uwantme2killhim? (2013)

"A teenage boy's descent into the dangerous world of the Internet and the harrowing consequences of his actions. A true story."

Based on a news story originally published by Vanity Fair, "uwantme2killhim?" is the off-putting txt-speak title of Andrew Douglas' somewhat flawed dramatisation. It's written like that for reasons which will become obvious (except that spaces are used in the chat room scene), but those of us of a certain age who have never succumbed to typing like an idiot are more likely to pass this movie by as something which is meant for teenagers. That's a real shame too, since there's a semi-decent psychological thriller lurking within.

It's not the best movie in the world (it looks like a cheap British soap opera), but "uwantme2killhim?" tries hard to present a true story which is far stranger than fiction in an entertaining manner. Artistic licence intentionally prevents you from seeing the whole picture until the end, and depending on how much you think the story could have been more realistic, you will probably still agree that it's quite cleverly done. For anyone taking the movie at face value, however, the ending will feel like an enormous cheat.

The biggest problem though, other than changing the names, ages, and location to protect the not-so-innocent, is that the characters feel "wrong" in every scene. It's not just the clichés, everything they do and say reeks of fakery. To some extent it's intentional, but a lot of it is simply because the casting is questionable and the acting stinks. Not knowing how much is meant to be one way or the other until after the movie ends would be metafiction genius if handled better, but it's more likely to throw you out of the story than draw you in.

Who cut your hair? Dewhursts?

It isn't an issue that the characters talk to their computer screens as they type their words into a chatroom, we've all done that before. One character uses speech recognition software anyway, but it's easy to accept the movie convention when the others are clearly not using Microsoft NetMeeting or the yet to be invented Skype. I remember using Microsoft NetMeeting and a webcam at the end of the '90s, so the use of 2003 technology is spot-on otherwise. If you're feeling nostalgic for 2003, this is about as good as it gets without watching a movie which was actually made then.

Similarly, the school scenes may seem contrived and particularly horrible, but they are awkwardly realistic and familiar too for some bizarre reason which I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's because I've tried to forgot what it was like to be a very British teenager. The sad truth is that we're all complete dicks between 14-18 (and older!) with no exceptions, and I can recognise a lot of myself and my former school friends in the characters. Not that we were teenagers in the 2000s, but some things are universal. For the sake of not committing libel, all I can say is that we were some vile and immature little buggers.

While Channel 4's much shorter docu-drama version, "Kill Me If You Can" (2005), is slightly better overall, "uwantme2killhim?" isn't a bad "remake". Andrew Douglas' "The Amityville Horror" (2005) wasn't as strong as the original either, but as he's hardly a prolific director, maybe it's too early to say if there's a pattern forming.

Ten ways to improve your internet life

It's not that I'm burnt out by it, but I often feel mentally drained within several minutes of surfing the internet. There are now too many voices competing for attention, and there's so much mediocrity that it makes me feel physically ill. Okay, maybe I am a little bit burnt out, but it's with good reason.

If something doesn't appeal to me in real life, I can just walk away from it and never have to encounter that thing or person ever again, but the internet isn't something I can abandon so easily. I've been a presence on this worldwide communication tool for over 20 years, and I'm not going to be giving up on it any time soon. Thus, I have now devised a way to make my internet experience enjoyable again which you'd be wise to take notice of.


1. Use AdBlock Plus.

There's nothing I hate more on the internet than advertising for things I don't want or need, so whoever invented Adblock deserves a medal for creating such a convenient tool. Being able to deny lame YouTubers their Google Ads revenue has never been easier, plus I never have to see all the fluff surrounding Facebook or Twitter again either. No more trending Tweets about Justin Beiber or One Direction for me!

AdBlock is just awesome in every way, although you definitely shouldn't use it on my blog if you still want to see all the pretty pictures!


2. Delete cosplayers and gamers from your social networks.

In the thousands of years of human civilisation, I don't think there have ever been two groups of nerds who people despise more than these infantilised idiots. While there's nothing wrong with playing Facebook apps occasionally or dressing up for Hallowe'en, these retards take things to a whole new level of irritating. If it's not a million automated Facebook posts about which level of Candy Crush they've just reached or how many eggs they still need to buy a new chicken on Farmville, they're on Twitter posting dozens of pictures of themselves dressed as some kind of superhero character from obscure Japanese comicbooks, cartoons and console games which nobody has ever heard of. Gah!

Yes, cosplayers, we get it. You're an overgrown child or a wannabe model who doesn't have the looks to be a model. You may appeal to some acne-ridden pubert who wants to see your wonderbra-enhanced boobies in hundreds of pictures which all look the same, but nobody else can put up with that or your over-exciting enthusiasm about "Dungeons and Dragons"-style RPGs which haven't been popular since 1992.

Once you've unfollowed/unliked them, believe me, it's like a breath of fresh air!


3. Unsubscribe from YouTube fluff channels.

Look it, there are only two reasons to watch anything on YouTube - movies and music videos. Everything else on there is a load of bland crap, motor-mouthed Americans who think they're funny (and probably are for 5 year olds), gamers, cosplayers, make-up girls, bad movie reviewers playing "show and tell", and butthurt ranters. Honest to God, I truly believe that YouTube is one of the few sites on the internet where you can find somebody to hate with every fibre of your being within 5 minutes of signing up. And don't even get me started on the grammatically-challenged comments!

