Game Over

Game Over by journalists Bill Moushey and Bob Dvorchak provides a serviceable chronicle of linebacker coach-cum-pedophile Jerry Sandusky’s abuse of adolescent boys, and the listless efforts of Penn State higher-ups—none higher than college coaching legend Joe Paterno (right)—to put a stop to it. While the book is dated, going to print just before legal proceedings had begun against Sandusky, and also prone to repeating itself vis-à-vis some of the developments, it is still a worthwhile read. Its value endures on the grounds that the book is a repository of Sandusky-related public discourses that, quite frankly, reverberate with perversion, and affirm the man’s guiltiness in an intuitive way that transcends the mere verdict put forward by a jury of his peers.

Consider these examples, all of which are compiled throughout the course of Game Over. Early on, there is a quote from a former Penn State linebacker Gary Gray, who describes Sandusky as “always touchy feely” (p. 27). When Sandusky himself retired abruptly and unceremoniously in 1999, he issued a statement about how he wanted to dedicate more time to the Second Mile, the charitable organization through which Sandusky harvested many of his victims: “As the organization has grown,” he explained, “the demands for my hands-on involvement have increased dramatically” (p. 30). Upon the news of Sandusky’s retirement, Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, who would later plead guilty to child endangerment charges for failing to report the abuses, offered the following: “His achievement as a human being is splendidly demonstrated by the thousands of youngsters he touches annually through the Second Mile” (p. 31). A couple years after stepping aside, Sandusky would put out his autobiography, ghost-written by Kip Richeal and published via a vanity press. Its title, you ask? Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story.

You don’t need a Ph.D. in discourse analysis to read between the lines here. With the emphasis on “touching” in descriptions provided of and by Sandusky, how could anyone say they were “surprised” at the allegations? It seems like everyone who spoke of Sandusky knew on some unconscious level (verging on the surface consciousness) that the man was a pervert. Everything that Sandusky was involved with (I don’t want to say “had a hand in”) became steeped in perversion via the very fabric of the words that characterized his activities. 

Even when Sandusky’s attorney, Joseph Amendola, publicly went on the defensive in front of the media, the all-pervading perversity of his client managed to seep into the lawyer’s words. Amendola was incredulous that so many onlookers believed that Penn State higher-ups like Tim Curley would not, as men of immense character and responsibility, take seriously alleged child abuse and carry it forward to law enforcement. As such, he issued a challenge: “If you believe that, I suggest you dial 1-800-REALITY.” That number, the authors of Game Over inform us matter-of-factly, was at the time a “phone service offering gay and bisexual pornography” (p. 145).

The quintessential telos of Jerry Sandusky, then, is salacious sodomy.* Once again, we see how the perverse and pornographic permeates the entire sphere of Sandusky. Sandusky’s substrate is grimy, illicit sex. So deep is the level of synchronicity between Sandusky and indiscriminate, amoral sexuality that the entire thought-universe generated around him inevitably thrums and vibrates with lasciviousness. And for that reason, I’m going to end this attempt at reviewing this book, before Sandusky’s inhering stain seeps into me now inexorably on account of having tried myself to frame the man in words and paragraphs. In fact, Sandusky’s monstrous Midas touch, where everything he handled turned savagely and unlawfully sodomic, might be reason enough not to get your hands on a copy of Moushey and Dvorchak’s book.

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*Now, I want to be clear here that I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with gay sex. However, commodified, commercialized sex of any orientation is, I think we would all agree, at least a bit seedy. So what I’m saying here (following from Moushey and Dvorchak) is that there is something profoundly off when the lawyer representing an outwardly Christian man like Sandusky unintentionally references gay phone sex. The synchronicities are just too profound.

