Screamtime (1986)

There's something wrong with me. I'm starting to put the pieces together and it doesn't look good. Me and Aunt John were both under the weather so we decided to indulge ourselves by watching a "Premium" movie via On-Demand. Yes, we felt so sick that shelling out six dollars to watch a movie was the only way we could think of to feel better. We decided on INCEPTION because how can you go wrong with fancy eye-popping special effects and a near unanimous approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes?

About half an hour into INCEPTION I realized that I do not experience things necessarily the same way others do. Maybe it was because I was sick but I began to notice that I thought INCEPTION was the most annoying thing in the world. If you love INCEPTION don't get mad at me. I'm not saying you are wrong, in fact, most of the world is in agreement with your assessment, it's just that for me I'd rather eat a bag of pennies than ever experience it again. I swear I tried, I really tried but the voice in my head said "no."

The voice in my head sounds like the result of an unholy union between Jan Brady and Gollum from LORD OF THE RINGS. It will not be ignored. Throughout INCEPTION it kept asking questions that I had no answers for. "Why do these characters explain everything before they do it?" "Didn't I just see DiCAPRIO playing a man who is kept from his cherubic children by a "crazy" wife in SHUTTER ISLAND?" "When JUNO does that VANNA WHITE thing in front of a scale model during a montage is that meant to indicate her knowledge of said model?" "Did the same person cast this as BUGSY MALONE?" "Why does this feel like I'm playing the video game SYPHON FILTER with someone who is bogarting the joystick?" "Are there any special effects in this that I did NOT see in the trailer?" and so forth.

All in all I did not enjoy INCEPTION unless you count the part where it ceased. John (who did enjoy it somewhat) went to bed and so I decided to watch the anthology horror SCREAMTIME to cleanse my mental palette and here is the weird thing, the thing that makes me think there is something wrong with me. It turns out that for all intents and purposes something in my soul informs me that I think SCREAMTIME is a way better movie than INCEPTION. I know it's not right but there it is; a simple fact that I can't deny. I know I'm comparing Apple Jacks and Orange Julius but just go with it. I've gone too far to turn back now.

Truth told SCREAMTIME, which is barely a movie as it consists of three independently made shorts encased in the flimsiest of wraparound stories ever created, has several elements that no billion dollar budgeted Hollywood movie could ever compete with and those elements would be…

A scene that takes place in an ‘80s video store. No special effect could ever compete with the jaw droppy wonder of this incredible sight….

A Punch puppet that beats people who deserve it with a wooden plank.

This weird lady.

A scary killer guy who I actually find scary.

And most incredibly an army of garden gnomes that come alive and then are played by little people who attack characters by jumping on their backs.

And also these old ladies.

So really it's not much of a competition INCEPTION. The only thing close to a garden gnome that you have to offer is JUNO and that just won't do on account of she doesn't wear suspenders. So maybe there actually is something wrong with me. Somehow I was born into a universe where most of the population believes the opposite of what I know to be true. In my mind SCREAMTIME (which, by the by, is available for free on Netflix streaming) is ten times more entertaining than INCEPTION could ever hope to be. There I said it. I am fully prepared for further ostracizing than I already receive. As long as deadly garden gnomes encircle me, I am impervious to scorn.