@moviefan
by Moviefan
Trotting Towards Nightmare Night: King Sombra (FIENDship is Magic # 1)
October 12, 2020 in Blogs
Here’s a villain that I feel is a bit under-appreciated, which I can understand as fans have complained, we don’t know much about him and what led him to become the malevolent ruler of The Crystal Empire that he became. Â In my opinion, not every villain needs a back story and Sombra was threatening enough in my opinion that he stood well without one. Â I mean, he was able to take over all of The Crystal Empire and drain the Crystal ponies of all their love.
by Moviefan
Halloween Comic Special: Little Shop of Horrors
October 11, 2020 in Blogs
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney’s TV Movie Halloween: The Phantom of the Megaplex
October 9, 2020 in Uncategorized
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney’s TV Movie Halloween: Mom’s Got a Date with a Vampire
October 8, 2020 in Uncategorized
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney’s TV Movie Halloween: Don’t Look Under The Bed
October 7, 2020 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Imaginary friends are often some of the first friends that we make as a child and they are important in developing a child’s imagination and they are perfectly normal to have. This is seen in a report from 2019.
Imaginary friends are a common—and normal—manifestation for many kids across many stages of development. In fact, by age 7, 65 percent of children will have had an imaginary friend, according to a 2004 study. Stephanie Carlson, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development and one of the study’s co-authors, says that the prime time for having imaginary friends is from the ages of 3 to 11.
Film and television as visual mediums can bring these imaginary friends to life and give them a physical presence. Think of something such as Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.
However, this film takes it one step further and mixes the imaginary friend a being that brings children joy with one of the first things children learn to fear, the boogeyman
The most common thread between all the different interpretations is that it was mostly created to scare and discipline children. Creating compliance in children is something parents long for, but it is sometimes difficult to do with compliments and candy
These ideas are present throughout the film and the boogeyman is a creature that can have any shape or design, which allows creators to go wild. This can allow for some terrifying looks and takes, look no further than The Real Ghostbusters.Â
I may have gotten older but jeez, that design is still creepy. This movie, therefore, is a battle of the thing that brings children joy versus the thing that scares them.
This movie beyond these elements also has an interesting history as it used to air all the time around the Halloween season but Disney Channel received many complaints about this film from parents for it being too scary and pulled it from its Halloween rotation and was hard to come by until it was included on Disney+ at its launch last year.
I find that a bit crazy as it’s a children’s horror movie and Disney is no stranger to scary moments. With that outta the way, let’s dive into this film.
by Moviefan
Trotting Towards Nightmare Night: Villains Profile: King Sombra
October 6, 2020 in Blogs, Uncategorized
by Moviefan
Killer Camp: A Slasher Reality Show Review by Moviefan12
October 5, 2020 in Blogs
by Moviefan
Halloween Comic Special: The Rocky Horror Picture Show
October 4, 2020 in Blogs
Enjoy this older review that I wanted to bring over along with a follow-up.
Kevin was very conscious in applying a photo-realism to the story as we understood that Rocky fans wanted the comic series to look like the film.  They didn’t want dramatic different looking characters or stylized artwork, they wanted what the characters they loved to be familiar.
I’ll touch on this more but I think that was a wise choice as the original Rocky Horror movie does have a style that would lend itself well to a comic adaption.
The movie is very stylized already with an elaborate look that already feels like a bit of an over-the-top live-action cartoon in some areas. And that most likely comes from O’Brien’s love of B movies and so trying to make the art more stylized than the movie wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Carol VanHook – Color
Kevin’s wife handled the coloring and that was a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion.  On some pages, the coloring is really good. Like in the Rose Tint my World sequence.
The art and coloring work to evoke the feeling of Rocky Horror but at other times, the coloring seems a bit runny, if that makes sense.
It’s not bad and it seems to be trying to not only evoke the movie but just like how the movie took inspiration from B movies that Richard O’Brien loved, the coloring also seems to be taking its cue from old horror comics.
