Walking Dead, Season 4 Episode 3

Captain Tripps continues his extended cameo on the most recent episode of The Walking Dead, thus sparing us, the viewers, from another episode featuring the (now) ridiculous Governor (Talk about lost in translation!). Don’t be mad, David Morrissey! We’ll always have State of Play (and that episode of Dr. Who)!

• For reminding us how gravedigging was likely developed by a gatherer culture with nothing exciting to do all day. = +3pts
• Daryl tossing in the towel during the Rick vs. Tyrese fight, thus preventing a possible hate crime. = +10pts (Merle rolling over in his grave is an added bonus…and likely because he is a zombie now. SPOILER ALERT!)
• Who’s going to speak in homily once Hershel buys it? = No points. Just a legitimate question.
• Needing a pep-talk from your younger teenage sister who also happens to be the only person taking care of a baby in a jail full of plague and zombies. = -2pts (Seriously, grow a pair…of something.)
• D’Angelo’s natural suspicion of his fellow prison inmates. = +1pt (You know, because it didn’t work out so well last time.)
• Having to abandon your car because your rear tires are skidding out on a pile of moaning corpses. = +10pts #zombiepeopleproblems
• Waiting in a car surrounded by a zombie herd for the purposes of dramatic effect. = -2pts
• Subsequently fighting your way through a herd of zombie with nothing but your average hammer for the purposes of dramatic effect. = +10pts
• Oh, good! We were wondering how good this new doctor was. After coughing up a mouthful of blood on Hershel’s face, we have our answer: shitty. = -5pts 

Total Points: +25pts
Season Total: +59pts

The Walking Dead continues its string of strong episodes with another more than tolerable episode. It should be noted that this episode was written by creator Robert Kirkman, who should be commended for not George R. R. Martin-ing the episode, which had previously been his wont to do.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

American Horror Story: Coven, Episode 3

It may have been a Man’s Man’s Man’s World for James Brown back in 1966. But here in 2013, it’s all about a Woman’s Work, as American Horror Story gets to the dirty roots of the witches and their Fuckin Problems.

• Nothing helps one sleep like a nice stiff drink and memories of their first murder. = +3pts
• “Gash,” the Victorian version of the word “Cunt.” = -6pts (Come to think of it, “gash” is also the any age version of “cunt.”)
• Arnold Poindexter is alive and well. He’s also apparently leading a jazz band in New Orleans. = +5pts
• Not quite sure how FrankenTate found his way from SAT tutoring and supporting his baked hippie mom, to leading the frat “party” bus, but such things are rarely explained in AHS. = -3pts
• Nothing like watching an immortal racist weep at the sight of a black man being re-elected president. Quick, save her tears! They must be the most exquisite of poisons! = +8pts
• To say that Misty Day really likes her Stevie Nicks is to say that Rush Limbaugh really loves his illegal prescriptions. = +4pts
• AHS Survival 101: Fire and Fleetwood Mac have the same repellent effect on a Frankenstein. = +3pts (The more you know…)
• Watching a young fame whore get totally gash-blocked by a developmentally challenged fellow witch. = +10pts (You can’t get more progressive than that!)
• It’s official: Ringing the doorbell and dashing is much cooler when you leave behind a Frankenstein, than a bag of poo. = +4pts (To be fair, poo has never actually murdered anyone in a rage of confusion. So there’s that.)
• Mother becomes suspicious of her Frankenson when she catches a lingering glimpse of his new and improved Frankenjunk, which naturally leads her to want to awkwardly make out with him. = 0pts (The fantastic/ingenious/bold industrious nature of the young witches who made this abomination of nature manages to negate what is an almost an off-the charts negative score. Good job, ladies!)
• 2 full ounces of baby gravy required for your average voodoo fertility spell!? Who did you marry, Cordellia? James Deen? = +6pts
• Having sex with the body of a man and the head of the minotaur. Or, as it’s called in Louisiana, the missionary position. = -5pts
• •AHS Survival 101: Never molest a Frankenstein. = +5pts (All of a sudden FrankenTate’s college choices become much clearer.)

