Don't Hate Horror Movie Fans Because We're A Bit Twisted, But Don't Forget That, Either . . .

Cover of the first Famous Monsters Of Filmland

     Way back when I was a youngster, in the dark days before the Internet, I could never have imagined what horror movie fandom would one day become.  It used to seem a solitary endeavor, a perception reinforced by the sense that the horror movie fan was a rung further down the ladder than even the often mocked and marginalized science fiction fan.  The fact that the horror movie hosts were usually relegated to the tail end of the broadcast day seemed to support this notion, as did the almost complete absence of any kind of serious critical examination of the kind of fare these programs aired.  Sure, there were enough twisted insomniacs to warrant your local station's choice to offer up cheaply obtained horror fare in the wee hours of the morning, but any sense of a horror community was mostly relegated to the circles of kids on the playgrounds excitedly discussing the details of whatever hoary old chestnut had been offered up by the local rendition of Shock Theater over the weekend.  Grown-ups just didn't bother.  Horror movies, just like bubble gum cards and comic books, were for children.

     I realize now, of course, that there existed a huge horror community back then.  We just weren't sufficiently connected or organized to be entirely aware of it.  We had Forrest Ackerman's Famous Monsters Of Filmland as a sort of national clubhouse for the horror fan, we had the aforementioned late night television horror shows, and we had a seemingly never ending stream of horror content to catch where we could, but we didn't really have a meeting place that legitimized our private obsession.  One need only look to the legion of Monster Kids like Stephen King, Joe Dante, Steven Spielberg, or Tom Savini that went on to careers popularizing the form in the mainstream to realize that the horror fans were everywhere, we just didn't know it then.  We were legion, even though it seemed a bit like our obsession was meant to be indulged behind closed doors - a burgeoning fascination analogous to the joys of masturbation.  We all did it, we just didn't talk about it much lest the straights of the world look down their collective nose at us.  Funny, then, how the Internet age has facilitated both obsessions.

Doin' some yardwork - Trick 'r Treat (2007)

     Even now, within my own circle of friends and acquaintances, I feel like a bit of an odd duck.  In any given social circumstance I'm almost always the resident horror authority.  I take pride in that designation, and I do my best to encourage any spark of interest that my "normal" friends display in the topic.  Still, it's a designation that usually finds me on the periphery and left with the sense that my friends are only mollifying me, offering up the occasional bit of feigned interest like a figurative pat on the head to assure me that my strange obsession is o.k.  Maybe they're all just trying to forestall that moment in the future when I finally decide to add them to the ever growing pile of corpses that they're certain I must have stacked up in my crawlspace.  I bury the bodies, of course, since the smell would be horrendous, but it still feels a bit like condescension.

Freaks (1932) - . . . in case you didn't get the reference.

     On the Internet, though, it's easy to see that I'm not alone.  I'm astounded anew on an almost daily basis by not only how many of us there are, but by how eager we all seem to proudly proclaim our love of horror to the world at large.  In this company, I am but one voice in a multitude.  In fact, I often feel less "hardcore" than many of the people I meet here, as though I'm not obsessed enough.  Even more encouraging than sheer numbers is the fact that almost everyone I've come in contact with in this forum is unfailingly supportive, knowledgeable, tolerant, and friendly.  Sure, there's the occasional troll, but not as many as you might expect.  This is a community of which I can be proud to be a part.  Horror fans are good people.  I can say, "One of us!  One of us!", and you'll all know exactly what I'm referencing.  If I did that at work, I'd be sent for a drug screen.

     So the next time one of your non horror loving acquaintances refers to your love of horror with smug condescension, remember just how large the community you belong to actually is.  Also, remember you can only bury so many of the haters in your back yard before that starts to smell, too.

3D or Not 3D? Get out Your Glasses, Movies at Dog Farm Is Comin' at Ya

3D anaglyph still - Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954)

     I've waited my entire life to see Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954) in 3D.  It finally happened today.  It was 
. . . meh.

     Adrienne has had a 3D capable LED for years now, and I finally cajoled her into getting an emitter and glasses for it.  I've got a stack of a dozen and a half 3D movies just waiting for me to find time to watch them all.  I tackled Creature first because I've wanted to see it in it's original form for so long.  Well, now I've seen it, and I'm disappointed.