Once you realise this and only subscribe to the movie channels, YouTube is actually pretty great except that 90% of the illegally uploaded movies (most of which still don't have a DVD release) will disappear from your playlist within a week of watching them. DownloadHelper is, of course, your friend!


4. Unfollow/block people with mental health issues.

Whether this is on Twitter or Facebook, there will always be people who you followed, "friended" or liked (usually because they were pretty) who then turn out to be deranged assholes. Why they have to spoil it all by being irritating beyond belief is anybody's guess, but one of the answers I've come up with is that human beings really don't need to know that much about each other before they start getting annoyed with each other's follies.

As a rule, the people I tend to unfollow very quickly are those who are an "-ist" of some kind. People with causes are the worst! Primarily, I block feminists, athiests, buddhists (who are just athiests by a different name), anybody who is into politics or boring news items, and vegetarians/vegans. In real life, I would not be friends with a member of any of these "groups", so why would I want them in my internet life?

It also almost goes without saying that I won't follow anyone under 25 years old because their brains don't work properly. I may have to raise that limit to above 30 soon though.


5. Banish lame blogs from your reading list.

I would name names, but what's the point? Instead, I'll give you a few general examples of the blogs which I never return to.

i. Snarks.
I don't like sarcasm or snarky people, and it really doesn't work in literary form. It's not funny, and even if it was, I wouldn't find it funny because I have no sense of humour.

ii. Haters.
Although I've been described as a hater myself, it doesn't necessarily follow that I want to associate with more haters. My blog posts are fair and honest rather than setting out to hate something just for the sake of hating it.

iii. Multi-posters/group blogs.
Any blog which has more than one writer is doomed to failure because they hardly ever agree with each other, the quality varies from one post to the next, and their attached forums are always full of whiteknighting fantards.

iv. Poorly presented blogs.
Whether they are poorly written or ungrammatical doesn't bother me as much as blogs with images which are too big for the posts or hang off the edge of the sidebars. I also won't return to any where all the text is centred like a poem, are too difficult to navigate, or I can't scroll through their posts with the up and down keys. Sites with "Top Ten" lists where you have to click through ten pages to see each each item should be banned!

v. Anything I have to pay to read.
Seriously? Who pays to read a blog? Not going to happen.


6. Never go to Reddit.

Whatever anyone posts on that crappy site will be seen as trollbait or downvoted into oblivion, so it's not worth the effort. As a moderator of several subreddits, I spend more time deleting spam and blocking trolls than enjoying the communities I've created. There are also several long term users of the site who need to be banned from the entire internet as far as I'm concerned.

The only good thing about sites like Reddit and 4chan is that they used to keep the majority of the internet's detritus in two easily avoidable places. Unfortunately, they've spread to YouTube and other places since.

Want a free message board? Just sign up with Proboards instead.


7. Boycott Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and other e-beggars.

Very easily done if you have the good sense to realise that it's all a scam. Normal people work hard and save up for things, or take out loans if they're in business. Giving your hard-earned money to somebody who already has more than you just so they can make something which they then expect you to buy is absolutely bloody stupid! Don't forget that Kickstarter and Indiegogo get paid out of the raised money too, so there's nothing altruistic about any of it.

Just unfollow/unlike anybody promoting one of these "crowdfunding campaigns", and you'll never have to grind your teeth in anger over these e-begging scumbags again.


8. Don't follow the pretty people.

They'll just make you feel bad about yourself as they post a million pictures from their latest free holiday somewhere exotic or tell you about somebody else giving them gifts simply because they're pretty.

Things come too easy to these people anyway, so make internet life harder for them by not pandering to their vanity and narcissism. Give yourself a reality check; even if you had a million dollars worth of plastic surgery, you aren't ever going to bump uglies with them!

As an aside, I won't ever employ pretty people in real life because they are useless at everything, have no personalities other than a plethora of entitlement issues, and are thick as two short planks.


9. Don't follow celebrities.

They are never as cool as the characters they play on stage or screen, and most of them have no personalities of their own. If their posts, status updates, or Tweets are actually written by them, they'll still be boring as Hell to read and will probably involve what they had for lunch.

Constant promotions about their next project will most certainly piss you off unless you are an obsessed mega-fan, in which case, may God have mercy on your soul.


10. Spend less time online.

Once you switch your computer off, there's a whole world of real people out there who are much more interesting. Or if you're like me and don't like people, there are cats to play with and movies to watch! Either way, taking regular breaks from internet bullshit will make you a lot happier.


If you found any of this useful, or even if you didn't, leave me a comment below.

Ten Things People Do on the Internet Which Need a Reality Check and Other Follies

It's been a funny old week for me on the internet (and in real life) so I thought I'd share a few random things which have been amusing me. With this nasty, rainy weather outside, we could all do with a bit of cheering up, right? Just leave it to me to spread more mirth, merriment and downright hatred with yet another controversial blog post. Enjoy!


1. Capitalising Every Letter At The Start Of A Blog Post Even When It Doesn't Work Grammatically.

Don't you just hate that? The rule has always been that the words "and", "to", "from", "or", "nor", "the", "an", "a", etc. in the middle of a heading are supposed to begin with lower case letters not upper case ones. I suppose it's better than PeOpLe wHo TyPe lIkE tHiS but not by much.

