Five Scary Skeleton Gifs

Spooky Friday!

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Five under appreciated Horror Movies

I’ll try to keep spoilers to a minimum, as I want people to watch these movies. Tis the season, after all…

5. Dolls

Dolls was one of the many, many movies that tried to cash in on the Puppetmaster/Child’s Play phenomenon. Killer dolls, ooh, haven’t seen that before!

Where Dolls differs from say Dolly Dearest or Pinocchio’s Revenge, is that the dolls aren’t really bad guys. They attack people, but only ones who intend harm to the owners of the home/hotel establishment they inhabit. The effects aren’t groundbreaking, but they’re pretty good considering the limitations of the medium at the time. I caught this flick on Netflix a while ago, but it’s not hard to find.

4. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge

This is not a good movie.

I love A Nightmare on Elm Street. It is by far my favorite horror movie. Robert England gives a masterful performance, often imitated (Dr. Giggles, the 2010 remake, and countless other wise-cracking killers) but never duplicated. Some of the sequels are worthy (the ones involving Wes Craven, typically) and some are gut-busting b flicks.

Freddy’s Revenge falls in the middle. It’s not the worst of the sequels, but it’s down there. This is the only movie (aside from the meta flick Wes Craven’s New Nightmare) to break with basic NOES tradition: the main character is male, and Freddy’s goal is not murdering teens in their dreams, but to possess the lead and live again.

The basic reason this doesn’t work is because without his dream demon powers, Freddy isn’t all that scary. But I can appreciate the filmmakers are trying to do: breaking the slasher formula isn’t

3. Return of the Living Dead

This is just fun.

I saw this movie after watching a Netflix documentary, ‘Doc of the Dead.’ It spoke about how Return was the first zombie movie to try and further the canon set up in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. As that film’s copyright issues rendered it free to the public, this film was able to call itself a sequel and make direct in-universe references to the events of the 1960s.

The difference is the 1980s attitude. Painfully stereotypical punkers fill in for the usual gang of teenage idiots in these movies, and are dispatched in a satisfying manner. It’s not deep, it’s not even revolutionary: it’s just fun watching advanced for the time) zombies. The effects are pretty good, especially on The Tarman.

Not for the faint of heart. There’s a lot of cussin’ an boobs. Fairly warned be ye, says I.

2. Curse of Chucky

This is the newest entry on the list, having come out just last year. Curse of Chucky is the franchise’s attempt to make Chucky scary again. It does fairly well: it’s a worthier successor to Bride of Chucky than Seed of Chucky by a mile.

Brad Dourif once again gives a capital performance as the doll-encapsulated Charles Lee Ray. The supporting cast is fine to middling, but none of them are bad enough to be distracting. There’s some red herrings and a few under explored themes, but this movie isn’t going to spoon feed you the obvious. It’s an appreciated touch.

The effects are good (that point has been moot since Bride), and the plot tries really hard to tie everything together well. It’s got a lot of effort behind it.

Much like any Nightmare on Elm Street featuring Robert Englund, as long as Brad Dourif is voicing that doll, I’ll give it a look.

1. Pumpkinhead

This is a forgotten classic. Good effects, great plotline, and emotional depth to many of the characters. You never see the point of view of the grieving family member that raises the unspeakable evil to avenge their loved ones. Here, that guy’s the main character. And the callous teens that killed his (spoiler)? They’re mostly good kids who feel awful about what happened. It’s genuine and all the better for being so.

It has a few sequels, but I haven’t seen any. If they’re half as good as the original they’ll also be worth a look. Frankly, I’m going to dust off this sucker in the next few days and have at it: it’s been far too long since I saw pumpkin-y doom bearing down on hapless teens.

Five awesome 'split' songs

I recently discovered a music editor who takes the same song done by two different artists, mashes them into one glorious track, and splits them in either headphone. The experience is amazing. Break out the headphones (the effect is greatly reduced without them) and prepare to have your mind BLOWN.

5. Some Nights: Left ear Fun, right ear The Vitamin String Quartet

I love this song, I love the quartet.

4. Part of Your World: Left ear Jodie Benson (English) right ear Sugyeong Kim (Korean)

Multi-language aside, both of these women are amazing talents. Still, my least favorite of the overlays as, unlike the others, there is no moment where the two vocal tracks split to concentrate on each artist in turn. Small nitpick

3. Smells Like Teen Spirit: Left ear Nirvana, right ear The Vitamin String Quartet

This is one of my favorite kind of musical adventures: an orchestral version of a pop culture son. It is BADASS.

