Mladen and Del review ‘Tron: Ares’
Image courtesy of Disney Studios.
“Tron: Ares” Starring Jared Leto as Ares, Greta Lee as Eve Kim, Jodie Turner-Smith as Athena, Evan Peters as Julian Dillinger and others. Directed by Joachim Rǿnning. 1 hour 59 minutes. Rated PG-13.
Spoilers: Sure.
Mladen’s take
Don’t listen to the other critics talking crap about “Tron: Ares.” It’s a good movie with a touch of heart despite the sometimes too loud Goth industrial electropunk score and its very, very vivid color palette.
I saw the film (twice) in 3D, once in IMAX and the last time in a plain ole theater. Wholly guacamole did the reds of the filmography and the Nine Inch Nails soundtrack dig deep into my brain’s sensory lobes. After, oh, 45 minutes of exposure to the pulsating everything on the screen and the raucous thumping of lows and highs coming from the speakers I got tired, if not frustrated, by the frenetic aural and visual activity. But, like the trooper I am, I persevered to see the guts of computers anthropomorphized into human forms reflecting the good and bad of our species, as well as humans being human.
Jared Leto does a good job as Ares, a program that evolves from a data‑spouting automaton following directives without question at the beginning of the film to a human-like being trying to understand the difference between right and wrong while chasing the “Permanence Code.” Jodie Turner‑Smith as Athena was a confident, menacing foil to Ares’ introspective side. She kicked ass and came back for more again and again. No “Impediment” was going to stop her from completing her mission.
Ares’ wish to “live” made it/him sympathetic. Who among us doesn’t want to stop taking orders from The Man to chase our dreams? Obedient Athena – obedient to the “user” who runs her “Grid” – is determined to fulfill her directive – find human Kim, teleport her to the Grid by deconstructing her, reconstruct her as a digital copy, and extract the Permanence Code from Kim though it will kill her. Athena’s single mindedness, if it could be described that way, is chilling.
The Ares and Athena antagonism unfolds amid a feud between corporate titan and good gal Kim, charmingly played by Lee, and corporate titan and bad guy Dillinger, effectively played by Peters, as they pursue the Permanence Code for the artificial creations their hyper‑fast, algorithm‑driven, and laser‑spewing machines produce. Permanence means that programs like Ares and Athena manifesting in the Real would survive longer than 29 minutes, the confounding limit of their life spans outside their home world. Of course, Kim wants to use permanence to feed humanity, provide health care, and develop alternative fuels. Yeah, Dillinger wants to sell permanence weapons to the military.
“Tron: Ares” is a B+. There’s no need to see it in 3D, which costs more. It just worked out that way for me. I suspect the film’s loudness and vividness was amplified by the 3D, bringing the film close to sensory overload.
Del’s take
I barely remember the 1982 “Tron” (I think I watched it drunk) and “Tron: Legacy” exists in my memory as a single image of Jeff Bridges standing atop some towering digital artifact. In truth the premise of these movies – that flesh-and-blood human beings can be digitized and loaded into a computer, then reconstituted thanks to the miracle of laser 3-D printers – is so freaking stupid I’m not willing to suspend my disbelief.
That’s weird because many of the movies I love – “The Matrix,” “Cloverfield,” “Star Wars: A New Hope” (the best “Star Wars” movie EVER and I don’t care what Mladen says) – are based on stupid premises yet I love them just the same. If I were having this conversation with a therapist he or she would want me to drill down to the real reason I don’t like them.
I think it’s because the plots are so very very standard-issue, unimaginative good-guy-vs.-bad-guy pablum we’ve seen a bazillion times in the past: Loser squares off against powerful dude – the love of a good woman is at stake – and somehow, despite EVERYTHING, the loser succeeds and becomes a not-loser, which I guess we call a winner.
That’s “Tron: Ares,” only this time the loser is a digital proprietary program that malfunctions … and develops a soul. I’m not sure how you 3-D map a soul but that doesn’t stop “Tron: Ares” and let’s just say he follows the trajectory of all these superhero and quasi-superhero movies to their inevitable conclusion. At least the Marvel movies have the decency to throw in some self-deprecating humor. None of that here.
The movie is gorgeous to look at although the digital domain, with its dominant red and black color palette, reminded me of Hell. The special effects were what you might expect from a movie who’s sole artistic virtue is special effects.
Jared Leto was wooden as Ares but then he can’t blame him – he was playing the part he was given. Really, everybody here did an adequate job of filling their roles, although Gillian Anderson and Evan Peters are always better in anything they do.