     Don't misunderstand me, it looked absolutely gorgeous.  It was the remastered 3D Blu Ray included in the Universal Classic Monsters Essential Collection, and I can't imagine that a movie of this vintage could possibly have looked better.  It was the 3D that disappointed.

     The 3D was well rendered with no ghosting and very little crosstalk.  It added an incredible amount of depth to the picture.  It avoided the "cut out" look one often sees in lesser 3D efforts like many of the post production conversions.  The problem, then?  Nothing ever came at me.  Not once.  The creature's hands, the spear gun, the bow of the boat - clearly, they were all intended to jut out from the screen to give me a cheap thrill.  They didn't.  I'd waited all my life for the creature to be coming at me, and he never left the confines of his 3D television aquarium.

The way it was supposed to be . . .

     You see, apparently it's tacky to want your 3D in your lap.  If it's in your lap, it is a gimmick, and James Cameron and his acolytes want to convince you it's not a gimmick.  Well dammit, I want the gimmick.  The 3D in Creature was supposed to pop out of the screen.  It didn't, and I feel cheated.  I guess I'm the poster boy for the unwashed masses who believe 3D isn't 3D unless the guy sitting in front of you gets slapped in the back of the head a few times.

     Shouldn't the 3D be presented in the fashion that best approximates the filmmaker's intent, though?  The 1950s era 3D was all gimmick.  It was big-screen cinematic sleight of hand intended to put asses back in the seats when too many of those asses ended up on their couches in front of the television.  Where's the showmanship?  All the restoration crew had to do was set the parallax accordingly, and I could have had a lap full of creature - or even better, a lap full of Julie Adams.  Instead, I get a perfectly executed sense of depth with no pizazz.  Oh, the humanity.

This worked even better comin' at ya . . . My Bloody Valentine (2009)

     Whatever else one might say of the 2009 My Bloody Valentine remake, the 3D gags delivered the goods.  I was fortunate enough to see it in a packed theater on opening night, and the audience loved it.  We had a pickaxe thrown at us within the first fifteen minutes.  I had an eyeball pop out at me just like the gag everyone remembers from Friday The 13th Part III (1982) in 3D.  I had the top half of a victim's head slide down a shovel seemingly within inches of my face. And of course, let's not forget actress Betsy Rue fleeing from the killer buck naked in three dimensions.  Director Patrick Lussier knew how to work that 3D gimmick for everything it was worth, and it was glorious.

A stunning sensation of depth in 3D - Prometheus (2012)

    I realize there's a place for the more subtle three dimensional depth, but most of the movies I've seen that take a more subdued approach leave me wondering what, if anything, the 3D really added.  Occasionally I'll see an example that makes me think otherwise, and I'm going to pointedly avoid offering up Avatar (2009) since that seems to be everyone's go-to high water mark.  The most effective more subtle use of 3D I've seen would have to be Prometheus (2012).  Even that movie's most vocal critics have generally acknowledged that it was beautiful to look at, and the 3D did an exemplary job of drawing the viewer into the meticulously rendered alien environments without calling undue attention to itself.  Fine.  But how many one hundred and thirty million dollar sci-fi movies do you see?

Final Destination 5 (2011)

     I suppose what it boils down to is that I have different expectations depending on the nature of the project.  I fully expect The Final Destination (2009), Final Destination 5 (2011), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) to be throwing the gimmicky projectiles off the screen at me hot and heavy.  I'm willing to temper my expectations and expect something more subtle when I watch The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), Oz The Great And Powerful (2013), Hugo (2011), and Coraline (2009).

     I'm not sure what to expect when I watch the 3D conversion of  Jurassic Park (1993), but I'm pretty excited about it.  I hope objects in mirror are closer than the appear, or that they at least appear closer than they appear. 

3D anaglyph still (blue/red glasses) Jurassic Park (1993)

I Was Raised On The Slashers, Bitch

A splitting headache, slasher movie style.

     I was just coming of age when the slasher movie boom that began with Halloween (1978) and ended with A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) was storming the pop culture landscape.  Though I've developed a wide-ranging taste in horror movies over the years, slashers were the first horror movies to make my heart go pitter-pat.  You never forget your first love.