Total Points: +34pts
Season Score: +56pts

At this point in the season, it’s worth noting that every significant male character that has appeared in the show so far has either been silenced, muted, or deformed in some way that continues to make this season all about the ladies. That’s not to say women aren’t doing their part for horror, as fringe bestiality and oedipal issues abound! Keep it up ladies! Only all of recorded history to go!

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Walking Dead, Season 4 Episode 2

Last week’s Walking Dead premier brought Sean’s longtime fantasy to life by making it rain men (they were pretty well decayed, but that’s fine; he’s not a picky guy), but gave us fairly little in terms of direction for the season. The gang is still holed up in the prison, recruiting new survivors into the community and struggling daily to keep the ever-increasing number of walkers from pushing down the fences surrounding their home. We were introduced to some new faces, and a lot of those new faces got bitten off. What’s this all going to mean long-term for our embattled heroes? Let’s let the nanobots suss that out for us.

• Carl’s friend, who while alive somehow looked like he was simultaneously ten years old and one hundred, rises again following his mysterious death and starts a zombie outbreak in the prison. = +4pts 
• In the first ten minutes, we get a throat-ripping, intestinal spillage, and a good old-fashioned head-stomping. Way to get down to business, WD. = +9pts 
• A superflu outbreak, guys? Isn’t the one apocalyptic scenario enough for you anymore? You don’t get to also rip off The Stand. = -3pts 
• Also, how is this mysterious new doctor guy able to diagnose death-by-superflu just by analyzing the blood spatters on a walker’s face? We didn’t realize that House M.D. survived The Turning. = -6pts 
• Little girl who is more upset over her “pet walker” getting put down than over witnessing the death of her father seems poised to carry on the proud Walking Dead tradition of completely intolerable female characters. = -15pts 
• Zombie pushed through chain-link fence. = +12pts 
• Thanks to the Greene daughter whose name we never bothered to learn, Tom Waits super-fandom continues to survive the apocalypse. = +7pts 
• Not sure if it’s a fault of our own or the show’s that we are more upset at Rick using his potentially diseased livestock to draw walkers away from a buckling fence than we were over the countless deaths of nameless human extras. = no points, just an observation 
• And with that, Rick’s two-episode-long flirtation with being a pussy comes to an end. = +6pts 
• Tyrese’s quarantined girlfriend found dead and burned with another sick survivor in the yard. Now we’re cooking… um. Now we’re getting somewhere. = +8pts

Total Score = +24pts
Season Total = +34pts

Things are starting to shape up a little bit. The walker outbreak in the prison and the crisis at fence gave us plenty of sweet living-on-dead violence to quench our insatiable thirst for blood, while the vigilante burning at the end points towards the kind of human drama that the show is sorely in need of. Let’s see if they can keep the momentum going another week.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

American Horror Story: Coven, Episode 2

Despite its frequent lampshading of witch-related dramas (with "Sabrina the Teenage Cracker" currently being our favorite jibe), the second episode of American Horror Story: Coven is really setting itself apart from the shows that helped pave the way by creating a bouillabaisse of the occult and then turning it on its head. From Satanic fertility magic to groovy hippie necromancy, the show is finding interesting ways to bend our expectations. Here's what the nanobots had to say!