My understanding is that one of the major draws was the Nine Inch Nails soundtrack. I was expecting something on the order of Tangerine Dream’s score for “Blade Runner,” but no, that would not be an apt comparison. Trent Reznor went all Teutonic Goth and produced a hammering, thunderous score that relentlessly beats you into a bloody, cowering pulp hiding behind your seat on the sticky floor. It’s way too much. I came out of the theater feeling like I’d gone 10 rounds with Oleksandr Usyk.
The other night I cleansed my palate with one of the greatest science fiction-horror movies of the ’60s ever made, the vastly underrated “Quatermass and the Pit.” My God, what a movie! It reminded me that good films that tell original stories really do exist in more than just concept. I hope one day to see another movie that inspires that kind of enthusiasm from me. In 2025 it seems Hollywood is more focused on churning out “content” and making as much money as possible. Art is no longer part of the equation. How sad.
Mladen was too generous in his rating of “Tron: Ares.” It’s really worth only a C+. Even the original arcade game it’s based on was better, though good luck finding a functional machine today.
By all means, see “Tron: Ares” in a theater. But bring your headphones to filter out some of the thunder.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.
Photo courtesy of NARA & DVIDS
Did you hear Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, aka Gestapo Barbie, recently spent $172 million of YOUR tax dollars for a couple of swanky new private jets so that she and her chestnut-colored Lady Clairol hair extensions can jet-set around the globe in comfort and luxury?
Do you appreciate the atrocious optics of this purchase?
At a time when almost 300,000 civil servants have been fired from their jobs so the government can save money and apply those savings to paying down the national debt. …
At a time when almost 15,000,000 Americans are being thrown out of their health insurance coverage so the government can save money and apply those savings to paying down the national debt. …
At a time when government agencies and services are being gutted so the government can save money and apply those savings to paying down the national debt. …
At a time when WE are being told we must cut back, sacrifice and do without so the government can save money and pay down the national debt. …
SHE spends $172 million of YOUR tax dollars for a couple of swanky new Gulfstreams so that she and her chestnut-colored Lady Clairol hair extensions can jet-set around the globe in comfort and luxury!
Are you fucking kidding me?
And would you like to know how many of those saved dollars have actually been applied to paying down the national debt? Go ahead. Take a guess.
ZERO.
ZERO DOLLARS have been applied to paying down the national debt, because debt remediation is paid through budget surpluses and there won’t be a budget surplus this year. In fact, that Lizard King in the White House and his moronic minions have added another 4 TRILLION DOLLARS to the national debt.
The national debt is now higher than 40 TRILLION DOLLARS.
And Gestapo Barbie just spent another $172 million of YOUR tax dollars on a couple of swanky new private jets so that she and her chestnut-colored Lady Clairol hair extensions can jet-set around the globe in comfort and luxury.
That $172 million would have allowed almost 22,000 people to regain their Medicaid coverage.
If this doesn’t piss you off – if this doesn’t ENRAGE you – you are one dumb son-of-a-bitch.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Warner Bros.
“The Conjuring: Last Rites” Starring Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Mia Tomlinson and others. Directed by Michael Chaves. 2 hours, 15 minutes. Rated R. Theatrical release.
Plot synopsis: Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren are drawn into a final investigation when their daughter becomes involved with a family being stalked by demons inhabiting a cursed mirror.
Spoilers: one large spoiler toward the end of the review.
Del’s take
Mladen was out of town and I was bored, so I decided to throw in with Spooky Season and catch an afternoon showing of “The Conjuring: Last Rites.” Good thing it was daylight. I was the only person in the theater, which was scary enough. I would not have wanted to walk to my car in the dark!
Why hasn’t Vera Farmiga won an Oscar? She’s clearly a terrific actor, bringing expressiveness and pathos to her characters, no matter if she’s Norman Bates’ mother in “Bates Motel” or the two-timing Alex Goran of “Up in the Air.” She is the warm heart and brighter soul of the very dark “Conjuring” franchise, which includes:
“The Conjuring” (2013)
“Annabelle” (2014)
“The Conjuring 2” (2016)
“Annabelle: Creation” (2017)
“The Nun” (2018)
“The Curse of La Llorona” (2019)
“Annabelle Comes Home” (2019)
“The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” (2021)
“The Nun 2” (2023)
“The Conjuring: Last Rites” (2025)
In “Last Rites” she continues a series of excellent performances as Lorraine Warren, the real-life paranormal investigator who, with her husband Ed, brought the idea of ghostbusting into the mainstream by way of their involvement in the Amityville Horror in which a New York couple claimed their house was inhabited by a violent demonic presence. That case itself led to the production of a series of movies and best-selling books.
