Tag: retro, Punching noise in it's stupid face.

Short (S)hit List: Here Comes “That Little Monster” (1994)

Short films shot in black and white were a dime a dozen in the 1990’s, most low budget directors used the monochrome method to impart artiness, seriousness and mask whatever defects a low budget production spawned, most were pretentious shit from hipster assholes who had their heads wedged firmly in their asses. While the current entry “That Little Monster” was shot in black and white, tried to be arty, and tried to mask its defects with monochrome, serious it wasn’t and it is glorious to behold.

So the plot of “That Little Monster” isn’t really that complicated, it takes place in a retro future imagined by 1950’s sci fi writers, it takes place on a different planet, in a house with furniture, a TV set and Hi Fi record player that wouldn’t look too far out of place in a 1950’s swinging bachelor pad with a few tweaks here and there to make it look unearthly, add strange ornaments, sculptures and plants to make it look even more unearthly. Forrest J. Ackerman, founder of the first zine and movie monster magazine, “Monsters of Filmland” does the intro to the movie. In comes female earthling Jamie (Melissa Baum) looking for a baby sitting job to make a little more money on this different planet, another human Twelvetrees (played by Reggie Bannister of “Phantasm” fame) interviews her for the baby sitting job, first by trying to pitch her a alien soda in what looks like retro commercial. She gets hired, she is to watch the infant spawn of the Willock couple who are going to a costume party dressed like humans, the male Willock breaks into a weird folk song out of nowhere, they allude to their being other human baby sitters that didn’t work out. She is given instructions on when to feed the baby and that she can have as much microwave popcorn as she wants, the aliens on this planet think microwave popcorn is the best invention they were given by us humans. Twelvetrees warns her to be careful around the alien infant, of course she ignores his advice and the alien baby starts running wild and things and people get hurt and Bob Hope (yes that one) makes a surprise cameo.

For a low budget short film, the effects are pretty darn good, the alien baby gave me a chuckle and made me happy every time it popped up on the screen, I imagine this the way the baby in David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” would’ve looked like if it had lived a couple of more months, the gore effects and baby toys were well done, they made the baby toys look slightly familiar but otherworldly. This one really isn’t scary, its ridiculous, but ridiculous in a non pretentious and fun way, and to boot it is short, “That Little Monster” is one I will go back to and it makes it easy that its fifty minutes long and interesting, if it would’ve went on for an hour and half I would’ve been looking at my room wondering what I had to organize. “That Little Monster” came out of a time that was experiencing a “retro revival” every hipster was digging through thrift stores in the 1990’s looking for 1950’s-1960’s lounge lizard threads and digging through heaps of vinyl in used record stores trying to find the lost 45 or 78 of some obscure Swing Band. I can tell the director of this short, Paul Bunnell was one of those types of people.

Paul shot “That Little Monster” over three years, it was originally supposed to be a segment in the awesome “Monsters” TV show, the connection to “Monsters”, according to Paul, “died” so he decided to develop it himself into a artsy kind of film to get his work seen. In the interview I saw, Paul looks like your typical 1990’s retro hipster, he wears black frame Buddy Holly glasses, his hair is slicked back with Brylcreem, he wears a plaid suit jack and wide collar shirt whose collar flaps come over the suit jacket collar, he also drives a 1960 Thunderbird with Bob Hope spelled out on his license plate and he does Don Knotts impersonations, this is the kind of guy who would direct a movie like this. Paul said it took thirty thousand dollars to make and some help from some producers. Paul says he is more of a visual stylist and tells his story more through visuals than the actual story. This short is packed with eye popping visuals, Paul directed the segment “The Visitant” in the “Strange Tales” (https://www.noisepuncher.net/2021/09/20/want-to-watch-some-strange-tales-1986/)anthology I reviewed here awhile ago.

So are you confused? By my review or where to watch it? Or both? Well I can solve the “where to watch it” part, you can go right here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/QKhxh5RggDEC/

If you want to actually get “That Little Monster”, and I mean really get it go here: https://www.amazon.com/That-Little-Monster-Forrest-Ackerman/dp/B00006BSLW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2WFR4BH0CXWB5&keywords=That+Little+Monster+Paul+Bunnell&qid=1655488192&s=movies-tv&sprefix=that+little+monster+paul+bunnell%2Cmovies-tv%2C135&sr=1-1

Time to feed “That Little Monster”!