• Swamp poaching pro-tip: gators can't resist the allure of jerk chicken. = +2pts 
• Upon encountering the hippie Misty Day at their camp, one of the swamp poachers draws and aims his pistol at her. = +6pts (It's a natural reaction.) 
• Black Magic Hippie taps two swamps and casts Raise Dead on the poached alligators. Unaffected by summoning sickness, they immediately avenge their deaths. = +10pts 
• The tension between roommates is released when Madison apologizes to Zoe for killing her "boy candy" crush, Evan. = +3pts 
• Chiding a 19th century immortal for being startled by a cell phone. = +4pts 
• Queenie's origin stemmed from an altercation when she worked for a fried chicken joint called Chubbie's. = -10 pts for her being fat and -15 pts for her being black. Total score = -25fat/black pts (That they played up her intelligence made this scene even worse.) 
• "He's still kinda cute," Madison says of the mangled remains of Zoe's boy candy. = +2pts 
• Despite Zoe's objections, she goes along with Madison's plan to stitch Evan together like some sort of Fratenstein and then shout at the Devil to bring the corpse back to life. = +6pts 
• Cursing your adversary with everlasting life and then burying her alive seems like the perfect strategy. = +8pts 
• ...until someone digs up your now-unkillable enemy. = -8pts 
• After botching the attempt to resurrect Evan, Zoe and Madison leave his sutured corpse on the examining table and hope that no one notices. = -5pts 
• When someone immediately notices and confronts Zoe – FRATENSTEIN SMASH!!! = +3pts 
• There's little that we wouldn't do to get our hands on a cash-shitting unicorn, Angela Bassett. Just sayin'. = +5pts (Call us!) 
• Cordelia invokes blood sugar sex magic in hopes of being impregnated by her beardy husband. The only things missing to make this an episode of Bewitched 2013 was a laugh track and a chuckling Paul Lynde interrupting the coitus. = +8pts 
• To say that Misty Day really likes her Stevie Nicks is to say that John Belushi really liked cocaine. = -4pts 
• Zoe confuses Stevie Nicks with Steven Tyler. This truly is an American Horror Story. = - 6pts 
• Poison in the buckwheat – what a way to go! = +3pts

Total Score = +12pts
Season Score = +22pts

Focusing more on character development and less on dry exposition, this episode gave a real taste of what's in store for the season. We're looking forward to more witchy shenanigans, albeit without the ham-handed treatment of Precious's character.

Score Technician: TJ Geise

Walking Dead, Season 4 Episode 1

Although there will be many spoliers ahead, we don’t think we’re ruining anything for anyone by saying that last year’s Walking Dead finale sucked hard. A season’s worth of tension between Woodbury and Rick’s band at the prison came to a head in a conflict that lasted minutes, ended with the Governor gunning down his own soldiers and taking off for parts unknown, and resulted in nothing more exciting than Rick taking in a busload Woodbury’s orphaned, elderly, and infirm. It’s as if the last season of Walking Dead was an elevator that we were all riding on, and the creators ripped ass right as they were stepping off of it. We fans have been stewing in that rank fartbox for the better part of a year now, pinching our noses closed and waiting to reach the next floor. The only question is, will we be greeted by a draft of cool, refreshing air when those doors open again on Season 4, or another gale of warm, eye-watering flatulence?

• A dude engaging in agriculture doesn’t normally make for a riveting cold open, but they sort of carried it off this time. = +2pts 
• Dorky kid in glasses reminds us all how cool Daryl is. Does the Daryl Dixon Fan Club really need to have representatives on the show itself? = -5pts 
• Folks on “cleaning duty” around the perimeter fence help fill our quota of zombie splatter for the episode. = +8pts 
• Michonne comes back to the compound on horseback with a stack of comics for Carl. = +3pts (That lady’s a keeper.) 
• D’angelo Barksdale has returned from the dead, and he wants to accompany the gang on a supply run. = +6pts (Here’s hoping he’ll teach them a thing or two about chess.) 
• Since when does Rick Grimes need to be reminded to carry a gun when he’s beyond the gates? = -3pts 
• Rick stumbles across a random-encounter woman with an ambiguous accent (Is it Irish? Afrikaans? Your guess is as good as ours.). = -1pt 
• D’angelo proves his usefulness to the group by getting himself pinned under a liquor shelf and drawing the attention of the heard of walkers previously standing dormant on the roof. = -4pts 
• If the zombies were on the rooftop all along, we’re not sure why, all of a sudden, their movement would cause it to start collapsing. = -5pts 
• But honestly, who cares? We could watch them tumble through holes in the ceiling and splatter on the concrete all day long. = +20pts 
• Boyfriend of the Greene daughter whose name we never bothered to learn gets eaten. = +3pts 
• Rick’s meeting with the twitchy, feral looking refugee woman and her “husband” ends about as well as you’d expect. = -2pts 
• Carl discovers Carol giving self-defense lessons to the kids under the guise of “story time.” For some reason, this has to be kept secret from Rick. Rick Grimes, do we even know who you are anymore? = -4pts 
• Patrick, the president of the Daryl Dixon Fan Club dies in the middle of the night from… we’ll say a cold? And he comes back as a zombie. = +2pts 
• We still have no idea what the arc for this season is going to be. = -10pts