“Last Rites” suggests an end to the “Conjuring” series but do you seriously believe any movie studio in its right mind would shut down a franchise in which the most recent installment generated $440 million in box office receipts? If anything “Last Rites” works as a springboard to launch a whole new series of spooky investigations – but with new characters.
Patrick Wilson’s Ed is ready to call it quits after suffering a near-fatal heart attack and his wife, Farmiga’s Lorraine, is on board with retirement. But daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) finds herself under constant psychic attack by ghosts and demons, brought into renewed fury by a haunted mirror picked up at a thrift shop by the Smurl family of blue collar West Pittston, Pennsylvania. This same haunted mirror has a history with Judy, having almost taken her life at birth. Judy and fiancé Tony (Ben Hardy) are drawn into mortal peril when Judy sees the Spurl’s predicament on TV and recognizes her connection. In the process she convinces her parents to take on one last ghostbusting gig and events proceed downhill from there.
The story is told through a series of flashbacks that bounce back and forth from periods of Judy’s childhood to the present, which is set in 1986. While it would seem to focus on the Spurl’s haunting, and Judy and Tony’s terror-cladded involvement, it’s really about Ed and Lorraine’s last hurrah. And we know it’s their last hurrah because at the end of the movie Ed – brace yourself for a spoiler – hands the key to the room containing the Warren’s haunted curious and artifacts to Tony. Expect future “Conjuring” installments starring the Judy and Tony duo.
“Last Rites” requires a bit of attention from the audience due to its constant shifting of viewpoint but overall it’s a decent piece of work by Chaves, who has helmed other “Conjuring” installments.
But is it scary? I’m hesitant to answer that question. Few horror movies scare me these days – my friend Hawk tells me that’s because I’m a horror writer and my senses have been dulled to all things that go bump in the night. I thought “The Ring,” “The Grudge” and “It Follows” were very scary, but horror movies that require gore or jump scares to frighten their audiences don’t do much for me. I thought there were a couple of scenes in “Last Rites” that were definitely creepy but overall I didn’t find it scary so much as long. At 2 hours and 15 minutes it seemed to go on forever.
Still, it’s a decent movie and I wish some of you had been in the theater with me as I wouldn’t have been so creeped out by the idea that there was nobody present to hear me laugh – or scream!
I’m giving “The Conjuring: Last Rites” a solid B. If you want to see it in theaters you’d better hurry – it’s been in theatrical release for awhile and will move on soon.
It’s a terrific movie for Spooky Season – if you don’t go alone.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.
Image courtesy of Lionsgate.
“The Strangers: Chapter 2” Starring Madelaine Petsch, Gabriel Basso, Ema Horvath and others. Directed by Renny Harlin. 1 hour, 38 minutes. Rated R. Theatrical release.
Plot summary: After their car breaks down during a cross-country trip, Maya and her boyfriend, Ryan, are forced to overnight at an Airbnb in the remote woods. During the night, three masked strangers terrorize the couple, leaving Ryan dead and Maya severely injured. In “Chapter 2,” Maya awakens at a hospital. But all is not as it should be, with hospital staffers and law enforcement behaving strangely. Then, the masked murderers return, compelling Maya to flee into the woods where a new round of stalking commences.
Spoilers: Absolutely!
Del’s take
Mladen and I have been writing movie reviews since 2004 when we reviewed “The Host” for Brenda Shoffner’s Showcase at the Northwest Florida Daily News. By my count this review, “The Strangers: Chapter 2,” will be our 168th foray into Movie Face-Off, as we call the body of our work. If I had the money I’ve spent watching movies with Mladen for Movie Face-Off, I could probably buy a lifetime supply of Preparation H. We don’t get paid, and as of this writing there are no ads on my website, where Movie Face-Off is now hosted. ( delstonejr.com )
Why do we do it? I’m pretty sure Mladen would agree we do it because we enjoy it. We love movies and we love seeing them in theaters. Movie theaters are one of the few remaining venues in America where you can rub shoulders with your fellow man. As Americans, with their infernal work-from-home, order-online mentality, slowly descend into whatever pathology disallows human contact and interpersonal communication, movie theaters remain a final bulwark against the impending decay of solitude. We encourage people to see movies in theaters. The screens are bigger, the sound is bigger – everything about the experience is bigger, sticky floors included.
This painful intro has a purpose. I want to make sure you understand Mladen and I really love movies because I’m about to do something I’ve done only once in our 21 years of writing movie reviews – give a failing score to a movie. If you choose to see “The Strangers: Part 2,” see it in a theater, though I’m not sure seeing it in a theater will save it. Never has a film so offended me with its calculated ineptness.