White Noise on Paper: Welcome to “The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn”! GRRRRRR!!!!

Open this comic compilation and the smell of cheap gin, cigarettes and even cheaper perfume wafts right off the page. You know exactly where you are: “The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn”. Welcome to a world where the 1950’s to mid 1960’s pop culture is mixed together with no blurring lines, its a place where space travel and alien visitation is normal. A four eyed detective, Lloyd Llewellyn, hangs out in a bar “The Big White Dot” with his diminutive side kick, Ernie. Together they chase alien dames, beat up Ed Big Daddy Roth monster teenagers from Jupiter, battle man eating Beatniks etc. This was Daniel Clowes first foray into doing his own comic book.

Daniel says all up until the point of Lloyd Llewellyn he had only done 25 pages of actual comics and single illustrations until he sent an Lloyd Llewellyn page in color to Fantagraphics, Fantagraphics gave him his own comic, except it was in black and white, the cover and back being colored which fits the whole aesthetic of the magazine and the time period its paying homage to. Its like reading a black and white sci fi noir film.

Dan says he isn’t particularly proud of his work in “The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn” it was one of his first projects and he says he was working himself up to “Triple A Baseball”. He said writing Lloyd Llewellyn was a way of exorcising pop culture demons and trivia he’d gathered, pop culture from 1948-1966. He thought there was a market for comics that referenced “Dragnet” and Mickey Spillane novels, he said the target audience turned out to be ex hippies who thought it was a satire of the pre 1967 culture they hated and younger kids who were into “Hep Cat” culture and hated anything post 1966.

The series lasted from 1985 to 1994, in it he pays homage to various pop culture relics from the 1950-1966 period including Red Sovine and Burl Ives lyrics, DC comics of the early 1960’s, characters that are similar to Lee Hazlewood, Esquerita, Alfred E. Newman, Sylvester P. Smythe, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth monsters, 1950’s “Super Duck” and “Plastic Man”, movies like “Detour”, “Devil Thumbs A Ride”, “Touch of Evil”, “Brainac”, “Thrill Killers”, “Homicidal”, “Straight Jacket” and “Psycho” and TV shows like “Dragnet”. Despite what Clowes says (and his later stuff is better) I wasn’t bored one minute with this thing. I loved this world, I’ve read worse and won’t review those on here.

In this book is the foreword and afterward to the first version of this collection called simply “#$@&! Parts one and two”. This book is a must for Daniel Clowes fans, problem is this book is out of print and rare. While “Fantagraphics” is one of my favorite companies out there, their refusal to republish past stuff, even in limited quantities makes me insanely mad. The prices are utterly fucking ridiculous, I was lucky to get this copy for 150 bucks from Australia. Utterly ridiculous. From “Fantagraphics” point of view they probably wonder why they should reprint something barely anybody knows or cares about but the problem is they do it all the time. I wish they’d give Lloyd Llewellyn the same treatment as Dan’s other work like “Velvet Glove Cast In Iron” and “Eight Ball”. There is stuff released that is selling on ebay and various sites for insane amounts of money I would never pay, no matter how much I want it. Until I started searching I didn’t think I’d ever read “The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn” and I despaired of ever seeing this visual white noise. There is a lot out there I want to see but never will because of insane fucking collectors and sellers who drive the price of something way the fuck up, sure scarcity causes the costs to sky rocket but c’mon, some of these sellers are just ripping desperate schmucks off. (RANT OVER. LOL!)

“The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn” was released in a limited print run of 2000 copies, wish they’d do another so all of you out there could experience Clowes’ strange noir, sci fi, retro world. If you want a copy I say do a search on your favorite internet search engine, the physical copies like I have are gonna straight up rape your wallet raw, and on amazon right now the cheapest available copy is 727 bucks! EEEEK!!! When I searched I could find no download links, if you want to search for a copy good luck to you and good luck hunting!