Epistemology Bloody Epistemology

Charles Norwood's Epistemology Bloody Epistemology is a novel(la) beyond comparison. Its body consists of six interconnected stories which trace the activities of philosophy students at a fictional university wherein preferences for different schools of thought have essentially degraded into gang affiliations. What follows is pure mayhem interspersed with thoughtful philosophical debate—imagine, if you will, that the script for Mad Max had been written by Bertrand Russell. The result is not always for the faint-of-heart, as the brutality gradually escalates throughout the piece, allowing for some truly demented—but unfailingly thought-provoking—scenes of hyperbolic carnage. Norwood delivers the narrative(s) in accessible prose, which occasionally proves artful, certainly surpassing that of your average e-book. And while Norwood may not solve the perennial debates of philosophy, he certainly lampoons the folly of embodying any given perspective in said debates too righteously. The "solipsist community" section is especially brilliant, reminiscent of something in a David Foster Wallace novel, and probably warrants a purchase for anyone who fancies extended literary elaborations of philosophical thought experiments. A few minor peccadilloes had this assessor considering a four-star review rather than a five. Norwood employs, for instance, more than a few overly conventional similes. Additionally, some passages are a bit didactic, but that may actually be the book's beauty. Altogether, the various interwoven stories converge upon something that resembles a structuring narrative for western philosophy as a whole, and the grisly scenes may even prove to be a useful mnemonic device for helping make the rudiments of various schools of thought stick. Thus, the book is of particular interest for students of philosophy, both undergraduate and graduate. Given the originality of the content, I am left with little choice but to give it my highest recommendation. EBE is well worth the low cover price, and perhaps even the psychological toll it may take on the reader.

Bloody Murder (2000)

It is customary for a review of the 2000 slasher Bloody Murder to start by decrying the film as a “Friday the 13th ripoff”. There are, of course, many Friday the 13th ripoffs (see the Burning, Madman, Sleepaway Camp, and even the later Halloween films), but the designation is especially fitting for Bloody Murder, not just because it is set at a summer camp and hearkens back to a gruesome legend, but most obviously because the main antagonist and subject of said legend, Trevor Moorehouse, wears a hockey mask, as did Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th Part 3 onward. It also doesn't help Bloody Murder's case that it features a character named Jason who (mild spoiler alert here) is suspected of the killings throughout a good portion of the film. But this “ripoff” designation requires some qualification. First, it should be noted that Jason Voorhees wears an early-80s style hockey mask, while Trevor Moorehouse wears a newer model street-hockey mask, more in the style of Lord Humungus from the Road Warrior. Moreover, Trevor Moorehouse is pictured on the poster art carrying a chainsaw, which he brandishes at certain junctures in the movie. In this aspect, he is more akin to Leatherface of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In addition, Moorehouse's chosen attire is a dark blue mechanic's suit, reminiscent of Halloween's Michael Myers. Hence, Moorehouse is more accurately characterized as a synthesis of the holy trinity of slasher baddies. Such a grand synthesis is, to be sure, worthy of a better movie than Bloody Murder.

Directing duties on Bloody Murder are credited to one Ralph Portillo. Ralph Portillo claims an assortment of directorial and production credits, among them the Corey Haim vehicle Fear Lake. In the early to mid-90s, the name Ralph Portillo also appears on a number of straight-to-video erotic features, including the Hollywood Dreams duology, Stolen Hearts, and Prelude to Love. If one does their research on IMDb, these softcore films redirect to the page for one Rafe M. Portilo, while Bloody Murder, Fear Lake and other forgettable fare are credited to Ralph E. Portillo. Though Portilo and Portillo appear to be different people by IMDb's reckoning, Bloody Murder's cinematography bears a striking resemblance to the aforementioned erotic fare. The scenes are brightly lit, even at night, and tend toward rubicund coloration. The shots are predominantly mid-range and overbearingly procedural. The blocking, meanwhile, is wooden, all the characters gathering around to recite their dialogue with a certain clipped emptiness. A lot of the female characters stand with hands on hips. Whether or not Ralph E. Portillo is Rafe M. Portillo, these similarities give Bloody Murder a distinct softcore porn vibe, even though there is no simulated sex or nudity in the film. This is a major flaw for a film purporting to be a slasher, as is the paucity of blood. All told, Bloody Murder can just as readily be described as a whodunnit suspense film, which is precisely how Ralph E. Portillo characterizes it in more recent self-penned bios (which also mention nothing of the softcore oeuvre).