“The Strangers: Chapter 2” is fucking awful – maybe not “Plan 9 from Outer Space” awful but probably the worst movie you’ll see this year, which is strange because Renny Harlin is a pretty good director / producer. I thought “The Long Kiss Goodnight” and “Die Hard 2” were terrific films and he’s got a ton of other credits that are at least passable. Not so with “Chapter 2.” I actually apologized to Mladen afterward because it was I who recommended it.
I went into this movie thinking it was a sequel to 2008’s “The Strangers,” the Scott Speedman-Liv Tyler horror film about a young couple who are terrorized in their home by a trio of masked slashers. Wrong. It’s a “re-imagining” of the 2008 film and was preceded by “The Strangers: Chapter 1,” which I’ve never heard of. Incredibly, “The Strangers: Chapter 3” will be released next year.
It follows the same basic plot as the original but has been updated to account for changes (not advances) in technology – the couple is assaulted in a backwoods Airbnb, and everyone carries smart phones that clearly aren’t serviced by Starlink because they never have a signal.
Why Harlin decided to make a trilogy from the thin gruel of this story baffles me. There’s hardly enough going on here to make one movie, much less three, and boy does it show. Scenes are distended and padded to the point of absurdity, which screws up the pacing and gives unnecessary gravitas to inconsequential plot developments. The story is infested with dream sequences and flashbacks that annoy and distract the viewer. And then Harlin attempts to explain the inexplicable – why these people are doing these terrible things. That was the dubious “charm” of the original – good people had bad things done to them for no apparent reason. Here, of course, there is a reason – somebody was abused as a child so they grew up to become an axe murderer.
The acting was, in my opinion, as soul-draining as every other aspect of “Chapter 2,” but what’s an actor to do with such a crappy screenplay? The subordinate characters, who were supposed to project menace in a way that would prevent the viewer from identifying the real killers, were hammy to the point of self-parody. It was impossible to tell who was who, and so much of it relied on the viewer having seen “Chapter 1” to understand what was happening that it made no sense if they hadn’t. The characters behaved in such idiotic and incomprehensible ways that I couldn’t take anything I was seeing very seriously. Remember that scene from John Carpenter’s “Halloween” when Jamie Lee Curtis stabs Michael Myers in the eye with a butcher knife, then drops the knife next to his body instead of making sure the job was finished? Remember how stupid you thought she was? That’s pretty much everything in “Chapter 2.”
And then, to sit through an hour and a half of this crap only to discover there is no ending, that we must wait for “Chapter 3”?
Forget it. I don’t care. I’m offended.
Unsympathetic characters behaving in stupid ways in a trilogy that barely rates a single movie? No thanks. I won’t be spending my precious old-fart discounted ticket dollars on such a waste of time.
I’m giving “The Strangers: Chapter 2” an F. I’m all for seeing movies in a theater, and I do love movies, but this film smelled like 5-day-old chicken bones and I won’t make that mistake again.
If Mladen rates this anything higher than an F I’m going to ask him to draw a clock that reads 10:53 because his cognitive abilities are clearly in the shitter.
Mladen’s take
Yeah, what Del said. He’s correct about “The Strangers: Chapter 2,” except for one thing. This terrible, terrible … terrible movie is an A.
In between Del and I commenting out loud on the film – we were the only audience – Mystery Science Theater 3000-like, I tootled off on a journey of imagination and wonder and revelation. My trip of the mind was triggered by two of the film’s phenomena. They forced me to avoid dismissing the movie as tripe. I couldn’t help but relish its ridiculousness.
The first phenomenon was our serial killer-evading Maya’s beautiful hands and mesmerizing nail polish. It was the color of gold, always shimmering. I could care less about her but I sure as hell wanted her hands and their nail polish to survive.
The second was curiosity. As the movie progressed, I started to thinking about all the obstacles to efficient killing posed by the masks worn by the killers. Two of the Trump administration wannabe staffers donned porcelain doll masks. Very pixie. Very disarming. Both were women. The hulky man had a sack over his head. A bit scarier but a mask depicting Stephen Miller would’ve made me release my bowels.
Think about it. A doll mask, something that you may see on a child during Halloween, constricts your view. Its distance from your eyes would play all sorts of shadow‑n‑light tricks on 3D visual processing. So, how the hell does one of the Dollfaces put a crossbow arrow through an Oregon state police trooper’s eyeball at a billion paces at dusk shooting downhill? Huh? I say it’s impossible. The masks would also interfere with smell. Our frightened and irrational heroine Maya was bleeding so much all the time, you’d think at least one of the two Dollfaces would have detected a strong odor of iron in the air as they got closer to their quarry. But, no, the masks masked Maya’s draining blood supply even when killer and kill-ee were just a foot or two apart.