Which again works rather well most of the time but at points, it seems like the coloring is just trying to catch up with the story.
The Plot
It’s Rocky Horror and if you like Rocky Horror, you might get some enjoyment out of this. Now, this is something I would normally complain about as the comic does include the musical numbers from the movie in the adaption. And that is a tricky line to walk as adapting a musical into a non-auditory medium can always be a bit of a risk and including lyrics in something like this can go one of two ways but I think that there would have been more backlash if the songs had not been included as they are probably the most iconic part of the movie.
So, including the songs was a bit of a must for adapting Rocky Horror.
My Final Thoughts
It’s cool.  You won’t be getting anything big out of this but if you want to see how Rocky Horror is adapted as a comic, this is a good adaption. And it’s a better and more faithful take on this than the Fox remake. And not just because they were able to include my favorite line of Frank’s.
A mental mindfuck can be nice.
Of course, it helps that this comic is rated Mature.  Again, I’m not being as hard on something like this as others may be with a comic adaption of a musical because for what the team set out to do, adapting Rocky Horror, that is no easy feat but I think they pulled it off admirably. It’s better than the remake, that’s for sure.  Join me next time for Pt. 2 of this comic event as we look at an adaptation of one of my favorite musicals of all time.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney’s TV Movie Halloween: Bride of Boogedy
October 2, 2020 in Uncategorized
It’s a simple nod and wink to reality. Children have an active imagination. Parents are so swept up in their adult lives, careers, frustrations, etc. They dismiss a child’s concern of an apparent irregularity as nothing more than that active imagination, misinterpretation of the adult world, etc.
Most important, they will be stunned and angry that anyone would find their claim implausible, regardless of how implausible it would be even if they weren’t completely flushing any credibility they might otherwise have down the toilet in their method of persuasion.
Which happened because Boogedy possessed the body of the father. Which again common element in ghost stories.
Spirit possession may be broadly defined as any altered or unusual state of consciousness and allied behavior that is indigenously understood in terms of the influence of an alien spirit, demon, or deity.
For a perfect example, think of Swayzee in Ghost possessing Whoopi’s character. And I think I get what this movie was going for as they wanted it to be a big reveal when Boogedy possessed one of the parents but again, this goes back to the problem of the parents knowing what Boogedy can do.
Oh and apparently, his magic cloak that was supposedly destroyed in the first movie wasn’t. Okay, this is another issue in which sequels undo everything that was done in the original. Which on the one hand, I get as the stakes need to be higher in a sequel but that is aggravating when you watch the original and the sequel back-to-back.
This is an annoying habit that so many sequels delve into when instead of undoing the resolution and results of the first movie, it would make more sense to build upon what happened in the original movie. This is seen somewhat in the beginning but it tampers off the longer the movie goes on.
You may have noticed that I haven’t brought up the titular Bride, well that’s in part because the movie spends so much time on a local carnival and this is where Eugene Levy comes into play as he is a General Store manager that’s jealous of Mr. Davis (the father) as he was named honorary mayor for the carnival.
And dear lord, his hatred for this guy is so bad that he ends up stealing Boogedy’s magic cloak.
Okay, let’s break this down. This character has lived in Lucifer Falls all his life. And even if he didn’t believe in the story of Mr. Boogedy, he should be familiar with it and understand what the cloak can do. Especially once he gets it in his head that the family had been using the magic cloak to be successful. If he knew the cloak was magic, then he should’ve had an idea of who it belonged to.
But instead, Boogedy gets him to do his bidding, which includes releasing Boogedy and having him attack the carnival. Yet, still, nothing with the bride as the actual bride isn’t the sequel and instead, Boogedy thinks he has found his love as Eloise (the mom) is wearing the outfit of the woman he loved. And they do make her hair look like this and I guess just because it’s a Bride of… movie.