I also loathe really long blog post titles which take up half my Blogroll. Seriously, if you want to title your post "All the things I did on holiday in Marbella where I went with my mum and dad who got sunburnt and stayed in a chalet by the beach", get a grip!

Don't even get me started on the people who think it's really clever to title their blogs as "[center]Horror Movie Reviews | Games | Books | Music | All things about zombies | Little Cakes | Wicca | Furry Things | Bronies | Horror Rules Okay![/center]" I spend ages deleting all that crap from my Blogroll and then retitling everyone's blogs with all the spelling mistakes and non-functional HTML tags fixed anyway.


2. I'll teach you a lesson, I'll unfollow you... so there!

This one has to be the funniest trend on all the social networks and even Blogger (which is just a glorified MySpace after all).

Over the years, I think I've been unfollowed by as many people as have followed me, and I've unfollowed probably four times that number myself just because I grew out of certain cliques or no longer shared the same interests as former "internet friends". I've blocked and ignored quite a few too. But, I can honestly say that I've never unfollowed someone out of a sense of "I'll show you how much I hate you by unfollowing you!"

How does that work exactly? You hate somebody so much that you unfollow them then continue to kite over their social networking profiles to see what they are saying so that you can whinge about it on your own status updates which the person in question doesn't even read?! Trust me, once I unfollow somebody, it's a case of "out of sight, out of mind". I couldn't care less if the unfollowed are calling me the next Adolf Hitler or worse on their own blogs for all the good that it will do them. I certainly don't lose any followers or sleep through it, and there have even been times when I've gained followers because of whingers whose readers got curious about who was being whinged about.

The same thing happens on message boards. Somebody gets the arse and thinks, "I'll leave the board and take my ball home with me so nobody else can play with it". It's petty, childish stuff, but the internet is full of petty childishness anyway. Fully grown adults are worse than real kids once allowed to hide behind the alleged safety of their keyboards.


3. The Django doll fiasco.

Have you seen the NECA Django dolls which are now banned from eBay for "racism" but are still being sold by greedy Amazon dealers for between $300-1700 each? How can a little plastic figure of a movie character be racist? Even given the nature of the movie, having watched it and reviewed it, I can't see how "Django" might encourage a return to slavery. Did any of the complainers even watch the film?

Who in their right mind complains about collectible dollies? Worse, who complains to the company trying to sell these things on the internet? What moron who ordered the stock would then withdraw the items and lose their investment? Give me a break! The only thing that's happened is that the price has been annoyingly jacked-up to extortionate levels, and some more popularity has been generated for Quentin Tarantino's movie.

Will six "action figures" (only two of which even look like the characters in the film) cause that much racism? It's not as if they come with branding irons and whips. My Broomhilda certainly didn't anyway, and I've had all her clothes off several times to check!

Banning toys won't make any difference to America's history, "white guilt", or the racism in America which is as bad today as it's always been. Doesn't Django end the film as a free man after having defeated slavery single-handedly? Or did I miss something?

This makes me wonder if Princess Leia slave girl dolls will be next in line for a banning? I hope not. I haven't bought one yet, but I have no desire to work like a slave just to be able to afford one in the future. B'dum tish!


4. The "Lamers of Horror" clique.

Have you noticed the different cliques (pronounced "cleeks" not "clicks", by the way) among horror bloggers? There are those of us with a mid-range number of GFC followers (350-450) who attract a certain more intellectual group of readers while there are others with well below 200 GFC followers who tend to attract those you can really only describe as "tasteless morons who would be better off hanging out with the scene kids on Tumblr". Of course, there are some new bloggers who simply haven't achieved any more followers in the short time they've been writing, but that's another story.

I've actually removed my Google Friend Connect widget because it doesn't fit in with how I want my blog to look, plus nobody has used it for the last year. It doesn't do what it was intended to, i.e. block undesirables, so it's a useless addition to anybody's blog if they aren't playing the popularity contest. If you must know, I ended up with 354 followers on it, but over half of them are now from dead Blogger accounts. Some people followed me then stopped writing a few months later but didn't remove their accounts. No, I know I get the blame for everything, but it wasn't my fault. Blogging simply isn't for everyone.

Anyway, I suppose you want to know about the "Lamers of Horror" clique. These are the horror bloggers who have been blogging on and off for the last three or four (or even five) years and still don't have over 200 followers. Some have less than half of that because, quite simply, they have no content on their blogs worth reading and spend all their time commenting other bloggers just to get follow/comment backs.

Their usual trick is to write "Great review!" on each other's blog posts even when the "review" isn't great or doesn't count as a review. Then the recipient is obliged to write something on the giver's latest hogwash containing more sycophantic nonsense. You'll see this quite often if you scan the comments sections of some of the poorer horror blogs out there. You'll also find it rife among fashion bloggers, photo bloggers, and any other "girlie" blogs. You won't see it on a blog like mine because I don't get a lot of that. I also periodically delete the old comments anyway.

The "Lamers of Horror" are mostly girls (or pretend girls) with maybe a few dozen infatuated guys in their clique. Naturally, they all follow each other. "Birds of a feather flock together" and all that jazz. The same avatars show up over and over again in their GFC widgets in almost the same order. Woe betide you if you annoy one of them because all their little buddies who share the same brain cell will instantly disappear from your GFC widget to "teach you a lesson". It's happened to me because I tend to piss off a lot of people. Do I care? Hell, no. Just be prepared for much laughter when it happens to you. Now you know what the phenomenon is, it's hilarious.

