Happy Halloween!

Costumes done.

Candy bought.

Just waiting.


Who is the cutest little Jason ever?

Weekend plans!

This and only this!

"It Follows" a non-reboot horror movie review

….or the creepiest afterschool special ever!

“It Follows”

Open on a girl sprinting from her house and running about the neighborhood. Nothing is chasing her. She jumps in her car and drives away. Later she is at the beach and calling her dad sobbing.

Jump cut to her corpse on the beach the next day in a mangled contortionist position.

We are introduced to college student Jaime, or Jay as everyone calls her. She is prepping for a date with her man, Hugh. While on said movie date, Hugh sees some girl that Jay doesn’t see at all. He freaks and they decide to bail. This leads to driving around, dinner and parking lot sex. You know the stuff all college kids do. Well that is until Hugh doses Jay with chloroform.

 

Jay wakes up tied to a wheel chair in an abandoned building. Hugh is there frantically walking around with a flash light looking for someone. He explains that someone/something is following him. It started after he had sex with someone else. Now it will be after Jay. He tells her that this person/thing will constantly follow her. It will always know where she is too. However, it will only ever walk. He tells her to pass it on to someone else via sex as that is the only way to get rid of “it.” He also imparts that if it touches you it will kill you. Plus! If it kills her it will come after him again. Hugh knows a lot about all this now doesn’t he? Then we see a naked lady walking up toward the empty building. Hugh and Jay both see her. He repeats what he told Jay. They both freak out as the naked walking lady enters the room. They freak out as this silent nude approaches them both. They decide then it is the proper time to escape.

Jump to Hugh dumping Jay in the street outside of her house and driving away. Then the movie slows down a bit as it becomes the search for Hugh. Jay enlists her friends to try and find this Hugh guy. Nobody is following her. This all seems like crazy talk. A few days go by and Jay is in class. Out on the quad an elderly person in their underwear is walking toward her classroom. Nobody on campus notices this person. Jay freaks out and bails from class. The underpants person is still after her! Oh no looks like Hugh was right. Now Jay must figure out what to do and how to stop the “it” that is following her.

Halloween Reboot #4 The Mummy

This might be the hardest comparison this year. The original 1932 Mummy is so vastly different than the 2017 reboot. Cinematography, stunts, effects, lighting and everything else associated to a movie is advanced compared to the 1930’s. Still…a good story is a good story and good acting is good acting no matter what year it is.

“The Mummy”

 

PLOT

Nick and his buddy from “The New Girl” show are in the military as a two man recon unit. I guess this is a thing? Sure they scout bad guys, but they also use this time to hunt treasure and/or rob ancient ruins. Then they sell said treasure on the black market. While running for their lives from guns and explosions, they discover an ancient Egyptian crypt, that is not in Egypt. I wonder why that is? Of course it must be full of treasure!

 

As they are set to explore it they are suddenly saddled with a female archeologist, Jenny. Why well that is part of a grand scheme still to come. While searching they find a crazy sarcophagus. They remove it and then everything goes right down the crapper.

Nick’s buddy from “New Girl” dies from an ear bug incident. Crazy sandstorms. Flocks of crazy birds forcing a plane crash. Nick dies. You know all the stuff you expect from messing with a mummy.

Well of course Nick isn’t dead dead. He is resurrected because the mummy is a lady mummy and she has chosen him to hers. Her what? Well vessel to hold the god Set. Why? So she can destroy and rule the world. You know that old bit.

Now toss in a clandestine organization that knows, studies and fights monsters to the mix. An organization that Jenny is a part of and is run by no other than one Dr. Jekyll. Yeah that Dr. Jekyll. Whom of course wants to dissect said girl mummy and use her powers for whatever they can. You know that other old bit.

Now Nick must stop the mummy. Her legion on undead. Save London, because that is where the majority of the film seems to be. Stop or maybe help the machinations of the Dr. Jekyll organization. Get the girl? Maybe even save the soul of the dead guy from “New Girl” too. I wonder if he will accomplish all that?

"Raw" a non-reboot horror movie review

A screening at a Toronto Movie Festival supposedly had people fainting and vomiting. What movie could this be? Me interest is instantly peaked. I mean how often do people barf and faint at a horror movie now?

Well it is a film called Raw. It is a French-Belgium co-op film, where it is called “Grave” there. Hmmm…now I’ve gone from peaked interest to a bit skeptical. I think I smell pretentious artsy-fartsy French “horror” movie coming.

“Raw”

The film opens on a road with a person walking down the side. A car approaches and the person dives in front of it causing the car to swerve and wreck.

Now cut to a family of three eating lunch. They are all super vegans. Why well because mom loses her shit when a tiny piece of meat ends up in daughter Justine’s mashed potatoes. They have stopped for snack on the way to veterinary school (which is also next to a medical school ) where they just leave her and drive away. Best of luck kid. Mommy and daddy seem to not care about you.

