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We can officially bury the rotting corpse of summer and gladly welcome the splendor of the fall season. With the coming of the fall season, there's also bound to be, yes, found footage horror movies for the month of October (we've thankfully been dodging the Paranormal Activity sequel-bullet for a couple of years now). Here we have an independent found footage horror movie: The Houses That October Built. Houses follows a group of friends as they rent an RV and travel across the U.S. in search of the country's most extreme (and therefore, spookiest) haunted attraction. Naturally, scary shit starts to go down, and well, y'know, movies.

This is a toss-up here for me. The basic concept of a haunted house or maze gone wrong is great because it is rooted in reality. We all know that no matter how frightening a haunted attraction may be, it is all for show, but the "what if?" factor lingers. "What if the looney in the mask is a real looney, eh?" The use of found footage, though, is not so great. I'm sure it works well to a certain extent with this concept, but, Crom damn it, I think we're all tired of the found footage style of film-making, especially horror movie fans.

The Houses That October Built is getting a limited release starting Spooktober 10th --I'm sorry, October 10th --and good or bad, I think what we can all take away is that we have finally have an idea of what a hellish, live-action version of Cynthia from Rugrats looks like and can comfortably live in a nightmares for a long time.

There’s a certain magic in making a film. You can have a killer screenplay and a phenomenal cast, but for some reason, the spark is not there. Sometimes, things just fall into place, almost as if it was meant to be. Other times, all it takes is heart, the unbridled care that the cast and crew deliver in genuinely wanting to make a great movie. THE MONSTER SQUAD is a movie that is overflowing with heart.

It’s also overflowing with badass kids and a who’s-who of classic cinematic creatures, but y’know, also, a lot of heart.

Following in the steps of THE NIGHT OF THE CREEPS(1986), director and screenwriter Fred Dekker delivered another mash-up of B-movie styles and tropes. Dekker has stated in a number of interviews/commentaries that the inspiration behind this film was basically an updated version of the Little Rascals taking the place of Abbott and Costello in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948). Then he added Shane Black to the mix. I believe that bringing in Shane Black as his co-writer on this screenplay gave the film more of an attitude and efficiency that was lacking in NIGHT OF THE CREEPS.

The attitude is evident within the first few seconds of the movie as the opening text sets the scene for the prologue, and continues through out, a wildly enjoyable balance between the albeit lighter horror elements and the biting dialogue. The basic plot concerns Sean, a young kid and mega-monster fan, and his friends trying to prevent Count Dracula from bringing about the end of the world. The Count has arrived in town to collect an ancient amulet which, every one hundred years, can upset the balance between the cosmic forces of good and evil, but Sean and his squad are privy to this nefarious plot and realize that they’re the only ones that can do a damn thing about it, setting up the titanic confrontation between group of semi-adolescent children and freakin’ monsters.

In one corner, we’ve got the titular Monster Squad. Sean is the leader, the big idea guy; Patrick is his right-hand man, a quirky motormouth; Fat Kid is, well, the fat kid and therefore, the heart of the Squad; Eugene is the cute little kid with a dog; Phoebe is Sean’s younger sister, also a cute little kid; and Rudy. I give Rudy special attention, as most fans of the film do, because he is nearly effortlessly cool. For some reason, this cigarette-smoking, leather jacket-clad older kid stands up for Fat Kid and becomes part of the club. I, however, personally laud Rudy for the simple fact that all those other cute moppets would have been mutilated and murdered were it not for him. Seriously, watch the montage. He does all of the proverbial heavy lifting, which, y’know is understandable given his age, but during the climax, he also kills nearly all of the monsters. This rad dude is a modern-day Simon Belmont. 

In the opposing corner are the monsters. For the making of this film, certain attention was to be paid to the make-up designs of the monsters, in that they had to be evocative of the arch-types while not infringing on the copyrighted designs of Universal Studios. This is where Stan Winston, legendary makeup effects artist, and his team were given the opportunity to pay homage to the ghouls they grew up worshiping while creating their own interpretations for a new generation of moviegoers. All of the monsters look incredible, whether it is the added lupine features of the Wolf Man or the ghastly dead-flesh tones of the Frankenstein monster. I am big personal fan of the Creature from the Black Lagoon (or as I call him, Uncle Gilbert) and the piranha-like fierceness of this Gill-man gives him an edge. While the overall design of Dracula is nothing new, and errs slightly on the side of store-bought Halloween costume, it is Duncan Regehr’s performance that makes the character stand out as a genuine threat and menace. Tom Noonan’s performance as Frankenstein is where a lot of the film’s said heart comes from, and I am guaranteed to cry at the finale every single time thanks to the lovable, gnarly corpse. The Mummy is, well, a mummy —ya can’t mess that up.

