Jenifer.

So… last night I kind of got going with my Dario Argento Xmas (yeah, that’s still happening. Get on board or fall under wheels, baby.) A couple of months ago I was reading the Creepy Presents: Bernie Wrightson collection that Dark Horse just put out. The creepiest story by far was the reverse Beauty And The Beast story ‘Jenifer.’ It’s hard to say what the scariest short-story I’ve ever read is, as I’ve read a fair few, but Jenifer would have to be a contender. It’s a very unsettling tale, and with Bernie Wrightson doing the art, it packs a hell of a punch. I was always curious as to what Dario Argento had done for the Masters Of Horror TV show from a few years back, so when I recently found out he had done an adaptation of Jenifer, I knew I had to check it out. I’ve noticed reviews have been mixed. I think it maybe one of those horror tales that is so freaky, it puts half the audience off even if they watched it and it scared them. It’s a curse I’ve noticed more and more of late. Some times a horror story can do it’s job a little too well. Something can be so upsetting, people want to distant themselves from it (the best example I can think of is Human Centipede. I was standing in a HMV a few months back, when I spied a freshly released copy of Human Centipede 2 on the shelf, but wouldn‘t touch it, partly because there was a cute girl a few feet down from me who I didn‘t want to see me handling such filth. I haven‘t even plucked up the nerve to watch the first one yet.) Not that this adaptation of Jenifer is perfect. The story takes a couple of missteps once or twice, but that said, I thought was true enough that it’s well worth a watch, even if it does come up a tiny bit short compared to the original story. Also, if some people found this story a bit much, what would they have thought if they had left in the monster blow-job scene, or the wang munching scene? Two scenes that a lot of people are probably glad are deleted.

Speaking of things that are too scary. I’m gonna have to face the fact that I’m avoiding a certain DVD in my unwatched pile. It’s been sitting there, bottom of the pile, for probably over a year now. So many other horror movies have come and gone and this DVD is still not even unwrapped. I’ve heard nothing but good things about Teeth and yet always pass it over when I go to watch a new DVD. I wonder what it is about a movie about a vagina with teeth that on some level I find off putting? I’m gonna have to man up and put it on sooner or later. For too long I’ve been kidding myself that I’m not avoiding it and just haven’t felt like watching it.