If It Looks Like A Duck and Kills Like A Duck....

October has come and gone, and with it a myriad of Halloween themed programming. Halloween falling on the last day of the month is an ideal situation for TV stations, as shows and movies progress in quality as the fateful day nears, 

I will admit, I've never been interested in watching horror movies, but I do find it to be an interesting genre.  You have the types where specific monsters terrorize a community, like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Werewolf, etc.  You have the ones which have been greatly aided by the advances in special effects, allowing for graphic and gross mutations in the blink of an eye.  Horror movies spark creativity in both the most genius and moronic film makers.  Absolutely nothing is off limits as to what will be the source of terror. 

Sure, Dracula, Jason, and Freddy Kruger are scary.  But when it comes to horror movies, practically anything can be used as a medium of fright, like a videotape ("The Ring"), a low lying, thick mist ("The Fog"), zombie strippers ( "Zombie Strippers!"), a leprechaun, (Leprechaun), giant irradiated ants ("Them!"), clowns from another planet ("Killer Klowns from Outer Space"), tomatoes ("Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"), and even a cookie ("Gingerdead Man"). 

Again, I've never watched any of those movies, so I am in a sense judging a book by its cover.  The premise of many of these just seem too silly to be taken seriously.  I think I could defeat the antagonist in a lot of horror movies.  Take "The Ring" for example.  I simply wouldn't rewind the tape.  In this instant gratification/ADD age, who is going to wait for that.  While it rewinds, someone will text a friend, get invited to the mall, then maybe go out for some Thai food, followed by disco-glow bowling.  Meanwhile the tape sits idly in the soon to be obsolete VCR which collects dust, until its finally tossed in the trash.

One successful horror franchise that I never quite understood is the "Child's Play" series.  Its a freaking doll.  All you should need is a Louisville slugger to beat Chucky in to smithereens.  Even a swing from a mop or umbrella should be good enough to send him flying across the room. If you can't kill Chucky yourself, you should be able to trap him with a laundry basket with an encyclopedia on top until help arrives.  And I guess the people being terrorized in these movies never had any dogs.  Both of my dogs have destroyed bigger, badder toys..

I think if I ever were to get in to scary movies, I'd prefer the type where regular animals turn into  blood thirsty, killing machines as opposed to one particular monster or evil spirit.  A werewolf is pretty bad ass, but there's only one.  You and your group can disperse, and hopefully someone will find a silver bullet before its too late.  But a large group of animals, well that's much harder to escape from based on the sheer volume of the pack. 

Sharks ("Jaws") and wolves ("The Grey") are obvious choices.  But there is a breed of film makers that gets a little, well, for lack of a better word, crazy, when selecting a species to be the film's killers. There have been movies made where slugs and frogs actually went on killing sprees in villages full of village idiots.   

So if I were to pick an unusual animal for my horror movie, my selection would fall some where in the middle between slugs and wolves.  My beast of choice would be ducks.  Yes, I said ducks.

I know, Alfred Hitchcock already did a bird movie.  But he used gulls.  According to my research, 84% of Americans feel compelled to thwack a gull with a tennis racket, regardless of the situation.  Part of the reason I chose ducks is because they are  feathered Prozac.  Who can watch a duck waddle, swim, and hear its little quack, and not help but feel  a little better?    So a malicious, violent duck would have the element of surprise on its side.

Some imagery from my duck movie:

An old man sits on a park bench at sunrise.  He tosses some stale bread towards the pond.  A duck swims to the shore, waddles to the bread, and happily gobbles it up.  The duck quacks with approval, and the man tosses another piece.  Soon the duck is joined by 3 others, who quack for more.  The man tosses more bread, as the ducks creep closer to him.  The man continues to throw them bread, the ducks quacking becoming louder and more rapid.  The man looks inside the sack, and sees all that's left is a few crumbs.  When he returns his eyes back to the ducks, he sees not 4, but hundreds.  Not pleased that he is out of food, they attack, ripping the poor old man to pieces, leaving behind only a few crumbs themselves.

The movie title, "DUCK & COVER", flashes on the screen, to a chorus of quacks with a cadence similar to a cliched evil laugh.

From there we follow a group of seven 20-something friends, on a camping trip in Oregon for one last hurrah before the reality of adult life pulls them apart (if the ducks don't do it first).

One young woman wakes early and decides to go on a hike.  At the crest of the mountain, she notices what appears to be a hawk circling in front of the morning sun.  She squints to follow its graceful flight.  The sun is blinding, and she momentarily loses sight of the bird.  She blinks, and when she opens her eyes she see the bird dive bombing above her.  She freezes, shocked, and mutters one word as she realizes what is happening- "Duck?".