Justine, and all the new students, are then rigors hazed. Cue horrible music, flashing lights, dancing, drinking and such. Well then cue an attempt at upper classmen messing with newbies too. Along the way we are introduced to Alexia, Justine’s older sister who is also attending the vet school, because why not. The film now turns into an attempt at hazing, class room work and free time where there is studying and such. Eventually, we get to a plot point. The plot point.

1st year vet student? Here be coated in animal blood and then eat a raw rabbit kidney.

She has the meat sweats!

It is a morning of messing with underclassmen. They are all made to line up and eat a raw rabbit kidney and then take a shot of something. Why? I have no idea what the significance is, but I’m also not a French vet school student. Justine won’t do it due to being ultra-vegan. Her sister calls her out and makes her do it. You know to save the embarrassment. Well this goes badly as Justine breaks out in a horrible rash. She then starts to crave animal meat. Oh no!

Well now the film gets even worse as Justine is having this change that causes her to hallucinate which causes a bunch of pretentious art house film shots and scenes. It all culminates in a night where her and her sister are drinking and then getting a Brazilian wax. Yeah older sister giving younger sister a Brazilian wax? Well waxing goes wrong. Scissors are needed. Justine jumps. Alexia cuts off a finger and passes out. Justine rushes around to save said finger and then eats it! Older sister wakes up to see younger sister eating finger.

(insert low hanging fruit joke about KFC here)
One of the scenes that made people puke I guess, A.K.A. the first real bit of "gore" in the movie.

Jump to next day and time for some sister bonding. Alexia takes Justine out to talk. This must be about the finger incident right? A walk down an empty road later and well anyone with even a few brain cells know what is going to happen. That’s right. Alexia jumps in front of a car and causes a wreck. She then starts to nibble on the passenger. Justine is appalled and walks back to school but not before taking off her shirt. You know when I’ve seen a horrible event I strip my top and go walk for a few miles.

The film now turns even more artsy-fartsy with scenes of Justine trying to deal with her new issue. A party where she is covered in paint. Trying to eat people and not eat people tripe. Bad music. We have numb walking. Fever dreams under the sheets. There is a sister on sister fight where they have to be restrained by the student s like animals on leashes….because the message being told in the film wasn’t obvious enough already. A pointless sex scene with her gay male roommate. Yeah forgot to mention that bit of strangeness. A male roommate in college? I guess in Europe it is no big deal.

Halloween Reboot #3 The Amityville Horror

Ugh!  I was and still am not a fan of the 1979 Amityville Horror. How will the 2005 be any easier to watch? Well seeing as this a Platinum Dunes (Michael Bay and buddies who have previously remade/ ruined Friday the 13^th, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hitcher ) production I had my hopes set as low as possible.

PLOT

The movie starts with the murder of the DeFeo family by the husband Ronald. He shoots everyone. He then walks away only to be arrested and claims voices made him do it.

Then jump ahead a year and we meet the Lutz family (George, Kathy and three annoying kids per the movie trope) who is buying the house that the DeFeo murders took place. It was super cheap for some reason.

After the family moves into the house events start to occur. You the paranormal moving objects, door and window shenanigans, random drippy blood, noises and the like. Typical haunted house stuff. Then you have the daughter, Chelsea, befriending the ghost of the youngest dead DeFeo, Jodie. Jodie has Chelsea doing all sorts of crap to try and get her to kill herself so they can be afterlife buddies. This of course is troubling for the parents.

Speaking of parents, George begins to lose all his marbles while in the house. He is always cold. He lashes out verbally at the kids he loved and was caring to just days earlier. He begins to have horrible hallucinations of death people, blood, rituals and the like. He hates his dog who is constantly barking at the walls and boat house. He is nauseous. He has a luxurious beard growing as he loses his proverbial shit, thus making him look crazier and more and more like Ronald DeFeo.

"Ryan, can we get you to scowl more?
No. More scowl.
Yeah that's better! Now do that all film."

The wife/mom Kathy is trying to take all this in and seems to think this will pass. You know seeing your loving husband become a brooding abusive dick within a week of moving into a house isn’t troublesome or anything. Not to mention all the stupidity your daughter is doing trying to die to have a ghost friend. Even better when you look for help from a holy man and he is assaulted by house. Then the real kicker is that you discover that the house once belonged to  a crazy Reverend Jeremiah Ketcham who tortured Indians in the basement.

Creepy ghost preacher in the basement shot during music video-like sequence.
What did I just type?

Wait? He tortured Indians in the basement? Because why not? I mean who doesn’t have an indigenous culture torture dungeon in their basement right?

