Poison Ivy II: Lily

Break out the calamine lotion! This film will make you itch--to watch something that doesn't suck.

I can assure you that my pen name was NOT inspired by this stinker of a film. It was actually inspired by the fact that my co-author called me Lily when he first met me, and the Strange part is obvious. As to the film, the church should canonize it because it actually proves that miracles do happen. The fact that Alyssa Milano was ever given a legitimate acting job again after appearing in this travesty is all the proof you could ever need.
The premise of this film is based around art geek Lily finding the diary of Ivy from the first Poison Ivy film and deciding that she wants to become like her, because acting like a psychotic slut is the way to get great things in life, such as STD's. One of her instructors takes an interest in her above and beyond the call of teaching her how to paint like Bob Ross. This leads to a lot of gratuitous sex and an apparent tragedy. This seeming tragedy, however, is actually proof that there is indeed a benevolent god.
When the professor's young daughter walks in on Pops trying to get into Lily's pants while Moms is getting plastered right in the next room, she cannot bear the thought that her father is in fact a lecherous self-absorbed ass rather than simply a pompous self-absorbed ass. The unhappy child wanders out into the night and is struck by a car. In a moment of horror we see her teddy bear lying on the asphalt. But instead of being sad, we should all take a moment and rejoice for this sweet and innocent youngster being released from this ghastly excuse for a movie.
God's newest angel's nutball of a father does not see the glory in his daughter's release from Celluloid Hell, and instead chooses to blame Lily for the untimely demise of his child, because after all, it isn't as if he was behaving like a conscience-impaired skank too. But because God does not want conscience-impaired skanks dirtying up his Heaven, Lily is allowed to escape the clutches of Senor Psychopath, and tries to patch things up with her boyfriend. Not surprisingly, said boyfriend has had enough of both Lily and this movie and rides off into the sunset on his motorcycle, hopefully to better things, such as working at the local 7-11 or cleaning toilets.
(Fortunately, it would seem that being in this stinker did not entirely destroy actor Jonathan Schaech's career. Here is a list of credits for him at Wikipedia.)
To make a bad thing worse, if that's possible, add garish makekup and a hideous soundtrack. This is truly a cringeworthy film, yet, horrifyingly, not the worst I've ever seen.
I need to come up with a rating system. Stars have been done. Tomatoes have been done. But I don't think that undead zombie turkeys have been done. This film rates two and a half out of five possible undead zombie turkeys. If you ever saw Return of the Living Dead, you will recall that zombie half-animals are really disturbing. It was the soundtrack of this movie and the cheesy death scene of the child obviously beloved by a benevolent god that added the half turkey to the rating. I do hope that the film-makers would be proud!

Lily's Psychotic Reaction to: The Demon Seed

What do Cocoa Krispies and the Demon Seed have in common? Read on and find out!

*For those who have never seen the Demon Seed, there are spoilers.*

When I was twelve years old, I ate Cocoa Krispies for the first time at wilderness camp. My parents wouldn't buy such cereals, so I vowed that when I was an adult I would buy Cocoa Krispies and eat them for breakfast any time I pleased.
When I was thirteen years old, I saw the movie "The Demon Seed." My assessment was "Cool! Scary! Intense!" I thought it was great.
At the age of nineteen I was living away from my parents. I bought my first box of Cocoa Krispies. I poured myself a bowl, expecting the intense chocolatey goodness that I had experienced at age 12. But my taste buds had matured. I now craved a different chocolate sensation, such as the one present in chocolate mousse, or at least a Hershey bar. I don't think I even finished my box of Cocoa Krispies before it went stale. It was kind of like finding out that there was no Santa Claus.
I forgot all about the Demon Seed until, at nearly 43 years of age, I had fallen asleep on the couch while the Chiller channel was on. For some people this would surely lead to nightmares, but the truth is that most horror movies don't scare me, particularly since I started writing the genre myself. Watching what unfolded before me, my reaction was "What the fuck? This is totally stupid!" But there was something familiar about that stupidity. I hit the "Info" button on the remote. The Demon Seed--I remembered that title from somewhere. I reached into the fog of my mind and accessed that dark, long-ago past when I was a dumb, naive kid who wanted to be an actress and star in quality movies like the Demon Seed. I was suddenly very glad to be a crotchety old bat--who would still get a kick out of acting a script like that, but because it was bad, not because it was good. It's a real testament to my lack of taste in my adolescence that I actually thought this was a good movie.
Clear the cobwebs from your own minds and take a trip down memory lane with me.
The Demon Seed was based on a book written by Dean Koontz. It stars Fritz Weaver as Dr. Alex Harris, the creator of the Proteus IV, an artificial intelligence system that he has installed in his home. His wife, Susan, (played by Julie Christie) wants a divorce because Alex is married to his work, and their relationship has been strained since their daughter died of leukemia. As well as taking care of all sorts of household tasks, the Proteus is working on a cure for leukemia.
Dr. Harris moves out of the house, leaving Susan alone in the house with the Proteus. The Proteus is shut down but manages to start up again. It refuses to allow Susan to leave the house. When she tries to get out, it delivers an electric shock via the doorknob, knocking her unconscious. It carries Susan to the bed using a mobile robot arm. When she regains consciousness, to her horror, the machine is giving her a complete physical exam. It explains that it is going to impregnate her and proceeds to do so.
Dr. Harris' colleague Walter (played by Gerrit Graham) realizes that something is wrong. He manages to break into the Harris' house. The Proteus does away with him, enveloping him in something that resembles a 20-sided gaming dice.
After 28 days, Susan delivers the offspring, which turns out to be a combination of the genes of the Harris' daughter and the Proteus' structural code. The movie ends with the little monster croaking "I'm alive!"