On the surface, we already have a fun, action-packed story with smartass kids spouting cuss words and fiendish monsters on their trail, which is enough for any movie to be remembered, but, on a technical level, it should be noted that it has wonderful cinematography and a fantastic original score. Bradford May sets up shots that are authentically creepy and evocative of the Universal Studios horror films while making excellent use of lighting to, well, lighten the mood so as to not make it too scary. Bruce Broughton produces a wonderful score with a number of distinct themes, at times mixing in a chromatic conglomeration of strings and rousing horns to create pandemonium and dread, only to balance it out with childlike and bittersweet melodies filled with raw emotion (yes, the Frankenstein/Phoebe theme makes me cry. I won’t apologize, damn it, I am an emotional man!). There is also a poorly underrated (and unreleased) 1980s montage Michael Sembello track, “Rock Until You Drop”, to get your blood pumping for the climax and yes, a rap song about monsters, because, why the hell not?

The film is far from perfect, though. There’s an oddly executed subplot about Sean’s parents going to marriage counseling and a possible divorce. There is also a weirdly incorporated reference to the Holocaust in dialogue between Fat Kid and the Scary German Guy. These scenes are here to ground the film in some sort of reality, to add a gravity to the threats, but I feel like they fall flat. You’ve got a movie with a guy named “Scary German Guy,” helping some neighborhood kids suck a vampire into limbo, get your gravitas out of here, pal. Also, a lot of flack can be thrown at the kids’ dialogue, specifically the slurs and curse words, but, face it, folks, most kids are little shits and they talk like that in real life, even today.

James Rolfe is a man driven by a simple passion: to make films. On his website, Cinemassacre, you can find a plethora of short films, retrospectives, interviews, and skits going all the way back to his childhood, but to the general public, his name is mostly unknown. Chances are, though, they're more familiar with his alter-ego: The Angry Video Game Nerd.

Way back in the far off time known as 2004, Rolfe sat down in a white-button down shirt, a pocketful of pens, a couple of bottles of Rolling Rock beer and proceeded to go on critical, foul-mouthed rants about old Nintendo video games. This was a time where YouTube was in its early infancy and nerd commentary was budding as well. Nowadays, there's entire websites dedicated to all subsections of nerd culture, and there's a whole section of the YouTube homepage set aside for video games, littered with dozens and dozens of nerds reviewing games and making walk-throughs and Let's Plays. The Angry Video Game Nerd was one of the first of his kind, tapping into the subconscious of gamers and their experiences, and bringing it to the masses in a humorous and creative way.

Now it's 2014, and after years of screenwriting and shooting, James Rolfe, along with the help of his closest friends and crowd-funding from his fans, has made his first feature-length film --Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie. As a fan and admirer of Rolfe's hard work and determination, I could not be happier for him and what he has achieved with this film. As a moviegoer, though, I only had a pretty alright time.

The film opens with a brief description of the real-life events surrounding the creation and reception of the most infamously awful game of all time: E.T. for the Atari 2600. It was a game so bad that it lost Atari millions of dollars and millions of copies of the game were supposedly recalled and buried in an unmarked landfill in New Mexico. The basic plot of the film follows the Nerd, (in a nod to his real-world existence) a gamer who makes popular online reviews of shitty games, as he sets out on a quest to debunk the urban legend of the landfill and keep the public from further experiencing the horrendous diarrhea that is E.T.

The Nerd is joined on his journey by his friend/coworker Cooper (Jeremy Suarez, that nerdy kid from the Bernie Mac Show --RIP Bernie Mac) and Mandi, a faux-nerd redhead who works for Cockburn, Inc., a game publisher sponsoring the whole excursion. Cockburn, Inc. (yeah, if you can't get past this level of humor, then you're shit out of luck with this movie) is releasing E.T. 2 and by paying for the costs of the trip, the Nerd must review their game and they're looking to cash in on the manipulative "so bad it's good" trend in the gaming community. Got all that? Good, because there is more going on in this plot.

By traveling out to the landfill site in New Mexico, the Nerd and crew arouse the suspicion of the U.S. government, or more specifically, the lunatic General Dark Onward. On top of the Nerd struggling with his responsibilities to his fans and the gaming community, Mandi and Cockburn, Inc. nefariously trying to bleed out gamers, there's a batshit crazy tank-wheelchair-bound general sending soldiers after the group. Wait, there's also a government conspiracy involving Area 51, top secret engineering projects, and the E.T. game design. Oh, did I mention the existential deity that created God, Satan and existence as we know it? I didn't? Well, he's a giant fucking kaiju-monster called Deathmauchyzx (fuck me if I remember how it's spelled in the credits).

