Monday, October 31, 2011

Did Anyone Else Notice...

...that Ruth Madoff sounds quite a lot like Ma from Ma's Roadhouse?



Sunday, October 23, 2011

Happy Halloweeeeeen!



It's been awhile since I've been able to enjoy this holiday, primarily because the EX loved it so...so it belonged to him? Psychological manipulation? But NO, I smite thee, EX memory, because I enjoyed the hell out of this holiday my whole life.

Speaking of Halloween, don't you think the original Halloween was helliscary? Particularly that part where Jamie Lee Curtis flees from Michael Myers and it is race to get the front door open? I pee my pants just thinking about it. Of course, this particular movie holds a special place in my sick and twisted memoryheart because it is the first horror movie I ever saw. Scene: Me, seven years old, at my baby sitter's house, they are having a drunkityass party. I am surrounded by horny, half baked teens and they have no idea I am there; they only know it is time to turn up the Styx and try to score a home run with their prospective girl/boyfriends. I am sitting on a drooping couch, transfixed. I could CARE LESS about horny teens and their pathetic pettings all around me. All I can see is the TV screen. A man is checking out the kitchen, a man is being lifted up and pinned to the wall with a knife. Other freaky things ensue. I was traumatized.

Later when I saw Halloween for the first time (with older, wiser eyes) I really did enjoy this masterpiece. Beautiful! Terrifying! Jamie Lee Curtis was a vision in virginal awkwardness. "Don't Fear the Reaper"!! Wire hangers! So scary. By the time I saw this movie in full, I was completely devoted to the Stephen King library. I was fully anesthetized.

I am sure there are studies out there that can explain why such a fatherless, grown-up-in-turmoil girl like me would dig on horror books, but I've yet to hear an explanation as to why I latched onto the Stephen King books like a baby to milk. Look here now: I will defend my love of the SK library until the day I die. Is he my surrogate father? Maybe. Did I see his stories as something far worse than what I had known, thus offering me some comfort that my life was far less complicated than it could have been? Definitely. But honestly--and I do not think I am alone in this--I found SK's narrative voice both familiar and comforting. Even when he was scaring the shhhhheeeeit out of me, the storyteller behind the terrifying story held me close and let me know that, despite whatever horrible thing was about to happen, He would go on. And thus I would go on. Silly? Maybe. But it was true for me.

My favorite horror movie? Hands down, The Decent. You can't get more horrifying than getting trapped underground with no known options of escape. Ohnowait! You CAN get more horrifying. Like when you are trapped with no hope of escaping and you are being hunted by pale batpeople full of liberal cannibalistic tendencies. The moment when the women are on the edge of hysteria, disoriented, upset, and the one woman pans around the group to expose the monsters directly beside them? AAAAAIIIIIIGGGHHHHH! I screamed aloud many times during this movie. I ask you: Who would willingly spelunk, ever? EVER?

So, my terror recommend is The Decent. And to take the edge off, watch Halloween after. What a lovely, gentle segue to Halloween night sleepytimes.

Labels:

Monday, October 10, 2011

Common Ground: Terror!


I've been enjoying this all day. Click it!

Some of these photos seem like fakes, but a lot seem completely legit. Anyone who has ever visited a haunted house during Halloween knows what's up. You go with your friends, you get all revved up, and you walk through, hoping to scream and yell, hoping not to pee. But honestly, how scary could any Halloween haunted house be?

Maybe really scary. Maybe just a bunch of Gomers in goth makeup going RARRR. I'm completely capable of being startled and, with a group hyped up on sugars and mob mentality, I am capable of reaching full girly shriekiness. True terror? Nah. Because you have to believe in ghosts and demons, I think. And even the surreal specter of true murder and horror, i.e. Texas Chainsaw Screamfest Saw Hostel on Crack in Europe makes me think, ehhhh, probably won't happen to me. Even participants in The Human Centipede never thought it would happen to them, right? But then, I'm not renting any cars in backwoods Europe like some idiots.

But there are plenty of people who believe in that otherworldly threat: ghosts, demons, malevolent magicians. And I guess that's why the haunted mansion/hay ride/cousin Eddie's bathroom of Meth really works for them. I respect that. I remember when I encountered my first true incident of superstition: In the dark, I crawled up the stairs in pursuit of my boyfriend and spoke in a "devil" voice. It freaked him out so much that he called a MAJOR "Time Out" and proceeded to command me to never, ever pull that shit on him again. Heh. Catholics.

I saw The Exorcist sometime during my teens and I was completely horrified. NOT terrified, horrified. Because how could they let that little girl pretend to stab herself in the nethers and scream, well, what she screamed. Seeing her defiled face spitting pea soup was gross, not scary. And I do not mean to discredit the beliefs of others here...it is just that the faith I was raised in did not ever focus on demons, possession, etc. It just wasn't part of my belief system. So the one thing that really freaked me out was the sacrilege of what they'd filmed. It bothered me. It still does.

But I do get the fright of things that are genuinely scary. I have a recurring dream of a man and woman I know. They have a family. It is night and I am going to the house because I am worried. In some of the dreams I am outside in the dark, hearing the shots, and running. In others, I don't know what's happened and I enter the house to find them: the mother, the children. In others, I get to the door and he finds me and puts the gun to my face. In others, I somehow get away. Sometimes I am the woman, dead.

That is scary. A real thing that is scary. Demons may come to possess me, but it is far more likely to be running down an alley, shrieking for help to closed, dark windows, and cold streetlights.

This got dark, yo! Let me turn it around. My pleasure in finding these pictures is the following:

  1. I love the groups, how mixed they are, how different. You can see many cultures here. I know it is Sick As Hell, but I find great comfort in knowing that we all crave these cheap thrills. It's not a We Are The World moment, but definitely in the Coke commercial range.
  2. Scream Chains: Some of these groups are 7 and 8 people long. See how they cling to each other in uniform terror! I love it.
  3. Shirt yanking and catching a feel: Many participants left with stretched-out shirts, some left with warm handprints on their boobies. Some warm boobies were male.
  4. The Escape Artist: Priceless. I love the shots of people screaming in terror and the one guy leaping out of the frame. He's all like, "Fuck ya! I'ma live!"
  5. Men Clutching Men (see Scream Chains) and also shrieking like peacocks in the rain. Self. Explanatory.

I encourage anyone who can to visit a haunted something this Halloween season. Revel in the shared humanity. And, PS., there are no ghosts. Or demons. Do we really need them in this world? C'mon.

Labels: , , , , ,

Ima Bite You

I am thoroughly enjoying the new show, Terra Nova. Who knows if it will last. At least it outlived The Playboy Club? The first episode was kind of MEH with a lot of glossing over important details, like if you force your way into Terra Nova you get a cursory spanking and then become an important member of the military force. Yeppers. That's how it would happen.

Some of the CGI is pretty hokey. It's not even to the level of Jurassic Park. But seeing that this is a TV show, we have to forgive them. And the show absolutely MUST rely on character development. It got off to a shaky start. Some of the characters--especially the male lead--were incredibly wooden. But things are loosening up. And we see that Stephen Lang has found his calling: muscle-bound, military badass.

I don't think he's a particularly good actor, but even you must admit you were impressed with his HOT ASS BOD in Avatar. His hot ass bod came a distant second to his Raging Asshole Interloper identity, but you get the drift.

The SHOCK of all shocks was when I figured out who this guy really was. For those of you lucky enough to know that Michael Mann's 1983 masterpiece Manhunter beats the living hell out of that shamefest, The Red Dragon (2002), you will also remember the mealy mouthed idgit reporter Freddie Lounds. That is the SAME GUY.


It really is true. The older some men get, the hotter they become. Phtht. Nevertheless, given the chance? Ima bite you.

Labels: , ,

Saturday, October 08, 2011

Chicken Drivin'

New Simon's Cat Video!

Mew!