THE FRANTIC FLICKER
"The movie magazine that isn't..."
----Serving nonsense on a golden platter since 2004.----
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Issue #19: July 16, 2004
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www.franticflicker.com
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"Working within the horror genre is like writing a sonnet or something. There are certain rules
you have to follow, but once you follow those rules, you can say whatever you want to say."
- Stuart Gordon, interviewed by Maitland McDonagh in "Filmmaking On The Fringe"
IN THIS ISSUE:
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
==>Not-So-Secret Passage
==>Castle Freak
==>Superatomic Giveaway of the Week
==>Whodunnit?
NOT-SO-SECRET PASSAGE
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Hi folks, and welcome to issue #19 of the Frantic Flicker, the movie magazine that isn't,
domain of the arcane, lair of the lively and lethargic alike. This week we take a second or two
to talk about Stuart Gordon, the guy who made Re-animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak,
Dagon, and plenty of others. He also a guy who had his own office at Disney for a time, and
came up with the original story for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Okay, that was the second or
two we wanted to take to talk about him.
Dagon is a movie I'd like to recommend here, just because it caught me off guard - I'd never
heard anything about it, and suddenly it was on the Sci-Fi Channel (we usually only watch
Cartoon Network, but the dog must've stepped on the remote) and even in its
edited-for-cable form, it seemed really cool. It's based on H.P. Lovecraft (from two different
stories) and without giving anything away, it comes close to Lovecraft's sense of creepy
other-world-liness. A bunch of illiterate little creeps over at the Internet Movie Database don't
like it because it's too weird, doesn't make any sense, and the special effects are bad.
Haven't these people ever heard of suspension of disbelief? I shudder to think what they'd
make of Jess Franco.
Edgar Wallace was a pulp writer in the 30s(?) who created the story behind King Kong and
hundreds of other thrillers (most of which were made into movies in Germany). Anyway, he
had this invention called the "story wheel," where you could spin a series of wheels and pick
your characters and plot as easily as Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the
candlestick. It's a pretty lame idea, really, but I do believe in forcing creativity. If you don't,
you might not ever get anything done. I was thinking about this "story wheel," thing and
realized that I have a little crib sheet here as well, in the form of a movie title. Even though I
actually pick the title myself instead of having it come up randomly, I pick it from a list of what,
20,000 or so. Sometimes I wonder if the stories I make up independent of the title are any
different than the ones where I pick the title first. But the answer is always no, they're the
same.
Yup, you caught me thinking out loud again. Transparent as ever. As the band Psychic TV
used to like to say, the product is the process. Even though they were a bunch of
quasi-religious, neo-primitive sex monks, and I don't think I'd invite any of them over for
dinner, I've always liked that phrase. The product is the process. It's like reality TV that you
read. Wait, that doesn't sound good at all. Alright, screw the process. Let's get to the story.
Eric
Now let me lay this little doozy on you. It's about a little kid named Jordan, and a pizza shop
owner named Lenny. See if you can figure out which one is normal, and which one is the...
CASTLE FREAK
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"Okay, guys, what do you want for dinner tonight?"
"Pizza."
"Pizza."
"Pizza."
"Alright. That was easy. From where?" said Mrs. Lime. Mrs. Lime was thirty-two, and fond of
pizza herself.
"Checkerboard," said Mikey. Mikey was twelve, and fond of the status quo.
"What about Pando's?" said Mr. Lime. Mr. Lime was thirty-eight, and a true connoisseur of
pizza - the thicker and more unusual the better.
"No! I want the CASTLE!" said Jordan, "Remember, Mom, you promised, the castle!" Jordan
was four, and he didn't care about pizza at all. He wanted to go to the castle.
Mrs. Lime and the others tried to remind Jordan that the pizza at the place in question,
Lenny's Castle of Pizza, was rubbery, and sometimes cold, but to little effect. Jordan whined
and banged his head on the floor. One by one, his family members shrugged and decided
that maybe Lenny's pizza would be better this time.