Another thing which highlights the "Lamers of Horror" is their appalling taste in horror movies. They invariably prefer "horror comedies" or "horror for kiddies" instead of anything with any grit to it. You won't find them praising the virtues of "The Human Centipede 2" or "A Serbian Film", but you will find them retreading the same tired old ground about "Beetlejuice", "Ghostbusters", "A Nightmare on Elm Street", or R.L. Stine's "Goosebumps" books. For some reason, I always imagine them all as looking like the "Ermagerd Gersebermps" girl but even less attractive.

"Lamers of Horror" also don't know how to write movie reviews. Perhaps they never learned how to do it in school or they are just lazy bloggers. Either way, what they do is retell the story in their own words then just add a couple of lines such as "It was a really great movie. I liked it a lot." Yeah, it makes you not want to live on this planet anymore, doesn't it?

If you find yourself caught up in the "Lamers of Horror" clique, just don't reply to them. It's more trouble than it's worth and will drag your own blog down. In the past, I've enjoyed pissing them off until they've left my GFC widget, but I'm sick and twisted that way.


5. Google Plus is shutting out people who like to use their screen names rather than real names.

This happened to me earlier this week when I got an email from Google+ telling me that their system didn't recognise "Dr Blood" as a valid name. I could either use my real name (which is hardly the internet's biggest secret but no longer leads to my blog since I've been writing under a pseudonym for the last ten years) or I could delete my account. I chose to delete my Google+ account. I never used it much and could barely understand it. All those circles and an interface that I couldn't make head nor tail of! Nope, not for me.

It was an absolute bugger trying to find the place to delete my Google+ account because they've hidden the link to do it so well. After (ironically) Googling to find out the answer, I got rid of the pointless thing once and for all while still keeping all the other Google goodies (such as this blog) intact. Be very careful what you choose to delete if you do the same thing because you might lose everything in one go.

This also brings me back to the GFC widget which Google have been phasing out ever since they removed it from third-party sites such as Wordpress early last year. Apparently, Google want everybody to use Google+ profiles for their blogs which lose all the information that you have on your Blogger ID profile. Don't do it! I did it and then had to put everything back. What a pain in the ass! There's a new "Google+ Followers" widget to replace the GFC, but it's never going to catch on. It does even less than the original GFC widget unless you want to broadcast all your fake friends to the world to make yourself look popular.


6. Little kids on the internet.

Why do parents let little kids around 10 or 11 years old use the internet? Do these kids really need porn at that age? What are they even doing on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and all the other social networking sites which used to demand that kids be at least 13 years old before they could sign up?

I'll tell you what they are doing: Trolling!

Have you ever seen the comments on YouTube (not on my account because I don't allow comments) full of swearing, grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, run on sentences without punctuation, and kids stupid enough to announce their age at the end of them? Typical example: "Hey biatch u cn just kill urself cos lyke ur jelly bro... and u dont lyke anytang cos your stoopid and Imma 12." Jesus wept!

Take your goddamned kids off the internet! Give them a plastic bag and tell them to go play in the traffic or something! Or, I don't know, why not do something constructive like spend some time with them instead of using the internet as a babysitter?


7. Little kids at horror conventions.

LOL WUT? I heard about this on a friend of mine's podcast where a woman phoned-in to say that she was so disgusted by the in-fighting among horror cliques that she would no longer be taking her 8 and 11 year old children to horror conventions! GOOD!

Why would you take kids who aren't legally old enough to watch horror movies to an indoor fleamarket full of wannabe "suicide girls" and sweaty comicbook nerds who are all drinking straight from the bottle and swearing at each other anyway? This is as bad as parents who take their squalling brats into R-rated movies to disrupt the enjoyment of the movie for everyone else.

Keep your kids at home! And "in-fighting cliques", keep on doing it! It's funny!


8. People who get butthurt over movie reviews.

This makes me laugh my arse off (not literally or figuratively as that would require hospitalisation) because it's so stupid!

Unless you made the movie in question, invested your own money in it and stand to lose revenue from a bad review, you have no reason to get so emotionally attached to a product. Movies are just products designed to make money. That's why the "entertainment industry" is also called "show business" with the clue being in the second word.

If I buy a DVD or pay for a ticket to a movie which doesn't satisfy me, I'm going to rip that movie to shreds on my blog. I paid for the right to do so in the same way that if I bought a meal and didn't like the taste of it, I'm going to have something to say about that as well.

Being British, I'm not actually much of a complainer in restaurants or stores (I'm a rather pleasant customer actually, full of "pleases" and "thank yous", and I always leave a tip), but if somebody makes a crappy movie, what do you think I'm going to say about it?

Unlike the big name sell-out sites, I'm not here to promote anything (except when I've been paid to do so, in which case you'll be as surprised as I am!) and all my reviews are 100% what I really think of the films I watch. Although I try to be objective, of course personal taste plays a part which is why I despise "hobby horror" or "backyard epics". That doesn't mean that big-budget theatrical movies get a free pass either. I'm even harder on them because they have the budgets and experience behind them to be better.

