Ian Watson - Blood Sex & Scooby Snacks

BLOOD SEX & SCOOBY SNACKS

By Ian Watson

Text Copyright 2013 Ian Watson

All Rights Reserved

Introduction by Michael Bay

(Not the filmmaker, the fast food employee)

Few realize, but every movie playing your local multiplex began as a drunken bet. Adam Sandlers latest picture is his forfeit for being unable to walk a straight line with a glass balanced on his head while saying the alphabet backwards. Sylvester Stallones last movie came about during a pissing contest. Tom Cruises new film? You dont want to know.

It used to be so simple. Poor, stupid people went to see whatever was playing and enjoyed it, whatever it was, because there was no internet or VCRs or television and everyone had dysentery. Then those inventions came along and everything changed. The multiplex became a sewer, and we were all dodging Showgirls .

By the late 90s, the world had already been ravaged by the likes of Waterworld, Independence Day and Batman & Robin , was coming to terms with Speed 2: Cruise Control , Godzilla and Spiceworld , and was bracing itself for The Phantom Menace, The Haunting and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. How could things possibly get worse?

Two words: Michael Bay.

In 2001, the director of Armageddon, a movie that wiped out the dinosaurs and destroyed New York in the first fifteen minutes , delivered Pearl Harbor to multiplexes. In case you missed it, this was Bays attempt to retell the events of December 7, 1941, from the bombs point of view. More importantly, it was the year he co-founded Platinum Dunes, his production company, and scholars still debate which event caused the most devastation.

The companys remit was simple: low-budget horror remakes from no-name directors with backgrounds similar to Bay. Horror had provided a dependable revenue stream for New Line ( A Nightmare On Elm Street) , Miramax ( Scream ) and Dark Castle ( House On Haunted Hill ), and with a commercials guy at the helm, the resulting pictures, beginning with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , looked like Mini-Me versions of Bays movies. It was the perfect formula and it paid off in spades, with Chainsaw raking in over $100m on a $9m budget.

It also proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Michael Bay is a soulless cocksucker who must be stopped for the love of God before he turns us all into Pod People.

Trust me, I know. I share the sumbitchs name. Unlike him, I rattle the fryer at a McDs in Newark, New Jersey. Every time he opens a new movie, people throw garbage at me and shout, Michael Bay, you suck! Then they go to see the movie anyway.

What those people fail to realize is that my namesake and I are in the same business. Neither of us is making art. We are selling a product.

It turns out Bill Hicks was right: there is an Elite that controls all the Corporations, and their agenda is to keep people stupid, docile and apathetic. Thats why the Corporations now control all the movie companies, who in turn control everything we see. They replaced original ideas with brands and franchises, substituted celebrities for actors and gave us Showbiz Correspondents instead of journalists.

At this point, you may be thinking, Mike, thats great and all, but isnt this a book about a cartoon dog? Also, I noticed the word Sex in the title. Will there be titty or was that just a marketing gimmick?

Patience, Gentle Reader, for all will be revealed. However, if you really like animals and tits, dont miss the porn films of Jose Mojica Marins (aka Coffin Joe), the first director to shoot a sex scene between a woman and a dog. Asked how he felt about his achievement, Marins replied, Rough, rough.

But this is not a book about cartoons, canines or inter-species erotica. This is a book about how creative bankruptcy reduced horror movies to the level of Scooby Doo! Where Are You? It is a tale of Corporate Greed and Soulless Product, for which there is no better poster boy than Michael Bay. He makes only a cursory appearance in the text, but his presence is deeply felt.

So if you grew up watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hitcher, A Nightmare On Elm Street or Friday The 13 th and were numbed by the remakes, this is the book for you. On the other hand, if you saw Freddy Vs Jason and thought Rocks!.kill yourself. We are better, more unique creatures than this and those that worship at the altar of banality are on some level responsible for the Michael Bays of this planet. Dont go to your grave having helped unleash vile garbage on the world, just go straight to your grave. Swallow some pills, step in front of a truck, blow your head off.I dont care how you do it, just remove yourself from the gene pool and allow those of us that wish to evolve to multiply while your sorry breed disappears from the Earth.

Before we get Freddy Vs Transformers 3D.

Michael Bay

Newark, NJ

September 2013

Say youve been sucked through the screen at your local plex, but unlike that kid in Last Action Hero , you havent been transported into a Schwarzenegger movie. You dont know where the hell you are. But theres an old timer up ahead and hes hollering at a bunch of teenagers that if they dont turn around and go back, if they dont skedaddle toot sweet , theyre gonna be sorry. And, by the way, dont go near the Miller place after dark.

Uh oh. The local prophet of doom, a handful of kids and a creepy location. That means youre either in a horror movie or that episode of Scooby Doo! Where Are You ? where the Mystery Machine arrives in this ghost town, and instead of helping the others, Shaggy and Scooby sneak off in search of food but a monster chases them so Fred devises a plan and they set a trap but it fails and leads to a climactic chase that ends with Scooby colliding with the villain, whos then unmasked as.

Come to think of it, thats every episode.

Anyway, you cant tell where you are, and even looking at the cast doesnt tell you much because its two attractive leads, a nerd, a stoner plus a brown-skinned comic relief character who speaks in a peculiar dialect, eats watermelon and shows more interest in Scooby snacks than the ladies. Then theres the dialogue. Whenever somebody finds themselves trapped, they say, Were trapped! Upon entering a haunted house, they say, This place is spooky! Theres also the Talking Villain scene, where the culprit gives a speech explaining his sinister scheme, which he mightve gotten away with if it hadnt been for those meddling kids and their damn dog.

Scientists, Mayors, college Deans, police officers and, now you mention it, pretty much every other person in a position of authority, right down to the parents, cannot be trusted. Also, the Sheriff is either unhelpful, corrupt or thoroughly evil, and probably has a dark secret. Also a Deputy dumb enough to deny the monsters existence without first looking over his shoulder. Although thats no guarantee that hes not the villain.

You see, our more-evil-than-Enron fiend will, for most of the running time, appear where and when he damn well pleases, and to hell with logic. In his presence, power supplies will fail and cars refuse to start. Characters will wander alone down dark corridors saying, Hello? Fire exits will be mysteriously blocked.

And if youre thinking of phoning a friend and saying please oh please get me out of this movie, forget it. The phones dont work. And theres a thunderstorm moving in.

Then, as you run out of fuel and hike through the middle of nowhere in the dead of night, searching for a gas station that isnt operated by Brad Dourif, the thought occurs: how did it come to this?

It all started when Nixon was in the White House, the Manson Family were at large and Vietnam was more than just a talking point. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated, and if you hadnt yet figured out times were changing, then a controversial new film called Midnight Cowboy , the first X-rated movie to win Best Picture, would change your mind.