Lenny's Castle of Pizza was a larger place than it looked from the outside. The kitchen ran the
length of one whole wall, and then the other wall was, well, a castle. In between were a
dozen or so tables, and, along the back wall, some video games. But the castle was the main
attraction. It was very realistic looking - even at close range, it was hard to tell if it wasn't
really made of stone. There was an empty moat which children could cross over a wooden
drawbridge, and inside were half a dozen kid-sized rooms (decorated with plastic skeletons
and weapons), a ball pit, and two turrets, each with tiny windows and a sliding board leading
back down to the tables.
Mr. and Mrs. Lime sighed as Jordan made a bee-line for the castle. "AAAAAHHH! CASTLE!"
Jordan screamed. While Mikey found them a table, Mr. & Mrs. Lime went to place their order.
Lenny Walton was forty-four, a tall, skinny man. He liked pizza as much as anyone, but his
passion was the castle. Lenny and his employees all wore costumes made of real chain-mail,
and all but Lenny complained about how heavy and hot they were. Lenny completed the look
with an over-sized ring on his right hand. A huge black stone stuck out from the ring half an
inch or more.
"My, what an unusual ring," Mrs. Lime said.
"Oh, you like it? I like it too," said Lenny, "Thank you."
"Where's the list of toppings?" said Mr. Lime, "What's the selection like?"
"Cheese, pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, onion," said Lenny, "You want any other ones, you
gotta bring your own."
"No peppers, even?" said Mrs. Lime.
"Not even green peppers?" said Mr. Lime.
"Pepperoni," said Lenny, "Any other ones, you gotta bring your own."
Behind them, Jordan screamed again.
The windows in the turret were small enough to keep just about any average-sized kid
inside. But Jordan, being both smaller and more agile than average, had somehow managed
to slip through. He hung by one hand, ten feet up, shrieking at the top of his lungs. Mr. and
Mrs. Lime ran toward their son. More than a couple of other parents took an interest as well,
and knocked each other out of the way trying to reach him in time. In the end, however, no
one did make it in time, and Jordan fell to the floor head-first.
"Oh my God," said Lenny, "That's not good."
The other parents cleared the way as Mr. and Mrs. Lime approached Jordan. He was
breathing deeply, but his eyes were closed. Mr. Lime kneeled down over his son, and Lenny
came out from behind the counter.
"Call an ambulance," Mr. Lime said to Lenny, "He's out cold."
"Please," said Mrs. Lime, "Oh God, I think he's really hurt."
"No way," said Lenny, "I'm not gonna do that."
"What are you talking about?" said Mr. Lime.
"He fell, you hunk of crud," said Mikey, kicking at Lenny, "Call an ambulance, you butt."
But Lenny stood his ground. "They'll wanna take my castle, and I like it too much."
Mr. Lime stood up towards Lenny, a severe look on his face.
"Paul, don't do anything stupid," said Mrs. Lime, "Jordan's already hurt."
Mr. Lime clenched his fists. "You will..."
"No, I can't. I'm sorry. I think you better leave."
"Our son is hurt."
"You'd better just leave."
Mrs. Lime stood up from Jordan, tears streaming down her face. "Our son... is... hurt," she
said. Just then, Jordan opened his eyes. "Our lawyer will be very interested..." Mrs. Lime
continued.
Realizing where he was, Jordan jumped up like his pants were on fire. Everyone in the
restaurant stood by in awe as he took off like a flash across the drawbridge, into the castle.
"CASTLE!"
Lenny's relief was palpable. He smiled at the Lime family. "Don't worry, I'll get him," he said.
Lenny stooped down as he entered the main gate.
Mr. Lime looked at his wife. "Is that a good idea?" Before Mrs. Lime had a chance to answer,
the gate slammed down, and the drawbridge started to pull shut. In less than a minute, the
castle was secured, with Jordan and Lenny on the inside, and everyone else on the outside.
While Lenny hadn't really wanted something like this to happen, he had been well-prepared
for it. The other kids had been easy to push through the rooms, into the turrets, and down
the slides, which were then closed off with iron bars. Lenny would have sent Jordan down
too, but he cried when Lenny tried to push him through. He really wanted to stay.
