ALL AT ONCE AND ALL THE TIME

So after my 3am epiphany as documented below, I've decided to move (back) to Australia! So that's happening. I'm also going to cram a shitload of different things into this post in a gratuitous 'kitchen sink' mindset. GO ON DO IT!!!!

PART ONE: NEEDS MORE KARL [URBAN]

CHILDREN OF THE CORN: URBAN HARVEST (or COTC3 for those of you who go nuts for abbreviations and numbers) is magnificent. Does it piss on the original Stephen King story? Yes. Does it have the subtlety of a brick? Yes. Does it throw a ton of wonky special effects at your eyeballs? Yes. Does this make it a terrible film only to be enjoyed ironically? NO. Up yours if you thought that's where I was going with this.

Ah, 1995. You gave us a load of awesome rock albums (eg Alice In Chains' debut, White Zombie's Astro-Creep 2000) and, er, NSYNC. You sent me to college to make a load of cool friends. You built a fire under my desire to write by getting hold of a word processor to replace my typewriter (seriously, I used to actually type all my stories). You made sure my local secondhand bookstore had copies of H.P. Lovecraft anthologies. You also gave us Children of the Corn: Urban Harvest. Praise be, indeed.

I hadn't seen this film since it came out on video, back when checking the shelves in Blockbuster was a real thrill ("Wow, they made a sequel to Pet Semetary!" etc) and before the internet ruined all the fun of unexpected discoveries by telling us everything. I remembered two things: that corn is planted in some warehouse setting, and that He Who Walks Behind the Rows is presented in this film as some sort of massive monster. How on earth I forgot the rest of this delirious wonder I don't know. But first a recap for the slow kids at the back:

The small Nebraskan town of Gatlin has a dark history - kids there have a nasty habit of murdering adults in order to appease their 'corn god', He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Eli and Josh are brothers living in a shabby trailer with their alcoholic father beside a sizable corn field. One night, he gets too abusive and so Eli (the younger brother) takes steps to stop him, once and for all. In the corn field. Remember that.

Next thing we know Eli and Josh (who's sweet-natured compared to Eli's pious creepiness) move in with foster parents, until 'the adoption comes through'. Who put them up for adoption? I assume the state. How long have they been waiting for a new family? About a week by the sounds of it. Are the new parents actually relatives? Apparently the brothers don't have any. Remember that.

"How YOU doin'?"

Before long, Josh is starting to fit in with the kids at their new school, but Eli keeps himself apart by continuing to dress and act like an Amish kid. Oh, he's also brought some corn from Gatlin with him and planted it in a small dirt yard. Where? In an abandoned warehouse behind the house. That he enters through a hole in a brick wall that clearly wobbles like cheap cardboard. Although the next shot shows a broken fence, so I don't know how he got in. Unless someone painted the other side of the fence like bricks. Which doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

ANYWAY. Eli starts to build up a little cult faster than you can say "Cor, that was quick!" and things get a bit nasty. In fact, they get a LOT nasty. URBAN HARVEST is pretty ruthless when it comes to killing characters off, and how they die. A few people get ripped apart from vines, and one unlucky sod gets his head and spine ripped off/out as he's still alive. NICE.

Through all this, Josh starts to realise that, sure his little brother's technically his only family left, but he is also a magic-powered nutcase, so he should probably try and stop him. But wait! Eli's adopted! So who are his REAL parents?! I'm going to hazard a guess that NO ONE is the answer, given that he turns into a mutant later on. Unless there was a mutant couple out in Nebraska who decided their son was a bit much for them. Maybe. Who knows?

I'd be tempted to call the monster 'Lovecraftian' but only because it's truly indescribable. Well, I could adequately describe it as 'a lumpy puppet', but that doesn't instill much fear. It's evidently supposed to be some sort of mutant corn...thing. But other than that, I have no idea. Take a look:

What else? Oh yes. To start with, there's the suggestion that the CLEARLY TINY corn 'field' in the warehouse ignores normal rules of time and space, as anyone who steps into it suddenly finds themselves in a massive, real, corn field. However, as the film progresses this starts to feel like a weird mistake, in that subsequent journeys into the 'field' are filmed as if the massive one is supposed to be in the warehouse. It's all a bit confusing. But all part of the charm!

I give CHILDREN OF THE CORN 3 five tins of Green Giant sweetcorn out of seven possible tins of assorted vegetables.

PART TWO: THERE IS NO PART TWO

PART THREE: WHAT IS LOVE? BABY DON'T HURT ME, DON'T HURT ME, NO MORE!

Here's an old PSA I stumbled upon whilst looking for samples to use in a remix I'm currently working on. 

Old PSAs are worth watching for various reasons. The most obvious is that they tend to be unintentionally humourous, providing as they do a snapshot of a time past when values and behaviours were different. However, I find them more fascinating than anything, especially when values etc they espouse aren't too different from things nowadays. This video, for example, looks at marriage and the roles a man and woman play in it. Of course, the woman wasn't often thought of as the main breadwinner back then, but there were incidences where roles would be reversed. 

Also in effect is the idea of love, which of course is timeless and unquantifiable. So then, how can you justify (as the chap says at the start of this film) that 'no one can understand or share the love that they (the couple) do'? You can't. And the idea that 'my love is bigger than your love' is something that's bugged me for a while. Love is special enough anyway, you don't need to try and prove it's better or more real or more important than anyone else's. That's incredibly arrogant and also somewhat insecure. Just enjoy it, for Christ's sake. That sort of shit doesn't happen often enough. Grab any chance you get. I used to be terribly jaded about such things, but there's no point in being like that, in wasting energy on that sort of negativity. "I just want to hold her, and touch her, and kiss her" as a chap says in the film. Of course you do. Don't we all?

PART FOUR: OBLIGATORY BITCH PIMP

"POW! Right in the kisser!"

Come on now, get some dirty industrial rock in your ears. I've sent off a bunch of CDs and am still waiting for reviews, but in the meantime I'm working on a bunch of remixes. You can hear some HERE. You can choke on more mighty Bitch shizzle HERE. You'll also soon be able to witness my fitness on a FREE compilation coming from INTRAVENOUS MAGAZINE, fool! It's all go round here.

PART FIVE: THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SPELL ENCYCOLPEDIA!

What stories are you working on at the moment, Wayne? NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! But if you must know, I'm cracking on with a million of the buggers. One asks the question 'Can we ever escape our destiny?' as a man discovers a dark secret about his family that may or may not mean a predescribed fate worse than death for him. Another is about a chap with the power to stop gods, that I'm very excited about. How do you kill a god, and in fact, if you do, what does that mean? Would religion or things supposedly created by that deity suddenly cease to exist? Would it strengthen the resolve of believers, once they receive undeniable proof that their god DID exist (even though he/she/it is now dead)? And all that cheery jazz.

AND that's about for now, I think. I'm pretty sleepy. I'll leave you with the very thing I'm about to put in my ears as I tell the waking world to go do one ;)