What about Sackhead? The rough burlap sat even farther from his eyes than the pixie masks of the girls. The eyeholes were ovoid and of varying size. Every time he moved his head, the sack would take a different shape, rendering a consistent view of his environment all fractals and glimpses. The sack also covered his ears. Sackhead must’ve suffered from diminished hearing. Jeez, bare-footed Maya, brain the motherfucker with a monkey wrench from the back as he walks past your hidey-hole. He would neither see nor hear you sneaking up.
In all three instances, doll masks and burlap sack, breathing under exertion would be very difficult. I can see Sackhead burying his long-handle axe into the morgue attendant’s abdomen and chest a couple of times with vigor. But, sustained penetration of ribs and sternum, not to mention bone-vibrating impact with the floor below the body, without proper oxygen intake would cause lactic acid build up. No? All of a sudden the implement would become as heavy as “The Strangers: Chapter 2” was light on coherence, direction, and scares. Don’t give me no adrenaline crap either. Dollfaces and Sackhead were used to killing. I doubt that they got all excited about it. Killing was their job. I sure as hell never get excited by my job. Why would they get excited about theirs?
The film’s most memorable features were Maya’s hands and nail polish. They had me all but delirious they were so perfect. Come on, the film’s director must’ve chosen the gold nail polish for a reason. I bet he chose the color after querying AI.
So it came to pass that I started rooting for the hands and the vibrant nail polish:
“Come on, Maya, now that you’ve self-stitched the deep, oozing knife wound in your abdomen, go to the creek to rinse those pretty hands and nail polish. Can’t have blood on them, can we? It dulls the gold finish.”
“Whoa, whoa, Maya, stop stabbing the killer pig that just gored and bit through one of your legs with so much determination and force. You’ll chip a nail. The polish might flake off. Stop.”
“Maya, Maya, slow down. Punching the window frame that won’t budge open risks damaging your hand. A bruised hand will not look as good with the gold nail polish.”
I’ll likely see “The Strangers: Chapter 3,” with or without Del. Can’t help it. I need to know. Does the gold nail polish live?
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.
Have you seen the idiotic meme being circulated by President Goldfish Crackers?
I should think the president of the United States could afford to hire proofreaders to check this crap before he publishes it to social media.
I’ve fixed it for him this time. In the image above, his original meme is on the left. My corrected version is on the right.
I’ll send him the bill.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
If the United States is the laughingstock of the world, Florida is the laughingstock of the United States.
Florida Sen. Rick Scott, aka Voldemort, is making sure Florida remains atop the hit parade of idiocy.
He recently sponsored a measure that would designate Oct. 14 a day of remembrance for the new martyr, Charlie Kirk.
What this means is the legislative branch of the U.S. government is now celebrating racists, misogynists and homophobes.
If the world was laughing at us before, now it’s shaking its head in bewilderment.
And so are a lot of Americans.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
So let me get this straight.
Stephen Colbert of CBS loses his job over alleged offensive comments.
Matthew Dowd of NBC loses his job over alleged offensive comments.
Karen Attiah of The Washington Post loses her job over alleged offensive comments.
And Jimmy Kimmel of ABC loses his job over alleged offensive comments.
Yet Brian Kilmeade of Fox News, he advocated giving LETHAL INJECTIONS to mentally ill homeless people, somehow retains his job.
Let me ask you guys something: Do you get the impression that certain viewpoints are being suppressed, and other viewpoints are being elevated?
Hmmm. I thought we had freedom of speech in this country.
Welp, I guess not.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Lionsgate.
“The Long Walk” starring scads of teenager-looking folk getting butchered and adults doing the butchering. To make Del happy, here are a few starring names, Cooper Hoffman as #47, David Jonsson as #23, #46 is Ben Wang, Luke Skywalker as The Major, and others. Based on a Stephen King (also a scriptwriter for the film) story. Directed by Francis Lawrence. 1 hour, 48 minutes. Rated R. Theatrical release.
Plot summary: America has fallen on hard times, its government subsumed by a fascist autocrat (sound familiar?), its economy in ruins, its First World status in danger of revocation. But for the lucky survivor of The Long Walk, untold riches await. If they fail, the penalty is death.
Spoilers: A few but you probably know as much from watching the trailers.
Mladen’s take
Think of “The Long Walk” as an inverted “Stand By Me.” Both are books by Stephen King but one misses the mark as a compelling buddy movie and the other is a cuddly story about boys strengthening friendships as they search for proof of a tragedy.