The employees of Lenny's Castle of Pizza were anything but loyal, and were happy to call the
police on their employer. The police arrived promptly, and the restaurant was evacuated. The
Lime family stayed.
Inside the castle, Lenny opened a secret passageway that gave him access to an entire
underground wing of rooms that Jordan hadn't seen before. In one was a TV with a video
game system. In another was a cache of real weapons and military surplus stuff. Jordan
made himself at home.
A regionally famous hostage negotiator, Orville Black, was called in to make contact with the
alleged kidnapper. Lenny explained to Orville that all he wanted was to be left alone in his
castle. Jordan was free to go anytime he felt like it. Just so far he hadn't felt like it at all. In
fact, Lenny sort of wished that Jordan would go so that he would finally have a chance to play
Renegade Battle Crunch 3. Jordan was bogarting all the cool stuff, and had already made
short work of his stash of snack cakes.
A SWAT team on the roof of the strip mall had no luck infiltrating the castle. No one was sure
how it had gotten there, but the castle was in fact made of stone. The doors were sturdy,
and the windows were few and far between.
At four a.m., Orville Black gave up and went home, his reputation tarnished forever. The best
the Limes could get out of Jordan when they begged him to come home was a bit of a snort.
"I don't need to come home. I'm at the castle. It's good food, and fun," he said. Mr. Lime tried
to remind Jordan of the story of Pinocchio, and how he'd been turned into a mule for not
going to school and just having fun all the time, but Jordan had never seen the movie, and
was involved in a high scoring game of Renegade Battle Crunch 3, so he didn't pay much
attention.
On the second day, the police decided to send in tear gas to get Lenny and Jordan out. The
Limes protested at first, but finally agreed it was a small price to pay to get their son back. Of
course, Lenny and Jordan had been anticipating this move, and had their gas masks on
before the first canister landed. After that plan failed, the authorities decided there was no
other option: they would have to call in the marines.
The first thing the marines did was to open the top of the strip mall like a tin can. Then they
knocked down the walls that surrounded the castle. When it stood alone like this, exposed to
the elements, the castle looked much bigger than any of Lenny's regular customers might
have imagined.
The marines attempted to lay siege to the castle. One team pounded on the front gate, while
another team, deployed on the roof, tried to get in that way. Lenny tried to ignore all of this
and concentrate on the TV, but Jordan was adamant about defending his new home. When a
potato that Jordan threw caught a marine officer in the head, an invisible line was been
crossed, and the mission changed. The military had shown up to liberate Jordan from the
castle, but now their only intention was to reduce the castle to rubble.
Mr. and Mrs. Lime tried to protest, and even got their lawyer on the phone, but there was
nothing they could do - their son was an enemy combatant. It would take approximately
twenty minutes for the air force bomber to arrive, during which time Lenny and/or Jordan
would be free to surrender. After the plane had reached its destination, however, it would
bomb the castle, and the ground troops would take no prisoners.
Inside his private bunker, Lenny turned off the television and weighed his options. It wasn't
supposed to go this way. Whether the kid was in there or not, they had no right to bomb his
castle. Jordan came in and turned the television back on. Lenny turned it back off.
"Listen, I like this castle, but you made it stupid. Now they're gonna wreck it."
"We can take them," Jordan said. "Lock and load." Neither of them knew what "lock and load"
meant, but Lenny knew that expecting his castle to withstand bombing by the air force was
asking too much. He would have to take the most evasive action possible. He took the big
black ring from his finger, and threw it to the ground. A cloud of smoke rose from the floor,
and a short, ugly man with a long beard greeted them.
"I want to get out of this castle deal," Lenny said.
"You know you'll have to give up on castles," said the short, ugly man.
"Forever?" Lenny said.
"And ever," the man said.
"Me too?" asked Jordan.
