THE CHICKENING: Wash Your Hands, People. Wash Your Hands And Pray!

In past years, we at the Midnight Madness blog have warned you of many dangers. The dangers of hooking up with or dating dead people and the heartbreak of "intimate hauntings" (e.g., Dead Girl; It Follows). The dangers of Tony Jaa taking you apart like a chicken with  his powerful and frightening muay thai skills, which we face again this year in SPL 2: A Time For Consequences. (The consequences? Tony Jaa takes you apart like a chicken), The dangers of Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim or Yayan Ruhian (The Raid; Yakuza Apocalypse) taking you apart with their pencak silat and judo skills. The dangers of 3-D-inducing drugs bringing Judge Dredd's justice down on you and Soy Sauce-based drugs just making you see... things you really don't want to. Just last year, we warned you about Murder Scouts. And despite their being our informal Midnight Madness blog mascot, we always have a wary eye on our "friends," the isopods--giant or otherwise.

"Otherwise."

Tonight The Chickening begins this year's Madness. It becomes a part of not only Midnight Madness' history, but a part of a select history, a history of films warning you of dangers to be prepared for. Sure you know about The Birds and I assume you've been briefed on the precautions necessary during a Birdemic, Poultrygeist or even a Thankskilling.

Throw the egg out and wash your hands. Do not touch your mucus membranes.

Abandon your house. Go get Chinese food.

Preparedness is next to Not Getting Your Ass Killed. Sure, Bubo the mechanical owl from Clash of hte Titans is cute. But have to stopped to consider what would happen if Bubo went bad? He has the wisdom of Athena and his cuteness is unstoppable.

Sure, Bubo's cute and helpful, but its name is also evocative of the Bubonic Plague. Best wash your hands.

We haven't heard from Rodan or the Giant Claw in a while, but not so long ago, Bangkok dealt with a very Rodan-like Garuda situation. Does your city have a Giant Bird Preparedness Plan?

Garuda will mess up the Greater Metropolitan Area.

Have you considered all the eventualities of a Roc roosting in a densely populated city? And I'm not talking about the effects of Dwayne Johnson on the native cod population and how that trickles down to depleted fish and chips options. I'm talking about this Roc:

City officials attempt to enforce zoning regulations.

What about this mysterious goose visible for a good while in Harinam Singh's vampire classic Shaitani Dracula? It seems innocent enough--as if it had just wandered into the shot. But it is in a movie about Dracula. Is it some kind of Dracula itself? What is it doing? Should we fear the Goosening?

I think... I think it's looking at us...

And that's not even getting into the more prosaic dangers of, say, Sam the Eagle running a political campaign. (I'm thinking Senate).

Sam's anti-"weirdo" policies would be devastating for Midnight Madness.

But we do have some fine feathered friends on our side. Bubo, probably. Rodan stood up for Earth against King Ghidorah and the alien jerks hiding in our lakes and laughing at human emotions that one time.

 And for every goose Dracula, there is a heroic wonder bird like Sheroo in Dharam Veer. Sheroo the Wonder Bird catches imperiled babies.

Baby saved!

But if you see Mr. Chicken... Goddamn, your goose is cooked. Run. Just run. And we'll pray for you.

My God, he sees us. HE SEES US.

In the meantime, as always, make sure to wash your hands thoroughly after handling poultry products and always cook your chicken to an internal temperature of  74 degrees Celsius or 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

THE CHICKENING screens with GREEN ROOM:

Thu, Sept 10th, 11:59 PM RYERSON
Fri, Sept 11th, 8:45 AM SCOTIABANK
Sat, Sept 12, 2:15 PM BLOOR HOT DOCS

SPL 2: A TIME FOR CONSEQUENCES screens:
Thu, Sept 17, 11:59 PM RYERSON
Fri, Sept 18, 3:30 PM BLOOR HOT DOCS
Sun, Sept 20, 6:30 PM SCOTIABANK

YAKUZA APOCALYPSE screens: 

Fri, Sept 18, 11:59 PM RYERSON
Sat, Sept 19, 3:00 PM SCOTIABANK 2

And for more chickens head over to the Vanguard Program for  MEN & CHICKEN:

Mon, Sept 14, 9:00 PM SCOTIABANK

Wed, Sept 16, 10:00 PM BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA

Sun, Sept 20, 3:30 PM SCOTIABANK

When Nature Attacks!

Aw, would this little guy hurt you? Yes, yes it would.

Isopods are set to attack tonight in Barry Levinson's The Bay, but they're not the swarming, eco-horror threat the world has faced.

You might think frogs and toads are just cute amphibious creatures who hop, eat insects and host variety shows. But there's more to them, much more.  Frogs are strategic geniuses marshaling all the forces of nature, as Ray Milland and Sam Elliott discovered to their horror in Frogs (1972).

Ray Milland's character is 12x scarier than
a giant frog with a taste for human flesh.

The ants of Phase IV (1974) are similarly sentient and they are supergeniuses. As the trailer proclaims, "How can you outsmart an enemy who knows your next move before you do?"  Also, it was directed by known ant-sympathizer, Saul Bass. Who can stand against the united powers of Saul Bass and ants?

Surrender, human, you cannot overcome ants or
awesome shots composed by  Saul Bass like this one.

In Squirm (1976), humanity faced the actually slithering, slow-moving, squicksome horror of... earthworms, possibly even nightcrawlers!

It is, definitely, squicksome.

It's impossible to know whether the spiders in Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) have a plan. They are definitely ticked off, though. They've had enough of humankind and have decided to cover everything in webs. Not even the dulcet tones William Shatner can soothe them.

Spiders seize control of our air defenses.

Sure, there are piranha in Piranha, but in James Cameron's Piranha 2: The Spawning, the piranha can fly!  Ask any military strategist, even a human one will tell you that's a serious situation. Especially when our air forces have been grounded by pissed off spiders. Aggravated by humans catching fish while the fish are spawning, flying mutant piranha attack humans while humans spawn at a resort!

I can fly, mofos.

The Long Weekend (1978) is probably the ultimate in nature trying to kill people films. It demonstrates that sometimes nature really, really hates people and will do everything it can to kill them. Especially really horrible jerks.

Sometimes people are so horrible
that you just want to help nature out.

So have fun at The Bay, and remember don't go in the water, or too close to the water, or the woods, or outside the theater.  And maybe try not to shoot nature.


THE BAY screening times:
Wed., Sept. 12th, 11:59 PM RYERSON
Thurs., Sept. 13th, 2:45 PM CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 6