Total Score = +10pts
Season Score = +10pts

A decent opening gambit. The sight of an undead horde raining down on our heroes through holes in a decaying roof was atonement enough to cover all manner of sins. Still, we couldn’t quite shake off the feeling of general directionlessness that’s been plaguing the show ever since its second season. Frankly, WD has struggled for a long time with scattershot character development and aimless plotting, and four seasons in, it's probably futile to hold out hope that the show will ever live up to the audacity of its premise (or its excellent source material). Still, if there's one things nerds love more than having their socks knocked off by a show, it's having an excuse to bitch about it, so we know exactly where we'll be every Sunday for the next seven or eight weeks.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling

American Horror Story: Coven, Episode 1

American Horror Story (AHS) is back! After exploring the world of scary haunted houses and scary insane asylums, AHS delves into the terrifying world of…witches (?). Okay sure, Harry Potter may own the world of magic, but Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk are going to try their darndest to make witches scary! And if they fail? Well, there’s always (insert italicized name of actual scary movie featuring witches here).

• New Orleans, 1860’s: Kathy Bates giving her three daughters the same name a hundred years before George Foreman does. = +10pts
• Annie Wilkes beauty secret revealed! (Here’s a hint: It involves face scrubbing with a liquid that contains a lot of iron.) = +5pts
• We didn’t think it was possible for Kathy Bates to be scarier than she was in Misery.  = +10pts
• Kathy Bates and her house slave “partying” with a severed minotaur-like head. = -10pts (“Party” in AHS lingo generally means “murder/rape.”)
• Credits! (Items include: the black KKK, Manson-shoes, voodoo, cats(!), heels, leather, spikes, more voodoo) = -5pts (Note: The nanobots are calculating this as a negative score due to the utter imbalance of terrifying depictions of white people in comparison to black people. It’s like the opening of True Blood, only with more racism.)
• In case you missed the first X-Men movie, AHS shows you how Rogue—we’re sorry, “Zoe”—discovers her powers. = -2pts
• Francis Conroy doing her best Sybill Trelawney impersonation. = +4pts
• Staffing your secret service squad with male ethnic albinos. = +3pts
• Nothing says “typical girl-school hazing” like threatening to stab the new girl while wearing black robes and masks with penis noses. = -7pts
• Dennis O’Hare doing his best Filch impersonation. = +4pts
• Call us crazy, but while four people makes for a shitty “school,” it makes for an even shittier “club.” = -4pts
• Dialog exchange between Supreme Witch (Jessica Lange)  and her daughter (Lilly Rabe, the unfortunately named “Misty Day”—seriously, we need to see her “special” powers right away) has us confused as to whether we are watching a remake of the first Harry Potter movie (only she’s a girl!), or X-Men: First Class. = -2pts
• Frat “party” van! = -10pts
• Flipping said "party" van and killing a bunch of fleeing "partiers." = +10pts
• Nicholas Cage lived/lives in New Orleans? Terrifying! = +5pts (For giving us a heads up.)
• Digging up a living Kathy Bates 100+ years in the future and her confused and moderately indignant reaction. A bit like how we imagined Veruca Salt would react when released from whatever prison Willy Wonka had set her off to. = +7pts
• In closing, there’s nothing more dangerous than a witch with a vagina. = +10pts
• Total exposition deduction. = -8pts (-2pts for every scene.)

Total Score: +20pts

Not a bad start for a show. The complete absence of men, except in the context of “partying” or being “partied” with is a nice change of pace. But it’s a long season, so don't get too excited. Instead, put on your warpaint and strap on your severed Minotaur head, because things are about to get weird.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Hellbound: Hellraiser II

So many things made 1988 great. But it was probably the release of Hellbound: Hellraiser II, that was one of the best-est things. Fans of horror films were first titillated by Pinhead and his merry band of demon dominatrices only a year earlier. This was a good omen for many, as clearly this quick turnaround meant that surely we needed only wait 12-15 months for Bobby Brown to put out the follow-up to his already (and aptly titled) classic album, Don’t Be Cruel (the other best-est thing of 1988). But it turns out Bobby Brown was cruel. Bobby, the follow-up album, wouldn’t be released until 1992. Yet, it would be hard to match the cruelty in the knotted mind of the (then) Vice-President of 80’s horror, Clive Barker. Barker, who had directed the previous film, for some reason, decided to turn over almost everything about the franchise to (insert name of disposable director here). Would turning this franchise over to a “real” filmmaker experience result in a film as good/better/worse than the original? Let’s leave such things up to science. Where it belongs. So grab your scorecard. The nanobots are fired up and ready to go. Things are about to get icky.