"You can do whatever you want. But if you're here when we switch it around, you'll be
affected, too. No way around that. So listen Lenny, maybe you'll like something else later in
life, like hamsters or garages, but you've exhausted your castle privileges. I'm not doing any
more castles."
"I like castles," said Lenny.
"You could always try your chances," the short, ugly man said.
"Lock and load!" Jordan yelled.
"Nah, let's get out of here," said Lenny.
"Okay, no backing out," said the man. And that was it. Just as the air force bomber was about
to drop its first bomb on Lenny's Castle of Pizza, the castle disappeared. The plane
disappeared. Lenny and Jordan and the Limes and Orville Black all disappeared, and
everything went back to the latest common denominator, that is, to the last possible moment
before any of this had happened. Except this time it was different.
"Alright. That was easy. From where?" said Mrs. Lime.
"Checkerboard," said Mikey.
"What about Pando's?" said Mr. Lime.
"No! I want the IGLOO!" said Jordan, "Remember, Mom, you promised, the igloo?!"
Jordan whined and banged his head on the floor, but none of his family members would
budge on this issue. After all, everyone knew that Lenny's Igloo of Pizza was a joke as far as
the pizza was concerned. They didn't even have ovens.
THE END
There's also a swell Stuart Gordon movie called CASTLE FREAK, and you can win a brand new
DVD of it by following the instructions below.
SUPERATOMIC GIVEAWAY OF THE WEEK
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Part of my whole reason for being here is to expose people to cool and/or weird stuff that
they might not otherwise know about, and one of the main ways I want to do that is by
giving stuff away for free.
LAST WEEK: we missed last week, but the week before my intention was to give away a DVD
of John Carpenter's weird & funny student film DARK STAR. And the winner is...
PAUL FREITAG of Chicago, IL, who said:
"I sure could use a CHUNK of Drank Star action. (I love that flick.)"
Cool. I dunno if the spelling error was intentional, maybe its a joke from the movie? Anyway,
Paul, Dark Star (or maybe Drank Star), and more than just a chunk of it, will be coming at you
someday soon.
THIS WEEK: Our giveaway is a NEW DVD of CASTLE FREAK, directed by Stuart Gordon, and
starring that guy who played Herbert West in Re-Animator, uh, Jeffrey Combs. He rules, and
the movie's lots of fun.
To enter, send an e-mail to superatomic@franticflicker.com. Put your NAME (first and last) and
ADDRESS in the BODY of the e-mail, and use the SUPERATOMIC SECRET PASSWORD in a
COMPLETE SENTENCE as the SUBJECT line. Your information will not be used for any other
purpose.
The SUPERATOMIC SECRET PASSWORD for this week is... (gotta subscribe to find out).
Visit the superatomic section of the website (www.franticflicker.com/superatomic) for
complete rules, more details and a photo of this week's prize (or maybe not). Contest ends
late Thursday night, July 22, 2004 (if the message says Friday, that's too late Thursday
night), and the winner will be contacted by e-mail and announced on the site on Friday.
By entering, you confirm that you are 18 years of age or older. US or Canadian entrants only,
please.
WHODUNNIT
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Written, compiled, researched, edited and published by yours truly, King Boss Man Eric
Henderson! Thanks for reading it!
Despite recent evidence to the contrary, The Frantic Flicker is generally still a WEEKLY e-mail
newsletter published by Eric Henderson.
The official Frantic Flicker website is open for business, and closed for repairs at the same
time. It's in a state of perpetual limbo, or is it a state of perpetual limbo rock? Anyway, you
can still see what's there at:
www.franticflicker.com
If you have any questions or comments, pass 'em on to: eric@franticflicker.com. If you don't
want me to print your letter, let me know. I'll talk at you again next week. Until then, be cool,
stay in school, and don't drink water from the pool!
Eric
All content copyright 2004 Eric Henderson. All rights reserved, but feel free to forward this
e-mail or link to my home page. Thanks.
To SUBSCRIBE, visit www.franticflicker.com. To UNSUBSCRIBE, follow the autoresponder
instructions below.
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THE LIVING END
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"The movie magazine that isn't..."
