laguera25: Dug from UP! (Default)
( Oct. 5th, 2012 02:32 am)
I just finished watching Jaws. I'd forgotten just how much fun it is, and what a perfect film it is for sitting in the dark with a bowl of popcorn. Robert Shaw might have been a hopeless drunk, but he made that movie, especially in the scene wherein he recounts the fate of the U.S.S. Indianapolis' doomed crew. Richard Dreyfuss' face by the end of that scene is priceless.

I'm picking more movies for my month-long celebration of Halloween. The big guns--Halloween, Friday the 13th, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre(the original version)--are for the final few days, but I need to fill out the rest of the schedule. Bubba Ho-tep, Trilogy of Terror, maybe a handful of zombie flicks or Evil Dead. Definitely some Scooby-Doo. If I want to scare the shit out of myself, I could always pop in the American version of The Ring and live in terror of my television for several weeks.
I found these through [livejournal.com profile] sf_drama's creepypasta Halloween post and thought I would share them. They're a pair of short films by a team of independent filmmakers.

Cleansed. Warnings for blood and references to domestic violence. A crime-scene cleaner enters the site of a horrific murder and finds more than blood on the walls.

Bedfellows. No warnings here, just a creep factor of ten. Have fun sleeping tonight.

These same filmmakers have an entire Youtube channel full of these films. Some of them are mediocre, but a few of them pack a wallop.

For Halloween films of the feature-length variety, I recommend these:

-the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This film has an undeserved reputation as a gorefest, but aside from a few scenes, there is very little blood or gore. This movie isn't a splatter flick; it's an unrepentant mindfuck, and there are parts so disturbing that to dwell on them for long invites a bout of the screaming memes.

-the original Halloween. The later sequels devolved into hokum, but the first two are unnerving. Houses and hospitals are supposed to be sanctuaries, but they're not.

-Session 9. Oh, dear God. A deeply-unsettling picture that raises the question of internal versus external evil. If Gordon wasn't insane when he went into the asylum, he was when he came out.

-The Blair Witch Project. Yes, the acting was often histrionic, but the symbols in the woods and the final scene were so haunting that I slept with the lights on for a week after my first viewing.

-the American version of The Ring. The TV. Oh, God, the TV.

For more child-friendly fun, you can't go wrong with Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island or Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost.

For a scary read, I recommend ""Lunch at the Gotham Cafe". Eeeeeee. Eeeeeee.
laguera25: Dug from UP! (Default)
( Oct. 4th, 2011 12:07 am)
The Yellow Wallpaper

Just a little treat with which to kick off the Halloween season.
laguera25: Dug from UP! (Default)
( Oct. 4th, 2011 12:06 am)
The Yellow Wallpaper

Just a little treat with which to kick off the Halloween season.
laguera25: Dug from UP! (Default)
( Oct. 31st, 2009 09:13 pm)
Halloween was as gloriously tranquil and uninterrupted as I'd hoped. No panhandling kiddies to interrupt my immersion in manufactured grue. I watched Shutter and that old holiday favorite, the original Halloween. Watching Michael Myers dispatch grating, unlikeable teens like so much indiscriminately fornicating knife fodder never gets old. It's like putting on a flannel nightgown and some tatty slippers and shuffling around the house while you scratch that bothersome spot just above the crack of your ass. It's homey, and I know that's odd given the subject matter of the film, but it's so much a part of the pop culture fabric of my life that I can't imagine a Halloween without it.

Shutter was remarkably good, a quietly tense story that was atmospheric and creepy without bogging down in belabored eeriness like The Grudge did. Most American remakes of Japanese horror films lack the building unease of the original because the director becomes bedazzled by the high-gloss matte finish present in so much of American films. They substitute star power for substance. This, however, was a refreshing instance of the remake capturing the spirit of the original while making it accessible to an American audience. Well worth the Wal-mart bargain bin price tag.

Prom Night 2009 was an absolute snorefest, so ploddingly wretched that I'm tempted to write the production company and studio responsible and demand a refund. What a bland, flaccid travesty. Ninety minutes of Jonathan Schaech ineffectually dry-humping pathetically gargling scream queens with the blunted pointed of his prop knife. ZZzzzz.

Still, candy and two out of three ain't bad. Happy Halloween.
The elders of the Sooper Sekrit Crip Cabal have located my exam and delivered it unto my instructor, so there be one crisis averted. I'm sure three more will wing their way to my doorstep before the semester ends. In the meantime, I have a response blurb to write on Waiting for the Barbarians for Wednesday. Huzzah!

As for tomorrow, it is my tentative plan to watch S4 of The X-Files tomorrow, or a few movies from my formidable horror flick stash. For a good scare, might I recommend Session 9? It's a little-known Canadian indie that stars David Caruso, but it's disturbing as hell. Or The Blair Witch Project. Yes, it was overacted in places, but its use of setting and imagery scared the ever-loving shit out of me, and my Roomie can attest to the fact that I slept with the light on or not at all for a week after the first viewing.

This sounds horribly uncharitable, but I'm hoping there aren't many trick-or-treaters tomorrow. There's no bigger moodbreaker while watching horror movies than to be interrupted by some sticky-fingered, diaper-dragging child panhandling for candy. I don't keep candy in the house often, and when I do, you can bet your sweet ass it's for me. Call me Scrooge, but I have no inclination to dole out free sugar crack to the same rude little cretins who point at me on the bus in between bouts of noisy mouth-breathing, and if I were to do so, it would be laced with Ex-Lax.