The future of hockey-masked horror

should look to the past

Derivative flop of not, Bloody Murder poses crucial questions about the slasher genre. For instance, is the hockey mask absolutely off-limits for all non-Friday the 13th films? This reviewer would argue that the hockey mask is still rife with possibility. We've seen the 80s and street-hockey styles, but why not hearken back even further? A mask in the style of Boston Bruins stalwart Gerry Cheevers, painted with stitches in places where pucks would have done serious damage had they hit the flesh, would make for an especially dastardly pursuer, would they not? Or perhaps directors could go back even further to the original goalie mask donned by Jacques Plante after he took one too many hunks of vulcanized rubber to the face. The Plante mask almost has a Hannibal Lecter vibe to it. And then there is the cage-style mask donned by none better than "The Dominator" Dominic Hasek, the greatest goalie to ever play the game. Finally, if a budding Ralph Portillo wanted to go more contemporary, he (or she) could have their villain wear the modern-day goalie helmet, which would allow much-improved sight-lines for stalking and slashing teen counsellors. In short, the possibilities for hockey-masked killers are legion, and so this sub-sub-genre of the slasher flick needn't be put on ice.

The Town that Dreaded Sundown (2014)

In 1976, director Charles B. Pierce brought us The Town that Dreaded Sundown, a quasi-true crime film in the spirit of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The film reimagined, sometimes quite liberally, the so-called "Phantom Killings" that racked the twin border-towns of Texarkana, Texas and Texarkana, Arkansas in the early 1940s. Pierce took details of the events—for instance, the hood that "The Phantom" allegedly wore—and created from them an exploitation proto-slasher that somehow managed a PG-13 rating. The film has its moments, but it is only as good as you would imagine a PG-13 slasher could be. Moreover, historically-minded types have panned the film for its factual inaccuracies (see, for instance, James Presley's meticulously researched 2016 book The Phantom Killer). Regardless, the film maintains a cult following, and is still publicly screened in Texarkana at certain junctures, including Halloween.

In 2014, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon directed a film also bearing the title The Town that Dreaded Sundown. Gomez-Rejon is perhaps best known for directing episodes of American Horror Story, and, true to 1) that series, 2) the era, and 3) the nature of horror remakes in general, his take on the Texarkana tragedy is unapologetically meta. The 2014 Sundown is not exactly a remake, however, nor can it properly be called a sequel, even though it has aspects of each. The film takes place more-or-less within our continuity, that is, real-world 2013, where the Phantom murders took place in the 1940s and the 1976 version of The Town that Dreaded Sundown is just a movie. In fact, the opening scene takes place at a Halloween public screening of Sundown '76 in Texarkana. Furthermore, it becomes clear early on that the antagonizing force in the 2014 film is intent on re-creating the murders depicted in the 1976 film. As could be expected, the 2014 film is full of set-pieces in which the director, writer, and producers show the audience how well they know the original movie, the history of the events, and the conventions of the genre and the medium as a whole. How meta did they go? Suffice it to say that Charles B. Pierce's son is a character in the movie. So heavy is the meta-commentary that, in the scene where the sheriff character played by Gary Cole is receiving fellatio from a haggard Texarkana bar-star, you half-expect him to utter a "yeaaaaaaah" and then start talking about TPS reports. But the repeated all-knowing nods are, on the whole, only mildly annoying, and no more obtrusive than in any other post-2000 horror remake. In fact, the 2014 Sundown handles the meta elements more deftly than most other horror films of its ilk, where the writers lean heavily on in-jokes to address an obvious paucity in original content (see, for instance, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil). Sundown 2014's meta approach comes to a head at the climax, which —and I offer the mildest of spoiler alerts here—quite cleverly plays on the split identity of Texarkana itself (as a border-town). On the whole, the film is well-realized, and Texarkana proves to be as convincing a hellscape as Arkham or Derry or Amityville. I have no problem recommending 2014's The Town that Dreaded Sundown, though the 1976 version is a necessary prerequisite for viewing.

Even though I'll advocate for the past and current versions of the film, I nonetheless have trepidations about the future. Meta-storytelling is not just a fad in mainstream horror; rather, it has become a crutch. Given that this brand of genre auto-commentary has been going strong since 1996's Scream, it raises the question: what will The Town that Dreaded Sundown (2052) look like? Will it be a meta-meta-commentary on the subject matter? Will it be the story of a killer recreating the 2013 film's re-creation of the 1976 film (itself a re-creation of the narrative surrounding the ur-murders)? Perhaps the real question is when will the meta-commentary stop in contemporary horror? When will writers and producers start generating new ideas? When will the idea that there's nothing new under the sun see its much-needed sundown? For now, this reviewer is left feeling like a lot of the residents of Texarkana, fearing the return of the Phantom. He might come back sooner rather than later. In this sense, it's The Town that Dreaded Sundown (2024) that I find truly dreadful.