• Hey, remember the end of the first Hellraiser? You don’t? Well, allow us to remind you: “Hey, you signed the puzzle-box end-user agreement: Violation of the terms stated hereunder may result in penalties not to exceed $250,000 and/or the fiery destruction of all your material goods by Sesame-Street quality visual effects. = +23pts” (Courtesy of Technician John Ormond.) 
• Remember when that fat cenobite was all about to kill the lead girl’s best boyfriend from the first movie and was felled by cheap dry-wall, thus sparing his life, and we all thought, “Wow, the gravity must be way different in hell dimensions because that looked like a bunch of Styrofoam”? Good times! = +3pts 
• Subverting classic horror tropes by swapping the franchise title and number with the episode title. = +5pts 
• Maintaining the classic horror tropes that matter: Like, for example, not having a single recognizable name attached to the movie, from grip to actor, from writer to director, outside of Clive Barker, whose legendary demands that everyone wear nipple clamps and cock rings still resonate in the contemporary bondage horror films of today. = +10pts 
• On a completely unrelated note: “Director” Tony Randel’s body has never been recovered. They did, however, find his skin suit in the closet of an abandoned building in Birmingham, England. = +3pts (For closure.) 
• Clive Barker is not gay. (In 1988, = +10pts, In 2013, = -10pts) 
• Slow lingering shot of a soldier’s “uniform” with accompanying leather whips, belts, strings and harness. = +2pts 
• Does this film come with a safe word? = No points. Just a question. 
• Total screen time devoted to Pinhead’s origin story: 1(ish)-minute. = +60pts (Can somebody send this over to the people at Marvel Studios?) 
• Recycling significant portions of the plot of Nightmare on Elm St III: Dream Warriors. = -4pts 
• Storing a corpse in a bread basket. = +4pts 
• In case you were wondering if the creepy brain surgeon was hiding a dark Nazi past, rest assured his references to a mysterious “final solution” and obvious egomaniacal demeanor make him a strong candidate for a good hooking. = +3pts (For complicating the narrative.) 
• Naming your Nazi doctor Dr. Channard and not Dr. Makebelieve, a more accurate description of the type of medicine he practices. = -5pts 
• Clive Barker doesn’t like doctors. He especially doesn’t like Psychiatrists. We wonder what would happened if he just combined the fields for narrative sake? Hmm… = -1pts 
• On an unrelated note: Clive Barker is not gay. (In 1988, = +10pts, In 2013, = -10pts) 
• Using the fact that you are a doctor—thus gainfully employed and ready to make babies—to try to pick up a mentally damaged young woman who just saw her skinless uncle and dad’s murderous wife ripped to pieces by a band of transdimensional sex demons. = -5pts (In any decade.) 
• Man, that puzzle box sure was fun! Playing with it had such a positive outcome for all involved! Maybe I can help this traumatized blonde girl who doesn’t speak make her own! = +3pts 
• Welcome to 1988: Where doctors could just walk up to you in their casual clothes and offer you a sketchy bottle of “sleeping medicine.” We’re on to you, “Kyle.” = -2pts 
• Using your own blood to send a text from hell asking for help. = +5pts ( ;-) LOL) 
• Tasting hell blood during the age of AIDS. = -5pts 
• The sudden realization that the iconic puzzle box of the entire franchise was likely inspired by the gift stand at Sharper Image. = -4pts 
• Doing dispassionate rounds on the scream floor of your local psychiatric ward. = -10pts (Unless you’re a Nazi. Then it’s like Christmas and off the charts good.) 
• “Please, wait outside my open door while I have this incredibly suspicious conversations about something of which you may have tangential knowledge of.” = +4pts 
• Hellbound: Hellraiser II alternative title: Hellraiser Highlights: Hellraiser II. = -2pts (Just in case you forgot that borderline pornographic sex scene from the first movie.) 
• On an unrelated note: Clive Barker is not gay. (In 1988, = +10pts, In 2013, = -10pts) 
• Face painting with pieces of face. = +5pts 
• Filming Herr Channard’s interior home shots in the same house that The Human Centipede was filmed in. = +3pts 
• For all of the probing psycho-sexual musings of Clive Barker, no observation has ever been as astutely (under)stated as Kyle’s monosyllabic utterance, “Weird,” spoken in the bowels of Dr. Channard’s library/lab (lab-rary?). You’re right, Kyle. It is weird that you have somehow found your way into your supervisor’s home, without an obvious key or apparent animal you’ve promised to feed. This never ends well for anyone. We hope you’ve had your anus bleached. = +10pts 
• Skeletons always look cool when hung to look like they are screaming. We’ve been saying this for years. = +3pts 