----Serving nonsense on a golden platter since 2004.----
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Issue #19: July 16, 2004
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www.franticflicker.com
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"Working within the horror genre is like writing a sonnet or something. There are certain rules
you have to follow, but once you follow those rules, you can say whatever you want to say."
- Stuart Gordon, interviewed by Maitland McDonagh in "Filmmaking On The Fringe"
IN THIS ISSUE:
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
==>Not-So-Secret Passage
==>Castle Freak
==>Superatomic Giveaway of the Week
==>Whodunnit?
NOT-SO-SECRET PASSAGE
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Hi folks, and welcome to issue #19 of the Frantic Flicker, the movie magazine that isn't,
domain of the arcane, lair of the lively and lethargic alike. This week we take a second or two
to talk about Stuart Gordon, the guy who made Re-animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak,
Dagon, and plenty of others. He also a guy who had his own office at Disney for a time, and
came up with the original story for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Okay, that was the second or
two we wanted to take to talk about him.
Dagon is a movie I'd like to recommend here, just because it caught me off guard - I'd never
heard anything about it, and suddenly it was on the Sci-Fi Channel (we usually only watch
Cartoon Network, but the dog must've stepped on the remote) and even in its
edited-for-cable form, it seemed really cool. It's based on H.P. Lovecraft (from two different
stories) and without giving anything away, it comes close to Lovecraft's sense of creepy
other-world-liness. A bunch of illiterate little creeps over at the Internet Movie Database don't
like it because it's too weird, doesn't make any sense, and the special effects are bad.
Haven't these people ever heard of suspension of disbelief? I shudder to think what they'd
make of Jess Franco.
Edgar Wallace was a pulp writer in the 30s(?) who created the story behind King Kong and
hundreds of other thrillers (most of which were made into movies in Germany). Anyway, he
had this invention called the "story wheel," where you could spin a series of wheels and pick
your characters and plot as easily as Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the
candlestick. It's a pretty lame idea, really, but I do believe in forcing creativity. If you don't,
you might not ever get anything done. I was thinking about this "story wheel," thing and
realized that I have a little crib sheet here as well, in the form of a movie title. Even though I
actually pick the title myself instead of having it come up randomly, I pick it from a list of what,
20,000 or so. Sometimes I wonder if the stories I make up independent of the title are any
different than the ones where I pick the title first. But the answer is always no, they're the
same.
Yup, you caught me thinking out loud again. Transparent as ever. As the band Psychic TV
used to like to say, the product is the process. Even though they were a bunch of
quasi-religious, neo-primitive sex monks, and I don't think I'd invite any of them over for
dinner, I've always liked that phrase. The product is the process. It's like reality TV that you
read. Wait, that doesn't sound good at all. Alright, screw the process. Let's get to the story.
Eric
Now let me lay this little doozy on you. It's about a little kid named Jordan, and a pizza shop
owner named Lenny. See if you can figure out which one is normal, and which one is the...
CASTLE FREAK
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"Okay, guys, what do you want for dinner tonight?"
"Pizza."
"Pizza."
"Pizza."
"Alright. That was easy. From where?" said Mrs. Lime. Mrs. Lime was thirty-two, and fond of
pizza herself.
"Checkerboard," said Mikey. Mikey was twelve, and fond of the status quo.
"What about Pando's?" said Mr. Lime. Mr. Lime was thirty-eight, and a true connoisseur of
pizza - the thicker and more unusual the better.
"No! I want the CASTLE!" said Jordan, "Remember, Mom, you promised, the castle!" Jordan
was four, and he didn't care about pizza at all. He wanted to go to the castle.
Mrs. Lime and the others tried to remind Jordan that the pizza at the place in question,
Lenny's Castle of Pizza, was rubbery, and sometimes cold, but to little effect. Jordan whined
and banged his head on the floor. One by one, his family members shrugged and decided
that maybe Lenny's pizza would be better this time.
