We've all heard the story about when two holidays collided almost disastrously when Jack Skellington "The Pumpkin King" of Halloweentown accidentally discovered Christmas Town after celebrating another successful Halloween season. Most of us have even seen the stop motion animated film based on the tale by Director Tim Burton which was inspired by Rankin Bass animated tv specials and various monster movies. It's only now, over ten years after its original release, can we see it in 3-D.

And what 3-D it is! This is, without a doubt, the best 3-D processing I've ever seen. These aren't the red and blue glasses that we're all used to...especially after seeing our own 3-D Issue which I think came out pretty good for such an old process. The new glasses look like cheap Ray-Bans and don't give you the "double vision" other 3-D glasses do.

As I said above. The Nightmare Before Christmas is the tale of the king of Halloweentown, Jack Skellington - who is an actual "living" skeleton, who has grown bored of the same Halloween celebration every year. After walking away from town depressed he happens upon a circle of trees, each with it's own door decorated with a holiday design. He's never seen this before and finds himself attracted to the christmas tree shaped door. After opening it he finds himself in the snowy Christmas Town where elves are dancing, playing, and preparing for Christmas. He falls in love with the (non religious) concept of Christmas and brings samples back to Halloweentown to share with his fellow monsters, but they don't quite understand the concept of giving gifts that don't involve rotting limbs and severed heads. So Jack decides that the only way to truly understand Christmas is to take on the responsibility of creating it themselves. Of course this requires the kidnapping of Santa Claus. Once they do this, the citizens of Halloweentown go about making presents for humans that they usually create Halloween frights for. The only problem is that they still don't understand the concept of Christmas and instead make presents that are meant to inspire fear rather than cheer. Jack sincerely thinks that he's doing a good thing and doesn't realize the error in this thinking. Will Christmas be ruined? Can the Boogie Man be trusted with the care of Santa Claus? If you haven't seen the film at this point, which I doubt, then you'll have to watch it to find out.

Mind you, this film wasn't created to be a 3-D movie. Just like several films to follow (including all of the Star Wars films and Titanic), this film was created to be a normal film...even before digital film. So you don't get a lot of "popcorn thrown at the screen" effects. But even still, the stop motion in the film lends itself perfectly to this effect as you get scenes of ghosts and bony fingers flying towards the camera. Those extra close moments are short lived, but the 3-D remains perfect all throughout the film.

So if this new 3-D version of The Nightmare Before Christmas is playing in your town, I highly recommend seeing it. It's a fresh take on an already almost perfect film back when Danny Elfman still made great musical scores (see The Corpse Bride and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory to understand what I'm saying - but this guy's life work is amazing and I don't doubt he'll do it again) and before Henry Sellick went on to direct Monkeybone; one of the worst films I have ever seen in a theater.

Oh, and the poster for this film sucks. They should have used a lenticular version of the original poster. But that's just me.

(Chris Beyond is the creator of No-Fi "Magazine"
and isn't afraid to challange his musical idols.)

---

Towards the end of The Dirty Dozen, Lee Marvin asks Charles Bronson ,"You ready for the turkey shoot?" Now, No-Fi readers, I ain't never painted my wagon with Clint Eastwood or shot up terrorists with Chuck Norris, but I'm gonna steal that question from Mr. Marvin, and ask YOU: are YOU ready for the Turkey Shoot?

Cuz I don't know if you are! Even if you say you are! Cuz you know what, I sure as hell wasn't!

When I popped this DVD (released by Blue Underground, under the Escape 2000 moniker) into my player, I figured I was gonna get about an hour and a half of post-Apocalyptic action made with about the same amount I saw on my last paycheck, and that was about it. If you've seen one of these 80's low-budget, Mad Max rip-offs, you've probably seen them all. But don't ask me, cuz I haven't.

I'm happy to report that Turkey Shoot (which was renamed Escape 2000 for US release; AND, not to be confused with 1983's Escape 2000, aka Escape from the Bronx) is not just another Mad Max clone. In fact, it has more in common with The Most Dangerous Game, or more contemporary action flicks Hard Target and Battle Royale.

In the near future, the government has begin rounding up hellions (I.e. "young people") and carting them off to prison camps, in the hopes of reforming them. Railsbeck plays Paul Anders, a cynical, surly young man who really can't stand the government, and the government canÕt stand him. He's broken out of every facility they've thrown him in, so now he's been sentenced to General Thatcher's camp, which is, of course, the toughest camp around. No one escapes this place, and the guards here don't mess around. To demonstrate this point, Chief Guard Ritter (who looks like Jesse Ventura, back when he was a wrestler) literally kicks the blood and snot out of skinny young lady right in front of all the new prisoners, all the while laughing and doing some sort of weird bad-guy jig.

Olivia Hussey (who never fails at looking HOT) plays the timid Chris Walters, a girl who was arrested for trying to stop some policemen from brutally beating a deviant, is almost raped and pissed-on during the prisoners' orientation, and Anders sticks up for her. To punish him, the guards throw him in a cage, where he has to hold up a big chunk of concrete or be crushed.

Sound fun yet? Cuz it is! And it just gets better and better as things roll on. I haven't this much fun at a cheesy movie since Lucio Fulci's New Gladiators.

General Thatcher invites a few cohorts over to try a little experiment: prisoners are chosen at random to take part in a hunt; if they survive by making it out of the jungle, they can go free. Each of the hunters can use their own specialized methods of murder and torture (one of them uses a bulldozer and a mutant wolf-man as his weapons of choice! Seriously, a wolf-man!)

Once the prisoners are let loose, all manner of hell and chaos are let loose. Blood, guts, guns, crossbows, machetes, explosions. It's all here, in gloriously over-the-top 80s style. Complete with a campy synthesizer score by QUEEN's Brian May.

I've since shown this little gem to many a friend who has sat, stunned, jaws agape in disbelief, as the carnage splatters across the screen. You just don't see this movie coming, is what it is. You think, Oh, this is gonna be a shoot-em-up action flick, no more, no less. But hell no! It slaps in you the face like a little bitch and keeps you begging for more. This is the kind of cornball, no-holds-barred flick they just don't make anymore. And I suggest you wear a diaper, cuz you might just pee your pants laughing.

Hussey's nude body-double is almost raped in a shower, until she shows her would-be attacker why you should be careful before you zip up after peeing. The wolf-man (a goddamn wolf-man!) rips a dude's toe off and then eats it! Bodies run over by trucks! A lesbian psychopath torturing her quarry with some nasty love! And then, out of nowhere; Top Gun planes flying all over the place!!!!

Seriously, this review may seem a but juvenile, and I won't apologize for that, cuz this flick truly brought out the potty-mouthed, Rambo-loving, 80s juvenile delinquent in me. This isn't a movie for the serious cinema connoisseur. This is a crass, political-correctness and logic be damned, good time gut-puncher flick, made at a time when action movies didn't have "standards."

And for that, I say God bless.

You ready for the Turkey Shoot? You better be, cuz it's ready for you!