I get a lot of hate behind the scenes (on the other side of the comments form) from complete idiots who you would think made the films themselves. I rarely hear from the directors or actors, but in the past, the ones who have contacted me have agreed that what I had to say about their work was fair. One even apologised because I didn't like his film. Yeah, I felt a little bit bad, but his film made me feel worse so I didn't have any remorse for long. Still, it was nice of him to visit.

So when I hate a crappy movie, don't shoot the messenger! I paid to see it, I gave it a fair chance, but it didn't work for one reason or another. You hate me because I hate a movie? Well, I hate you because you're a dumbass. Tit for tat, baby! Feel free to unfollow me for hating your favourite movie because that'll really teach me a lesson!

If people want me to stop hating movies, they need to make some better ones.


9. The number of followers/friends/likes popularity contest and jealousy.

Here's the thing, you can have a million followers on the social networks or your blog, but unless each one is sending you a dollar every month, what good does it do you?

As I said, I have 354 followers on here (maybe more who follow in other ways or invisibly), around 758 on Twitter (although it keeps changing up and down), 312 on Facebook, and various numbers on other sites. Do they all send me money? Nope. One did, once, but as a rule, no. I'm not that popular, but within my little circle of people who I chat to regularly, I suppose I am. I know some actors, directors, and musicians both in real life and online, but that doesn't entitle me to any financial reward or "basking in their reflected glory" either. I'm just a blogger who writes for a bit of fun. So why all the jealousy?

Obviously, if you are a movie star or a pop star, the chances are that you will have several million followers who can't wait to give you all their money for your next product, but that doesn't happen for movie reviewing leeches. Yes, that's what movie reviewers and critics are: LEECHES! We're the worst kind of journalists. We don't contribute anything, we just take and regurgitate. Even the news sites only copy each other with a few words changed here and there. No matter how original your writing is, if you are reviewing a movie, the chances are that somebody else is saying exactly the same things somewhere else but with better sentence construction and more snarky jokes.

Should that make us all jealous of someone who has better writing skills? Maybe. If that jealousy spurs us on to improve our own style, it's a good thing. But this negative, hating jealousness has to stop. So what if someone has 10,000 GFC followers? It just means that they were in the right place at the right time and play the game a bit better than others. Why hate them for it?

In some cases, popular critics and reviewers deserve a certain amount of hate for spreading misinformation and for selling-out. That's understandable. But you really need a reality check if you hate somebody for having a bigger number of "pretend friends" on the internet than you do. That's like hating someone for having more cows on Farmville.


10. Social networking is useless for bloggers.

How long do you spend on Facebook, Twitter and all the other social networks each day rather than writing content for your blog? Hours and hours, probably. Do you realise how much more you could achieve by ignoring them and just blogging? Let me tell you as a person who spends days at a time on Farmville, Angry Birds, and all the other apps, plus bullshitting on Twitter, it's a lot of wasted time.

The other problem with Facebook, Twitter and, especially, Tumblr is that they've become the virtual gated communities that AOL once was. For a while it was MySpace, then it was Proboards and vBulletin sites, but things are always changing. Once somebody is on those sites, you aren't going to pry them loose very easily to look at your blog. You'll read all sorts of crap about how you need to use social networking to improve your audience, but it's a lie.

I have a Facebook page, and apart from five people, I don't think any of them have looked at my blog once. Yes, just five actually clicked the links placed on there by the NetworkedBlogs app. The other 307 (or whatever) just like the silly jokes and pictures that I post so they have something to share with their friends. They aren't going to leave Facebook for a second because it's too much fun to read all their friends complaining about their lives on their own "walls" than come to a horror movie review blog.

Twitter is just as bad. Sometimes somebody will take a quick look at where a link heads, but most of the time they won't. Again it's far more fun for them to list the #tenbiggestthingsIcangetinmymouth or wittily talk to themselves with whatever other topic is trending than leave the comfort zone of that environment.

Outside of Facebook and Twitter is a big, scary internet full of more things than LOLcats and memes, but some people just aren't very adventurous. The only way to get traffic to your blog from social networks is to give things away (which lasts for as long as the giveaway does) or sell a product regularly. If the only thing you have to "sell" is a free piece of writing, nobody wants to know.

So forget the social networks and just concentrate on filling your blog with good content if you want more readers. Fairweather followers and pretend friends who you'll never meet in real life won't do you any good.


If you've enjoyed or agree with anything I've said above, let me know in the comments below. If you disagree, I couldn't care less so please keep it to yourself. Yes, I do only want to surround myself by people who think the same way that I do. I'd be a bloody fool if I chose to surround myself with enemies and haters, wouldn't I?

Smiley (2012)

"After discovering an urban legend on 4chan's /b/ board of a demented serial killer that has nothing but a carved 'smiley' on his face, Ashley, a mentally fragile teen, must decide whether she is going insane, or is the next victim."

Every so often I'm forced to watch a horror movie directed by someone I've never heard of and starring a load of people I've never heard of either. Sometimes it's a necessity for writing this blog, but occasionally I just do it for the lulz. Thus, when the chance came to see a movie about a supernatural serial killer on the internet who does it "for the lulz" too, I was intrigued.