• “CHILDREN OF THE VORTEX: Puberty Link with Psychic Phenomena.” = +4pts (This explains so much! Our bodies ourselves!) 
• On an unrelated note: Clive Barker is…not gay. (In 1988, = +10pts, In 2013, = -10pts) 
• “Is death the fourth dimension?” Let us help with that one, Encyclopedia Brown; it’s Spacetime. = -4pts 
• We don’t know what this crazy guy’s problem is. Everybody knows maggots are good for infections. = -2pts 
• Mattress resurrection. Giving “quality bed rest” a new name since 1988. = +15pts. 
• Aunt Julia sure could use a drink. = +5pts 
• Aunt Julia, we’d like you introduce you to our friend Uncle Tobias. We think you two would have a lot in common. = +3pts 
• Disguising Aunt Julia as a used tampon for Halloween was a great idea, Herr Channard. She shouldn’t have any problems cavorting with the yokels now! = +9pts 
• Wait, we were wrong. Sexy mummy is a way better idea and would go over much better at cocktail parties. = +3pts 
• Leave it to Clive Barker to make a sexy woman without skin the pinnacle of horror. = +4pts 
• On an unrelated note: Clive Barker is…not gay. (In 1988, = +10pts, In 2013, = -10pts) 
• “Hello, I’m Kyle and I have a knack for appearing in private places. For the record: I was not implying your vagina.” = -4pts 
• Kyle is such a terrible doctor that he thinks making clothes is part of his job. = -2pts 
• What kind of doctor are you, Kyle? Medical? Psychiatric? Or are you a doctor in the way Dr. Dre is a doctor? We have no sense of your latent talents, other that appearing in previously locked rooms and your ability to score high quality roofies. = -5pts 
• The establishing shot of Herr Channard clearly locking his centipede palace. = +2pts (For valuing quality security of potentially dimension destroying weaponry.) 
• The subsequent shot of grifter Kyle and his favorite mental patient easily walking into the unlocked lab-rary door. = -4pts 
• Kyle orders Kristine to not do anything helpful until Kyle can fill his pockets with swag. (Basically.) = -3pts 
• Death by make-out. = +2pts 
• On an unrelated note: Clive Barker is…not gay? (In 1988, = +10pts, In 2013, = -10pts) 
• Aunt Julia is strangely overexcited to see the guys who reduced her to a bed stain. = -2pts 
• Why do parts of this hell dimension look like Fraggle Rock? = -4pts 
• Hell is full of clowns, skinless women, and babies! The reverse corollary being that heaven is full of nothing but young cowboys in assless chaps. = (In 1988, = -10pts, In 2013, = +10pts) 
• On an unrelated note: Clive Barker is…probably gay? (In 1988, = -10pts, In 2013, = +10pts) 
• Babies with their mouths sewn shut. Never let anyone tell you that Clive Barker doesn’t have strong ideas about parenting. = -4pts 
• It’s never a good idea to cock-tease a gang of cenobites. = -3pts 
• Never let anyone tell you that cenobites are ungracious hosts. = +5pts 
• Hell is an MC Escher painting. You have no idea! Who wrote this movie, Jerry Saltz? Are we right? ARE WE RIGHT? = +2pts (For a quality post-modern critique of contemporary art.) 
• The mouth rape of Herr Channard. = -3pts (All rape is bad. Even mouth rape in hell.) 
• Private hell of Uncle Frank consists of being cock-teased by a trio of bloody sirens. He’ll feel better once he rapes and murders his niece, though. = -6pts  
• On an unrelated note: Clive Barker is…probably gay. (In 1988, = -10pts, In 2013, = +10pts) 
• Whirling anus lobotomy. = Suspended score (To be determined by your feelings around anus.) 
• Super Herr Channard going Hentai-hands on a room of crazies. = +3pts 
• Appealing to Pinhead’s memories of being an old-timey colonial fascist as a way of appealing to his soft side and getting out of a jam. = +5pts 
• Man, Fat Cenobites are like the black people of hell dimensions. They can’t catch a break! = -5pts 
• Wander into a hell dimension once, shame on you! Wander into a hell dimension twice and WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU GO BACK INTO A HELL DIMENSION?! = -5pts 
• SPOILER ALERT: The Leviathan will make his return in the year 2013 and only Tom Cruise’s clone will be able to stop him. = -3pts 
• You’ve seen an entire hell dimension, the countless deaths and dismemberment of many of your psychotic inmates, some hardcore double-penetration, as well as mutilated babies, and one image of ol’ Herr Super Max Hentai Channard getting decapitated by Tom Cruise’s daddy and now you scream? = -3pts (“Women are a terrifying mystery to be endlessly pondered.” –Clive Barker-ish) 
• “My friend is about to die. I should probably run back into the maze and find my crazy aunt’s skin and dress and put it on so I can help!” = +7pts (For getting the job done.) 
• 1:29:53 and FINALLY we get to see some dong. Talk about a tease! = +8pts