     At the time, slasher movies defined horror for me.  This was, of course,  a pretty narrow definition, but it's a great sub-genre for a budding horror fan to cut his teeth.  The simple charms of a slasher movie exist on the surface.  Slashers are so beholden to a fixed narrative template that it's easy for nascent film critics to perceive variations to the form.   The slashers display a conservative morality that fosters jump scares while avoiding any ambiguity that might render the story more profoundly disturbing.  If you do bad things in a slasher, you die - easy peasy.  Even the movies' characters tend to be recurring archetypes - jock, joker, slut, virgin - that are instantly recognized and understood. 

Kramer's got nothing on Jason Voorhees

     Once a viewer becomes attuned to the slasher movie paradigm the movies themselves become the cinematic equivalent of comfort food.  You know almost exactly what's being served and how it will be served to you.  The thrill becomes less about originality and more about seeing how the particulars will change in the interest of tarting up the hoary foundation.  In many ways, a slasher movie holds the same appeal one finds in a t.v. sitcom.  A visit from Jason Vorhees is akin to a visit from the wacky next door neighbor who does a variation of the same shtick every week.

There damn well better be cookies and milk . . .

     Luckily there were enough irate mothers and incensed community leaders railing against the slasher movies of the era to guarantee the maligned sub-genre's continued low and dangerous rep.  How so many morally upright pillars of the community failed to see what one presumes should have been  the attractive notion of a black and white morality displayed in the slasher movies they vilified still perplexes me.  The notorious Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) would have slipped beneath my radar altogether had a batch of overwrought PTA mothers not made enough noise about it to land themselves on Entertainment Tonight.  Since they did, I made sure to get to a theater before they succeeded in having the movie abruptly pulled from distribution.

A "shot" from Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (1970)

     Even otherwise perceptive movie critics didn't really get it.  Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert famously decried the entire slasher sub-genre on their show At The Movies (watch the entire episode in two parts, here and here).  Sure, they gave props to Halloween and made some cogent points about the exploitative nature of many of the slashers that followed in its wake, but . . . Take a look at Russ Meyer's wildly exploitative  Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (1970) - based upon a screenplay written by Roger Ebert - and tell me how Mr. Ebert's sensibilities become so delicate in the span of just a decade.

Bag of pot or murder weapon?

      As a youngster, though, the perception that slasher movies were deviated and dangerous - and therefore not fit for consumption by any decent person - only enhanced their appeal.  I still recall many a childhood night that I'd set an alarm to wake me in the wee hours of the morning so I could surreptitiously watch some promising slice-and-dicer airing on HBO or Showtime.  Almost everything about a slasher movie seemed designed to appeal to an adolescent boy.  Slashers were my gateway drug.

He Knows You're Alone (1980)

     This rumination was prompted by the realization that there are still slasher movies from this era that I haven't seen.  I was indoctrinated by the likes of Friday The 13th (1980) and My Bloody Valentine (1981), but I'd never seen He Knows You're Alone (1980), Happy Birthday To Me (1981), and The House On Sorority Row (1983) until recently.  Just this week I've watched both Curtains (1983) and New Year's Evil (1980) for the first time.  I've decided to embark upon a more in depth investigation of these movies and the era they sprang from, so more posts about the topic will likely be forthcoming.  We can talk about the FX superstars, the iconography, the gratuitous nudity, and perhaps even the curious mini-trend of custom made ballads celebrating the legends of the slashers themselves. 

     It's on.  Let's get wet . . .

Barking At The Vacuum Cleaner - Bates Motel, Hemlock Grove, The LAMB, And More . . .

We'll leave the light on . . .

     I loved Bates Motel, and I'm already eagerly anticipating Season 2.  Season 1 was a little bit of a train wreck, but it was an entertaining train wreck.  The soapy narrative twists kept me anxious each week for the next episode.  I think it's great that Vera Farmiga as Norma Bates isn't afraid to "go large" with her characterization.

     Did Norman kill Miss Watson?  I think not, but we'll find out when Season 2 hits in 2014.         

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    On the other hand, I was surprised by how underwhelmed I was by the Eli Roth produced Netflix series Hemlock Grove.  Full disclosure:  I've only watched the first episode, and I'm just not real tore up about watching the second one.  Shelley the mute deformed giant is the only character introduced that piqued my interest at all.  Am I missing out?  Was I too inpatient for greatness to reveal itself?