...

Not really. I'm too cheap to buy brand name. Maybe Smooth Move instead.

It's a shame I've gotten so cynical. The kids in my complex are cute-tiny Asian toddlers smaller than the bags they're holding out. It's the older kids from the surrounding neighborhood that bother me. Most of them are too old to be begging for candy, and they're snotty entitlement whores. You give them Smarties or Hershey bars, they bitch it's not what they wanted or not enough. Well, kiss my asymmetrical ass, you sniveling shit. You want Blo-Pops? Pony up yourself or find another door. Asswipes.

...

Whew.

In less cantankerous news, I received my prompt for [livejournal.com profile] spn_holidays and will hop to it as soon as Mac has had his say.
Tomorrow is Halloween, which means my fortress in the alcove will be beset by hordes of sticky-fingered children demanding teeth-rotting goodness. Unfortunately for the younglings, what little candy there is in the apartment is for my future dental woes, please and thank you. Besides, Pearson's Nips and Dum Dums are hardly the tres chic of the toddler set.

The wheelchair tinkerer cometh tomorrow to pimp my ride fix my chair seat, back, and arms. WOOT! My poor drayhorse gets a well-deserved upgrade, bless it. Now when I go out in public, I won't feel like Hobocrip, with the denuded, padless armrests and the frayed seat back and the seat dripping toxic spooge with every butt squish.

I shudder to think of the inevitable bill for such extravagance, because I have no doubt Medicare will claim such things as a functional seat and a back sling not hanging by a thread and a prayer are "luxuries" and insist they are not covered because I don't "need" safe medical equipment. I just need some duct tape and a tetanus shot, Sparky.

And lastly, only on the Internet could I find words strung together in this precise order:

Not horrifically fappy, as wanks go but the Bible-bonking fundy-fapgasm on the part of the OP...

I love you, Internet.
Bupkus going on today. I'm only posting so I don't fall out of the habit. Fall is finally settling in here, and the thirteen crates of British tea [livejournal.com profile] aculeatus sent for my birthday will serve me in good stead as the temperatures plummet and my feet freeze and turn alarming shades of blue and purple. I'm sipping some now, in fact.

Four days before Halloween, and once again, there has been a dearth of Halloween programming. AMC has its Monsterfest, and Sci-Fi is doing its best, but the networks are a bust. At least I have a treasure trove of DVDs that will fill the bill wonderfully.

When I was a kid, Halloween was a cause celebre. The stores had costumes and decorations out the wazoo, the schools had parties, and TV was rife with slasher flicks and spooky tales. I never went trick-or-treating because my mother was too busy trying to keep her tenuous grip on her sanity and the bills, and even if she hadn't been, there was always the looming threat of razors in the apples and cyanide in the candy. Plus, there weren't that many costume selections for those who came with wheels. Personally, I think I would have made a ripping tea trolley.

Even though I never participated, I enjoyed the vicarious thrill of knowing that they were happening, that there were scary movies to be watched. It was the last deep breath before the mad rush and commercialism of Christmas. There was something organic about Halloween, a recollection of the shared past that resonated in the bones and made you want to gather around a fire and swap scary stories or go exploring in the graveyards when the moon was high.

Now, we jump from summer to Holiday Shopping Season, and it sucks. I want my ghouls and goblins and wee, leggedy beasties. I want to spend a night or four peering fretfully over the covers and wondering just what is lying in wait beneath my bed. I want Pumpkin Jack and the Bell Witch and Springheel Jack, the Jersey Devil and Bloody Mary.

Where did they all go, and who stole them? Humorless, unimaginative cunts. Being a child was usually a miserable, terrifying lesson in "for your own good". Halloween was one of the bright spots.

I wouldn't be a child now for all the tea in China.



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Watched World's Scariest Places marathon on ABC Family. For those not in the know, was short-lived series in 2001, hosted by Linda Blair. Boasted the narration work of Zelda Rubenstein, AKA That Creepy Lady From The Poltergeist Movies, and Alan Robson, who insofar as I can tell, is renowned British radio host and certified exorcist.

Premise of show very simple. ABC lures American family with large ego, little brain, and penchant for mugging to cameras to ancient site purported to be infested with evil spirits. Dobson relates unsavory history of site to pea-brained family, leaving out crucial tidbit about the special effects crew and their machinations, arms family with night-vision camera and a boatload of subliminal suggestion, and sets them loose in house of horrors. Family proceeds to jump at shadows and odd bumps, recite ridiculous incantations written by drug-addled toddler in chemotherapy stupor, and make asses of selves for our viewing pleasure.

Inevitably, family host to one female member with fortitude of pudding, who will dissolve into hysterical tears at the flap of a curtain. Thus, rest of group must spend entirety of night pandering to the sniveling whims of Britney the Cowardly Tart and rescuing her from the soul-crushing menace of an open window or Zelda Rubenstein crouching in a cornice and waving booga-booga sticks. Sniveler screams, family displays patience of Job, and producers hunkered in truck outside snigger all the way to the ratings cellar.

Now, cannot deny that if were taken to place like Principato de Lucedio, would end up Scoobying underneath the nearest table, ass in breeze like turkey in shakepole fence, but would never be stupid enough to muck about there in first place because I understand that there are such things as Bad Places, and my love of Mammon not so great that will prod restless, angry spirits with sharp, pointy Nielsen stick.

Have also learned that Linda Blair slowly morphing into Crypt Keeper.

World's Scariest Places better than crack.



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