The Horror: E!'s "Hot Girls in Scary Places" and the "Ohmigod" factor

tv--I don't know whether this show is the worst/best thing on television now, or if it's just total crap. Are they kidding? Surely, they are, but don't be so sure. That "reality tv" has that same revolting-yet-hypnotizing quality that infomercials once--once?!--had is one of its hallmark features.

I've had the misfortune to (un)watch several of these so-called paranormal investigator programs, and like most people over the age of 13, I think it's all faked, played-up, and basically a bunch of aspiring actors doing a very bad job at appearing to believe it's all real. That's called "acting," by-the-way.

The premise is exactly what you would think: a bunch of vacuous models are taken to some "haunted" building for the night where lots of people were alleged to have died violently, or whatever. Yeah, whatever is right. OK, so it's just a pilot, so let's hope it dies the death that "Survivor" should have nine years ago. Give them a head full of acid, I say, then those gals will believe the place is haunted. Viewers might try the same, but I don't advocate the use of psychedelics.

But I should really be fair here...and brutally crucify the creators of the show. A brief explication of "Hot Girls in Scary Places" is in order:

The show stars three University of Southern California cheer squad friends challenged to spend the night in a supposedly haunted abandoned hospital for a cash prize of $10,000 (which would pay for maybe half a semester at USC). To get the prize, the trio will have to complete a series of challenges.
“They’re totally scared, and totally believe experiences they’re going through,” says executive producer Gary Auerbach [Ed.--He has a Facebook account!]. “They’ll get scared and then be talking about a sorority party coming up. It’s a little bit 'Scooby Doo'-ish.” ("E! orders 'Hot Girls in Scary Places,' " The Live Feed, 02.12.2009)

So it's definitely "ish," at least. Today, I got to see some of the rerun from Friday night (the 13th! Eeek!), and I have to at least say that the sensations experienced were both unique and alien. That doesn't mean they were good.

OK--they're all in a hospital, they don't seem scared at all, and nobody got laid--at least on-camera. The majority of what I witnessed--and it was all blood-chilling, just not the way you might think--was a gaggle of very bored coeds giggling and jiggling, a faked series of EVP (electro-voice phenomena, allegedly recordings of "spirit voices"), and not a hell of lot more. In reality, it looked like dumb outtakes from Jackass. Yet, we Americans love having things lying around that we don't need, so I assume the show will get picked-up as a series, mainly for its obvious camp value.

Where's Fred and his gay-sash in all of this? Will they have the old guy at the end exclaiming, "And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you doggone bimbos." Perhaps, perhaps not, we'll see. My bets are on the old codgers. Some news outlets are saying that this show is a conscious "send-up," but do we really believe this? Perhaps, but why not make a drinking game out of it anyway, for every time one of the girls says "duhhhhh," "like," and "Ohmigod!" Yes, the dreaded "Ohmigod!" factor.

Executive producer Gary Auerbach has produced at least a dozen of these kinds of moronic reality shows, but his shows that bear the most obvious relationship to "Girls" is "Paranormal State" and "Lost Tapes," both-of-which are equally boring and impossible to accept or believe as anything but staged boredom. Even the "participants" and "investigators" appeared bored and incredulous. Well, right, because there is no supernatural anything and nothing after this life and no Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. Sorry.

Auerbach also produced "Punk'd" and several other MTV shows that are boring, so "Girls" was no real surprise here. But really, it is a soul-sucking and Satanic thing, this show. Just the mere existence of a show with a title like "Hot Girls in Scary Places" is enough to cause the dead to rise from their graves and seek revenge...on the barely-living, the barely-conscious, and that's not even dragging the viewers into it (that would be the show's backers). Did I mention he directed the early-1990s "Jon Stewart Show"?

Hey, everyone has to start somewhere, and I don't blame the producer for the state of the entertainment business. No, somehow, I can't blame Auerbach entirely. That blames rests with the money people in the entertainment industry who want to jettison troublesome union actors, crew, and writers, so that they can make lots of money and...crap. If they really want to entertain us, why not airdrop a pile of these social darwinists in Darfur, Afghanistan, the tribal regions of Pakistan, or over the borders into Iran? Or why not just let set "Girls" in the bad-parts of Oakland or Watts?

Best yet: airdrop these entertainment backers into the aforementioned places along with the rest of the CEOs of America. That would hardly be a boring show, that.

"E! orders 'Hot Girls in Scary Places,' " The Live Feed, 02.12.2009: http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/02/e-orders-hot-girls-in-scary-places.html

AP: "Opening of ABBA museum delayed"

Stockholm Syndrome, Sweden--In the nation that gave the world one of the earliest examples of a social safety-net, socialized medicine, and women the right to vote, we have...ABBA.™

Today, we're hearing that the opening of the ABBA museum™ in the capital city is being delayed. ABBA™--a pop group with an extremely irritating name and sound--are loved by...well, millions of simple nimrods worldwide. Gay men who have no taste love them for reasons of trite camp. Dumb women love them because--why do you think?! Why do most chick flicks suck? Nooooooo claaaassssss.

