DAILY CALL SHEET: JANUARY 9, 205

The Mutilator (1984) As a child, poor little Ed Jr. accidentally discharges a shotgun into his mother, causing his father Big Ed to have a violent psychotic break. Years later, Ed Jr. and his college buddies head to his family's beach condo for Fall Break (huh?), but someone with a lot of sharp implements lying around isn't happy about their arrival. Could it be Big Ed? Okay, so the Mutilator isn't big on mystery. What it does have, though, is a ludicrously happy opening theme song extolling Fall Break (is that a thing?) and a handful of brutal set pieces guaranteed to please readers of Fangoria.

TIL: Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons (i.e. cutting off a gangrened limb), the Church considers intentional amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons to be a violation against a moral understanding of bodily integrity This pretty much nixes anything from lopping off the hands of thieves to gender reassignment surgery. The only exception granted is for non-therapeutic circumcision. Parents can choose that for their child if they wish since the procedure was established by God himself as a sign of the Old Covenant, and therefore by definition cannot be immoral.

Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) Ten years following Dracula's dusting at the hands and cross of Van Helsing, two English couples touring the Carpathian Mountains get talked into staying at the Count's castle. After one of the men is sacrificed to resurrect Dracula, it's up to the tough-talking gun-toting Father Sandor to make sure things don't get out of hand. Christopher Lee's second time around as the titular lord of vampires is Hammer at its artistic peak. Lee actually never says a single word during the entire runtime and yet that somehow makes him all the more regal and menacing. Good stuff.

TIL: Prior to Dracula and Ozzy Osbourne laying claim to the title, the Prince of Darkness was one of the many monikers bestowed upon Satan. It doesn't appear in Scripture, though. The nomenclature first appears in John Milton's poem Paradise Lost published in 1667 where, despite the sinister implications of his sobriquet, the devil is portrayed in a way many interpreted as sympathetic. Don't believe it, though, said C. S. Lewis. In his forward to the 1941 edition of Milton's work, Lewis insists Milton "uses all his skill to make us regard Satan as a despicable human being" by focusing on his egotism and monomaniac concern with himself.