What happened, Eli?

     Maybe Roth will redeem himself with his producing/writing/acting efforts in the newly released Aftershock (2013).  I'm also looking forward to The Green Inferno (2013), his forthcoming directorial effort born of his love for Mondo movies.

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     I'm pleased to announce that Movies At Dog Farm is now officially LAMB #1565 in The Large Association Of Movie Blogs (The LAMB).     Thanks for having me, folks!
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     I've gotten two new books, and I have a third on the way.  I've only gotten about a hundred pages into Reel Terror by David Konow, and so far, so good.  So many authors have tackled the Universal horror classics, EC Comics, Psycho, and other horror movie signposts that it's difficult to dig up fresh material.  Konow frequently makes use of quotes from pertinent individuals to illustrate his points, and it's always a hoot reading Christopher Lee explain once more why Hammer's Dracula ceased to speak in the latter movies.

      Book number two is Horror! 333 Films To Scare You To Death by James Marriott and Kim Newman.  Newman frequently appears as a "talking head" in my beloved horror movie documentaries.  I read Newman's Nightmare Movies last year, so I decided to give this one a shot, too.  I've yet to crack this one, so I'll have to get back to you . . .

     Book number three, as yet undelivered, is 101 Horror Movies You Must See Before You Die by Steven Jay Schneider.
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     Finally, Don Coscarelli's John Dies At The End (2012) is currently available on Netflix streaming.  Watch it now if you haven't already.  Watch it again if you have.  Highly recommended.

Planet Of The Apes (1968) - Monkey Business With Adrienne Cupp

     I recorded a victory last night.  Much to my surprise, Adrienne expressed an interest in watching  Planet Of The Apes (1968).  Even more stunning - she liked it.  A lot.

     I realize this probably doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but Adrienne has long expressed to me an aversion to sci-fi movies.  I've never protested much because she's always been very tolerant of my appetite for horror.  She doesn't always see the value of every horror movie that I like, but we've watched enough horror together over the years that I've gotten a pretty good feel for which ones she's likely to enjoy.  The corollary of that is that I've also developed a sense of which horror movies I should just go ahead and watch on my own.  If  I don't subject her to too many horror movies that I know she isn't going to like, she continues to be willing to watch the ones I think she might like.  It's a delicate balance.  Because I'm already fighting the battle on that front, I've never pushed very hard with the sci-fi movies.

Taylor (Charlton Heston) with Cornelius and Dr. Zira

     She gave me an in, though.  She enjoyed the recent reboot of the franchise, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011), and apparently that piqued her interest in seeing the original.  Charlton Heston starring in the original probably only sweetened the pot.  Heston is kind of like a gateway drug for people who don't like sci-fi.  He clearly isn't a man who's going to tolerate any foolishness, so his participation is a seal of approval for the non-fanboys.  Moses wouldn't let his people wander aimlessly for forty years in the realm of science fiction, right?  Heston always gets everyone on board by playing to the cheap seats.  Could anyone have growled "Get your filthy paws off me, you damn dirty ape!" with more badass conviction?  

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil - a surprisingly funny moment from Planet Of The Apes (1968)

     In particular, though, Adrienne was pleased by the fact that her mind was engaged while watching Planet Of The Apes.  I believe it was eye opening for her to realize that sci-fi isn't all just ray guns, robots, and light shows.  She's anxious to watch the rest of the franchise now, and I'm excited to be watching them again with someone who's excited to be seeing them for the first time.

The iconic final moments of Planet Of The Apes (1968)

     The best part of this episode for me was the fact that Adrienne had no prior knowledge of the twist ending that closes Planet Of The Apes.  I was surprised because I suppose I thought it was one of those pop culture things that everyone knows by osmosis, even if they've never seen the movie.  *SPOILER*  I can't even express what a pleasure it was to watch Adrienne see the buried Statue Of Liberty come into view and suddenly have everything she'd just watched fall into place.  I envied her.  I guess in a few years I can once again experience that moment  vicariously when I get to share Planet Of The Apes with Gunnar for the first time.