Anyway…

Kathy now has realized husband George must be possessed, right about the time he has decided to kill everyone in the house. You know just like the previous owner did. Even trying to do it at the exact same time 3:15 A.M. Kathy now has to save her family, stop George and survive undead Indian spirits. All within a calendar month.

D&D post game 10-14-17

6 attachments

Well the party numbers were down a little this week. The paladin was off praying and the mage was off seeing to his books and cauldrons of grease. However, the bard was back in the group this week a tad bit rusty, but still available to help.

 

It has been a year since the events of the Stonekeep Harvest Festival and the night of terror that surrounded it. For all the celebrating it was also a time of reflection of the events of the previous year.

 

This time of year also drives up the occurrences of the dark arts in the region, being the autumnal equinox and all that. This year is no different. It seems the residents of Old Towne (the lower class and more slummy part of Stonekeep) are being troubled with some grisly murders. The Watch Captain and some guards approach the party to ask for assistance. The reputation for getting jobs done is what these guys are known for. It seems a possible cult has set up shop in Old Towne and the guards are looking for help discovering the location. They are very undermanned right now due to heighten security for the festival activities. You know people are all afraid of what happened last year and all that.

 

After a short information dump, the party sets off to Old Towne to investigate the sites of three ritualistic murders. The only problem is that they could really use a holy many or someone trained in some arcane knowledge to help decipher clues.  After some investigation, interviews and blind luck, the party discovers that these murders are part of a cult ritual that must involve some demon type stuff. They back track where the cultists are entering town and set an ambush.

D&D Pre-game 10-14-17

The sun set 26 hours ago.

A hunched figure shuffles along a small dirt path toward a small marble building.

Small objects fall from his person as his pace quickens.

As he approaches the building he stops and studies the door. It is made with twin pieces of polished marble. Set in the center of the door is a golden warhammer crested with a set of scales. He reaches toward the door and pulls his hand back as the skin begins to fizzle and pop.
He reaches out again toward the door and recites a series of phrases in a language none have heard in ages. The golden crest begins to melt and the stone doors slowly begin to swing open. The figure shuffles inside.

He looks upon a small single room. Two small statues of warriors in heavy armor flank the door. Scones line the walls.  A simple stone platform stands a few feet in front of the figure. Atop it rests a shrouded body. Behind this platform is a set of finely crafted and detailed plate armor.
The figure shuffles forward and then stops and smells the air.

“You can come out now. Just because you can travel the shadows doesn’t  mean you can mask your presence from me.”

A thin figure drops form the ceiling beside the suit of armor without making a sound. He lands with a flourish and bows before the figure in the doorway. He then stands, adjusts his purple and black judogi.

Halloween Reboot #2 The Blob

"The Blob" hit theaters in 1958. It was remade 30 years later. The original stars Steve McQueen in his I think his first movie role and is looked at now as a take on the horror of communism. A big red menace gobbling everything up and cannot be stopped, you know just like those pesky Commies back in the late 50’s. It was a B movie if there ever was one, albeit a fun B movie about killer space goo.

1988 rolls around and The Blob has been remade. It is still a pile of unstoppable goo, but is it a better B movie than the original?

THE PLOT

We are introduced to a sleepy town of Arborville, California a ski town during the off season. A few high school kids are introduced: the jock, the cheerleader, the nogoodnik, the small town sheriff, the uppity sheriff deputy, the local holy man, uppity nurse, sex crazy teen and all the other typical character tropes. The story centers on the cheerleader Meg and the nogoodnik Brian.

After the various character introductions a meteorite comes crashing to Earth. It is  discovered by a hobo who decides to poke at it with a stick. This leads to a small ball of snot attaching itself to his arm. The hobo eventually gets to the hospital where the ball of snot devours/dissolves most of him and the football jock before slipping away to slime more people. Of course Meg sees all this  and nobody else does and of course nobody believers her either. You know that old chestnut.

Now the blob continues to grow and devour people through dissolving them. More and more townsfolk get gobbled up and still the town is clueless. Well that is until the blob invades the local movie theater and drops from the ceiling on the crowd. No people can see the problem and the town begins to panic. Good thing that a special science branch of the military or a militarized branch of the CDC arrives. They are after the meteorite for science. When in actuality they are after the blob because…… it was a bioweapon. A bioweapon they shot into space to keep the planet safe. See the military knows what this is but not how to stop it. Space was the safest place for it, because why not right?

Your sweet top  and my totally rad hair will do what these scientists can't!

So….. the blob is out of control grabbing and melting everyone it can. The military cannot stop it. Meg and Brian discover the only weakness this killer amoeba has is cold. The townsfolk barricade themselves in a church and fend off the slime monster with fire extinguishers. Eventually, Brian remembers that the machine shop he works at (sometimes) has a truck hauling a trailer of liquid nitrogen for the local ski resort’s snow making machine. This of course leads to the big showdown where the blob meets the liquid nitrogen truck and Meg with a M-16. Well you can guess what probably happen next, especially if you have seen Terminator 2.