Lenny's Castle of Pizza was a larger place than it looked from the outside. The kitchen ran the
length of one whole wall, and then the other wall was, well, a castle. In between were a
dozen or so tables, and, along the back wall, some video games. But the castle was the main
attraction. It was very realistic looking - even at close range, it was hard to tell if it wasn't
really made of stone. There was an empty moat which children could cross over a wooden
drawbridge, and inside were half a dozen kid-sized rooms (decorated with plastic skeletons
and weapons), a ball pit, and two turrets, each with tiny windows and a sliding board leading
back down to the tables.
Mr. and Mrs. Lime sighed as Jordan made a bee-line for the castle. "AAAAAHHH! CASTLE!"
Jordan screamed. While Mikey found them a table, Mr. & Mrs. Lime went to place their order.
Lenny Walton was forty-four, a tall, skinny man. He liked pizza as much as anyone, but his
passion was the castle. Lenny and his employees all wore costumes made of real chain-mail,
and all but Lenny complained about how heavy and hot they were. Lenny completed the look
with an over-sized ring on his right hand. A huge black stone stuck out from the ring half an
inch or more.
"My, what an unusual ring," Mrs. Lime said.
"Oh, you like it? I like it too," said Lenny, "Thank you."
"Where's the list of toppings?" said Mr. Lime, "What's the selection like?"
"Cheese, pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, onion," said Lenny, "You want any other ones, you
gotta bring your own."
"No peppers, even?" said Mrs. Lime.
"Not even green peppers?" said Mr. Lime.
"Pepperoni," said Lenny, "Any other ones, you gotta bring your own."
Behind them, Jordan screamed again.
The windows in the turret were small enough to keep just about any average-sized kid
inside. But Jordan, being both smaller and more agile than average, had somehow managed
to slip through. He hung by one hand, ten feet up, shrieking at the top of his lungs. Mr. and
Mrs. Lime ran toward their son. More than a couple of other parents took an interest as well,
and knocked each other out of the way trying to reach him in time. In the end, however, no
one did make it in time, and Jordan fell to the floor head-first.
"Oh my God," said Lenny, "That's not good."
The other parents cleared the way as Mr. and Mrs. Lime approached Jordan. He was
breathing deeply, but his eyes were closed. Mr. Lime kneeled down over his son, and Lenny
came out from behind the counter.
"Call an ambulance," Mr. Lime said to Lenny, "He's out cold."
"Please," said Mrs. Lime, "Oh God, I think he's really hurt."
"No way," said Lenny, "I'm not gonna do that."
"What are you talking about?" said Mr. Lime.
"He fell, you hunk of crud," said Mikey, kicking at Lenny, "Call an ambulance, you butt."
But Lenny stood his ground. "They'll wanna take my castle, and I like it too much."
Mr. Lime stood up towards Lenny, a severe look on his face.
"Paul, don't do anything stupid," said Mrs. Lime, "Jordan's already hurt."
Mr. Lime clenched his fists. "You will..."
"No, I can't. I'm sorry. I think you better leave."
"Our son is hurt."
"You'd better just leave."
Mrs. Lime stood up from Jordan, tears streaming down her face. "Our son... is... hurt," she
said. Just then, Jordan opened his eyes. "Our lawyer will be very interested..." Mrs. Lime
continued.
Realizing where he was, Jordan jumped up like his pants were on fire. Everyone in the
restaurant stood by in awe as he took off like a flash across the drawbridge, into the castle.
"CASTLE!"
Lenny's relief was palpable. He smiled at the Lime family. "Don't worry, I'll get him," he said.
Lenny stooped down as he entered the main gate.
Mr. Lime looked at his wife. "Is that a good idea?" Before Mrs. Lime had a chance to answer,
the gate slammed down, and the drawbridge started to pull shut. In less than a minute, the
castle was secured, with Jordan and Lenny on the inside, and everyone else on the outside.
While Lenny hadn't really wanted something like this to happen, he had been well-prepared
for it. The other kids had been easy to push through the rooms, into the turrets, and down
the slides, which were then closed off with iron bars. Lenny would have sent Jordan down
too, but he cried when Lenny tried to push him through. He really wanted to stay.