Apart from Roger Bart (formerly the creepy pharmacist who fancied Bree in "Desperate Housewives" as well as one of the sickos in "Hostel 2") and Keith David, I honestly have no idea who any of the other cast members are, whether or not they are real actors or YouTube wannabes, or anything other than a vague recognition of a couple of their names.

Allegedly, one of the cast members is named Toby Turner, and he's big on YouTube for something, but I couldn't even tell you what he looks like or who he plays. Shane Dawson is more obvious as I've seen his picture floating about on the internet before yet have never watched even one of his YouTube videos either. From his limited acting ability in "Smiley", I probably never want to. As a non-actor, he isn't that bad, but he's a lot older, hairier, fatter and uglier than I thought a popular YouTube children's entertainer would be. His character name of "Pedobear" might be an in-joke based on his fanbase of 12-14 year olds. If there's something more to it than that, I didn't understand it.

In case I start to sound too negative, let me just say that I didn't hate "Smiley" or anyone involved in it. In fact, I really liked it as a "meta" movie about internet trolling. We all love to troll "teh interwebz", don't we? Imagine if the misery we like to inflict on others with our keyboards could manifest itself in physical form and you get the premise behind "Smiley". I thought that was kind of great.

I can haz cheezburger now? Oops, wrong meme.

Even though "Smiley" first appears to be little more than a ripoff of "Candyman" and the "Bloody Mary" urban myths, it's actually a bit cleverer than that. With a couple of twists at the end, although derivative of "Scream", "April Fool's Day" and "Urban Legend", "Smiley" is quite successful (yet overambitious) in what it sets out to achieve. As a horror movie though, maybe not so much.

It's probably not going to win any awards for originality, scares or gore, but it's still a decent looking movie with good production values, not too many lags, and only a few moments of dodgy camerawork. Unlike the current slew of "found footage" crap, there's certainly no need to take any dramamine before watching "Smiley" unless the jealousy that someone who you don't think deserves it has managed to get their horror movie released theatrically makes you nauseous.

Of course, "Smiley" has some flaws especially in the dialogue which may be a tad too unnatural for most people's ears. If people on the West Coast really speak to each other like that, they need slapping. It's a debut feature by somebody just out of film school, Michael J. Gallagher, who has been lucky enough to be able to make it so you have to make allowances. As much as I will always bash the talentless handycam brigade with their backyard "zombedy" epics, "Smiley" doesn't fall into the same category. It looks like it had a fairly decent budget for one thing, and there's obviously some technical ability behind the scenes.

The killer actually looks pretty good too. I think he'll be a poster on a few people's walls before too long especially if this becomes a franchise. As ever, the characterisation doesn't have much depth to it, and quite a few of the characters are instantly dislikeable, but that's always a bonus for a jaded movie reviewer looking for something to write about. For those people who loathe Shane Dawson's antics as a YouTube money whore, seeing him get his comeuppance is a nice piece of wish fulfilment which will most certainly drive his haters to this film only to be quite surprised.

To give more credit where it is most certainly due, Caitlin Gerard, who plays Ashley, is highly watchable and gives an outstanding performance. Looks-wise, she isn't my cup of tea although I'm sure the intended audience will find her incredibly hot. If I have a type, it's not mental, skinny blondes who scream, cry a lot and smash their laptops to pieces, but to each their own.

I'll take the one on the right, please.

Ashley's brunette friend, Proxy (stupid name but whatever), is sensationally gorgeous. Melanie Papalia is her real name (in case you wondered), and having looked it up, I think it's one to remember. Although I'm torn between her and Nikki Limo (who plays a babysitter at the start) for the "best looking chick in the movie" award, she definitely made "Smiley" more enjoyable for me. She can really act too, and I can't wait to see her in more movies.

As I said right at the beginning, "Smiley" is full of unknown actors, actresses and YouTube "stars" who you either may or may not recognise. The only big YouTuber who I've ever watched regularly is iJustine and, unfortunately, she isn't in this. That was a missed opportunity and a bit of a shame. If she had been in it, maybe the "real critics" wouldn't have been so harsh about "Smiley". Having accidentally read the titles of their critiques, I wonder if we've even watched the same film because I enjoyed it. Although everyone has an opinion, most internet critics aren't honest and a lot have become negative just to stir up controversy and more pageviews. The irony of that in reference to the subject matter of "Smiley" won't escape anyone.

Without checking, I can almost guarantee that Bloody-Disgusting, Dread Central and Ain't It Cool News will be overpraising "Smiley" as the second-coming in horror movie form just to get their names on the DVD artwork. Unless, of course, they didn't get a kickback (in which case they'll be hating it too). "Smiley" is a good film, but please take their nonsense with a huge pinch of salt. Better yet, ignore it altogether if you don't want the hype to spoil it for you.

If you love the internet, like to hang out in video chatrooms or just generally surf YouTube, you'll get a lot of entertainment out of "Smiley". It's not ideal for the older generation or hardcore horror aficionados, but if you are lucky enough to have it playing in a movie theatre near you at the moment, I encourage you to check it out... for the lulz. =)

Ecphrasis, Synopsis or Review?

Yesterday was supposed to be the day of my second podcast entitled "The Bloody Podcast Rises!" I had everything in place, two people were going to join me on it, and I went for a late afternoon nap quite excited about creating another hour of entertainment.