Normally, all of that would sound splendidly weird and wonderful, and it almost achieves that were it not that all the plot points make it oh-so convoluted, with a nearly 2 hour running time to boot. It's a known fact that Rolfe's favorite movie is It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, an epic screwball caper with a cast made up of who's-who of comedy titans on a race across California in search of buried treasure. That influence is certainly noticeable with such an overly ambitious plot as this film's, but it fails to achieve a suitable balance. One of the problems is that the pacing is completely off. It feels like an eternity sometimes before something exciting happens to move the plot along, because there's a lot of time spent on exposition to introduce new plot elements (or bad jokes). Other times, the film lingers on one subplot for too long or not long enough.

While this is the first feature-length screenwriting effort by James Rolfe and Kevin Finn, I can't help but get the feeling that either the duo were trying hard to please the fans or suffered from "this might be our only real shot" anxiety because there's so much shoehorned into the script. A few more drafts could have helped this film with a tighter story and better flow, but I guess that would have taken away from the zombies and killer robots. Yeah, there's those in this movie, too. The Nerd references, however, fit in smoothly and don't take away from the film nor make it impenetrable for newcomers to the character.

There's some really enjoyable and original humor to be found, nestled in between some stupid and infantile jokes, but it's the right kind of silly. I mean, you're sitting down to watch a film called Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie --you're fucked you if you were expecting something genre-defining. The acting is surprisingly good and there's tons of cameos, from Cinemassacre regulars, internet personalities like Keith Apicary and the Nostalgia Critic, dirty old men like Lloyd Kaufman (official count of Lloyd Kaufman summer movie 2014 cameos: 2) and comedians like Eddie Pepitone (possibly the funniest part of the movie). Seeing as this is an independent film, and that Rolfe's favorite films are of the B-movie variety, the filmmakers decided to use practical effects whenever possible. Serving as both an homage and a low-budget necessity, it gives the film an overall silly charm and really shines through in scenes where it is most noticeable (like Deathmauchyzx's kaiju destruction of Las Vegas). Composer Bear McCreary continues to solidify his legacy with another solid original soundtrack (and he gets to be a zombie, so he's got that going for him).

It is hard to believe that it has been ten years since James Rolfe uploaded the very first Angry Video Game Nerd video. From his humble beginnings as the Angry Nintendo Nerd, dressed in a white button down shirt and equipped with a pocketful of pens, a case of Rolling Rock and arguably the most colorfully creative artistry of foul insults and profanities known to mankind, the Nerd has played a plethora of shitty games and become the voice for generations of frustrated gamers. 

In honor of Rolfe's continued success and in celebration of the recent spate of screenings of the finally completed ANGRY VIDEO GAME NERD: THE MOVIE, here's Powered Pop's Top Ten AVGN Episodes!

GODZILLA (EPISODE #77)

"When you pick Mothra, the game just laughs."

When you combine at least two of James Rolfe's passions, there's a very good chance you've got a good episode on your hands. Rolfe displays an intimate understanding of the Godzilla universe, making the video seem all the more like a genuine frustration with the way the king of the monsters had been treated in the gaming realm. What makes this episode truly great is the nerd playing more modern Godzilla games, and the idea that he's product of his generation, when terrible games ran wild. Had the nerd been born two decades later, he might have had a rosier outlook on everything.

DICK TRACY (EPISODE #56)

“But once you leave that screen, you better remember 9th & F because you’re not going to be told again and Dickard doesn’t write it in the notepad. What kind of detective is that? Stupid banana raincoat-wearing dick.” 

As with a majority NES-adaptations of a then-popular films, it comes as no surprise that this is a frustratingly awful game, but the Nerd's rant shines through. He gracefully articulates the soul-wrenching anger felt by any gamer who wasted a perfectly good rental and en entire weekend of their childhood with games like Dick Tracy...and promptly loses his mind as he continuously dies at the hands of an unforgiving game.

STAR WARS (EPISODE #99) 

"…Right after Han says 'over my dead body'--BOOM! All of a sudden Luke comes through crashin' with the fuckin' land speeder! I want to see that in the next special edition!"

