On Wednesday, State Rep. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound) went before the House State Affairs Committee to advocate for House Bill 2497, which would create the 1836 Project. We should be very worried that it’s a bunch of Confederate glorifications in disguise.
The bill would create an advisory board to promote “patriotic education” in Texas schools. The name is taken from the founding of the Republic of Texas in 1836 but is also obviously a call back to former President Donald Trump’s ridiculous 1776 Commission. That initiative was itself a ham-fisted and bigoted response to the 1619 Project that was designed to reframe slavery and Black Americans’ contribution to history. President Joe Biden shut down the commission, which historians said was filled with errors, inaccuracies, and partisan politics.
COVID has been hard on the local film industry, with a lot of filmmakers unable to operate safe sets to continue their craft. However, at least one has managed to release something so rampagingly puerile and obscene that it can’t help but be admired. That man is Jeremy Sumrall (
Pickaxe), who has finally put out the fake trailer,
Cannibal Call Girls From Hell. It had a debut at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin over the past weekend.
The project was originally for a mock trailer contest at Texas Frightmare, though he has since begun crafting it into a full feature script that is looking for funding. The story involves a raucous bachelor party full of strippers that turns into a blood-soaked massacre when the man’s nervous fiancée casts a black magic spell to make sure that he remains faithful. The trailer features many of the Houston horror scene mainstays such as Chaney Moore and Aaron Walden.
I was obsessed with
Resident Evil as a teenager to the point that I got into at least one screaming argument with my brother over a plot point in a spin-off novel (
Caliban Cove, represent). As the series moved away from its survival horror roots into a more military tactical direction, I lost interest, but like everyone else on the internet I perked back up when I saw the giant vampire lady with the swag hat starring in the upcoming
Resident Evil: Village. Coincidentally, Sony was offering
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard as part of the PS Plus Collection for those of us who could score a PS5 out of the trunk of someone’s car in shady part of town, so I decided to pick up the franchise once more.