2. I'll make a man out of you: Left ear Donny Osmund (English singing voice), right ear Jackie Chan (Mandarin singing voice)

Jackie Chan is an opera-trained singer. And it shows. So enjoy this kick-ass mass up. I did.

1. Beauty and the Beast: Left ear Angela Lansbury (English) right ear Lucie Dolène  (French).

I wept.

Five things I miss about LOST

Today is the 10th anniversary of LOST's premier. This was the first successful live-action show that I watched from the very first episode. Up til then the shows I watched from the ground up were one seasons failures (The Lone Gunmen, Greg the Bunny), or I didn't get into until they were monster hits (Third season of House MD, The Simpsons).

121 hours of entertainment. And the top five things I miss. And SPOILERS.

5. The Mystery

Not before or since have I watched a program that was so intricate. There were massive fan theories from the island being on a turtle's back (wrong) to time travel (wrong at first) to it being purgatory (wrong until the last season). Even after the show ended, even after the creators have given interviews and explained a lot, there's still many unanswered issues. But nobody really debates them anymore. The mystery remains, but the passion is gone.

4. The Fear

LOST wasn't primarily a horror show, but there was plenty of scariness. The Others, and their mysterious motives. The smoke monster and its introduction, EATING THE PILOT. Ben Linus. Just Ben Linus. Un-Locke. Insane Claire. Insane every other Benn Gum-type character. Sayid coming back wrong. There's too many moments to choose from. This isn't even half.

3. The Humor

Just as essential to the show as the mystery and the fear was the humor. Remember when Artz exploded? Later, as Hurley so helpfully pointed out to one of his fellow survivors "You've got some Artz on you." and then puked?

Funnier in context. Frankly, most of the jokes are, but that doesn't make them any less funny. Just harder to explain, like all of LOST.

2. The Philosophy Lesson

Season one of lost coincided with my first year at Oakland Community College and my first Philosophy class. A class with a set of philosophers that had identical names and beliefs to characters in the show. John Locke was especially poignant with his theory of  tabula rasa  (also an episode name!). I probably would have done fine in the class without LOST, but this was a BIG help.

1. The characters

Will Kate end up with Jack or Sawyer? This is one of the few love triangles I ever gave a damn about. And boy, did I give a damn about it (Sawyer deserved better than her, and got it).

Then there was ,y favorite comic relief duo, Charlie and Hurley. Charlie was the whole reason I watched the pilot episode, as Dominic Monaghan was fresh off playing Merry in Lord of the Rings. Hurley I grew to love over time.

There are literally dozens of others that I loved, hated, and couldn't wait to see again, but it would take too much time to recount them all. You were awesome, cast of LOST. I miss you.

Raindrops?

Today is the first day since I started my anti anxiety meds that I didn’t take half a pill before work. I also didn’t take my dose last night, since I felt well. The instructions say ‘as needed’ so I’m not neglecting my doctor’s orders.

I did have a nightmare-esq dream this morning. I guess it was a stress dream, though it didn’t leave me stressed. It was a basic zombie apocalypse. Slow Romero-types, no rotting, just white faces and black circles under the eyes. For the first time in this scenario (Yes, I’ve had that dream many times). I was with my husband. We were leaving my old church, where the outbreak was spreading. We decided to head home and get some supplies, then head north to where it was less populous. My best friend from High School was in town (she currently lives in Iowa), at Great Lakes Crossing. Bahamute and I agreed, we needed to go save her, since a mall is the WORST place to be.

I talked to her on my cell phone, learning she was at the Pita Jungle for lunch when everything happened (it was where the Rainforest Café is now. The Pita Jungle is actually the nearest restaurant to Amy’s Baking Company. So there’s that). As I assured her we were coming, we started downhill on Cass Lake Road by the middle school. The road was a sheer cliff, zombies and redwood sized trees littering the road, but not blocking us. Bahamute and I screamed, but we got through.

Then we were at the mall. Zombies everywhere, shopping, listening to motivational seminars, EVERYTHING! We took an elevator (only two undead shoppers there, eyeing us), and found my friend. We tiptoed through the mall, acting like zombies and trying to get supplies.

I woke then, a little upset, but not stressed. I recently watched ‘Return of the Living Dead’ (hilarious) and ‘Doc of the Dead’ (informative), so Zombies in my sleep is an explainable phenomenon. Waking up without feeling like shit is relatively new. So is being at work unmediated (I’ve been on the drug just over a week today).

Seven hours to go. Will the constrictor attack, or will I make it through my day clear-headed? I have no idea. Wish me luck, future readers!
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This was written the same day I started the incident logs. I will not be skipping meds again. Even a cloudless day can turn into a hellstorm.

God, I feel like a fool.