These dames, they're stupid, Jesus Christ you know it, and these goobers and mooks are going to vote for that cheerleading Sarah Palin wacko like they did for Warren G. Harding in 1920 for no other reason than "because." John McCain will become infested with tumors, and she's going to be the first unqualified woman president who takes us all over the cliff. Anyone who would want a former glamor queen or a cheerleader to be president is batshit crazy.

Let's face it: Women have a way of doing incredibly stupid shit that's unique to their gender. Men aren't the only predictable and superficial ones out there, and to think morons are isolated to one gender (or party) is utterly ridiculous and absurd.

You know, in the 1970s, industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle had a "thing" for these Swedish pop whatchamacallits, and it was done out of an extreme irony. Some of it, I assume, was simply to annoy punk rockers which is always good for an easy larf when you're bored. You have to remember that ABBA™ was created by a Swedish millionaire--they weren't a real "band" or "group," but a fiction-of-sorts. Kind of like George W. Bush or any presidential candidate, they were just puppets with a script singing to a playback.

But Throbbing Gristle had a good point: this kind of pop music is so vacant, so hollow, so insincere, that bands like TG, NON, Coil, SPK, Cabaret Voltaire, etc., could never compete with the subversive nihilism behind such an obvious expression of the spiritual abyss of this era. No more fucking ABBA™ indeed. 370 million (they bought multiple-copies) ABBA™ fans can be wrong, so very wrong every single time. Go read Oscar Wilde, some Pasolini, Gore Vidal and peruse the autobiography of Quentin Crisp. You'll actually get something out that.

"Opening of ABBA museum delayed," AP, 09.11.2008: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/ent?guid=20080911/48c897c0_3ca6_1552620080911-1516566394

Postscript: I've been informed that numerous porn production houses are searching desperately for Sarah Palin look-alikes. The Gods must be qwazy...

Postscript to the postcript: The Food Channel's delightfully cynical Anthony Bourdain had an episode in Sweden where he and a group of Viking-bikers threw battle-axes at an ABBA cd. "Mama mia that, you son-of-a-bitch! yelled Bourdain to the applause of the "Vikers." Goddamn if I don't love that guy. Ramones forever (just no copies, punk is over).

Killer Kondom (1996) review

Now here's some REAL German crap! But, at least it's original and entertaining. You've heard it, and probably said it: "Germans aren't funny, they have no sense of humor," but it's untrue.

How do I know this? The existence of this film, silly. The Germans like dry humor, and black humor. "Killer Kondom" is a strange creature that stands outside normal social conventions, never mind movie ones. That's it's a gay comedy is only partly-true, as its criticisms of American and Western sexual proprieties comes from a place that can only be called "pansexual." To call it "seedy" is a high compliment!

Most North American men will feel uneasy watching a film that revels in gay subcultures, but it's also just a great social satire that any open-minded adult will enjoy. We should wish to be scandalized in order to grow, and Killer Kondom delivers the unusual in a film noir and horror vein that explodes into the surreal at almost every turn. Virtually every sexual taboo is explored here, so Killer Kondom isn't exactly a date film, heh-heh-heh, but it's a real hoot.

But, if you want to remove uptight, unwanted company, you could do worse than to pop this into the video-player. You have to admire something this funny, yet so equally annoying. Maybe the funniest thing is that the film takes place in New York City, with an all-German cast speaking their native-language. This alone is going to be pretty funny to North Americans and everyone outside of Germany, but that's before you even get to what can only be described as one of the most absurd plot-lines in movie history!

The story itself is pretty simple: male clients of prostitutes are being castrated by penis-eating creatures in a seedy New York Hotel (amazingly, not the Chelsea!). The protagonist--an openly-gay cop who makes Rainer Fassbinder look handsome--has to discover what the attacks are, who originated them, and why. It's quite a trip to the ending, and often hair-raising, especially if you're male. The depiction of American Midwesterners (anthropologically accurate, yet done in German) is hilarious in the prologue with the hayseed father, and a rare treat that's spot-on in its observations!

Like a lot of European cinema, Killer Kondom isn't always easy to follow, but it doesn't matter, you um...just let it flow. As you might expect, it has a standard noirish voiceover narration that I like for its cynicism, and therefore, it has a familiar existentialist quality to it. Inevitably, the story revolves around its camp/noir/horror/comedy structure, involving a very ugly gay Sicilian cop, lots of subplots of his past-relationships (more Fassbinder here!), and lots of baiting-and-chasing of the mutant condoms.

You could say this film sends up several genres simultaneously, sometimes all in one scene! From the hardboiled, gumshoe Hollywood detective film, to John Waters grossout insanity, to some truly bizarre scenarios nobody ever imagined until the creation of Killer Kondom, this film has it all for those who love trash cinema.

A number of the scenes and makeup were designs by Swiss surrealist, H. R. Giger, although several concepts never made it to the final release print. I've seen his sketches, and they were downright Medieval. Too bad, as his concepts were what made this film worth a look. It could have been better, but one assumes there was no money to realize several of his designs, they were very elaborate.

Troma's DVD is just passable, with lousy audio and picture, but it's cheap and fun, just like a one-night-stand. Killer Kondom is a cult classic with a "Get-the-f%*#-outta-here!!!" ending.