Total Score = +113pts
Available on: DVD, Netflix streaming

For a film in which the talent of most people on camera is borderline amateurish, Hellbound: Hellraiser II offers up quite a few great horror moments. One of the reasons has to be the fact that most of the film’s budget clearly went to the costumes and effects, which remain relevant and repugnant to this day. While, Pinhead and his gang remain awesomely grotesque, the film also does a great job of alluding to the complexities and politics of their interdimensional sex abattoir (sex-attoir?).

Still, we must ask: Why, during the age of endless horror remakes (we see you TCM!), has the world of Hellraiser never been re-launched properly? The answer to this question is probably that its world is so grafted to its creator, Clive Barker (minus the Lovecraft ending), that everything about it seems inseparable from him. Revelations of Barker’s sexuality non-withstanding, his worlds have always been dark places where looking too deeply into the minds of humanity was the surest way to go insane. The way that sex devolves into an agonizing and tortuous experience, and the manner in which blood and flesh reveal an individual’s true nature--to the point where many of the antagonists literally climb out of their skins in ecstasy and horror-- clearly suggest that Barker was suffering from a lot of identity issues. Something, let’s face it, Jason, Michael, and Freddy never really struggled with. It would be wrong, given the context of everything we know, to reduce the first two Hellraiser films to exercises in extreme fetish. Perhaps there is something dated about the underlying metaphor that clearly informed the work. Maybe the struggle for sexual identity in the face of real violence and shame in the age of Glee and the collapse of DOMA comes across as downright quaint and old world in comparison to what can be found in the dark corners of youporn.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell

Yandy.com's Sexy Halloween Costumes

Editor's note: For our most recent installment of our annual Yandy.com Halloween run-down, check here.