If only she would have.  The impact of the blow of the falling water fowl knocks her to the ground, her head hitting a large rock.  When she comes to, she hears the soft flap of webbed feet on the hard ground, as several ducks approach her.  She's paralyzed, and lets out a blood curdling scream as bills pierce and rip her young, slutty flesh (oh, did I forget to mention this film will follow the standard formula of terror and sex romps, with the virgin being the lone survivor?  How else do you expect people to watch this movie?  Its freaking ducks killing people!).  Her screams echo through the valley, but the joyous quacks of the feasting ducks, for a reason known only to God, do not.  Her friends know it is her in danger, but have no clue as to the nature of the threat.

The remaining group of friends decide to split up to find their friend and get help. 
One by one, the friends encounter a group of ducks, and unsuspectingly get devoured by the vicious birds.  They walk.  They run.  One even climbs a tree but can still not escape. 

The last two surviving friends get in a canoe to paddle across a lake, to the ranger's cabin.  It has begun to rain (ideal weather for ducks).  They notice a group of ducks in the not so far distance.  They see the ducks plunge underwater in unison, and re-surfacing having caught something small to eat.  The repeated, perfectly choreographed dives captures the two friends attention.  The flock heads underwater again, but do not return as early as they had previously.  The friends take notice.  They are now invested in this beautiful show put on for them by nature.  Seconds pass.  They look at each and laugh, wondering where the ducks could be.  They drop the paddles, and lean forward, peering down in to the dark, deep lake water. 

Suddenly the canoe's floor is punctured by 10 duck bills.  Water fills the boat.  The ducks fly out the water and attack the confused friends.  The canoe begins to sink, and the friends try to both swim away and defend themselves.  They reach for the paddles, but the onslaught from the ducks is too much to allow them mount an effective counter attack.  The male friend's foot gets caught, making escape very difficult.  He himself has become a sitting duck, and becomes the focus of their attack.  The sinking canoe fills with water and blood. He gasps for air as his head bobs, mouth being filled with water, and lets out one fateful last scream "UUCCKK" (first letter drowned out by the water, but you have 2 very appropriate ones to choose for this scenario). 

The female friend has managed get free, and grab one of the oars.  She looks over her shoulder and sees the ducks diving in to the water like they had a few minutes earlier, only this time surfacing with bits and pieces of her friends flesh in their bills.   Shore is only a few hundred yards away, and she made All State on her high school swim team.  Plus, as the only virgin in the group, she has a little more reserved strength due to the lack of fornication the night before.  She grabs hold of the oar floating nearby, and swims to land.

The girl makes it to shore.  Weakened from the swim and the many bites and abrasions, she struggles to rise to her feet.   It isn't long before she hears the squishing of webbed feet on the mud.  As the blood from her wounds is washed away from the downpour of rain and tears, she grips the canoe oar. The ducks advance, and with what little strength she has left, she swings the oar like a samurai with a sword.  Feathers get tossed about in the air like a sorority house pillow fight.  She suffers many more bites, but is able to stumble in to the cabin.  She sees what scraps of a park ranger the ducks left behind lying on the floor.  On a desk she sees a set of keys and lighter.  She grabs both as the cabin is filling up with savage ducks.  She turns the gas on the stove, advances towards the door, swinging the oar like a baseball star who promised to hit a home run for a sick child. 

She gets knocked to her feet yet somehow makes it to the door.  She gives one last swing with the oar, freeing herself enough to lunge out the door and pull it shut behind her.  She notices all the broken windows and strikes the zippo and throws the lit lighter in the cabin just before the ducks crowd the windows to chase after her.  She runs to the Jeep and pulls away, noticing the exploding duck filled cabin in the rear view window.

Or something to that effect.  The bottom line is ducks walk.  Ducks swim.  Duck fly. If a duck wants to get you, its going to get you.  You can't hide from a duck.

---- If you enjoy horribly bad and cheesy movies, ones even worse than the ones I just described, check out this website:
http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2009/10/the-xx-best-worst-horror-movies-of-all-time.html

Their is a brief description of each, along with a trailer.  I highly recommend watching the trailer for "The Gingerdead Man".  The scariest thing about these movies is that someone thought making these movies was a good idea.  Especially the one is named "Monsturd".  I didn't watch the trailer for that one, but my guess is scientists create a genetically superior dung beetle to defeat the Monsturd, or a priest exorcises a demon, leaving one big pile of holy crap.

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