Kinda pointless in my opinion but that’s really the smallest issue in this movie. Looking at this movie as a whole, I’m mixed on it. There are a lot of issues that I have with the movie but I think it benefits from a longer runtime as it allows more breathing time than the original had but it doesn’t use that time effectively.
However, it does more with the characters than the 45-minute runtime of the original.
Characters
While there are more characters in this sequel, there are only a select few I wish to focus on.
Main Characters
The Davis Family played by Richard Mauser, Mimi Kennedy, Tammy Lauren, David Faustino, & Joshua Rudoy
I had my issues with the parents not believing the kids because of their past experience with Boogedy but I do enjoy the dynamic of the family quite a lot. This is perhaps the biggest thing carrying the movie throughout. There is strong love, even with the annoyance of it taking until near the end of the film for the parents to believe the kids.
Supporting Character
Mr. Lynch played by Eugene Levy
Eugene Levy was an uppity character, which seems to be the case now as he played a similar type of character earlier in the decade in Splash.  However, while I didn’t like his character there, I enjoyed the character that he played in this film a little more even if the character was more malicious in his actions towards the family.
Villain
Mr. Boogedy played by Howard Witt
I like that Mr. Boogedy got quite a bit more to do as that allowed the character to have more fun moments and more scares. Whereas the first film made you wait for him to show up and his presence hung over the movie. I get the idea but I think it works better seeing him from the get-go.
My Final Thoughts
As I said I’m mixed, I enjoyed what this movie did for the characters and the setting but there are quite a few annoying elements such as the whole thing of the parents not believing their kids. Even though, this is a sequel. Overall, I am in the minority here as most people that have looked at these films prefer the original whereas I think this sequel is better but its flaws are more obvious. Join me next time as we move from Mr. Boogedy to the Boogeyman as we look at a film that had been pulled from Disney Channel at the behest of parents for being too scary as we look at…
Don’t Look Under The Bed
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney’s TV Movie Halloween: Mr. Boogedy
October 1, 2020 in Uncategorized
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney: Girl Meets Rileytown (Girl Meets World/My Bullying Story)
August 26, 2020 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
This is a recent blog that I wanted to reshare as it meant a lot to me to do this one.
Halloween night 2014 was one of the worst nights of my life. I had just come home from taking my niece trick-or-treating. Like I always did, I logged onto the old TGWTG/CA forums and was excited to post about how excited my niece was with all the candy she had gotten.
Then things took a turn that I could have never expected, there was this jerkwad attacking me and my friends. He called himself Evil Baron Battersby and going after people that use(d) Manic Expression and I could see Rat talking him in circles breaking down his inane logic.
Me, I was scared and felt weak when looking at this idiot attacking me saying that no one reads my blogs and that I’m wasting my life writing them. Saying that I could take up piano lessons and become the next great pianist.
The cuts became deeper as this monster decided to attack my character and accuse me of being a pedophile all because I used MLP or Sofia The First characters as my avatar. The worst part of all this is that this bully somehow knew my real name. That scared me and I did not sleep at all that night.
Even though I knew that it wasn’t healthy for my psyche, I went back and saw a flood of insults coming from this person. He remained on the forum for a good three-four days before he was finally banned and by that time, he had set up somewhere close to 16 different accounts.
He may have finally been gone by his words lingered in my mind to the point of me almost giving up blogging completely because I bought into his words and thought he was right. His words lingered so hard that one day when I was in a truly bad mood, I considered ending it all right then and there. I would have let him win but I didn’t he lost because I’m still here.
I bring this all up because this episode focuses on bullying and it is one of the best pieces of media I’ve seen tackling bullying for the simple fact that bully remains faceless throughout the episode and I feel that lessens the impact of the bully while also showing the severity of the impact that a bully can have on their victim.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney Power of The Princesses: Ariel (with DisneyOtoko)
August 24, 2020 in Uncategorized
her uncle may have planted that seed. Peace!”
