold conversations, and kill all the nasty females who arouse him.

How dangerous is she? Physically, not at all. She’s been dead for several years after all. But this hasn’t blunted her power to exist inside the head of her only son and he comes back to kill at the family motel season after season…

MrsLoo2Mrs Loomis: Scream 2

Who does she love? Her one and only son, psychotic murderer in his own right – Billy Loomis.

Why is she so pissed off? Because Sidney Prescott shot Billy in the head. Fair enough, he DID murder HER mom and kill loads of her friends. This interests Mrs L not: She wants Sid dead.

What does she do about it? She recruits “up-and-coming” serial killer Mickey to do most of her bidding: Killing various students at Windsor College and jockeying Sidney into position for her to turn up and finish her off.

How dangerous is she? Very. She considers herself sane, her motive being “good, old fashioned revenge”. Never mind the fact her son was a loon, Mrs Loomis blames Sidney’s mother for it all. And almost succeeds.

Eggar’s Mother: The Final Terror

Who does she love? Her son, Eggar. And the woods. But not shampoo.

Why is she so pissed off? Fuck knows. This is one weird movie when it comes to motivation. She just likes her privacy I guess.

What does she do about it? She sets traps made out of tin can lids that shred screaming bimbos, a spiked-log that is sure to skewer anybody it careers into. And she stabs a couple of people too.

How dangerous is she? Not very. She fails to slash Daryl Hannah’s throat efficiently, allowing Rachel Ward to frickin’ SEW IT UP, and there was me thinking a cut throat meant you were screwed. Of the large cast in this movie, she only does away with three (plus two other people at the start) and ends up impaled on her own swinging-log contraption. Duh.

See also: Crappy Killers

Aunt Cheryl: Night Warning

Who does she love? Her nephew, another Billy, whom she has looked after since his parents died in a mysterious ‘accident’. Hmm…

Why is she so pissed off? As Billy approaches 17, Aunt Cheryl begins to fear he might leave her. Plus she’s sexually frustrated after raising him alone all these years. So we can put this one down to “Woman Problems”.

What does she do about it? After unsuccessfully trying to flirt with a gay TV repairman, she stabs him to death and cries self-defence, but the local cops think Billy did it in some gay-rage homo-homicide thing. This screw up means he might get taken away from her in a different way, so she starts killing anybody who might aid that neigh-can-happen scenario.

How dangerous is she? Very. Nobody believes innocent Aunty C would hurt a fly, let alone stab a bunch of people to death. Having fooled everyone by killing Billy’s mom and dad years before, she could get away with almost anything. She only gets angrier with each kill, so look out!

* * *

Other worthy mentions include the psycho mom from Dead in 3 Days, so angry that her dead son’s friends didn’t save him when he fell through the ice that she kills them all years later… Back to the Bates Motel for more Psycho Psycho II to be precise – and little old lady Emma Spool, who claims to be Norman’s REAL mother and offs all the interfering outsiders who threaten his subsistence. A vengeful ma beheads the materinity unit staff after they lose her son in Argento’s Trauma. A similarly insane denied-birth woman takes out her rage on a new mom in grisly French horror Inside

There are also killer mama’s in Sweet Sixteen; Hack-O-Lantern; Have a Nice Weekend; Easter Bunny Kill! Kill!; Matinee and The Crying Tree.

Maternal dominance also prompts the killers of The House on Sorority Row, Unhinged, Humongous, and Midnight.

What have we learned from all this? The mother-son relationship is seemingly the only one that can lead to the deaths of lots and lots of teenagers.

Do mothers like their sons more than their daughters? Do fathers like their daughters more than their sons? Hmm, interesting dichotomy when you think of some of the killer daddy flicks around.

Conclusion: All families are therefore fucked up in some way. Best to get a dog.

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