Jeff's Staff Pick: October 20, 2022

What’s up Sorry Staters?

As I mentioned earlier this month, for me, October is all about trying to binge as many horror movies as possible. The other night, I went to go hang with my buddy Alex, whose VHS collection would make the selection at a 90s video rental store look like it had slim pickins. We decided to watch 2 movies: The 1988 remake of The Blob and the 1989 Brian Yuzna classic Society.

Both of these flicks have fantastic slime and gore practical effects. While I had seen the classic 50s film The Blob, I had never seen the 80s remake. Alex pitched it to me as being not unlike John Carpenter’s treatment of The Thing. I definitely enjoyed it. Gross, gelatinous fun all the way through. Now, Society I had seen before. It had been a number of years, but what I’d forgotten is that the movie is kind of a slow burn that all builds to the amazing payoff in the final scene. For those of you that have never seen Society, I’m going to try my best not to spoil the big reveal at the end of the movie. But just expect a gooey and gorgeous finale.

Not unlike Society, this has all been a long build up to get to my point in writing this staff pick. Society is truly a glowing example of practical effects in body horror. More importantly, along with his work on many of Yuzna’s other films, the special effects were done by Screaming Mad George! I’m sure many horror fans are aware of Screaming Mad George’s effects work. Some punkers out there may think his career didn’t move far beyond his playing in the seminal KBD band The Mad. Screaming Mad George has done work on one of the Nightmare On Elm St movies (one of my personal favorite franchises), Bride of Re-Animator, and even Predator, among many other genre film bangers. George seems like a true freak and I love it. I was chatting with a friend online the other night after watching Society and she told me about Screaming Mad George’s 90s goth project. She sent me the music video… not as good as Society to say the least. I joked that I wonder if there are people out in the world who ride for 90s goth Screaming Mad George and don’t care about The Mad at all. I guess it’s possible haha.

Anyway, check out these 2 movies, they’re both pretty fun watches. Also, couldn’t hurt to work your way through Screaming Mad George’s IMDB page.

Expect more spooky content next week ;) As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff