Live or die, make your choice
Feb. 19th, 2007 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatThe seventh Monster-Mania Convention was held this past weekend. This convention is being held increasingly often, and becoming increasingly less interesting. It's pretty much not worth it to go any day except Saturday, which is good because it means spending less money, but I have no clue why they've stopped having events the other two days. This time, the first event ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bethje and I attended was a panel with Tom Savini, Kane Hodder, and Gunnar Hansen. As happened last time Gunnar was there, someone asked him (who played Leatherface in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre) what he thought of the TCM remake. It's pretty well-known that he didn't like it, but this time he had a few points to add to his complaint that they basically made Leatherface into a kid from Columbine. I'm not sure I'd mind a panel made up entirely of Gunnar complaining about the remake. {g} He mentioned that he hadn't seen the recent prequel, on which there's more later in this post.
We stuck around for the Devil's Rejects panel, featuring the always entertaining Sid Haig, this time accompanied by William Forsythe. Bill Moseley was also supposed to be there, but he'd been detained at the airport. We didn't attend the Monster Squad panel, since neither of us had seen it, and watched part of The Devil's Rejects while sitting in front of a probably-drunk guy who kept yelling at the characters in the film about dying with honor. He was eventually thrown out, and we eventually went back downstairs to get seats for the Saw panels. These were the Big Events this time around, but they weren't anywhere near as well-attended as other Big Events in the past. I suppose the stars of Saw just aren't the draw that Robert Englund is, which is definitely understandable. Still, they were interesting enough, although Beth said she thought Tobin Bell (who played Jigsaw, and actually talks like the character) came across as self-important, which I could totally see. At the end of the session, a producer took the opportunity to hype Saw IV, which strikes me as somewhat unnecessary. I mean, I guess it was pretty much inevitable that they'd make it, since the franchise has become a cash cow, but it really did seem to be a self-contained trilogy. The producer's spiel on the movie (which was something along the lines of, "Lots of twists and turns! More twists and turns than you'd ever expect! You think you've seen lots of twists and turns in the past? Well, I guarantee you haven't seen this many twists and turns!") didn't really help to sell it either.
After the Saw panels, we went to eat at an understaffed Friendly's, and then came back home. There isn't much more to say about that, but I will go back to Friday night and say that we watched the aforementioned TCM prequel then. Gunnar had complained about how they explained Leatherface in the original remake, and the prequel was even worse in that respect. Leatherface, the chainsaw, and the new round of victims were almost secondary players, though, with the most significant role being R. Lee Ermey's corrupt, brutal sheriff. In this movie, it's revealed that he got that job by killing and stealing the identity of the actual sheriff. Why this explanation is necessary is beyond me. Maybe the real Travis County Sheriff's Department insisted upon it. Nor do I know why it was necessary for Leatherface to have been adopted. In addition to the explanations being pointless, there really wasn't any suspense or actual horror at all. Besides, the kids were supposed to be going to Vietnam, and compared to that, I don't think murderous hicks with chainsaws are all that scary.
bethje and I attended was a panel with Tom Savini, Kane Hodder, and Gunnar Hansen. As happened last time Gunnar was there, someone asked him (who played Leatherface in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre) what he thought of the TCM remake. It's pretty well-known that he didn't like it, but this time he had a few points to add to his complaint that they basically made Leatherface into a kid from Columbine. I'm not sure I'd mind a panel made up entirely of Gunnar complaining about the remake. {g} He mentioned that he hadn't seen the recent prequel, on which there's more later in this post.We stuck around for the Devil's Rejects panel, featuring the always entertaining Sid Haig, this time accompanied by William Forsythe. Bill Moseley was also supposed to be there, but he'd been detained at the airport. We didn't attend the Monster Squad panel, since neither of us had seen it, and watched part of The Devil's Rejects while sitting in front of a probably-drunk guy who kept yelling at the characters in the film about dying with honor. He was eventually thrown out, and we eventually went back downstairs to get seats for the Saw panels. These were the Big Events this time around, but they weren't anywhere near as well-attended as other Big Events in the past. I suppose the stars of Saw just aren't the draw that Robert Englund is, which is definitely understandable. Still, they were interesting enough, although Beth said she thought Tobin Bell (who played Jigsaw, and actually talks like the character) came across as self-important, which I could totally see. At the end of the session, a producer took the opportunity to hype Saw IV, which strikes me as somewhat unnecessary. I mean, I guess it was pretty much inevitable that they'd make it, since the franchise has become a cash cow, but it really did seem to be a self-contained trilogy. The producer's spiel on the movie (which was something along the lines of, "Lots of twists and turns! More twists and turns than you'd ever expect! You think you've seen lots of twists and turns in the past? Well, I guarantee you haven't seen this many twists and turns!") didn't really help to sell it either.
After the Saw panels, we went to eat at an understaffed Friendly's, and then came back home. There isn't much more to say about that, but I will go back to Friday night and say that we watched the aforementioned TCM prequel then. Gunnar had complained about how they explained Leatherface in the original remake, and the prequel was even worse in that respect. Leatherface, the chainsaw, and the new round of victims were almost secondary players, though, with the most significant role being R. Lee Ermey's corrupt, brutal sheriff. In this movie, it's revealed that he got that job by killing and stealing the identity of the actual sheriff. Why this explanation is necessary is beyond me. Maybe the real Travis County Sheriff's Department insisted upon it. Nor do I know why it was necessary for Leatherface to have been adopted. In addition to the explanations being pointless, there really wasn't any suspense or actual horror at all. Besides, the kids were supposed to be going to Vietnam, and compared to that, I don't think murderous hicks with chainsaws are all that scary.