Hence, unsurprisingly, I waited impatiently for the young adult long walkers to fail at long‑distance walking and get shot in the recently released “The Long Walk,” which should be re‑titled “The Long Slog” because of how the film drags on and on. I was only a little curious about which one of the “volunteers” would finish the trek to win one wish, unimaginable riches, and the gratefulness of a nation edging toward collapse.
Reckon I should summarize the film plot before pressing on.
Set in the past, while mimicking much of what’s occurring in the U.S. and globally today, the dystopian wonderland portrayed in the film hosts an annual competition known as The Long Walk. The walk is a test of individual endurance and, by extension, the endurance of a country hobbled by a ruinous war, a “lazy” workforce, and vestiges of individuality and unapproved thought. How do we learn this? Because the gruff, paternalistic, and merciless “Major,” played nicely by Mark Hamill, says so at the beginning of the film and throughout as the 50 walkers drop out one by one when they fail to maintain a pace of no less than 3 mph. By dropping out I mean three warnings for going too slow and then a .223-caliber bullet to the head. There can be only one winner. The walkers walk day and night rain or shine, there are no bathroom breaks, which leads to one genuinely gross scene and a second that’s only slightly less gross, and their misery is broadcast live for the viewing pleasure of a spiritually desiccated citizenry. The walkers are provided water and food paste to, I assume, prolong the spectacle over days. After all, watching others suffer is a treat.
Oh, almost forgot. To intensify the film’s bleakness, the contestants are re‑named as two‑digit numbers. It’s their numbers that are called off when they begin to lag. “Number 18, first warning” booms the loudspeaker for all to hear.
As with the last two films Del and I reviewed – “Nobody 2” and “The Toxic Avenger” – “The Long Walk” is part of what I call the Big Screen Summer of Nihilism 2025. If a film ain’t violent, a mirror of our ongoing decline as a species, and then gives us a delirious glimmer of hope that everything will be OK, there’s no way it’ll recoup the money, plus profit, burned to make it.
I have many gripes about “The Long Walk.” My biggest is the existential chattiness of the walkers as the walk progresses and the walkers are offed. I just couldn’t shake the doubt that these almost‑men would bond as compadres, sharing their feelings and stories about their shitty lives while trudging along with armored vehicles and nearly faceless executioners‑in‑waiting as escorts. Quick Gen Whatever, who’s Kierkegaard? Yeah.
Another problem, why would a country be inspired by what 50 youths – one from each state – try to do, walking until only one is left standing. It’s revolting. No? A premeditated death march organized, funded, and pulled off by fascists and enjoyed by a vacant population. Disgusting. But, hell, I’m from Florida. If my state long walker buys the “ticket” and the muther from Alabama lasts longer or, God forbid, wins, I’d be pissed and inspired to hate rather than enchanted and inspired to hang in there until the good times arrive.
Want your feeling of impending doom validated, see “The Long Walk,” a ponderous “C” of a movie. If you’re tired of the insufferable angst infused through many of the films – “The Long Walk” among them – produced these days, see “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
Del’s take
“The Long Walk” is a charming and introspective examination of a nation’s soul, populated with heartwarming and endearing characters who briskly carry the story forward to its upbeat and morally affirming conclusion. …
Sarcasm is my superpower.
I hated “The Long Walk” and thought it was stupid. There. How’s that for a review?
I’m mildly resentful I was so easily duped by the promotions – “The BEST adaptation of a Stephen King movie EVER!” they enthused. No. No it isn’t. Not by a long shot. “The Shawshank Redemption” earns that title, possibly followed by “Stand By Me” and Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” “The Long Walk” is down there with “Maximum Overdrive” and “Sleepwalkers,” except it takes itself more seriously than those movies, which is laughable.
It isn’t just the characters on the screen going through an ordeal. “The Long Walk” is ponderous for us all, filled with politically acceptable soliloquies delivered by young men who talk like old men. And it’s pointlessly violent and graphic. Do we really need to see a young man suffer explosive diarrhea? Do we need to see him getting his head blown off – literally – as a consequence of his indiscretion?
And there are strange anachronisms I can’t understand. The story is set in an alternate universe, where America is recovering from “the war” and has fallen on hard times. It’s as if the entire country has become a scattering of shacks along a gravel road in the poorest county of backwoods Mississippi. The timeline is set roughly in the 1960s – the cars are ’60s models, the clothes vaguely ’60s-ish, and the weapons are vintage ’60s. But the characters use modern idioms, such as “It’s all good” or “He has an issue.” And the technology that monitors the walkers’ speed, immediately flagging them if they fall below 3 mph, is beyond anything I remember from the 1960s.