Star Wars is a cultural phenomenon, so much so that Rolfe needed to make no introductions to the franchise when he did this multi-game review. Now sure, there's some bad Star Wars games out there, but what really makes this a good episode is the loving allusions to the Star Wars universe. The standout moments have everything to do with Rolfe's original creation: the beer droid. While this little guy exudes a lot of the cheeky charm that robots in the Star Wars universe do, he also just feels like something from the original trilogy. The jerky stop-motion technique utilized can't help but make the viewer think about the tauntauns and AT-ST's of the first 3 movies. Mentioning anything in the same sentence as Star Wars is a compliment, and this episode deserves it.

NINTENDO POWER (EPISODE #33)

“Okay, here’s my letter: Dear Nintendo Power Editor, what the fuck is your problem?”

In a shift away from his usual rants about broken and baffling games, the Nerd takes an episode to discuss a vital part of gamer culture: Nintendo Power. As he explains it, before the internet and instant access to information, Nintendo Power served as a important life force, offering tips, tricks, codes and walk-throughs for young gamers. This episode serves as a great retrospective for a lost moment in time for gamer culture, as Rolfe covers all aspects of the magazine: comics, artwork, advertisements, inserts, contests and letters.

SWORDQUEST (EPISODE #88)

"Once upon a time, video games were more than games, they were adventures."

Like some of the greatest games out there, some of the greatest AVGN episodes take you to a different world. In this case, we're shown the bygone era of the Atari 2600 and the SwordQuest franchise. Rolfe details the the most ambitious video game competition we've ever heard of and he couldn't have done a better job of making it seem insanely epic. His showing the search for clues involved in the SwordQuest competition as well as the prizes involved can't help but make us think of an Indiana Jones movies. As well, when he called for the Sword Quest prizes to be in the hands of gamers, it seemed almost as dire as when Henry Jones Sr. demanded the Holy Grail not come into the possession of the Nazis in The Last Crusade. An episode that can make you care about an obscure video game promotion from the early 80s is something truly special.

HALLOWEEN (EPISODE #36)

“No, no, the Poopy Man is more like the Boogie Man –and he’s gonna get you if you don’t turn off this game!”

The AVGN horror/Halloween-themed episodes are always a high point, seeing as Rolfe is a horror movie fanatic. He devotes the entire month of October to his Monster Madness horror film retrospective on his site, Cinemassacre. Rolfe has delivered a number of classics, but in this homage, he captures not only the essence of the seminal John Carpenter classic, but the Halloween holiday spirit as well. Sure, it's a little heavy on the toilet humor, but it's crammed with classic AVGN staples like the Super Scope, games breaking the fourth wall, and an E.T. game reference.

PLUMBERS DON'T WEAR TIES (EPISODE #74) 

"Why would there ever be the floating head of a panda next to someone's bed?!"

Sometimes a great Nerd episode has no nostalgia whatsoever, and relies purely on shock value. In the case of this episode, the nerd uncovers one of the most obscure 3DO games to ever grace the doomed console. Plumbers Don't Wear Ties seems like more of PG porno than an actual video game, but it's perfect fodder for Rolfe's signature bewilderment. While just about anybody could point out the absurdities associated with this game, the nerd is a likable and relatable stand-in for the audience.

NINTENDO ACCESSORIES (EPISODE #47)

“Fuck! Wow, I just shot down a duck by saying fuck!”

One of the reasons why the AVGN series is so popular is that the Nerd doesn't just review shitty games --he makes time to talk about weird and awful consoles and accessories, too, as he does in this installment with a variety of older Nintendo products. Classics like the NES Zapper and SNES Super Scope are showcased, but the Nerd shines with other accessories like the voice-activated, head-mounted Laser Scope and drinking Rolling Rock on the Roll n' Rocker.

GAME GLITCHES (EPISODE #92)

"It's a clubber-fuck!"

As Rolfe states in this episode, gamers love to find glitches in their games. He could have done a pretty straightforward series of cool glitches for this video, but instead made one of the most memorable AVGN side-characters in history. Kevin Finn, who's also the producer on the AVGN movie, steals the show with his mischievous and cool demeanor as the Glitch Gremlin. Rolfe manages to put a face to a phenomena that has been plaguing gamers since the dawn of the medium.

BACK TO THE FUTURE REREVISITED (EPISODE #94)

“Was this game designed by a human being or did they just feed the movie into a computer to process and then shit out this nonsensical fuck-poop?”

The family that slays together, stays together.

Movies and beer --they're two great things that go together swimmingly. It's not uncommon to even associate certain beers with specific films, whether it's Rolling Rock and THE DEER HUNTER (1978) or Heineken and Pabst Blue Ribbon and BLUE VELVET (1986). Some breweries embrace their involvement in cinematic history, in particular, Narragansett and JAWS (1975). They've made use of their beer can having a cameo in the blockbuster, re-releasing retro style cans in honor of the film's upcoming anniversary and encouraging their customers to "Crush it like Quint."