The employees of Lenny's Castle of Pizza were anything but loyal, and were happy to call the
police on their employer. The police arrived promptly, and the restaurant was evacuated. The
Lime family stayed.
Inside the castle, Lenny opened a secret passageway that gave him access to an entire
underground wing of rooms that Jordan hadn't seen before. In one was a TV with a video
game system. In another was a cache of real weapons and military surplus stuff. Jordan
made himself at home.
A regionally famous hostage negotiator, Orville Black, was called in to make contact with the
alleged kidnapper. Lenny explained to Orville that all he wanted was to be left alone in his
castle. Jordan was free to go anytime he felt like it. Just so far he hadn't felt like it at all. In
fact, Lenny sort of wished that Jordan would go so that he would finally have a chance to play
Renegade Battle Crunch 3. Jordan was bogarting all the cool stuff, and had already made
short work of his stash of snack cakes.
A SWAT team on the roof of the strip mall had no luck infiltrating the castle. No one was sure
how it had gotten there, but the castle was in fact made of stone. The doors were sturdy,
and the windows were few and far between.
At four a.m., Orville Black gave up and went home, his reputation tarnished forever. The best
the Limes could get out of Jordan when they begged him to come home was a bit of a snort.
"I don't need to come home. I'm at the castle. It's good food, and fun," he said. Mr. Lime tried
to remind Jordan of the story of Pinocchio, and how he'd been turned into a mule for not
going to school and just having fun all the time, but Jordan had never seen the movie, and
was involved in a high scoring game of Renegade Battle Crunch 3, so he didn't pay much
attention.
On the second day, the police decided to send in tear gas to get Lenny and Jordan out. The
Limes protested at first, but finally agreed it was a small price to pay to get their son back. Of
course, Lenny and Jordan had been anticipating this move, and had their gas masks on
before the first canister landed. After that plan failed, the authorities decided there was no
other option: they would have to call in the marines.
The first thing the marines did was to open the top of the strip mall like a tin can. Then they
knocked down the walls that surrounded the castle. When it stood alone like this, exposed to
the elements, the castle looked much bigger than any of Lenny's regular customers might
have imagined.
The marines attempted to lay siege to the castle. One team pounded on the front gate, while
another team, deployed on the roof, tried to get in that way. Lenny tried to ignore all of this
and concentrate on the TV, but Jordan was adamant about defending his new home. When a
potato that Jordan threw caught a marine officer in the head, an invisible line was been
crossed, and the mission changed. The military had shown up to liberate Jordan from the
castle, but now their only intention was to reduce the castle to rubble.
Mr. and Mrs. Lime tried to protest, and even got their lawyer on the phone, but there was
nothing they could do - their son was an enemy combatant. It would take approximately
twenty minutes for the air force bomber to arrive, during which time Lenny and/or Jordan
would be free to surrender. After the plane had reached its destination, however, it would
bomb the castle, and the ground troops would take no prisoners.
Inside his private bunker, Lenny turned off the television and weighed his options. It wasn't
supposed to go this way. Whether the kid was in there or not, they had no right to bomb his
castle. Jordan came in and turned the television back on. Lenny turned it back off.
"Listen, I like this castle, but you made it stupid. Now they're gonna wreck it."
"We can take them," Jordan said. "Lock and load." Neither of them knew what "lock and load"
meant, but Lenny knew that expecting his castle to withstand bombing by the air force was
asking too much. He would have to take the most evasive action possible. He took the big
black ring from his finger, and threw it to the ground. A cloud of smoke rose from the floor,
and a short, ugly man with a long beard greeted them.
"I want to get out of this castle deal," Lenny said.
"You know you'll have to give up on castles," said the short, ugly man.
"Forever?" Lenny said.
"And ever," the man said.
"Me too?" asked Jordan.
"You can do whatever you want. But if you're here when we switch it around, you'll be
affected, too. No way around that. So listen Lenny, maybe you'll like something else later in
life, like hamsters or garages, but you've exhausted your castle privileges. I'm not doing any
more castles."