     Is it weird that I'm most looking forward to watching "the ape out of water" entry Escape From The Planet Of The Apes (1971) again?

I had this when I was a kid.  You're jealous, aren't you?

Movies At Dog Farm Trailer Park, Volume II - May 14, 2013

     I was pleasantly surprised by Mama (2013).  I'm not sure why it was so harshly received.  It's rare that I'm able to watch a movie knowing almost nothing about it beforehand.  In this case I knew only that Guillermo Del Toro's name was attached (Executive Producer) and that it had something to do with feral children.  Though secondary plot threads are clumsily integrated, I was otherwise enchanted.
   
     Does enchanted seem an odd word to use to describe a horror movie?  Well, I believe many of the harsher reviews stemmed from the fact that the reviewers didn't seem to understand that this was a fairy tale.  I'm not sure how people who get paid to review movies for a living failed to catch that.  It seemed pretty obvious to me.  Mama has a strong emotional core.  It benefits greatly from the viewer's investment in the characters.  Many scenes - including the conclusion of the movie that a number of  reviewers deemed overwrought - are, in fact, downright touching.

     There was a lot of carping about the CGI in Mama, too.  Once again, if a viewer recognizes and accepts that Mama is a fairy tale, those complaints are unfounded.  Did Mama always look photo realistic?  Well, no, she didn't, but she was a fantasy character, so the complaints about the CGI are moot. 

     Don't worry, though.  Mama packs in the scares, too.  Adrienne watched it with me, and she caught me several times with a big, goofy grin on my face because I was so tickled by how technically well constructed many of the scares were.  Director Andres Muschietti makes effective use of shot composition and carefully timed reveals of pertinent details to get the most from his shocks.  If only more directors understood the mechanics of good cinematic terror.  Critics be damned, Mama is one of the most satisfying genre movies I've seen this year.




     . . . and then there was The Lords Of Salem (2012).

     I understand why Rob Zombie is a perennial whipping boy on genre websites, but I think at least some of the scorn regularly heaped on him is undeserved.  Yeah, he's got a tin ear for dialog.  In fact, the biggest favor Zombie could do for himself is finally deign to direct someone else's screenplay.  Still, he's got a distinctive aesthetic and a damn good eye for memorable shot composition.  At the very least, I always look forward to seeing what he's going to do next.  Admittedly, I look forward to what he's going to do next in the hopes that it will finally deliver on the promise shown in House Of 1000 Corpses (2003).

     The Lords Of Salem still doesn't quite deliver, but Zombie is getting better.  He's reigned in the superfluous cameos by genre vets.  At least some of the cameos this go round wound up on the cutting room floor.  He attempts - and occasionally achieves - a tone of creeping dread markedly different from his previous efforts.  And he does achieve several of those memorable visuals.  Some are memorable for the wrong reasons, but still . . . The last fifteen minutes or so of The Lords Of Salem is one of the most memorable examples of WTF cinema I've seen in a long while.  You take the good, you take the bad.  I hope Zombie doesn't abandon genre movies altogether - as he claimed in recent interviews that he intends to - because I truly still believe he has a brilliant genre movie in him.  . . . and no, The Devil's Rejects (2005)  wasn't that movie.




     Sightseers (2012) delivers pitch black humor, random acts of violence, and two versions of "Tainted Love". 'Nuf said. See it.

   
     Apologies to Bob for the non-Creature Feature post, but this had already been brewing for a while.  I've been finding marginally more time to watch movies lately than to write about them, so this was a bit of "catch up".

Movies At Dog Farm Retrospective: The Beast Within (1982)

The Beast Within (1982)

     For Halloween 2006 I created a week long series of drive-in double features for my friends and co-workers, seamless programs of shorts, trailers, ads, cartoons, and movies.  The logistics of trying to mount such a program outdoors in October were untenable, but we did a pretty good job creating the vibe indoors.  I had an LED moon on my living room wall, and I created shadow lanterns with popcorn containers and candles to create flickering "stars" on the living room ceiling.  We had a "refreshment stand" set up in the kitchen with hot dogs, boxed candies, sodas, and popcorn.  Each night was themed, and the trailers shown during intermission advertised the movies scheduled for the following night.  The final double feature was Motel Hell (1980) and The Beast Within (1982), both of which I had the good fortune of seeing for the first time at the Skyline Drive-In.  The Beast Within is the epitome of a drive-in creature feature.  It's roots extend all the way back to the likes of I Was A Teenage Werewolf (1957), but with more rape, gore, and 1980s style bladder FX (all the rage at the time).  The Beast Within is incoherent, unrefined, and tacky.  It's a movie that simply wouldn't be made today.  Shortcomings notwithstanding, I love it dearly.