Of course, since you are now reading this rather than listening to that podcast, it never happened. One of my guests dropped out not so much at the last minute but two hours before, and it was impossible to find a replacement in the time left. I would be lying if I was to say that I wasn't very disappointed. I went back to bed early because I simply had nothing left to do at that point and was completely disheartened by the dropout's flakiness. There are cultural reasons for how that person is which I still haven't learnt to anticipate, so it didn't make things any easier.

Suffice it to say that the idea behind the show was to select a few "Horrible Movie Bloggers" and tear their work apart to make points about how not to write or broadcast reviews. While none of us are perfect and most of us recognise our limitations, there are others who blatantly don't care about what they are doing and make things horrible for the rest.

I'm not talking about the haters, trolls, and thread-crappers who get their fun from the comments sections on various websites. Some of them are actually funny. No, what I'm talking about are the people who seemingly have no right to their apparent success.

Take, for example, Harry Knowles. Allegedly, he started posting reviews in 1996 and, thus, has been doing so for a year longer than I've been online. I don't remember him being popular back then, but, given the nature of the internet with most people getting online through AOL/Compuserve and dial-up connections, that's not very surprising. Google didn't exist and most people used Yahoo, Lycos or multi-search tools made up of hundreds of smaller search engines to find anything.

The first incarnation of my own site, "Dr Blood's Video Vault", wasn't online until the middle of 1997 and I had trouble finding even another six horror sites to swap banner links with. Back then even I (with my website created with MS Publisher) was considered a big player and, through affiliates, I made a load of money which I'm not ashamed to boast about. Of course my site was rather sparse, but the rule was to get everything loading in less than 44k or nobody would wait long enough to see it. As bandwidth increased, pages got bigger. I'm still not sure that it was quite such a good thing to abandon the 44k rule either.

The only alternatives to the independent movie review sites in 1997 were Microsoft's "Cinemania", and the IMDb had yet to take up the position of prominence which it has today. As I saw the IMDb get created and grow, I truly thought that it was one of the greatest things which anyone has ever thought of. All that was due to change unfortunately.

Going back to Harry Knowles, he's a reviewer and a critic so he should be used to criticism. I have nothing personal against him, but I can't bear reading his reviews. I had never even heard of him until I came to America, but I made up for my ignorance quite quickly. Most people say that his writing hasn't developed in 16 years, and, as we all joke about but sadly know to be the truth, he loves just about everything as long as there's a free ticket, DVD, or financial kickback involved. Basically, you can't trust his reviews to be objective, but why should you? His written style is little different to that of a 14 year old schoolboy and, from the comments on his site, that is his target audience. He's been successful, put a lot of work into selling things, made a ton of money, but do any of us actually read his reviews? No. He's a sell-out with no credibility left. Even so, I can't help but admire the barefaced cheek of Harry Knowles to play the system at its own game and become a success from it.

There are far more "Horrible Movie Bloggers" around than Harry Knowles though. In the early to mid 2000s, I watched the rise of "Bloody-Disgusting", "Dread Central" and even "ShockTillYouDrop" as they populated their forums with their "friends" from MySpace, built-up their databases full of free reviews from people who only wanted the glory of posting them somewhere, and, after monetising the Hell out of themselves, eventually sold their sites to the highest bidders. None of these sites are what they used to be, strings are being pulled behind the scenes, and you can be sure that if they've been financially rewarded, they'll all play salesman when it comes to promoting any new horror movie rather than being honest about its content. I'm sure that there are thousands of non-horror movie review sites which are just as guilty, but I wouldn't know who they were to list them. That's why I needed a team effort for the podcast.

But that's enough about the big boys. There are "Horrible Movie Bloggers" among the lesser ranks of Blogger, Wordpress, YouTube, and whichever other social networking platform you can think of. Although they probably aren't making any money from their work, they are doing enough to really damage those who should be.

That brings me to the title of this post: "Ecphrasis, Synopsis or Review". Some people don't know the difference and their ignorance is destroying the credibility of all independent movie reviewers. It's certainly destroyed the reviews sections of the IMDb, but that whole site is a cesspit of haters and trolls on all the "Message Boards" anyway.

Are the IMDb movie ratings from millions of unsupervised click-happy 5 year olds reliable? No. The whole site is a parody of what it once was. As for the "actors" with IMDb profiles, I'm surprised that I haven't got my name on there. Like several million others who do indeed have their names on the IMDb, I haven't actually been in a movie either. But I digressed. Bitching about the IMDb would need a podcast all to itself and would be several days long. Yes, it counts as a "Horrible Movie Blog", but it's more of a forum than anything else, the reviews are limited in length, and they all suck (especially the ones with a URL at the end which invite you to go and read more of the same). I can only read a plot synopsis so many times before my brain shuts down.

Ask yourself how many blogs you've been to where the review is little more than a retelling of the entire plot of a movie with maybe one line at the end saying, "I liked it". Are these people serious? Admittedly, in some very rare cases, the "review" is actually a thirty page ecphrasis of every single aspect of the movie designed to convey what was seen in one medium into another for those who have no other way of appreciating it. I'm not talking about movie reviews for the blind or the deaf when I point out these "Horrible Movie Bloggers". The ones I can't stand are the uneducated who think that this is what a movie review really should be like no matter who the intended audience is.