Real life news, nothing nerdy to see here.

I type this for me as a record for me to always remember this little face and the day she left us.

For the last almost 9 years Olivia has been a part of my family in whatever formation it is/was.

Olivia was a rescue from a previous relationship. She had been left for dead in an apartment with a broken jaw. So here is a little black and white cat with no  bones in the front of her lower jaw. This means that her tongue sometimes sticks out funny. When the previous  saw her little face she fell in love. When she heard the story of her abuse it sealed the deal and the little cat came home with us.

A week after she came home with us.

I, being the pessimist, figured she would be gone with a few weeks. She was very thin and very weak. That didn’t last.

Always slept in and around the X-mas presents.

A few days later and her appetite was fine as she switched to an easily eatable wet food diet. She was doing all the typical cat activities. More surprising was how she warmed up to us and other humans. One would think after having a person break your jaw/face and leave you might not be too keen on humans. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Olivia soon staked her claim on my lap, behind me on the couch and next to me (or on my pillow at times) in our bed. For a cat that the previous wanted to be her cat, it was anything but that.  

Fall and winter fireplace spot

High on catnip

Everything was swell with her for 8 years, then  earlier this year a respiratory infection wrecked a lung and she has since had some breathing issues. She had developed an abscess probably due to an aspiration event. Meds helped, but it was temporary fix. I knew it would be.

Three days ago (almost six months later) and she was having breathing issues again. A trip to the emergency vet clinic and she was stabilized, but  barley. Three days later and she was losing the fight. I had to make that decision that I knew was coming. It was tough and I hated it. Especially since, when going to see check on her, she would perk up and act like everything was going to be ok. She fought the issue, but it was a losing fight and every day she would get tired faster and look a little worse.

A choice and one I hate having to make.

A common sight during movies, or binge watching.

The cat with the little broken face and big heart is gone. The little cat on the night stand meowing to tell me it is time for bed. The little cat who sat behind my head while watching t.v. to swat me in the face with her tail to let me know she was there. The little cat that would dive in boxes, tubes and piles of wrapping paper at X-mas. The instigator. The red dot chaser. The little cat who could…until she couldn’t any longer.

Good bye “Little Face. “

Good bye Olivia.

All my naps on that ratty couch and most nights in bed this was the scene.

Halloween reboot #1 My Bloody Valentine

2009 vs. 1981

My Bloody Valentine

The original film was released in 1981 and was a Canadian horror import. It was one of a slew of early 80’s slasher cash-ins that also involved a holiday. Thank you Friday the 13^th for stuff like this! It dealt with a crazed killer miner around a Valentine’s Day dance and a mining accident. The only redeeming bits are a fun shower victim and the fact that like 9 minutes were cut to get this movie from Canada to U.S. theaters. I have never seen these cut minutes, but I can only hope it was really bloody, naked stuff or in a prefect horror world both!

PLOT
It is Valentine’s Day 1997 in the mining town of Harmony. All is well until the Hanninger mine has an issue and a collapse happens trapping six miners. Days later the miners are found and five are dead and one Harry Warden is in a coma. After he is taken to the hospital it is realized that Harry murdered the other five miners with a pick axe to ensure he got all the air in the collapsed tunnel.
Jump ahead one year and Harry Warden awakens from his coma. He then goes looney in the hospital and kills a bunch of people. Then he disappears. Well and manages to leave a calling card of a human heart inside a heart shaped box of chocolates.

Another jump of ten years and one Tom Hanniger is back in town ( It is discovered it was his mistake that caused the mine collapse 10 years prior) to deal with the selling of the mine. Even better it is just about Valentine’s Day. Even better still….horrible murders begin again. Even better still….it is a guy dressed as miner with a gas mask covering his face and brandishing a pick axe. Harry Warden in back to murderize the citizens of Harmony again on Valentine’s Day or is he……….

Halloween month! I'm doing reboot horror again...

Another October and I’m at it again going  over horror re-makes to see if they are better or worse (usually much worse) than their original counterparts.

This year I decided to hit "My Bloody Valentine", "The Mummy" (the most recent version with Tom Cruise), "The Blob" and "The Amityville Horror." 

Sure the original films are all very dated with  the original "My Blood Valentine" from 1981 being the most recent. This year I choose horror movies where the original film didn’t do a whole lot to impress me. Sure there are some standout moments in all of them, but I never really enjoyed the entirety of these movies.

So here I go into the world of horror movie reboots to see what they have to offer, or what is also known as ...
...Hollywood is so out of ideas and will remake anything for a buck.

First up is the 2009 "My Bloody Valentine."