Stay Puft Marshmallow Man
There are no words to describe the horror. Let’s just quote Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) from Ghostbusters, “Sorry, Venkman, I’m terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.”
Stay safe; stay puft!
Link of the Day [10.18.12]
Under the guise of reviewing the latest Paranormal Activity, Zach Baron bravely expresses his fear at watching horror movies. Whenever he watches a horror film, he inevitably flinches at the cat that jumps out of the closet, because thousands of years of evolution made him. He hides behind his hands, squirms in his chair, and squeals in fear at the frights on screen. And then he blames the movies for making him do this.
I can sympathize. I hate how horror movies make me squirm and hide under my hat. Yet, I can't get enough of it.
I think I want to catch the latest Paranormal Activity just to feel the chills on my arm.
Except I'll watch it in the daylight.
Hopefully, with a full theatre.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8519048/paranormal-activity-4-state-horror-movies
Eleven Pipers Piping
If you weren’t scared by the Ghosts of Christmas, perhaps Gremlins can give you a scare.
Crap. I have nothing to say about this one. It’s a better fright story than A Christmas Carol. Watch it.
Christmas theme? Mayhem! You know that feeling when you play Santa handing out the presents. It’s just like a host of gremlins running through town. It’s madness.
Christmas mayhem! Onward to madness! Like gremlins.
That’s all I’ve got…
Paranormal Activity 3
There are some harrowing moments in Paranormal Activity 3, but the advertised last 15 minutes sinks the movie. I think we all left the theatre feeling slightly ripped off.
I didn’t see the second one. At least with the first one the motivational scare felt organic, part of the story. With the final 15 minutes of this one, it felt tacked on. Something to explain it all. You don’t need to do that! It’s all paranormal — beyond normal. Nothing will make any sense.
Also, if you show it in the trailer, it’s gotta be in the movie. It some kind of rip off if you ask me. And that’s how I felt. Ripped off. That’s not to say I wasn’t frightened at times. Bloody Mary! The ghost in a sheet! The clean kitchen! Yeah, I was averting my eyes. That’s just me.
Overall, it was not like the first one because that one was scary. The static camera shots just make me nervous. The lack of a musical soundtrack even more so. Without a musical cue, you don’t know when to be scared. They did attempt to have a rumbling bass noise to help, but it wasn’t enough to signify a scary moment.
If you watch it in the theatre, watch the cheapest showing. It’s really short.
2 of 5 stars.
Eeeeeek! {scare me}
Frights compliments of Nightmares Fear Factory of Niagara Canada
“Matthew, you’re not going to find any icebergs with your nose buried in that nefarious scandal sheet.”
The Thing (2011) is coming! So is @M_E_Winstead. I wonder, when viewing the trailer, you get that Ripley feeling. O, Mary Elizabeth, can you kick alien ass as great as Ms. Weaver.
I am so there. I can’t resist her big brown eyes.
Link of the Day [3.25.11]
If you've been reading my blog for a while now, you've read about my disdain for vampires, their stories and movies. I can't stand 'em, and their appeal frustrates me at times like wish fulfillment people looking for a fantasy life. Give me science fiction or sword and sorcery for my fantasy life not something from the horror genre.Still, there's one vampire tale that I like a whole lot: Stephen King's Salems Lot. The night I read it I had to stay up until dawn because I was too scared to put it down and turn the lights off. The Glick kids could've started scratching at my window if I did. Even to this day, it is the one vampire story I can say I like. Most likely, this affection results from the novel's heroes are the vampire hunters. It sides with those who are vanquishing the scourge that are the vampires of the story like eradicating a virus. Kill all vampires!Today's like is a nice roundtable read about the CBS miniseries explaining how it fits into the vampire story pantheon. I watched the miniseries as a youngster and I can tell you how frightening it was. Only later when I read the book did I feel the terror of it all.http://moviemorlocks.com/2011/03/25/the-horror-dads-in-salems-lot/
Saturday Night Dead
Television needs to bring back the Saturday night creep show. These were usually found on the local, independent, UHF stations. Ours in B’more was called Ghost Host Theatre hosted by the Ghost Host. You stayed up late on the weekends and either watched Saturday Night Live or the Ghost Host. I think I preferred the Ghost Host more with its terrible creepy movies, it’s B level monsters, and its very cheesy effects. I would watch it, but fall asleep an hour into the movie leaving the television on until it turned over with the Star Spangled Banner then the static. I couldn’t stand leaving the television on until the static, it was creepy before Poltergeist and even more so afterwards.
Then when I grew older, my late Saturday night viewings were The Dark Side and Friday the 13th, The series. BTW, Friday the 13th, The Series has been reborn on ScyFy channel as Warehouse 13.
Undead Things
One of the reasons I had for writing about my love of ghost stories was to explore feelings I had for other types of stories in the horror genre. In fact, I had started that post with ghost stories but intended to touch upon vampires, werewolves, monsters, and the undead. This post is to begin adding to the other post.First things first, these rambling posts were inspired by watching the summer anime series, High School of the Dead. The first episode is standard zombie fare: the dreaded zombie outbreak with no explanation as to its cause. A school in Japan is where the mayhem takes place with students being attacked and attacking alike. The zombie hoard of recently killed students eating the remaining living students. Lots of blood flying in this one. I watched the episode with pleasure. Its fanservice was stupid fun, but it kept me wondering about zombie attacks and our reactions and responses to them.Zombies (the monsters, the stories, and the movies) don't do too much for me. The George A. Romero, slow zombies aren't too frightening. The fast twitch, neu zombies do, but they are not what I'll be discussing today. I can't believe in fast zombies. The dead, because of rigor mortis, shouldn't move very fast. Plus, fast zombies are even more scarier. I just don't want to deal with them.Why is it that in dealing with zombies the major problem arises from stupid mistakes of the survivors? "Don't open the door!" "Don't go out and save her!" "Don't let him in! He's infected!" Your chance of survival is directly proportional to doing common sense stuff and keeping away from them. I guess that's why the Zombie survival book was a big hit. It made explicit the common sense things to do in order to avoid death when the dead rise.In the anime, the kids did the stupid things to die. If you do the stupid things, you'll die. The only way to live is to not do the stupid things.And that's my problem with zombies. Through proper, rational thought, you should survive. Keep your wits about you, and you should live. By being sentient, you should live. Avoid being stupid. You'll be dead. Smart equals living. Dumb equals dead. Your intelligence will get you through the zombie infestation. It's that easy.That said, if it's fast zombies, all bets are off.
Quote of the Day [11.12.09]
"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."Thomas Paine, "Dissertions on First Principles of Government"