But mostly it’s the unrealistic behavior of the characters that put me off. These young men didn’t act like young men. Rather, they were the young homeowners in the Progressive Insurance ads, the ones who are becoming their parents. They were too earnest, too old-fashioned, too preoccupied with matters that young men don’t worry about but their parents do … in other words, too square. That’s an expression from the ’60s. Why didn’t they use that in the movie?
Their cheesy moralizing seemed to ignore the reality of their predicament – that they’d voluntarily embarked on a death march and may the best man win. It was all so preachy – and it wasn’t even good preachy. More like crappy preachy to satisfy the groupthink that passes for public discourse these days.
Mladen praised Mark Hamill’s performance but I disagree. While there was nothing wrong with Hamill’s performance, the character was written poorly, a caricature of every B-movie bad guy. I find villains with nuance and sophistication to be more effective because they’re more lifelike. The Major was just a stereotype and not a very good one at that.
Other features of this ilk have done it better. The Netflix series “Squid Games” delivers everything “The Long Walk” offers and more – actual pathos for its characters. The fifth episode of Season 1 was so gut-wrenching I nearly shed a tear. And despite the silliness of “The Hunger Games” the writers and directors managed to convey its human component without pedantic lectures. “Lord of the Flies” was the ultimate test of adolescent humanity.
I’m giving “The Long Walk” a generous C. With a better script it could have been an A, but Stephen King’s age is beginning to show. The movie seemed ripped from the ’60s, but in ways King never intended.
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.
The latest wrinkle in the Charlie Kirk saga is that Tyler Robinson, the person suspected of assassinating Kirk, was rooming with a trans person.
The MAGAts have jumped all over this, desperate for a connection between the assassination and the LGBTQ community. They’ve even gone so far as to suggest Kirk and his roommate were dating. In fact, a relative of the trans person said she wouldn’t be surprised if that were true. Nice of the media to report that salacious yet unfounded little detail.
There’s no evidence to suggest Robinson and this trans person were partners, but that hasn’t stopped the MAGAts from spreading the rumor. That’s because they care less about the truth than their own narrative.
Meanwhile, while our attention was focused on the assassination, the Senate voted to table a measure that would have required the Justice Department to release the Epstein files.
You see how this works? You see how they do their business?
They wait until something comes along, something that pulls our attention away from what they’re doing, and they slide their dirty business under the table.
It isn’t going to be that easy this time, because like I have said in the past, Epstein files, Epstein files, and lest you forget, Epstein files.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Troma Studios, Legendary Studios and Cineverse
“The Toxic Avenger” Starring Peter Dinklage as Winston Gooze, Jacob Tremblay as Wade, Taylor Paige as J.J. Doherty, Kevin Bacon as Bob Garbinger, Elijah Wood as Fritz Garbinger and others. Directed by Macon Blair. 1 hour, 40 minutes. Unrated. Theatrical release.
Plot summary: Winston Gooze is a janitor at a company called BTH, a terrible polluter that has destroyed vast swaths of the countryside with toxic chemicals. After he’s drawn into an attempt to expose BTH for its crimes and dumped into a pool of toxic waste, Winston becomes the mutated Toxic Avenger who sets out to destroy BTH and its gang of bad guys.
Spoilers: This movie was in limited release in September 2023 so the plot is already known.
Del’s take
“The Toxic Avenger” is many things at once: a grisly and outrageous yet empathetic condemnation of all things poisonous, from industrial waste to the contaminated thinking of 21st century America. But one thing it is not:
Boring.
The minutes fly by as you cover your eyes, hold your gorge or laugh your ass off, and in the end you’ll either be onboard with this loveable band of quixotic characters or you’ll be counting the dead brain cells, as one member of our meager matinee audience announced, because there’s no middle ground with “The Toxic Avenger.”
Despite the gore, I loved it.
“The Toxic Avenger” is a Legendary Pictures remake of a 1984 Troma Entertainment production that was shown to film festival and convention audiences starting in September 2023 and thereafter. It didn’t see theatrical release because distributors considered it “unreleasable” due to the extreme gore and violence. In January of this year Cineverse acquired distribution rights and scheduled an Aug. 29 release. In its first weekend “The Toxic Avenger” has earned $1.75 million according to Weekend Box Office.
The 1984 version was written by Lloyd Kaufman, Joe Ritter and Gay Partington Terry. It was directed by Kaufman and Michael Herz for Troma. Both Kaufman and Herz were retained for the 2023 production, although Macon Blair helmed.