Eli and Caroline MacCleary (Ronny Cox and Bibi Besche)

     The Beast Within is the story of young Michael MacCleary (Paul Clemens), the now seventeen year old product of a wedding night rape near the small town of Nioba, Mississippi.  Eli and Caroline MacCleary (Ronny Cox and Bibi Besche) have raised Michael as their own.  They've kept the details of the rape - perpetrated by a humanoid creature of some sort - to themselves in the intervening years. Now young Michael, seemingly normal up to this point, has become gravely ill owing to what his doctor describes as an out of control pituitary gland.  The doctor suggests Michael's illness may be genetic, and so Eli and Caroline return to Nioba to solve the mystery of who - or what - fathered Michael in the hopes of finding some insight into Michael's illness.

Michael MacCleary (Paul Clemens), obviously feeling a little ill

     Several of Nioba's locals behave suspiciously when questioned about the rape, and it becomes clear that they know more than they're sharing about the particulars of Caroline's assailant.  Michael soon shows up in Nioba, as well, and the aforementioned locals begin to die in spectacularly gruesome fashion.  Michael shows himself to be his father's son during a show stopping transformation, then crashes through the wall and into the woods to track down another rape victim and repeat the cycle.  I've left the specifics of Michael's condition deliberately vague, because careening through the Scooby Doo style mystery surrounding Michael's true providence is half the fun.  It's also pretty freakin' vague in the movie, too, though it would seem that Michael is some kind of were-cicada.  Yeah, you read that correctly.

     Truth be told, The Beast Within has its fair share of flaws, not the least of which is the lack of narrative clarity.  Director Philippe Mora claims that United Artists cut several scenes that clarified key narrative points, and I'm inclined to believe that.  Screenwriter Tom Holland later wrote and directed both Fright Night (1985) and Child's Play (1988), as well as having written Psycho II (1983).  He's no hack, so I have to believe that whatever went wrong wasn't at the script level.  On the other hand, Philippe Mora later directed Howling III: The Marsupials (1987), so maybe . . .

The beast comes out

     In fairness, though, Mora does give The Beast Within a nicely grotty southern gothic vibe throughout, and I have to assume he's at least a little responsible for the earnest and mostly pitch perfect performances that serve to elevate the movie above most others of its ilk.  One of the things I appreciate most about The Beast Within is that it's played completely straight, despite its inherently silly B movie creature feature pedigree.  It's refreshing to see a movie like this that doesn't wink at the camera or revel in how clever and meta it is.  There's a place for that, but it's nice to see a sincere attempt to just tell a story occasionally, too.  I think the fact that so many genre movies now are consumed with being self aware parodies is often just a cop out.  Filmmakers try to excuse ineffectual film making by hiding behind the notion that it's o.k. for their movies to be bad as long as they know they're bad.

Michael MacCleary, now obviously feeling a lot worse

     Of course, I've thus far tiptoed around the very best reason to seek out this particular creature feature, and that would be its creature.  More precisely, it would be Michael's transformation into said creature.  The creature itself is a perfectly adequate man in a suit affair, but Michael's final transformation into that creature is an orgy of latex, slime, bubbling bladders and excess.  Masterminded by FX vet Rob Burman, it's one of those glorious, only in the 80s examples of the narrative just coming to a halt so the FX man can show off his wares.  Burman pulls out all the stops, and the results are horror movie gold.  They just don't make 'em like this anymore.

     One final note:  when I was a youngster I purchased a special "magazine" published by Fangoria made up of horror movie postcards.  I distinctly remember that one of the postcards was an image of a black lab with a human arm in his mouth that had been culled from The Beast Within.  I tried unsuccessfully to find any record of this magazine, nor could I find an image of the postcard itself.  If any of my readers remember this or could point me in the right direction, I'd be much obliged.