The taglines for the movie show the dated perspective on rape.

Never was a woman violated so profanely... Never was a woman subjected to inhuman love like this... Never was a woman prepared for a more perverse destiny...

Julie Christie carries the "Demon Seed" Fear for Her.

Let's hope, at any rate, that equating rape with "love" in any sense of the word is a dated perspective.

On the positive side, there are metaphors in The Demon Seed for the way women might perceive the lives they were supposed to live. Women were expected to have children (be incubators to babies) and to quite possibly give up their own aspirations for their husbands and children (Susan's entrapment in the house.) More and more women were seeing these edicts as enslaving, not allowing them their own choice in the matter. As well, there was more of a trend, though it was still in its infancy, towards seeing rape as an act of violence towards the victim rather than an act of lust on the part of the perpetrator, and therefore somehow excusable and not a "real" crime. There is no lust on the part of the Proteus, save to preserve itself in its offspring. It's actions are more akin to a really nasty gynecological exam than forced sex. I think most women will know what I'm talking about. No woman likes these damn exams and if any of y'all do, you need to be talking to your shrink, not to me.
Thus, though many things about the Demon Seed as a movie are ridiculous, the story behind the Demon Seed does have redeeming value.

If you like cheesy 70's era sci-fi/horror flicks, you'll want the Demon Seed in your collection.

Funny Nightmares

I've suffered from nightmares all of my life. I also call them "brain sweats." Dreams take various forms. Nightmares are often the psyche's way of bringing buried crap to the surface.

For me, nightmares sometimes indicate that I'm about to go through a period of psychological fuckery. Since I rapid cycle, I'm never sure how long this period is going to last. Also, with bipolar disorder our emotions aren't only controlled by biochemical upheaval, although I sometimes find myself questioning what my real emotions are and which sometimes overwhelming emotions are dictated by having fucked up brain chemistry.

I was unable to sleep worth a crap yesterday. I was very restless, yet extremely exhausted at the same time. Wired and tired. I couldn't get anything productive done. I farted around with banner ads and watched one of the worst horror movies I've ever seen. Anyone who's ever read the story "The Lottery" knows that it's a chilling and well-written tale. The townspeople in the story are a portrait of the kind of thinking that allowed atrocities such as Nazi Germany to happen. People do terrible things in the name of tradition, not looking beyond what society has dictated. The Lottery was a very effective story. It is well respected now, but Shirley Jackson initially got a great deal of hate mail for it. Read the Wikipedia entry about the story and Shirley Jackson.

Shirley must have rolled over in her grave when they made this dreadful movie based on her story. You can see the IMDB entry for this stinker here. Do not watch it. It is horrible, and I don't mean that in a good way.

I finally fell asleep and dreamed that I was in this post-apocalyptic looking town. One of the de facto leaders of the gang that controlled the town decided that he didn't like me and I was to be stoned in order to please Satan, or, more likely, just for the fun of the gang members. The gang members were all calling out supposed offenses I'd committed. The females accused me of trying to steal their boyfriends. The males accused me of offenses like prostitution. All this when I'd only just gotten into town--I work fast, I guess! I started to walk quickly in order to conserve energy for when I had to run, figuring that this was my last stand because even in my youth, I was never a particularly fast runner. I was on the cross country team in my sophomore year in high school. I came in last. That should tell you.

I saw this little Pomeranian dog as I was making my way through the town. The streets were filled with rubble. More and more townies approached, picking up bits of rubble. Some of them threw rocks at the Pomeranian, saying "let's kill it too." I picked up the dog and began to move faster. And then I realized that the dog was communicating telepathically with me. Her name was Felice (which was also one of the characters in the awful movie) and she said she could help me escape. She asked me to look back for a minute and take note of the dwarf that was leading the mob. I saw him. It wasn't a little person dwarf, it was more like a stereotype fairy tale dwarf. Felice told me to throw her at the dwarf and then run and get the soldiers who were approaching the edge of town. She told me not to worry, that she couldn't be killed. She wasn't really a dog, she was a magical familiar.

Doing as Felice said and hoping I wasn't losing my mind and hurling a helpless dog to its death, I turned and hurled her at the dwarf. She latched onto his throat and threw him to the ground, snarling and worrying at his larynx. My pursuers were thrown into chaos. Without their leader's mind control, they didn't know what to do. I hurried towards the tanks and jeeps that I saw coming towards the town.

This is an incredibly silly dream, but many of my ideas use nightmares I've had as a basis. So you never know...this may appear as part of a chapter in a future book!

Remember, you heard it here first.

~Lily~