The movie is about greed. There. I’ve said it. The word “greed” – in all its uniquely American, dare I say Trumpian manifestations. At first glance “The Toxic Avenger” is a blunt, no-holds barred condemnation of a rapacious system that values profit above life itself. But at its heart “The Toxic Avenger” is about much more – the poverty of intellect and soul such systems inflict on their victims. In a day when the president of the United States ignores the confirmed peril of climate change, opens the nation’s treasure of natural wonders to resource exploitation, delivers America’s health resources into the hands of a lunatic, removes the guardrails that protect us from environmental contamination, dismantles the education system and replaces it with dogma and propaganda – all in the name of profit and the wad of cash finding its way into his pocket – movies like “The Toxic Avenger” gain a timely relevance. They’re not just darkly comedic splatter films. They’re documentaries.
Peter Dinklage is a warm and sympathetic Winston Gooze, while Kevin Bacon excels in his role as the face of evil in Tromaville, N.J., where the sky is always blackened by smokestacks, the landscaped pocked with festering sores of industrial waste pools and mutated bird-like creatures struggle gamely to exist while their eggs are eaten by RFK-like nutcases living in junkyards of illegally dumped refrigerators. Also good is Elijah Wood as the Igor-like brotherly sidekick, and Julia Davis as Kissy Sturnevan, Bob Garbinger’s suck-up personal assistant. She reminded me of a buxom Kar Kar Leavitt – just a devious and dumb as her real-world counterpart.
Despite the blood, the guts, the bleak setting and the bonkers violence, there’s a beating heart to “The Toxic Avenger” that reclaims it from mere exploitation. Its thesis is that despite everything, love and family prevail, a message many of us want and need to hear as we muck about in the cesspool that has become 2025 America.
My grade for “The Toxic Avenger” is a B+. I think it’s too gory and violent for mainstream audiences, but it’s so clever and well-written that I can’t score it any lower. And, of course, I agree with its message.
May we all grab our mops and take up the cause of The Toxic Avenger!
Mladen’s take
Not sure what Del is doing to me. We saw “The Toxic Avenger” a couple of days ago. The week before, we watched another crazy violent movie, “Nobody 2.” Is Del attempting to desensitize me to blood and guts in preparation for the collapse of the global economy and environment, so that I’m in full survival mode for the upcoming fascist‑induced Rapture?
If so, it’s working. I pretty much guffawed, chuckled, chortled, or moaned through “The Toxic Avenger” as each scene tried to exceed the one that came before with its body horror. Limbs ripped from shoulders, brain matter splatter across walls, toxic urine melting titanium. Toss in electrocution and the main bad guy’s head-first encounter with a running car engine and, well, you get the picture. Actually, no, you probably don’t. The ghastly action in this film can’t be described. It must be seen. “The Toxic Avenger” ain’t rated “unrated” for nothing.
Name the grotesqueness, this movie has it. The Toxic Avenger’s principal weapon, a green‑glow mop radiating convection currents like distant asphalt in the blazing sun, is used to commit one of the goriest bits of head splash I’ve ever seen. It’s glorious. Most terrible of all, it’s funny. The victim is a member of the sub‑clade of humanity that promotes toxic masculinity.
Even as I waited for the next bit of ultra violence or “UV,” as Alex in “A Clockwork Orange” would say, I appreciated the sardonic big-picture message flowing through “The Toxic Avenger.” Like the skin-eating alkaline slime burbling to the surface of the river in the movie, it’s clear that our whole society, culture, civilization, call it what you wish, and not just industry and government, is toxic, too. The violence people throw at each other is not a whole lot different than the violence they fling at the Outdoors.
Dinklage as The Toxic Avenger and Bacon as the desperate CEO of a failing vitamin supplements and nutrition company are very good. Some of the supporting cast do a good job but I was unimpressed with Tremblay as step‑son Wade. However, I suspect that’s because the script failed him, rather than his acting. Wade should’ve been a significant character. Instead, he seems to have been inserted as means to end, to set up the showdown between The Toxic Avenger and the CEO. How do I know? Tremblay is terrific as the autistic mathematics savant in “The Predator.” He has acting chops, no question.
A note to y’all tempted to see the movie. Don’t let the movie’s violence, despite its intense beauty, distract you from paying attention to the dialogue among characters. Also, watch for the captions that introduce sections of the dystopian town that spilled the Toxic Avenger into avenging.
“The Toxic Avenger” has merit but it’s unevenly distributed. Scenes like a penis getting whipped around or, and I can’t believe I’m writing this, breasts being flashed, are unneeded. There’s also a character, or two, that the film could’ve omitted without losing its, ah, flair. Del gave “The Toxic Avenger” a B+. For my rating, I’m deleting the “+.”
Mladen Rudman is a former journalist and technical writer. Del Stone Jr. is a former journalist and writer.