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Tadd Adcox

@inauthenticity.bsky.social

1.5K followers 950 following 960 posts

work in X-R-A-Y, 3:AM, Granta, n+1 // website jamestaddadcox.com // editor @alwayscrashing.bsky.social // DENMARK: Variations now available https://www.hempressbooks.com/shop/p/denmark-variations Also, obviously & ever: Nazi punks fuck off

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 1d

Okay, real question: Who is the Corman of 2025?

I feel like Neal Breen is pretty underrated as a director (that's an argument for another day), but I think it's pretty undeniable that access to cheap CGI has been absolute poison to his work

Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 1d

I'm not sure there's really an equivalent to the Corman movie these days. Like, clearly this is kind of a cheesy and relatively cheap movie, but it's hard to imagine a comparable movie these days putting in nearly the same amount of effort in terms of setting, effects, or even like, number of boats

Fish monster attacking someone in front of a boat

Fish monster bursting through door, woman stabbing it in the arm

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 1d

"It's my theory," says the scientist, with a completely straight face, "that the creatures are driven to mate with man now, in order to further develop their incredible evolution."

A scientist explaining an extremely scientific theory with a completely straight face

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 1d

"So in the end were humans the real monsters all along?"

"Hell no, it was the fish-monsters. Definitely the fish-monsters."

Man in an extremely Maine-coded vest, shooting a fish-monster

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 1d

So um... there is a ventriloquist dummy sex scene in this movie? Involving characters who do not appear prior to this scene, or (judging from the monster attack that takes place during it) after? Just thought you should know that.

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 1d

Damn y'all, we got a kid and a dog killed in the first ten minutes, Barbara Peeters is not fucking around

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Reposted by Tadd Adcox

Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 1d

Oct 10 is Humanoids from the Deep AKA Monster (1980), executive produced by Roger Corman, directed by Barbara Peeters and an uncredited Jimmy T. Murakami

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 1d

Jimmy T. Murakami, as I'm sure I don't need to tell any of *you*, was the one of the founders of animation company Murakami Wolf Dublin, responsible for the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 1d

Oh, and starring Troy McClure's nephew

Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 1d

Oct 10 is Humanoids from the Deep AKA Monster (1980), executive produced by Roger Corman, directed by Barbara Peeters and an uncredited Jimmy T. Murakami

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 2d

I'm going to need like a 2000 word backstory, minimum, on how this particular band ended up playing the Cheerleader Camp gig

Punk band in background; in foreground, dancers, including a guy with a hat made out of beers with tubes going into his mouth

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 2d

I am 100% rooting for the mascot in this movie, and obviously that goes double if she turns out to be the killer

Mascot girl, head off, staring daggers at blonde cheerleader counselor lady; various mascots wearing their heads attempt fruitlessly to drink from straws in the foreground

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 2d

"You're a mascot. *Not* a human. So I suggest you get with the spirit, and put the head *back on*."

Showdown between a mascot (in green) and the blonde head cheerleader councilor

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 2d

Gotta have one of these guys in any self-respecting slasher movie

"It's okay, I'm Bob. Handyman. Creepy, sure, but definitely not a red herring. Absolutely not."

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 2d

Oh hey, my man Leif Garrett is in this one!

Reposted by Tadd Adcox

Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 2d

Oct 9 is Cheerleader Camp AKA Bloody Pom Poms (1988), directed by John Quinn

Thanks to @crabmoney.bsky.social for suggesting this one!

Poster for Cheerleader Camp, featuring a cheerleader with a skull for a head jumping and waving pom poms

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 2d

Oct 9 is Cheerleader Camp AKA Bloody Pom Poms (1988), directed by John Quinn

Thanks to @crabmoney.bsky.social for suggesting this one!

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Reposted by Tadd Adcox

Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 3d

Oct 8 is the original 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, directed by Don Siegel and produced by Walter Wanger

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 3d

Not that I think Invasion of the Body Snatchers is necessarily the best example of bad art--but it does share this quality of "generative incoherence" with many works of interesting bad art

Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 3d

I want to say there's something like a generative incoherence to the movie; and this might be the seed, pardon the pun, for a larger theory about the interest and strange power of B movies: the idea of a generative incoherence that's often at work--often though not always accidentally--in "bad" art

Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 3d

...Freudian (obvs), feminist, various identity questions. None of which feel like things that need to be *read into* the movie--from moment to moment the movie feels generative of these at times contradictory readings

Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 3d

Similar to Eco's contention that what makes Casablanca work is how many other movies it echoes, I suspect part of what makes Invasion work is the sheer number of readings it opens itself to: Cold War allegory, protest against mid-20th century conformity, meditation on Derridian differance...

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Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 3d

There's a lot of plant imagery in this movie about pod people, continuing one of this month's accidental themes ("plants are scary, I guess")

Car pulling into a carport covered in vines

Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 3d

"Whose face is it? Tell me that! Whose face?"

A body in the foreground opens its eyes; a woman turns towards it with a look of growing horror

Tadd Adcox @inauthenticity.bsky.social · 3d

However! Turns out Halloween III also features a Santa Mira

(and there's an airline by that name in Sharknado 2)