If you have any doubts that the feminist utopia where women are true and equal partners in modern society is still a long ways off, then allow me to direct your attention to an annual event we in the West call “Halloween.” Whereas a man can stumble blindfolded into a Spirit retailer, grab any costume off the shelf, and leave with reasonable certainty that he won’t need to wax his bikini area before he wears it in public, women generally have to sift through a few dozen variations of this:

Now, far be it from us at the Progressive Cinema Scorecard to tell any woman what she should or shouldn’t be wearing this Halloween season, and clearly anyone shopping for costumes on Yandy.com, a self-proclaimed intimate apparel store, is looking for a little something on the steamier side. Still, looking through Yandy’s 2013 selection, we’re starting to wonder if someone changed the meaning of the word “sexy,” and forgot to send us the memo. How else could you explain things like…

Sexy Food Costumes

• No one’s saying Twizzlers aren’t a delicious. But, all the times that we’ve grabbed a bag of those sweet, waxy ropes of gnarled licorice off the supermarket shelf, not once did we stop and think, “Man, wouldn’t it be hot to put a woman in there?” = - 8pts 
• Then again, between the Sexy Tootsie, Cuddle Plush Bubble Gum, and Double Gum costumes, we’re pretty sure the guy responsible for designing these has been caught sticking his dick in a bag of candy by more than one Walmart store clerk. = -24pts 

• The obesity epidemic being what it is in America, it’s awfully responsible of Yandy to offer consumers a healthier sexy food costume alternative to candy. = +5pts 
• Notice the bite in the watermelon costume’s mid-section, through which the model’s belly is visible. The obvious implication is that at the center of every watermelon is soft, pink, living human flesh. = +7pts

• This is probably one of our favorite things on the whole site because, not only is it just a generally lame costume (are those black, c-shaped things supposed to be olives? Meal worms? Your guess is as good as ours), but it fails spectacularly to meet even the most rudimentary definition of the word “sexy.” Yeah, ladies, nothing sets a boy’s heart aflutter like a vaguely woman-shaped beige tube with a plush Dracula collar on it. = -25pts

Sexy Female Versions of Male Cartoon Characters

• A list of things that have never made us feel amorous:
  • Going through the “cough” test during our annual high school physical 
  • The approach of tax season 
  • Any character from Disney’s Monster’s Inc.
  Guys are not terribly complicated where arousal is concerned, but there are some basic boundaries that you should not attempt to cross. = -14pts

• Likewise if there’s anyone out there who experienced his or her first stirrings of carnal longing while watching Winnie the Pooh, we don’t want to meet them. = -11pts 
• Although, to be fair, the possibility of the existence of lady Tiggers does offer a glimmer of hope for an otherwise doomed species living out the twilight of its existence. = +7pts 

• We’re counting up the total number of fucks that were given by the people who designed this, and the final tally is zero. No one gave even a fraction of a fuck. A note to Yandy.com: a tutu with a cartoon character’s face blazoned on it is not a costume. = -32pts

• Here’s another one that we’re pretty confident was thought up at, like, 4:55 on a Friday. Possibly before a holiday weekend. This is just a t-shirt and hot pants. Does the mask even come with it? Because it was CLEARLY photoshopped onto that model’s face. = -35pts 
• And are we to believe that stubby little thing tucked into Leonardo's sash is supposed to be a katana? Could Master Splinter not scavenge him up a sheath? How are you supposed to do ninja stuff with a razor-sharp blade wedged precariously between your belt and your midsection? = - 18pts

WTF?!?!

• Anyone wearing this is basically dooming herself to an entire evening of drunk guys copping a feel while yelling, "Right hand blue!" -3pts

• The helpful folks over at the Urban Dictionary have informed us that a Dayger is what the kids are calling a “day rager,” or a wild, spontaneous party taking place during the day. Even with that understanding, nothing about this costume makes sense. Why does this woman have bombs for breasts? Why is there a cup over her vagina? If  concept behind your costume is so obscure and tenuous that the manufacturers had to prominently display its name on your torso, you should probably find something else to wear. = -14pts

• Nope. Not okay. = -100pts

• … Actually, this technician may have just ordered one of these for his wife. = +80pts

Total Score = -185pts
Available on: http://www.yandy.com/

So there it is, the definitive guide on what costumes to avoid this Halloween, written by a thirty-something dude, backed up by the cold, infallible logic of science. If we learned anything from the movie Mean Girls, it’s that “Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it” (Oh, and also some stuff about being empathetic towards others, or some shit). If you’re looking to let your wild side out, maybe steer clear of some of the costumes we looked at above. Especially the Nazi uniform.

Score Technician: Joe Hemmerling