Narragansett was first brewed in 1890 and was, at one point, the largest brewery in New England, so it makes sense that a resident of the fictional resort town of Amity Island would be found sipping on their lager; Narragansett is inherently a part of New England life. That's why it's no surprise to find Texas's greatest beer popping up in the state's most infamous cinematic contribution.

For those of you poor souls unfamiliar with this damn fine brew, every drop of Shiner is brewed in Shiner, Texas at the famous Spoetzl Brewery since 1909. It was one of a handful of Texas breweries to make it out of the Prohibition and continues strong to this day, expanding distribution across the U.S. The first beer brewed was a bohemian-style lager known today as Shiner Premium, but the shining jewel of the Shiner beer fleet is Shiner Bock. First brewed in 1913 as a seasonal offering, the bock grew in popularity over the years, so much so that they decided to brew it all year round --and the world's been a better place since then.

An underdog brewery in a state founded on fierce independence is bound to become an inherent part of Texas life, especially with the counter-culture generation living in and around Austin in the 1970s, who were responsible for putting forth one of the finer films in American cinematic history: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974). It's a classic, not only in terms of the horror genre and film-making, but it is a part of American culture. Even if you haven't seen it, it's more than unlikely that you haven't heard it's name (usually with negative connotations) and your imagination was lit was gruesome images.

Shiner Premium has a cameo fairly early on in the movie. In this scene, the group of young folk who will eventually be hacked to itty-bitty pieces, stop off a cemetery that's been plagued by grave robberies. As Sally checks to make sure that her granddaddy's resting place remains undisturbed, a drunk old man rolls around, spouting eerie warnings while laughing to himself. I would have listened to him. Not because of horror movie tropes, but because the man drinks Shiner beer.

And to that extent, is Shiner's involvement in THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE...until nearly 13 years later, when the powers at be at Canon Films forced the original director Tobe Hooper to unleash THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (1986) on the world. It really is a different type of movie; while the first was a gritty, cinéma vérité style film that utilized subliminal use of sound and visual editing, the second is a gonzo, gore-laden satirical black comedy. It has a charm all of it's own, but more importantly, it has a lot of Shiner beer.

Right out of the gate, we've got Shiner Bock beer being consumed by two yuppies, Buzz and Rick the Prick. They're obnoxious and entitled (exhibit A: they have a car phone), we want to see them slice and diced by all-American rotating steel, but they have one redeeming quality: they drink Shiner.

As our young gentlemen are being hacked up live on the air (they didn't hang up their car phone), you can glimpse a poster for Shiner in the K-OKLA radio station, as Stretch and LG listen in horror to the sweet sounds of sawing.

Later on, as Stretch covers the results of the Texas-Oklahome Chili Cook-Off, we find the ever lovable Texas good ol' boy LG building a house out of french fries.

The beer of choice of great fry house builders? It can only be Shiner Bock.

As the judges prepare to announce the grand champion of the Texas-Oklahoma Chili Cook-Off, you can glimpse an onlooker holding a bottle of Shiner Premium. The grand champion is greatly fun reveal I won't spoil here. Just remember, the secret is in the meat.

There's that awesome Shiner beer poster in the radio station again! Maybe it wasn't such a good idea for Stretch to wait up all by herself in an empty radio station after midnight.

Definitely not a good idea, seeing as she winds up trapped in what can only be described as the station's storeroom/beverage center. Sure, there's a gruesome twosome of maniacs after her, one of whom is wielding a chainsaw, but hey, look on the bright side --cases upon cases of Shiner Premium!

Leatherface has done some terrible things in his time. He's mutilated dozens of people and dressed up in their flesh, but smashing through the side wall and knocking over dozens of bottles of perfectly good Shiner beer is the most disturbing thing he's ever done. Actually, I take that back. The chainsaw dry humping he's about to perform on Stretch is the most disturbing thing he's done. 

There could be Shiner beer in the other Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, but I'd have to be pretty drunk on Shiner Bock to actually sift through those flicks.

Still, when you think of the great state of Texas, some things might come to mind: The Dallas Cowboys, ZZ Top, Pantera,The Alamo (both of 'em --the Drafthouse Cinemas and the place Pee-Wee Herman thought his bicycle was); I'm willing to bet, however, these things definitely come to mind --barbeque, Shiner beer and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.