Drew's Memories

Walk with us now, as we revisit some of our favorite and personal memories about Mutant Reviewers!

NAME AND MRFH NICKNAME (IF ANY)
Drew. My forum handle is The Lucky One, which is a long story involving an abandoned fireworks factory, a case of goldschlager, and six cheerleaders. No, eight.

Do not look directly into his eyes.

TELL US ABOUT HOW YOU FIRST DISCOVERED MRFH, WHAT YOU THOUGHT ABOUT IT, AND HOW YOU CAME ON BOARD AS A WRITER.
I had just graduated college and started my first full-time job, which involved editing mind-numbingly dull business reports all day. The only way to maintain sanity was through liberal surfing of the web, so one day I was searching for reviews of The Crow and Justin's popped up. I liked his style of humor, and a little poking around the site confirmed that it was youthful, creative, and hilarious, just the sort of place I'd been looking for. I started reading regularly, and a few months later it came out that Andie and DnaError were retiring and replacements were needed. I considered applying, even typed up part of a sample review, but with my still-new job and swim coaching on the side, I wasn't sure I'd have the time. I couldn't make up my mind by the deadline, so I kept reading for another year and a half until Bobby and Alex vanished and the call went out again. By that point I was confident I could juggle it all, so I took the wretchedness of Van Helsing as an omen (as, apparently, did everyone else… Justin claims nearly half the sample reviews that round were for VH) and sent in my application. A few weeks later I got an email from Justin offering me the job, which I eagerly accepted, then the following week I got a promotion at work. So it was a pretty good month, all things considered.

SHARE ANY FAVORITE MEMORIES OF "BEHIND THE SCENES" MRFH EVENTS OR INTERACTIONS WITH OTHER MUTANTS.
Justin's wedding was, of course, the granddaddy of all MRFH events, both in terms of number of Mutants present and the momentousness of the occasion. It was awesome having a chance to meet so many other staffers (all but Lissa for the first time), and obviously seeing PoolMan's kilt in person is an experience mere words are woefully inadequate to describe. Still, my most memorable Mutant event was probably Geekfest, a back-to-back-to-back viewing of the extended Lord of the Rings movies at Lissa's place with some of her and Duckie's friends. I'm not outgoing by nature, and somewhere on the hour-long drive to her house it struck me that I was going to hang out with people I'd never met before, without my (then girlfriend) Lady Luck to be the icebreaker, and was committed to staying for over 9 hours. At that point, I began to fervently pray they had beer. (They did.) Fortunately, they turned out to all be very nice people and not in the least bit homicidal, at least not after I delivered brownies. My only regret is not having brought my digital camera, because footage of Lissa molesting the TV screen to get at David Wenham would be worth its weight in gold. Maybe then she'd have named the Ducklet after me instead of the Fonz.

WHAT WERE SOME OF YOUR PERSONAL FAVORITE ARTICLES & REVIEWS THAT YOU WROTE, AND WHY DO YOU LIKE THEM SO MUCH?
The "Haunted House" choose-your-own-adventures that Kyle and I do every Halloween are a huge pain to put together, but really satisfying when they're done… I always hope people have as much fun reading the damn things as we do writing them. And my love for movies is rivaled only by TV, so I enjoy doing articles on cult shows like Scrubs and Pete & Pete. As long as Fox keeps canceling stuff after four episodes, I won't lack for material. And of course, I'm a huge comic geek, so it's great that MRFH supports cross-medium cult exploration… I'm pretty happy with how my Buffy: Season 8 review turned out, despite not knowing anything about the subject matter going in.

As for movies, I'm pleased with my reviews of The Crow, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, and Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. I guess that illustrates a point — I do best with films I either really love or can rip into mercilessly. Average movies lead to "meh" reviews.

SHARE ANY INTERESTING ENCOUNTERS OR E-MAILS THAT YOU HAD WITH MRFH READERS – GOOD OR BAD!
I got an email from Fred Dekker, director of The Monster Squad, saying he enjoyed my review even if he didn't appreciate the comparison to The Goonies. (He did admit to being greatly influenced by Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, though.) He also corrected one or two errors I made (the town square wasn't the one used in Back To The Future, it was from Gremlins) and closed by saying "Otherwise, kudos. Thanks to folks like you, the Squad lives on! And that "official" DVD? It may be coming sooner than you think..." Those turned out to be prophetic words, as the Monster Squad DVD was released just over a month ago. Sweet!

WHAT ASPECT OF MRFH DO YOU THINK MAKES IT UNIQUELY SPECIAL APART FROM THE REST OF THE INTERNET?
The variety of opinions and a tendency not to take ourselves too seriously. There are tons of would-be film reviewers out there, but if you don't agree with their (often pretentious) views, you're S.O.L. Between us we like nearly every film genre under the sun, and we frequently offer contrasting viewpoints about movies, which is something you won't find at many other places.

We also ritually sacrifice goats to our pagan gods for ad revenue, but I don't think Justin wanted me sharing that.

WHAT WAS THE WORST FILM YOU REVIEWED FOR MRFH, AND WHY?
Howard the Duck. Unquestionably. I've seen some dogs in my time, but most were funny because of how bad they were. Maybe it's just that I read Howard's great, subversive comic adventures first, but that movie isn't funny-bad, it's horrible-bad. Terrible acting, pathetic dialogue, scary-ass duck costume… avoid at all costs.

IF YOU HAD A FRIEND WHO WAS TRYING TO GET INTO CULT CINEMA, WHAT FIVE FILMS WOULD YOU RECOMMEND TO THEM TO WATCH FIRST, AS A PRIMER?