These "synopsis" writers don't even get that simply rewriting the movie's plot in their own words is not a review. I know what happened. Back in the day, when their teachers told them to write essays "as if you are explaining to someone who doesn't know", they did exactly that and carried it with them until the chance to write blogs came along. I have had arguments with so many people who sent me a link to their "New Review" which turned out to be a synopsis of the movie that it's not even funny anymore.

I'm not going to be a hypocrite about it. I've done it too and I've even done it when writing essays during my incarceration at University. Of course, those essays came back with lots of red ink all over them and some quite acidic comments in some cases which made me pull myself together. A movie review or a "critique" is something entirely different to a synopsis.

A movie review should be about how the movie made you feel, what the performances of the actors were like, a scene which really stood out, if the story was interesting, or any of the thousands of other technical aspects of drama or movie production which you recognised when you willingly suspended your disbelief to entertain yourself.

When I read a movie review, I want to know all these things and I like to read how the movie affected the reviewer on a personal level. Whether it made them remember something else, an incident in their lives, or if the whole occasion was something special for them, these are the things which should be included. I don't care if the writer has gone off on a tangent from the movie itself, it's their "review". It's a personal and honest thing. As long as they never write "in and of itself", describe the direction as "helming", the camerawork as "lensing", or commit atrocious uses of adjectives such as "lugubrious set decoration" or "glorious acting ability" then it's all good.

Those people who just list every single plot point in their spoiler laden synopses are truly "Horrible Movie Bloggers", but, you know, there are even worse than them out there.

I may not write the best movie reviews myself, If I've ever said I did, you can be sure that I meant it humourously as I am well aware of my own shortcomings. The two things which I cannot abide more than any others are sycophants and reviews full of multisyllabic hyperbole.

There is one reviewer in particular (who I won't name, but we joke about all the time on Twitter) who writes every review as a sales pitch no matter how bad the movie actually is. There are monetised YouTube partners who do the same thing for financial rewards so you can see why they do it, but this guy claims to be an "aspiring movie reviewer". It's sad really because it's never going to happen for him even if Harry Knowles is so obviously his role model. His sycophancy, his gaggle of equally creepy friends who comment two or three times each on every post he writes to make him look popular, his recent overuse of "ain't" and "Hon" when he isn't even an American, and his tendency towards hyperbole and nonsensical periphrasis make such a "Horrible Movie Blogger" a figure of fun for the rest of us who are trying to improve our own writing.

There is yet another contrarian who I can't even bear to read because he writes like he swallowed a lexicon and seems unable to write the simplest of sentences without at least three four-syllable words in them which he thinks will make him appear more erudite. I could write like that too if I wanted, but I like to think that I understand my target audience and what they like to read. I also know that this "Horrible Movie Blogger" doesn't entirely understand the words he's using in the first place. Plain speech is always better. That's why I have 10 times the amount of subscribers that he does even though I'm far from being one of the most popular bloggers myself. There are fashion bloggers who post nothing but pictures and have over 100,000 GFC followers so I know my place all right.

Anyway, that's probably what "The Bloody Podcast" would have been about if we'd made it. It definitely would have been something a little bit more educational than the average podcast and funny as well, but, alas, now we'll never know. As someone who has only made 37c so far from monetising my own blog to the hilt, there would have been lots of self-deprecating humour which I know everybody loves otherwise iJustine and Shane Dawson wouldn't have become so successful for acting like idiots. Yes, they are acting. You don't honestly believe that they could be like that in real life, do you? Look into their eyes and see how they aren't quite as dumb as they want you to believe they are.

I'm not going to dwell on this podcast failure. Like most things, if you want to do something well, you have to do it yourself, and you should never rely on other people. I'll find another subject to podcast about on my own and it'll be even better.

Megan Is Missing (2011)

"Employing a mix of storytelling techniques (including webcam footage, video chats and dramatized news reports), this chillingly realistic thriller charts the disappearance of two teens who vanish three weeks apart under mysterious circumstances."

If you ever needed something to spook kids about the dangers of internet predators then Michael Goi's "Megan is Missing" is the film you've been looking for.

I had watched some of this when it first came out back in May but gave up on it due to it not really having any subject matter which was of any interest to me. For the first hour, it appeared to be nothing but an inconsistently acted teen drama with actresses far too old for their parts. But, thanks to Netflix and boredom, I gave it another try and I'm glad that I did.

Having reappraised "Megan Is Missing", the acting isn't actually that bad although believing that one of the 22 year old actresses in particularly is supposed to be a 14 year old who still loves teddy bears is still a bit of stretch especially when you compare her character to that of the other (unfortunately far too realistic) "teens".

Although it has plenty of flaws including the unrealistic use of video phones, a silly fake news report, and a couple of plot holes which are impossible to ignore, for something which was allegedly filmed in only 8 days for $35,000, the ending (apart from the final scene which dragged on for way too long) rivals anything from the most hardcore mainstream horror that you are likely to encounter.

I'd rank the first 12 of the last 22 minutes of "Megan is Missing" up there with "The Girl Next Door" (2007) for being something which you really wish you could "unsee" afterwards. It really is that brutal!

I'm not going to tell you any more because I hate giving spoilers for films which I recommend. No matter what age you are or how many horror films you've already watched, the more you don't know about it, the greater the final shock will be.