Here we are in October and – hrmmm – this is Halloween month and it’s every little horror blog’s desire to do something wonderful for the big scare night, right? One time in another blog life I did all of the Night ofs and Return ofs and Days of the Living Dead and that about killed me to be so stuck to doing something on time.. so what do I have planned for this blog? Nothing really. I mean I have an idea for something but then I’d have to do it and focus and the 31st is on a Sunday and I think most people only read my place when they’re fucking off at work so, maybe. We’ll see I suppose. I have a month for chrissakes, right. I thought about doing a Home Invasion month so you could prepare for all of the spirits and otherworldlies that might come into your house or apartment (or whatever) on the dreadful night unless you have a cat to scare them off but, again, I don’t love home invasion movies that much and don’t know if I want to sit through a bunch of them. I guess I did cover Villains recently and this is one too but… I guess we’ll just see what happens. Right? RIGHT?? Do dar.

This movie came to me by the way of one of my oldest blog friends over at Robbinsrealm – I’d never heard of it before but I was doing my reading one afternoon and saw something about Sylvester McCoy and thought I really wanted to see it and then it finally came around – on Hulu I believe – and I gave it a look and – welllllllllllllllll – let’s see here.

I guess I should say that I really only wanted to see it because of McCoy and I guess I should give you another history of my life that you don’t care about in a lengthy and boring preamble guaranteed to cool off any excitement you might have had heading in to today’s post. You see, dear friend and esteemed colleague, I watched Doctor Who religiously from the early 70s until about 87 or so when I got my driver’s license and a car and started tooling around the city looking for chicks that were never to be found, so I missed out on most of Baker’s (Colin) shit and all of McCoy’s. With that car came me having to get a job doing dishes in the dish tank at a restaurant and paying bills but I could also go to the local mall and buy things with my own money.

“YAWN. FUCK.” You say, skimming over everything I write.

Toodley doo – in the mall I found a place called Suncoast Movie Company (I think) that — WERE SELLING VHS COPIES OF ALL OF MY OLD FAVORITE DOCTOR WHO SHOWS AND I SPENT ALL OF MY MONEY AND HALF OF MY LIFE BUYING THEM AND COLLECTING THEM!!! OMG WHEE OMG YES! The point to those last 3000 characters of this post is that I did finally see some of Baker’s (Colin) episodes and they weren’t very good and then got to watch some McCoy and I thought they were pretty terrible. I really didn’t like his trilling Rrrrrrrs and I sure didn’t like Mel or The Rani:

Or his suspenders or that sweater. But I pressed on and then I really didn’t like Ace whatsofuckingeever:

I HATED that she called him Professor and I HATE that at one point he was Merlin and I HATED that last episode ‘ever’ with the cat people and I HATED Johnathan Nathan Turner for fucking up everything that I had loved for so long.

But – GOD DAMN I was going to give him another chance in The Owners.

So I was watching this and, as a matter of fucking fact, I was absolutely loving it. These English goons break into a house out in the glens or whatevers of the english countryside and take this old couple hostage and they (McCoy and his wife) won’t give up the code to what’s in the safe and shit starts to go down bloodily and hilariously and everything was going REALLY well and I took a break to let the dogs out to piss and made a note over at Robbin’s site about how much I liked it and then – I remember – it was at 49 minutes I started this back up and everything went to absolute fucking shit crap. I can’t even think of a good analogy and I like to consider myself a thinker of good analogies.

Well, here’s one. 20 years ago I had a roommate and we would get off work respectively and I would start drinking cheap scotch and he would literally drink a 30 pack of Keystone (that’s cheap shit beer here in the US) and we would drink and smoke cigarettes all night playing this football video game until I had to go to bed and then work the next day. Well, one time I got up and went to work and I don’t remember what time of year it was, probably spring, and I sat down for my shift and coughed and I shit my pants from all the smoking and drinking the night before. To make everything even better, at that exact moment we had a fire drill in the building where they take attendance outside so I couldn’t go take care of things so I had to stand out there wearing a jacket I had at my desk on a hot spring day with poop on my underwear until the thing was over. That’s about how bad this movie got.

At that 49 minute mark, someone tries to escape and someone throws a smoke bomb in a room and then:

The filmmakers suddenly shrink the aspect ratio from full screen to – maybe – I don’t know – the equivalent of 720P? And they fill the house with smoke so maybe you don’t notice? And someone’s teeth get popped out of their mouth and then just come back? And this bug they made a big deal about squishing earlier pops back to life? And everyone’s singing Ring Around the Rosie? And then they kill off this character for NO FUCKING REASON only to make the person that killed that person some sort of – “well thanks, you’re dead now too” sacrifice thing? What? Huh? Huh? Shit?

I guess this thing was based off of some graphic novel from somewhere I no longer care about and this movie ended up sucking it big time. Well, I guess they tried because the first 3/5ths of the thing were good. I guess. I guess…

FILED UNDER: AT LEAST THEY TRIED (but I think they might have given up trying too hard).

Now, because I’m honest, if there’s one thing I do have to say it’s this: out of all of the themes for “Old Who”, all of em – McCoy’s is actually my favorite: