Day 10, 11, 12 and 13!

Zombie-a-thon!

It’s the, “ZOMG I slacked off all weekend and didn’t get any movies done Zombie Movie Marathon!” Yes, four zombie movies all in small, bite sized pieces for easy digestion. Let’s get right to it!

October 10th

Hell of The Living Dead (1980)

While it’s one of the best of Zombie flicks to come out of Italy at the height of the late 70’s – 80’s zombie craze, Hell of The Living Dead is still an incomprehensible mess. Still, if you’re looking for a fun “cheesy” movie this is one of the greats and yet it still manages to be a little creepy.

A SWAT team (although they seem more like hired guns) stops a terrorist organization from taking over a building and are then assigned to go to New Guinea to go on vacation or something. There they meet up with a female reporter and find that there’s a zombie plague spreading amongst the native population that will soon escape the jungle and affect the entire world!

It seems a secret chemical plant had a leak and some of the stuff they were making got out. Of course it turns out that it’s a big government conspiracy to make a zombie virus to wipe out the third world population to end the hunger crisis. Our group of not particularly likable heroes has encounter after encounter with our undead friends and it quickly becomes apparent that the epidemic is out of control as the natives don’t burry the bodies of their dead underground or something like that.

This is a crazy film. Blood is everywhere, limbs are ripped apart and a zombie rat goes ballistic on a guy in a chemical suit. There’s so much stock footage from animal specials that it looks almost like a National Geographic film at times, the dubbing is horribly bad and a grown man dresses up in a little tutu and dances around while taunting a pack of zombies.

That’s right; we’ve hit the bad movie mother-load.

While it’s not a good movie it sure as hell is entertaining, and that’s why I’m happy to recommend Hell of The Living Dead this year. Watch it as an unintentional comedy for the full effect.

Rating –

8 out of 10 if you have a completely warped sense of humor like I do.
1 out of 10 if you’re a “normal” person.

October 11

Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (1973)

A small troop of actors led by supreme jack ass Alan arrive on an old cemetery island where dead criminals used to be buried. Alan plays tricks on them and eventually he conducts a ceremony where he calls upon old Satan himself to raise the islands dead from their graves. Nothing happens and everyone heads to a small cabin on the island to party.

Once they are inside however the dead DO rise from their graves in a spectacular scene, and then start eating people left and right. From that point on it becomes a zombie home invasion film where the actors try and keep the zombies from breaking in.

This is a great flick but some viewers might be put off by its slow build and the very 70’s appearance of it all. If you can make it through that you’ll be treated to one hell of a climax. As soon as the actors arrive on the island and start disrespecting the dead the audience knows that something really bad is going to happen to them, and when they start invoking the dark forces they’re really asking for it. This creates a sense of impending doom that adds some great tension to the films proceedings.

The zombie makeup is actually really good and that along with the awesome location, smart script and good direction helps to elevate this film from just another zombie movie to one of the classic ones. An excellent film for late night viewing, Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things is one of the better zombie movies that most people outside of the horror circle haven’t seen before.

Rating – 6 out of 10 is you’re sick and twisted like me.
Rating – 3 out of 10 if you have no attention span and you can’t sit through 40 minuets of film before the zombies show up and start eating people.


October 12th

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)

This is another goodie. A woman smashes into a guy’s motorcycle at a gas station in England, wrecking it. They become unwilling traveling companions as they head off into the countryside as the woman is going to visit her sister, but it’s not before long that they run into the reanimated corpses of the freshly dead, who are being resurrected by an experimental machine that uses ultrasonic radiation to kills pets by scrambling their brains and causing them to attack each other. To make matters worse there’s an asshole of a police inspector who suspects our hero’s are responsible for the killings hounding them at every turn.

Until is was re-released on DVD some years back this movie was hardly seen by anyone other than the hard core zombie cinema fans, but now everyone can enjoy this film for what it is – one of the best zombie movies of all time. The acting, pacing and atmosphere are all superb and the film looks slick, as though it had a much larger budget than it really did. The characters are likeable and the zombies look good, although not as juicy as some gore-fans might like.

One thing to keep in mind is that this flick was made only 4 years or so after Night of the Living Dead and it predates the huge European zombie boom that followed after the release of Dawn of The Dead in 1978. As a result this is a more thoughtful and original movie than some of the other zombie flicks that came out later and it’s one that’s very heavy on the atmosphere.

A fantastic movie, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie is one of the best and it deserves a place in your horror collection. (Uh, if you have one.)

Rating – 7 ½ out of 10 if you love a good zombie movie.
Rating - 4 out of 10 if you’re normal. (AKA Boring.)


Day 13

King of The Zombies (1941)

Here’s a golden oldie for ya.

Three men crash land on a remote island during World War II and are welcomed into the mansion of creepy German Dr. Miklos Sangre, who unbeknownst to them is raising zombies to help win the war for the Third Reich! However, what the doctor doesn’t know is that our heroes “crash-landed” there on purpose to save an Admiral that the evil doctor has captive.

This was the age before Night of The Living Dead and therefore before zombies started eating people. The zombies in this film are vacant, soulless husks as all zombies were of that period. Brought back to life via Voodo they shuffle around and do random tasks for their master. As far as the film is concerned this is just a standard plot boiler that would have been pretty boring, if not for the amazing comedic performance of Mr. Mantan Moreland.

An African American, Moreland plays one of the unfortunately stereotypical roles given to non-whites of the period as the skittish manservant terrified of his own shadow. However, Moreland takes the material, runs with it and completely steals the show. It looks like the makers of the film must have had a lot of faith in him too because he gets just as much if not more screen time as the white actors. While the rest of the cast is forgettable Moreland is dynamite and this really is his movie.

King of The Zombies is in the public domain and can be downloaded for free all over the internet. It’s certainly worth watching as it does have somewhat of an eerily atmosphere and Moreland brings the house down. It’s safe for the kids and a good time all around.

Rating – 6 out of 10 assuming you have a sense of humor.
Rating – 4 out of 10 if you can’t stand those, “old movies”.

31 Days of Halloween day 9

Demoni (AKA Demons) 1985

We need more Italian monster movies in this list and so I present to you one of my all time favorites, Demons, directed by Lamberto Bava, son of the famous Italian director Mario Bava. European horror movies from the 60’s – 80’s have a special atmosphere all their own. Unlike American films these Eurohorrors tend not to offer explanations for the supernatural occurrences that may occur nor is there much logic to the plot. This leads to them often feeling rather dream like and surreal.

Demons is a great example of Italian horror in general and a cult favorite. A bunch of random people are invited to the premier to a new horror movie by a man in a strange silver mask in West Berlin. As they enter the lobby one woman cuts her hand on a sinister looking mask; a prop from the film on display. As our quirky cast of characters from all walks of life sit down to watch the movie, the girl who cut her hand starts to feel ill and rushes to the bathroom. There she undergoes a hideous transformation into a demon! Every person she attacks turn into a demon as well and as the doors to the theater are sealed the remaining humans must band together to try and survive the demonic onslaught.

This is a great movie for so many reasons. First of all and most importantly it’s a lot of fun to watch. The plot moves fast and there’s always something going on to keep the viewer interested. The make up and special effects are very well done and the demon transformations are incredibly gory. Most of the actors are forgettable and dubbed poorly but it doesn’t really matter.

One great thing is that no one is safe. People you expect to survive are bumped off left and right and you never know what’s going to happen next. The demons are similar to zombies as their bite and claws can cause the transformation into a monster but these demons are more of a threat than any zombie I’ve ever seen. The lighting and cinematography are fantastic and add the touch of class and artistry the film needs to elevate it from just a fun movie into a great one. (And dig that 80’s synth and heavy metal soundtrack!)

If you can go into the film keeping in mind that this is a fun, campy movie from Italy made in the 80’s and not some new glossy Hollywood flick I think you’ll have a blast. An excellent gateway into Italian horror, Demoni is a solid monster movie from start to finish that never fails to entertain.

Rating – 7 out of 10 Demons.

31 Days of Halloween Day 8

Trick r’ Treat (2009)

What? A NEW movie? Yuppers, Trick r’ Treat just finally came out on DVD and it’s the best new horror film I’ve seen in a long time.

Trick r’ Treat is actually an anthology film of 4 stories all tied together almost seamlessly. One constant in each story is a mysterious little boy in an odd Halloween costume named Sam who seems to be everywhere. (As a sort of physical manifestation of Halloween.) There’s revenge from beyond the grave, kids get eaten, serial killers, monsters and all kinds of fun goodies in this flick.

The thing I loved most about this movie is that while there are other films that take place during Halloween, Trick r’ Treat is the first one I can think of that actually celebrates the holiday. In fact I would say that this is THE definitive Halloween film. In addition to all this the acting is good, the dialogue witty, the direction smart and a wonderfully creepy atmosphere is maintained throughout the films proceedings. (Although the film has a great sense of humor as well.)

I could go on but I really don’t want to ruin any of the surprises for you. If I had to recommend only one movie this year for Halloween it would be this one. It’s a great movie that you can enjoy whether you’re a horror fan or not and the fact that it’s new rather than old helps to make it appealing to all audiences. If you haven’t seen it, GO BUY IT OR RENT IT NOW!

Rating – 8 ½ out of 10

31 Days of Halloween day 7!

C.H.U.D. (1984)

This will be a quick one. . .

Ah the 80’s, back when movie monsters didn’t look like they were rendered in a Playstation 2. The cult classic “C.H.U.D.” features many a monster and no cartoony CGI to be found anywhere. What does C.H.U.D. stand for you ask? Why Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller of course! Duh. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?

A photographer, a cop and a homeless shelter operators’ lives will circumvent when toxic-waste bellow the streets of Manhattan mutates the homeless population into hideous mutants hungry for human flesh! So basically it’s just another standard day in New York City. To give away too much of the plot would spoil some of the surprises in the film, but you’ll get to see mutants eating people left and right, a government conspiracy, 80’s hair and fashion and uh. . .did I mention the mutants yet?

Oh yeah, and John Goodman get eaten by monsters! You don’t see that every day. C.H.U.D. is a cheesy monster movie sure, but it’s a blast to watch with a group of friends late at night. If you haven’t seen it you should really check it out.

Rating – 6 out of 10 CHUD’s.

31 Days of Halloween

Day 6 – The Devil Rides Out

Hay, this is the second film I’ve written about in the past two days and this is my sixth review. And as we know, six is the number of the Devil! Could this mean something??? Well, no actually. That would be silly, just as today’s movie is a bit silly but it’s sure entertaining and so I bring to you Hammer Studio’s "The Devil Rides Out".

Hammer Studio’s churned out one classic horror movie after the other in its day and this film is one of the best. Based on the novel by Dennis Wheatly, The Devil Rides Out takes place in 1930’s London. A group of friends rescues a member of their group plus another from an evil cult. They flee across the countryside and have one supernatural encounter after the other as the cult’s leader Mocata pursues them. Luckily one of the friends, Duc de Richleau played by the legendary Christopher Lee, is an expert on the occult and it will take all of his knowledge and skill to save them.

While the film can be a little bit hammy at times with the way it presents its supernatural elements you have to remember that the movie was made in 1968 by a small studio and plus it’s based on a book from the 1930’s and the film follows it closely. Despite all this, The Devil Rides Out manages to be both a supernatural thriller and a fun adventure movie. The plot moves at a brisk pace and is never dull, jumping from one encounter with the unearthly to the next in rapid succession. Terence Fisher directs the film masterfully as always with well composed shots that make the small space Hammer had in their studio seem gigantic by comparison. The special effects doesn’t hold up quite so well but if viewed in their context as coming from an older film on a low budget this isn’t a problem.

Unsurprisingly, the stand out performer here is Christopher Lee, who’s tall, imposing presence and deep booming voice commands the screen. It’s fun to see Mr. Lee finally play a hero in this film and it’s too bad that it didn’t happen more often. Charles Gray plays the villain Mocata with the appropriate sleaze and nastiness to make it easy to cheer the hero’s on against him.

All in all, The Devil Rides Out is just a fun little horror movie that’s great for late night or rainy Sunday afternoon viewing. Highly recommended.

Rating – 7 out of 10.

31 Days of Halloween day 4 and 5 – Karloff Double Feature!

Day 4 – The Devil Commands (1941)

One of Boris Karloff’s best and yet least known movies; The Devil Commands is another tale of science gone mad. In this film Karloff plays a kindly scientist who looses his wife in a car accident. Karloff, who was experimenting with brain impulses, becomes obsessed with contacting his wife from beyond the grave and he thinks he can do this by harnessing the electrical energy generated by the brain. Ann Revere, who gives an incredibly sinister performance as a phony medium, presses Karloff onward towards the final, horrifying conclusion of his final experiment.

Although it was a low budget film, The Devil Commands status is immediately elevated by the presence of the Legendary Boris Karloff who as always turns in a great performance which is both frightening and sympathetic at the same time. (His specialty.) The real villain of the story is Ann Revere as the Medium whose performance is just dripping with pure evil. The fact that she manages to stand out as a secondary character next to Karloff is a testament to the strength of her performance. Also, in a low budget film often the first thing to suffer is the lighting which certainly isn’t the case here. The Devil Commands is lit beautifully and adds a great deal to the films dark, oppressive atmosphere.

Karloff’s experiments grow more and more blasphemous, merging science and the supernatural until the films amazing climax. The science behind the film is pretty goofy but hay, it’s an old horror movie so what can you do. This is a must see if you’re a Karloff/classic horror fan and if you’re not it’s still a fun, creepy movie regardless.

Rating - 7/10

Day 5 - The Haunted Strangler (1958)



Billed as a come back movie for Karloff, The Haunted Strangler is by far one of the better films he was involved with at the late stage of his carrier and also one of his best performances from that period. Set in Victorian London, Karloff plays a novelist who is researching a serial killer known as The Hillside Strangler who was hanged 20 years ago. After some research Karloff begins to suspect that they hanged the wrong man and that the killer is still at large. He goes to the grave where the killer was buried and digs it up to search for evidence or something like that. Hay, I haven’t seen it for a long time, cut me some slack.

When Karloff’s hand closes about the old scalpel The Strangler used he begins to twist and contort, becoming the crazed strangler! Karloff kills and wakes up with no memory of what he did the night before. As he probes deeper into the mystery of the Hillside Strangler he’ll soon discover that horrible truth behind The Hillside Strangler was that he never really died after all. . .

It’s amazing to watch Karloff’s performance here with the knowledge that he was 70 years old when the movie was filmed. He runs, he leaps, he strangles! Really, the dude has more energy here that I do on any given day. It goes to show you the type of actor Karloff was. He was a man who always gave it his all and did the best job he could regardless of what he film he was in.

No makeup was used for the killer, Karloff just twists his face up (with his dentures out) when he becomes The Strangler and it’s surprisingly effective. Just by means of his body language and movements it’s as though he becomes a completely different character. Unfortunately the rest of the cast is rather forgettable and the film can drag on at times between the action. Still, it’s completely worth the price of admission thanks to Karloff’s performance and the interesting plot. Recommended to any Karloff fan, The Haunted Strangler is perhaps his best performance out of all his “twilight” films up to his swan song, Targets. (1968)

Rating – 5 ½ out of 10.

31 Days to Halloween day 3!

Maniac Cop (1988)



It's Saturday and I have a lot of nothing to do so I'll keep it short.

Maniac Cop has one goofy title, but it's actually a very solid and entertaining movie. New York City was a dangerous place in the 80's, but it gets a whole lot worse when a seemingly superhuman cop begins violently killing people for minor offenses, and sometimes for no reason at all! It's up to rookie cop Jack Forest to put a stop to this, and he's better do it quick because he's the prime suspect!

Ok, let me run some names by you.

Larry Cohen.
Bruce Campbell.
Tom Atkins.
Robert Z'Dar.

If your a horror fan your probably salivating right now but if you don't know what I'm talking about that's fine. Take my word for it, Maniac Cap is one of those movies where the stars aline and everything works great from the script, the great story, the acting and the excellent direction. Plus, there's lots of funny cloths and big 80's hair to laugh at.

Rating – 7 ½ out of 10

31 Days of Halloween Part 2 day 2

One Dark Night (1983)

AKA - Night in the Crypt

Here's an obscure one for ya!

Well to do Julie is trying to get into the sorority known as “The Sisters” but to do so, she has to spend the night in a mausoleum. What she doesn't know is that some of the other girls are planing on sneaking in there also to scare the crap out of her. What they all don't know is that a powerful, evil psychic named Karl Rhamarevich was buried there recently, and his powers are stronger than ever before.

One Dark Night is a gem from the early 80's with passable acting, good direction and great special effects. Movies with “teens” tend to be painfully overwrite and although it gets pretty cheesy at times at least it's good cheese and the script wisely keeps the dialogue from ever getting too silly. The first half of the film drags a little bit at times as events are slowly set up to get everyone to the crypt but once they're in there the film becomes genuinely creepy.

The mausoleum is excellently filmed with long tracking shots through it's dark, empty corridors. The psychic disturbances begin slowly at first; doors close and lock on their own accord, flower pots explode and so on. When things really start to go crazy Rhamarevich actually starts busting open coffins and using the corpses inside are floating weapons! Have you ever seen someone smothered by rotten cadavers? I didn't think so!

One Dark Night is a somewhat rare film but I think it's worth tracking down if you like horror movies or if your having a little Halloween get-together and you want to show something no one has ever seen before. When you see a girl accidentally step on a corpses chest and her foot goes right through it complete with a squishy sound, you'll thank me.

Rating - 6 out of 10

31 Days of Halloween Part 2 – The Revenge of 31 Days of Halloween!

Hello there! Once again it’s October and that means my favorite holiday is fast approaching. 31 days to Halloween! I’m going to carry on the tradition I started last year by providing reviews/summaries for 31 horror movies, one per day, to give you some suggestions on what to watch on Halloween night.

I will review mainstream movies and rare obscure ones. Great films and . . . uh, not so great films. Movies that will scare you and movies that will make you wonder if someone slipped some LSD into your morning coffee. And so without further ado, on with the show!


October 1st - Dracula (1931)

Universal Studio’s 1931 classic, Dracula, ushered in a new era of horror film making, led to the golden age of classic horror and introduced the world to one of the greatest stars the horror genre has ever known, Bela Lugosi. While the movie does have its flaws I think that it’s important to watch it while keeping in mind that no one had seen anything like it before up to that point. To the people who saw it when it initially released this movie was absolutely horrifying.

Originally Dracula was planned to be a lavish, big budget affair, but those plans were scraped due to the death of the legendary Lon Chaney who was originally going to play the count, and the beginning of The Great Depression. Instead they were forced to scale down the production considerably by using the stage play as a blueprint for the film. Tod Browning directed and after considering many actors Bela Lugosi, who was staring in the stage play at the time, was able to secure the part of Dracula after much persuading and taking a smaller paycheck than the other actors.

The basic story is so well known by this point that I don’t think a complete plot summery is necessary so instead some information about the filmmaking. While most fans seem to agree the movies opening is atmospherically spooky, the second half which takes place in London feels static and staged. This is because very little was actually changed from the stage play and scenes were filmed just as they were preformed onstage with very little camera movement.

Some have questioned the quality of Tod Browning’s direction and claim the man responsible for the electrifying first half of the film was his cinematographer Karl Freund, an immigrant from Germany who had been apart of the expressionist film movement there. Looking at some of Freund’s past credits like The Golem and Metropolis it’s easy to see how this is probably true. Still, the second half is not a complete loss, as the film is saved by the amazing performances of Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye.

Very few people think of Dracula as he is depicted in Stroker’s original book; old with pointed ears, a long white mustache and two bushy eyebrows that were almost “meeting over the nose”. When people think of Dracula or he is depicted in the media most people see Bela Lugosi, the definitive screen Dracula. His performance is memorizing from his movements to his slow deliberate line reads, or even just when he’s staring into the camera. He conveys about him an unearthly aura that is both frightening and seductive, one of power and corruption, of hunger and lust. Lugosi would become a household name and while the role would propel him to stardom it would also typecast him for the rest of his life.

Dwight Frye’s Renfield manages to be frightening, pathetic and sympathetic, sometimes all at once and at other times switching from one to the other at a moments notice. When he returns from castle Dracula he’s a raving mad man, obsessed with blood and the coming of his master. While he’s under Dracula’s control occasionally the last bit of humanity within him tries to break free, but always to fruitless results. The scenes where he ascends from the ships hold on The Vesta and the one where he quietly crawls like a spider toward the sill body of a fainted maid, eyes on her throat, are perhaps the most frightening moments of the film. Dwight Frye was a versatile and talented actor, but his performance was so great and the movie was so popular that like Lugosi, he was fated to play similar characters in films like Frankenstein, The Vampire Bat and Dead Men Walk until his untimely death in 1943.

If you haven’t seen Dracula for some time or if you’ve never seen it at all then consider dusting off or renting a copy this Halloween to see where it all started. This is a pivotal movie in film history and as a plus; it’s safe enough to watch with the kids.

Rating – Seven and a half out of ten.

I’m my own Worst Enemy – Part One

Some times I suspect that I’m secretly plotting against me to destroy myself. I regularly sabotage projects that I’m working on, break things that belong to me or I’ll forget what the hell I was doing in the first place. I even trick myself into forgetting to eat sometimes and if it wasn’t for my wife I would have probably wasted away by now.

I imagine the evil me is like the evil Spock, the same but with a goatee. Then again, I already have a goatee. Maybe then it's me without a goatee. Well, I don't have a full goatee, it's more like half a goatee on my chin. So I guess it's like Spock with a mustache? Ah, forget it.

Example – Being the good nerd that I am I downloaded the release candidate of Windows 7 to install on my computer. (I build my own computers and I’ve managed to sabotage myself there too, but that’s another story.) I back up all my important files, burn the ISO file to a disc using Nero and I install the operating system.

When the installation is completing and the time comes to enter my activation key I type it in and get a, “this is not a valid key lol” message. The hell? I type it in again and it’s a no-go. Well crap. Grumbling under my breath I go over to my wife’s computer and start downloading a Windows 7 ISO file and I get a new key for it. (At this point I am thinking that the key-code is directly linked to the specific file you downloaded, which was wrong as I would find out later.)

I install a new program on my wife’s PC do I can burn the damn file again and I get up to grab a blank DVD off my desk. I forgot that I’d just opened the DVD drive and I kick the tray you put the disc in and I broke it. I broke it really good. (Because hay, if you’re going to break something you might as well do the job right.) Now it's a cup holder sticking out of her computer.

At this point I’m a little upset. I’m under the belief that the install key-code is directly linked to the ISO file that I need to burn, and now the DVD burner is out of commission so I'm screwed. It's possible to install Win 7 off a flash drive but I don’t have one that’s big enough to hold all the data. So now I’m getting ready to reinstall Windows XP on my computer, re-download Windows 7 and reinstall all the crap I need to burn it to a disc when I get the bright idea of trying to use the other code I got off my wife’s computer.

Of course it works and if I’d done that in the first place I could have saved myself hours of time not to mention the time and money it will take to get a new DVD drive for my wife and to install it. Oh, and speaking of my wife she's forbade me from working on her computer until after finals are over because she’s afraid I’ll break something else and cause the thing to burst into flames or something along those lines.

Everything I touch I destroy.

The next morning I wake up and like each morning I take my good old 150mg Wellbutrin tablet and I put another in my pocket. That’s what I was supposed to do anyway. Instead I took one and then stuck the other one in my mouth; just barely managing to catch myself before I could swallow it. Close call! Thinking about how scatterbrained I can be sometimes I throw it away, get another tab out of the bottle and what do I do? I promptly swallow the damn thing.

I’m trying to poison myself. "See kids? It's a happy pill so eat the whole bottle! NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM!"

I figure I can handle the high dosage but I’d really rather not risk it so I try to induce vomiting but all I can throw up is water. Oh, I should mention that now I 'm running late for work. I drink a glass of salt water as an ipecac but it doesn’t help, so now I’m speeding to work with a belly full of saltwater and buzzing away on 300mg’s of a strong anti-depressive and life it just peachy. At work I felt like I had just drank a pot of espresso and I was wired until 1030 when the effects began to wear off, not to mention the fact that I was dehydrated from the glass of salt water I drank and I felt like crap.

I must be stopped before I can do any more damage. I'm my own worst enemy.

The Internet Tubes Are Clogged – Swine Flu Edition

We haven’t had a big health scare for a while now, so this was probably inevitable. Move over Avian Flu and SARS! Swine Flu is the hip new illness on the street and everyone’s catching it! At first I naturally assumed that the Swine Flu would turn you into a Pig Person, (http://www.thepigpeople.com/ ) but when I started looking around for information it turned out that it’s more along the lines of the regular flu with slight modifications, which disappointed me to no end. I want to see werepigs damnit!

I’ve been reading up on CNN and the BBC News and I educated myself on the nature of the illness, plus when new news breaks I’ll occasionally check the WHO web site (No not Dr. Who) and the CDC. Because I’m informed I know that at this time there isn’t much to worry about so getting stressed over a nasty case of the flu won’t accomplish anything. (Seeing how I live a 15 minuet drive from the boarder to Mexico it’s nice to know what’s going on.)

Three cheers for the internet and the information revolution!

But wait. . .this article from neteffect says that the interwebs are spreading bad information about the swine flu?!?! http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/25/swine_flu_twitters_power_to_misinform Damn your black twisted heart internet, how could you do something like this to us? This wasn’t part of the deal!

In the past, (not even 10 years ago) we primarily looked to the major television networks, the radio and newspapers for researched, balanced and accurate reporting in regards to world and local events. These sources had to be reliably accurate because if they weren’t then they’d lose the trust of their customers and then they wouldn’t make any money. (And we all love money right?)

In the world we live in today any random knucklehead can say anything they want and thousands upon thousands of people all over the world will get that message in a matter of seconds. There doesn’t need to be any fact checking nor does the people need to have a credible background. People have an opinion and they post it as news on their website, blog, message board, twitter ect. Maybe they think the information they’re providing is correct, maybe they mean well or maybe they’re just spreading misinformation on purpose because they’re assholes. Who knows.

The point is that when you’re getting information from some random person there’s no way you can be sure if it’s accurate or not. Do a little Google search right now; there are people who think that the flu is come kind of biological weapon and that thousands of people are dying in the streets. If I’m on twitter and I start posting that I live near the epicenter of the outbreak and there are white vans going house to house in my neighborhood taking people away how do you know whether or not I’m telling the truth? Ya don’t! It could be true and it prays upon public fear, so it would probably be very easy to spread that rumor right now.

A real actual photo of the Swine Flu in action back during the 1976 outbreak. Here Swine Flu appears to be attacking some scaffolding in a church.

I’m not tying to pick on twitter here, it’s just that the ability to instantly deploy information plus an information hungry public plus the inherent anonymity of the internet equals one big cluster f*^&. For another example let’s look at CNN, not the stories but the comments attached to them. (A brief word on “user’s comments”. If you ever want to push yourself to suicide then go to CNN and read the users comments for a while. It’s one of the saddest places on the interwebs.) Now let’s see what people are saying about the Swine Flu!

Here’s a nice little Swine Flu FAQ with CNN’s Dr. Gupta. http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/27/cnn-answers-your-faqs-on-swine-flu/ Wow, educated, rational down to earth information! However, take a look at the comments bellow. Some of my favorites -

donna

April 27th, 2009 5:50 pm ET "The flu in 1918 was responible for the deaths of between 20 to 70 million people worldwide. That is the estimate I saw. If this flu is the same strain except it has become a variant of that virus how can this not be a crisis for the world? There is good reason to be concerned if they don’t get a handle on this quickly."

Panic much?

Hilton Mauldin

April 27th, 2009 8:27 pm ET "EUCALYPTUS OIL. Why has clinical Medicine overlooked this item. Dr. David G. Williams reported on this item in 1999. He related a personal experiience that he had on a trip to Australia. He became infected with the Flu and observed some cleaning ladies breathing fthe fumes of Eucalyptus oil on a cloth. They related a story about one s grandfather in WWI were the military sprayed a barracks with the oil and put the solders in the barracks for a day and stopped the epidemic. I have used eucalyptus oil drops and breathed the fumes to ward off colds and other respitory ills. It works. I suspect Clinical medicine is only after the $$$ to be made. Why not research the history on the properties of EUCLYPTUS OIL along with the washing of hands.

You’ve found the cure! Hurray!

Paige

April 28th, 2009 10:34 am ET "I was wondering as far as the swine flu is concerned, would it be tied to the rocket launch that N. Korea sent into the ocean last month? It just seems crazy that the majority of the infected are in the costal states, especially mexico, which is directly across from Korea. I believe that the virus seems to be man-made and could have possibly been sent into the ocean to where it would contaminate the water."

So the flu comes from the ocean which was contaminated by Kim Jong-Il’s rocket and it ended up near Mexico City. You heard it here first.

Concerned Citizen

April 28th, 2009 3:40 pm ET "Could this outbreak of swine flu in Mexico City be a failed assasination attempt by the Mexican drug cartel on President Obama’s life - using the virus-infected people as “suicide bombers” to contaminate intended targets? How can the US be sure that this is not a biological attack from a foreign country using its people as soldiers to carry out this “virus” war?"

Uh, probably not.

John Staumph

April 28th, 2009 12:23 pm ET "How was this not concocted in a laboratory someplace? You are telling me that swine, bird, and human flu mutates into one, and can harm humans, and it can occur all over the world? Wouldn’t the virus keep mutating by the time it hit Britain, Scotland, etc?"

Yes, by the time it hits the UK it’ll have probably also mutated with an umbrella, a ladder and a bowl of tapioca. Then we’ll really be in trouble. In that case I guess we’d have to change its name to the Bird-Umbrella-Ladder-Swine-Human-Tapioca virus, or BULSHT for short.

As a society we’re bombarded with an overwhelming amount of information on a daily basis. Twitter, news reports to your cell phone, text messaging, the gazillion news sites and blogs online and the many 24 hours cable news networks. We are becoming/have become addicted to information culturally ever since (in my opinion) 911. We need to know what’s happening where at all times, so when there isn’t enough information coming out in regards to a dangerous situation like swine flue, is it any wonder that people are latching onto whatever they read and excepting that as fact?

Even when presented with what facts are available people are still not satisfied. They need more information and if the information isn’t there or if it’s not the information they want to hear then they’ll make stuff up. This is normal human behavior of course, as a species we’re constantly trying to make sense out of our surroundings and filling in the gaps in our understanding of the natural world around us. But how do we distinguish between the good information and the bad information? If I make a claim that could be true and sounds true how can you tell if I’m being honest or not?

The answer is to remain skeptical at all times. When people make extraordinary claims ask for evidence. For example –

Bad info - Studies have shown that vaccinations cause autism in children!

Skeptic – Oh really? What studies? Where were they conducted at and by whom? How many studies were done and were the results consistent? Have the findings been published in a major medical journal?

Bad info – Uh, errrr, well we don’t really know if they are causing autism or not and we don’t have any real evidence, but what if it’s true?!?! It could be for all you know!

Skeptic – Oh brother. . .

Fun fact – People claim studies show that acupuncture works and they're right. . . but they don't tell you that the studies show that it's no more effective than a placebo! http://articles.latimes.com/2006/feb/06/health/he-briefly6

Be on the lookout at all times for potentially incorrect or misleading info and take everything you read or hear with a grain of salt until it can be proven. (Or as proven as much as it can be anyway.) Always do your own research and verify that something is correct and don’t just look for information that supports what you want to believe. There are too many people who want to push their agenda on you for one reason or the other. I think that if people were a little more mindful then a lot of false information and rumors could be avoided.

I don’t mean to sound cynical and say, “Trust no one!” I’m just saying to stay calm and be mindful that there’s a lot of bad information flying around, so don’t go into a panic if you aren’t exactly sure what’s going on at the moment. The Internet hates you so be careful out there!

Pete

Earth Day 2009

Today is Earth Day, a very important day for each and every one of us. On this special day, let us consider the greatest known threat to all life as we know it. Our mortal enemy – The Planet Earth.

Since the beginning of recorded history the Earth and humans have been at war with each other, most scholars agreeing that the conflict began when Benjamin Franklin discovered fire by rubbing two keys together in 1956. The Earth, sensing our species to be a threat to its survival has since tried to wipe us out at every opportunity. Being a cruel planet, The Earth relentlessly launches attack after attack upon our people and due to the fact that Earth is incapable of mercy, we must never become complacent in our struggle to destroy it.

In the summer it roasts innocent puppies in hot cars and in the winter it strikes at the elderly in their poorly heated appartments. Sometimes it will create a great storm and try to fry people with lightning. The Earth is a horrible shot, (scientists currently believe this is because the Earth has cataracts which impair its vision) and theterrible death rays rarely hit anyone. However, the Earth has more destructive tools at its disposal.

Every year the Earth takes time off from its busy schedule to launch deadly tornados at our great nation’s trailer parks. (Right after it’s jazzercise sessions on Thursday afternoons.)

Deadly tsunamis wreck havoc on our undefended coasts and hurricanes sweep inland devastating property and killing hundreds. (But only the poor people.) Even the ground we walk upon is not safe as the Earth can make it tremble, collapsing our buildings and interrupting baseball games.

But there is hope! With the human population being at such a high level today our potential to destroy the planet is better than ever! Here are some fun ideas that you can do right at home to help us to win this age old struggle. –

1. Kill a tree. Trees convert yummy-nummy carbon dioxide into nasty corrosive oxygen. If you have the necessary equipment such as a chain saw, axe or a beaver you can cut down a large sized tree, but if you cant do that just killing a sapling will help to make a big difference. (Tip - Killing saplings is something you can do with your children on an Earth Day outing!) If you are cutting down a large tree be careful because it will try to fall on you or your house in retaliation. Also, trees can uproot themselves to carry off our womenfolk, so be wary.


2. Release more pollutants into the air. With more nations industrializing we are polluting better than ever, but sadly in the United States we’ve been seriously slacking as of late. Start burning your garbage instead of throwing it away. It saves work and makes for a fun Friday evening! Take up smoking; it’s good for you and the kids will love it! Also consider starting a tire fire. Get the community involved and make Earth Day in your town into Tire Fire Day!

3. Dump hazardous chemicals into the ocean. The ocean is a forsaken realm full of misshapen monsters which will one day arise from the depths to wage war upon mankind. (As prophesied by the late Kevin Bacon.) Encourage local businesses to dump waste byproducts into the ocean to stop it before it’s too late. Also, you can help at home by going to the beach with your family to dump fertilizers into water or you can pour things like antifreeze and mercenary into your local storm drains.

These are just a few ways you can help to destroy the planet. If we all work together as a team I’m sure that one day soon the Earth will be dead and we’ll all finally be able to rest in peace. Happy Earth day!

I has a bass.

For years I’ve been thinking of getting one and learning how to play and Saturday I finally went out and bought one. I expect it will take a full year of practicing an hour each day until I don’t completely suck, but the little bit of progress I’ve made in just the past few days has me really excited. Here is a picture Les took of me being a nerd as usual.

All I can think about is getting off work so I can go home and play. (But of course at this point “playing” my bass consists of practicing coordination between my two hands, building up finger strength ect.) The creature balanced on my knee is our cat Newly, attempting to blend in with her surroundings in order hide from the bears that roam about my apartment.

Monogram Week 2009!

Prior to the 1950’s there was a handful of tiny movie studios that cranked out super low budget cheapies by the truck load for the movie hungry public. These studios were known as the “poverty row” studios. One of the most prolific of these was Monogram Pictures, which was responsible for many a b-movie, but what interests me was their horror output from the 40’s. These movies were stinkers, but many of them featured horror stars such as Bela Lugosi and George Zuco, assuring their place in classic horror history.

Since it’s Monogram Week, let’s take some time to remember some of those classic films from the little studio that could. Well, the monster movies at least.

Day One –

The Invisible Ghost (1941)

Let’s make one thing clear right off the bat – there is no invisible ghost in this movie. There’s also no ghost, nor does anyone turn invisible. So why the heck is it called the Invisible Ghost? Who knows! The title is just as confusing as the films convoluted, non-sensible plot which is as follows.

Bela Lugosi plays a kindly old man with a strange quirk; once a year he has his house staff (the guy must be pretty will off financially) prepare a dinner for both himself and his wife. Nothing strange about that except some years before poor Bela’s wife ran off with another guy and was killed in a car crash yet he still talks to her like she was there. But so what, everyone knows that mental illness is ok as long as the suffering person is happy so his daughter and her boy friend don’t worry about it much.

What Lugosi doesn’t know is that his wife is still alive, kept hidden in a shack by his grounds keeper because he couldn’t bear to have Bela see her in poor condition. This does not make sense, but it’s the movies fault and not mine, so don’t blame me. Late at night his wife wanders out from the shack and stands in front of a window for some reason.

When Bela spots her he goes into a strange trance and murders his maid in her room by strangling her to death with his robe. The image of Bela Lugosi approaching the camera which cheery music blares from the maid’s radio and removing his robe while smiling wickedly is both creepy and funny at the same time. The next morning Bela is his old charming self again and he has no idea that he committed the murder the night before.

The body is discovered and Bela’s daughter’s boyfriend is implicated, as it turns out that they had a previous relationship. (Go figure.) Despite having no evidence against him the boyfriend is sentenced to death and even Bela pleading with the governor can’t save the guy. Just after the radio reports that the guy was just gassed or fried or whatever there’s a knock at the door and it’s the boyfriend back from the dead! Well, no, it’s not! It’s his twin brother who was doing something somewhere in South America and has returned upon hearing of his brothers plight!

Yes, this is what really happens and it does not make sense.

So his daughter, her new boyfriend the twin brother of her dead boyfriend are trying to figure out who the murder is and Bela’s wife keeps appearing at the window and Bela keeps zoning out and strangling people. Why is Bela Lugosi strangling people you may ask? Does Bela’s wife hypnotize him? When he see’s her does he just flip out and get homicidal on his house staff? Was the script writer on drugs? Who knows?! Sometimes things just happen and we have to learn to accept them. Like hurricanes and the Jonas Brothers movie.

The Invisible Ghost is an incoherent mess but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Bela Lugosi is always a hoot and it’s cool to see him play a role where he’s not a vampire or mad scientist for once. If it wasn’t for him the movie would have been a drag. The absurdity of the story and ridicules dialogue adds a fun comedic element to the films proceedings and some decent shots and camera angles keep the visuals fresh. (Well, for a poverty row film anyway.)

Let’s see how this movie measures up on the Poverty Row Scale!

Is it a horror movie? - +1
Does it have a monster in it? - +1 (Bela counts as a monster imo.)
Is Bela Lugosi in it? - +1
Does it feature a ridicules plot? - +1
Does the film have moments where it’s actually effective? - +1

Hay! A perfect five out of five. I highly recommend this bizarre little film, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Shut the up about the Mayan end of the world plz

Well, it's been awhile since the millennium came and went without the world ending, so now screwball conspiracy theorists and hack writers looking to cash in on other peoples paranoia have latched onto the supposed Mayan apocalypse which is apparently going to happen sometime in 2012.


Oh noes! The Mayans predicted the Muppet's! ZOMG it's all coming truuuuue!!11Elventyone+1!

Of course this is silly and not based on any sort of testable evidence or logic. People keep making baseless claims that the world is going to end and every single time they're wrong. After 2012 comes and goes there will be yet another crack pot doomsday scenario for gullible people to freak out about, just like what happened before -

Jesus and Paul thought the gig was up some time during the 1st century CE http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl16.htm

Multiple failed prophesies http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl2.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl12.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl4.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl9.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl10.htm

There's too many to list. Just go here for a great collection of past failed predictions plus some more predictions that will fail in the future. http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrld.htm

End of the world rumors prey upon peoples natural inclination towards superstitious beliefs, a byproduct of our own evolutionary survival mechanisms. Once these predictions are brought out into the light and it becomes apparent that they are not based on any real world testable evidence or quantifiable data it's easy to dismiss them for what they are - big steaming piles of fail.

Free MMO Hell Part One – Mythwar II

Why do I keep doing this to myself? I see a free MMO and before I can stop myself I'm downloading it, even though I know that I'm only going to play it for about five minuets before I purge it from my computer in disgust. But then, why does a man climb a mountain? Because it's there, and because he's stupid of course.

And so here I am again, about to subjugate myself to another round of pain and suffering. This time I had a light bulb go off in my head, and then it promptly burnt out because I was using the wrong wattage again. I'll write about the multitude of horrors I experience while running around in free-to-play mmo's so that you too can share in my suffering because hay; nothing helps ease my unbearable pain quite like spreading it around. So without further adieu, I present part one of Free MMO Hell.

Mythwar II - http://mw2.igg.com/

Wow, I picked a real stinker for my first entry. Mythwar II (MW2) is an unplayable piece of crap unleashed upon the world by free mmo peddlers and baby killers IGG. After picking a generic RPG stereotype character to serve as my avatar I was immediately dismayed to discover that the game was played in a 2D, Diablo style viewpoint with a click-to-move interface. After speaking with the noob welcome character, a woman riding a flying bird, I proceeded wandering around aimlessly and picking up all the miscellaneous crap that was strewn about the ground everywhere. (Not at all unlike what I do in real life.)


I was surprised to discover that combat was initiated randomly while moving around the map, sort of like a Japanese RPG. (Final Fantasy 1, 2, 3, 45,824, ect.) In fact, combat is conducted from a static side view with an action timer like an old school JRPG as well, except that in this case its mind-numbingly dull and bereft of even the slightest element of strategy.

It took me a moment to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do as the game never gave me any kind of instruction how to defend myself, but basically all you do is select an ability to use, click on a target and then your character will preform the same action over and over again until you tell him to do something else or your target is destroyed. The fact that a magical blob thing appeared out of nowhere only to insult me didn't help matters.


I have a high end system but for some reason the game was running choppy on my computer and the interface was so horrible that I didn't bother chatting with anyone. I mean, why would I want to? What sort of sick, twisted fiend would play a game like Mythwar II for fun? It boggles my mind that people could actually log on to this game daily and enjoy themselves when there are plenty of other unbearably bad free mmo's out there that somehow still manage to be vastly superior to this one. I mean crap.

Oh, then after killing things for a while I got dead.


Well, unsure of how to wrap things up I ran into a familiar friend who offered me two choices, but we both knew there was only one that made any sense.


I deleted my short lived character and after I finish typing up this article I'm going to cast Mythwar II back into the bowls of the internet from which it sprang; bloody, mewing and oozing greenish puss.

So there you have it. There's bad free to play mmo's out there, and then there's games like MW2 that somehow manage to bend reality to achieve a whole new level of suck previously before unseen in the mortal realm. God, I need a shower.

One internets out of 10

An Obituary for VHS Tapes

As some of you may have heard, the last VHS tape was recently produced, and an era has officially come to a close. Before VHS (and it's arch nemesis Beta) the only way to watch a movie from the comfort of your home was to catch it on TV, or maybe 16mm/8mm film if you had a projector. But lo, the Gods of Passive Entertainment saw that their children were unhappy, and so they bestowed upon us the VHS Cassette Tape so that we might watch “Zombie Nightmare” over and over again until our tiny brains were reduced to pasty gray mush.

Suddenly you could just head out to the neighborhood video store, pick up a pizza on the way home and viola – you could watch the movie on your TV without someone annoying kid kicking the back of your seat. (Unless you had kids, but you could just lock them up in the crawlspace for an hour and a half I suppose.)

There was a problem however; there were very few movies available at first. Where there's demand there's always some big fat guy in Bermuda shorts (don't ask me why he's a big fat guy, he just is) waiting to capitalize on the opportunity. Small, fly by night video distribution companies sprang up almost overnight, putting any movie onto VHS they could get their hands on, regardless of the films quality. Bizarre, poorly dubbed foreign films , bad action movies and no budget direct to video films that should have never been viewed by anyone filled row upon row of shelf space at hasty assembled movie rental stores.

Of course, if people knew how painfully bad some of those movie were they would never have rented them! Therefore it was in the distribution companies best interest to pay a guy to paint an awesome cover for it. That way people would think they were getting when they were really getting this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF-fcz4DlSg

There was all kinds of kick ass box art. Take this one for example -
When I first saw this I was six years old I convinced that it was the coolest movie ever made. Of course my Mom would never rent it, and my dream of watching Night of Horror went unfulfilled until about three months ago when I saw an old used copy for sale at Kensington Video. (Best video rental store in San Diego without a doubt.)

I bought it for about a buck and raced home, sure that I had rediscovered a lost classic of horror cinema. I gloated over my discovery to my wife, (who somehow manages to tolerate my bad movie obsession) put it into the VCR and prepared myself for the rapture that only a crappy monster movie can bring.

But there was no monster.

Instead I was subjugated to 76 minuets of dull torture. I went to my “happy place” for most of the movie but sometimes when I close my eyes I see flashes of some long haired teenagers sitting at a “bar” which is obviously in their parents basement. I see a poorly shot Civil War reenactment, and hear a droning narration and some sort of terrible country rock song that never ends. No awesome VHS cover zombie ever appears to save the film.

This is a good example of the power of VHS box art. 20 years later and I bought the film simply based on its cover. Imagine how important the box art was back in the 80's/early 90's when people had no clue as to what the hell they were renting. For more art, I recommend you check out this site - http://www.critcononline.com/video_compa...er_art.htm You might remember seeing some of those boxes up on the rental shelf and there's a lot of good info about the distribution companies there also. (If your a nerd and curious about that sort of thing.)

All good things had to come to an end of course. Once the major labels saw how much money the little guys were making they pushed harder to get their larger budget, mainstream films onto VHS. The bad movies were pushed of the shelf to make way for the good ones (well, arguably good) and the world moved on without “A Bell From Hell” and “ I dismember Mama.” And then came the DVD format; no more rewinding, tracking problems and what have you, and you know the rest of the story.

We owe a lot to VHS. It sparked our obsession with the home theater experience and gave new life to movies that otherwise would have otherwise vanished into obscurity. Rest in peace. Especially Night of Horror. Screw that movie.