"I like castles," said Lenny.
"You could always try your chances," the short, ugly man said.
"Lock and load!" Jordan yelled.
"Nah, let's get out of here," said Lenny.
"Okay, no backing out," said the man. And that was it. Just as the air force bomber was about
to drop its first bomb on Lenny's Castle of Pizza, the castle disappeared. The plane
disappeared. Lenny and Jordan and the Limes and Orville Black all disappeared, and
everything went back to the latest common denominator, that is, to the last possible moment
before any of this had happened. Except this time it was different.
"Alright. That was easy. From where?" said Mrs. Lime.
"Checkerboard," said Mikey.
"What about Pando's?" said Mr. Lime.
"No! I want the IGLOO!" said Jordan, "Remember, Mom, you promised, the igloo?!"
Jordan whined and banged his head on the floor, but none of his family members would
budge on this issue. After all, everyone knew that Lenny's Igloo of Pizza was a joke as far as
the pizza was concerned. They didn't even have ovens.
THE END
There's also a swell Stuart Gordon movie called CASTLE FREAK, and you can win a brand new
DVD of it by following the instructions below.
SUPERATOMIC GIVEAWAY OF THE WEEK
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Part of my whole reason for being here is to expose people to cool and/or weird stuff that
they might not otherwise know about, and one of the main ways I want to do that is by
giving stuff away for free.
LAST WEEK: we missed last week, but the week before my intention was to give away a DVD
of John Carpenter's weird & funny student film DARK STAR. And the winner is...
PAUL FREITAG of Chicago, IL, who said:
"I sure could use a CHUNK of Drank Star action. (I love that flick.)"
Cool. I dunno if the spelling error was intentional, maybe its a joke from the movie? Anyway,
Paul, Dark Star (or maybe Drank Star), and more than just a chunk of it, will be coming at you
someday soon.
THIS WEEK: Our giveaway is a NEW DVD of CASTLE FREAK, directed by Stuart Gordon, and
starring that guy who played Herbert West in Re-Animator, uh, Jeffrey Combs. He rules, and
the movie's lots of fun.
To enter, send an e-mail to superatomic@franticflicker.com. Put your NAME (first and last) and
ADDRESS in the BODY of the e-mail, and use the SUPERATOMIC SECRET PASSWORD in a
COMPLETE SENTENCE as the SUBJECT line. Your information will not be used for any other
purpose.
The SUPERATOMIC SECRET PASSWORD for this week is... (gotta subscribe to find out).
Visit the superatomic section of the website (www.franticflicker.com/superatomic) for
complete rules, more details and a photo of this week's prize (or maybe not). Contest ends
late Thursday night, July 22, 2004 (if the message says Friday, that's too late Thursday
night), and the winner will be contacted by e-mail and announced on the site on Friday.
By entering, you confirm that you are 18 years of age or older. US or Canadian entrants only,
please.
WHODUNNIT
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Written, compiled, researched, edited and published by yours truly, King Boss Man Eric
Henderson! Thanks for reading it!
Despite recent evidence to the contrary, The Frantic Flicker is generally still a WEEKLY e-mail
newsletter published by Eric Henderson.
The official Frantic Flicker website is open for business, and closed for repairs at the same
time. It's in a state of perpetual limbo, or is it a state of perpetual limbo rock? Anyway, you
can still see what's there at:
www.franticflicker.com
If you have any questions or comments, pass 'em on to: eric@franticflicker.com. If you don't
want me to print your letter, let me know. I'll talk at you again next week. Until then, be cool,
stay in school, and don't drink water from the pool!
Eric
All content copyright 2004 Eric Henderson. All rights reserved, but feel free to forward this
e-mail or link to my home page. Thanks.
To SUBSCRIBE, visit www.franticflicker.com. To UNSUBSCRIBE, follow the autoresponder
instructions below.
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THE LIVING END
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The Frantic Flicker
Issue #19: Castle Freak