The premise of the original Neverending Story (both book and film) represents the coming of a plague dubbed as the ‘Nothing’, where the world is coming to an end because people lack the imagination to keep it stable. Most movies dealing with the apocalypse have adults running about to stop it from happening, yet the Neverending Story is the exact opposite. The Neverending Story presents a world where children are allowed to make choices without adult interference; how a child goddess goes to great lengths in acting as a guide to stop the ‘Nothing’ from destroying a world imbued with creativity and imagination; and how misconceptions of juvenile daydreaming breaks down to teach us how gifted children carry the imagination to actually bring about change.

The bad movies. That’s all anyone ever wants to talk about. Manos. Mitchell. The audacity of taking on a pseudo classic like This Island Earth. The creative constitution it must have required to endure the aesthetic horrors of Time of the Apes, The Castle of Fu Mancho, or Attack of the the Eye Creatures. But there remains so much more to Mystery Science Theater 3000 than Arch Hall Jr., Coleman Francis, and Merritt Stone. As a matter of fact, one of the first things critics latched onto where the sensational skits, in between bits that often commented directly on the film being shown. Yet there were also times when the material was merely “inspired” by the work being presented, said muse mutated into wit that transpired the sloppy celluloid circumstances. It’s these boffo blackouts that deserve reconsideration and concentration. SE&L, confirmed MiSTies, will highlight 10 of the best forays into funny stuff the Satellite of Love and its occupants ever attempted.

It’s the same thing about remakes. You hear it over and over again. “Why bother…the original was perfect,” or “How dare they rape/sully/insult my childhood/geekdom/fanboy fascination with (insert name of movie here).” The answer, of course, is money. John Carpenter more or less mortgaged his mythos allowing people like Rob Zombie (Halloween) and Rupert Wainwright (The Fog) to revisit his massive back catalog. The same with George Romero (Dawn of the Dead), Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hills Have Eyes) and Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist).

Good vs. Evil. God vs. The Devil. Man vs. The Unexplainable and the Unknowable. Since civilization began, thinkers have tried to resolve such esoteric conflicts with everything from science to superstition, almost always with little or no success. Art, it seems can find a quick and convenient way to measure out fractions of faith and further progress, but when done poorly, the problems inherent shine through. Such is the case with the weird, scattered 6 Souls. Originally entitled Shelter, this aging offering (it’s been on the shelf since 2010) has a fine cast (Julianne Moore, Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and excellent performances (especially from the latter). But it suffers from a swing in storytelling that moves awkwardly between mystery and mumbo jumbo to the point where, by the end, you’re not sure why you settled in for such cockamamie claptrap.

Folklore often finds its way into horror. After all, the fairytales we are told as kids usually mix a moral - or cautionary example - with enough scares to satisfy a parent’s need for getting the point across. When it works, it’s wonderful. Just ask Guillermo Del Toro who never met a piece of macabre he couldn’t accentuate with a few ethereal, ‘once upon a time’ touches. Now we have Thale, from Norway, which finds a way to mix a [REC] like rendezvous with a unique looking creature with the story of two crime scene cleaners who themselves stumble across a captive girl…who may or may not be one of Scandinavia’s mythic hulders (read: wood nymphs).