Month: October 2009

Trigger Treat!

~ lobablanca
We've opted not to dress up this Halloween.
We've opted not to dress up this Halloween.

One of my favorite vignettes from my dad’s childhood is his first Halloween. Because he was dressed as a cowboy, he thought he was supposed to knock on people’s doors and say, “Trigger Treat” rather than “Trick or Treat.” Apparently, he thought he was Roy Rogers that night…and if none of this makes any sense to you whatsoever, all I can say is welcome to my brain.

Anywho. HAPPY HALLOWEEN, denizens! No matter what your plans are for this festively festering holiday, I hope you have a howling great time! As for your lupine mistress, I’m opting for a quiet evening in with the Collective. We shall be viewing one of our favorite horror movies. We simply haven’t decided which one that will be just yet. But we can assure you that it will be one of the films from the following list of Loba’s Most Viewed Scary Movies.

Perhaps a few on this list might feel worn out and trite. I will be the first to admit that there are a few that I stopped watching after a while, simply because so many other movies began copying their style and they lost their horror-ific appeal. However, once the unforgiving glare of Hollywood hype and imitation dies away, the originals always rise once more, like the ever-resilient undead rising from the boggy swamps to feed once more on tasty, tasty brains.

This list is in alphabetical order since there’s no way that I could put them in order of love (I love them all so very much), but I had to put them in some kind of order. The Collective craves order, you know. Also, you may note that some of the movies that I have already claimed to love are not on this list. These would include The Exorcist, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Pet Sematary, and Poltergeist. Both because of the fact that I’ve already discussed them at length before and because they are each must-see classics of the genre (yeah, I’d even put Pet Sematary in this class if only because of its campy, crusty goodness), I’ve left them off this list. That should in no way be inferred as me disparaging them in any way. In fact, if you haven’t seen any of these movies, ignore the following list and take care of watching these first. That’s an order.

Oh, one more thing…there are no bloody remakes here. I’m a strong believer of the “If it ain’t broke…back the hell off” mindset, especially when it comes to the movies on this list. The originals are inimitable and irreplaceable.

  1. Black Christmas
    • This 1974 Canadian import has all the marks of a really cheesy slasher flick: It takes place in a sorority, with a bunch of giggly, jiggly drinking girls. It’s got an over-the-top villain who likes to make obscene phone calls to said girls. It also utilizes a twist toward the end that, without revealing what it is, has been used again and again in so many horror movies. Oh, and the ending itself…I love horror movies that end like this one did. The one thing that this movie has that all its imitators don’t is the fact that all these things that sound like horror movie cliches were new and original for Black Christmas, which is considered to be the first “slasher” movie to hit the genre with all its blood-soaked gory…er, glory. Look for Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder, and a surprisingly dramatic Andrea Martin. Plus, John Saxon shows up as “The Helpful Cop,” a role that he will make even more famous to the genre when he returns as Nancy Thompson’s cop dad in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Here’s the original trailer. Personally, I think this trailer gives away too much and really doesn’t do the movie much justice.
  2. The Blair Witch Project
    • What I love most about this movie is the fact that so many people were convinced that it was real. This is one of the earliest “mockumentary” films that I can remember. I also love that this was filmed right here in Maryland. Finally, something good comes from the Old Line State! Yes, the actors who star in it hit the “overact” button way too often, and that detracts a bit, but look beyond that and you will find a fundamentally sound and strong and truly terrifying story. And it’s all presented without ever showing you a thing. Sometimes it’s all about atmosphere, and that’s the key word for this gem. The only really negative thing I can say about it, beyond the acting and the still-sour taste of its overdrive hyping, is that it can make you nauseous if you get easily jarred by frenetic motion. My advice is to pop some Dramamine and settle in for a great, old-fashioned scary campfire tale.

    Blair Witch Bonus: In 1999, the Cartoon Network put together the following bumpers that they played during commercial breaks for their 25-hour Scooby Doo marathon. Someone pieced together all the bumpers for “The Scooby Doo Project” and placed them on YouTube, much to my Scooby-loving delight. Hope you enjoy, too!

  3. Candyman
    • I had a difficult time deciding which Clive Barker movie I wanted on this list. I love Hellraiser and I think that Pinhead is one of the most loquacious villains to ever come from the dark underworld. But Candyman is like no other. Set in Chicago’s Cabrini Green projects, this movie dares to present us with possibly the first (and only?) horror movie villain to arise from a completely urban setting. Freddy, Jason, Michael…these guys all hang in the ‘burbs or at summer camps. But Candyman rises from areas that most would stamp with phrases like “slum” or “urban blight.” His story, in another genre, would be filled with pathos and tenderness. In this setting, Barker turns him into a silver-tongued slayer, whose silken tones capture and hypnotize his prey into a willingness to “be my victim.” Plus, Tony Todd is quite simply made of awesome. Without him as the eponymous “writing on the wall…whisper in the classroom,” I don’t think this movie would have been nearly as wonderful as it was.
  4. Carnival of Souls
    • This 1962 classic is the only Hollywood-level feature film ever made by director Herk Harvey. He made mostly documentary and educational films for Centron Productions in Lawrence, Kansas. While coming back from a shoot in California, he passed by the abandoned remains of Saltair, an amusement pavilion built in 1894 on the banks of Salt Lake in Utah. He was so fascinated by the image of this place against the dusk sky that when he got back to Lawrence, he asked Centron coworker John Clifford to write him a script that would end with “a dance of the dead” at this abandoned pavilion. The end result is one of my all-time favorite horror movies. Starring Candace Hilligoss as organist Mary Henry and Harvey himself as “The Man,” this movie builds a perfectly chilling atmosphere. There are no budget-breaking special effects or CGI freak-outs. But that’s the beauty of this movie: It lives as testament that you can make an absolutely enthralling and chilling film with no bells or whistles. Just some awesome organ music and an abandoned amusement park.
  5. Halloween
    • The ultimate cliche, no? Recommending Halloween for Halloween viewing? Pay no attention to the sequels or the remakes. They can only serve to detract from what I think is one of the greatest horror movies ever made. In fact, I would place this at nearly the top of my list. Together, John Carpenter and Debra Hill wrote a solid, satisfyingly scary script, which Carpenter brought to life in high cinematic style. He may have been on the ultimate of shoestring budgets when he was filming, but you sure can’t tell by looking at it. He knew the dimensions of his shots better than most directors, and he utilized every inch of the frame to full and frightening effect. One of my absolute favorite scenes from this movie is a perfect example of this talent and involves nothing more than two of the actors, a darkened hallway and a blue light bulb. Michael Myers is without a doubt my favorite “boogeyman” and the fact that he wears a slightly altered Captain Kirk mask throughout makes him even more awesome. Plus, you can witness Jamie Lee Curtis’s birth as “The Scream Queen.” As for the remake that wanted to “explore the makings of Michael Myers,” there’s no need. Dr. Loomis explains it to us perfectly: “I met him 15 years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this 6-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes… the Devil’s eyes. I spent 8 years trying to reach him, and then another 7 trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply…evil.” Good enough for me, Doc.
  6. The Haunting
    • If all you’ve ever seen is the 1999 remake of this movie, I’m so very sorry. If ever there was a reason why Hollywood shouldn’t attempt to remake a classic, that piece of fecal crust is my prime example. It defiles the name of a double-hitter joy for me: An exquisitely executed horror movie based on one of my favorite scary novels. Director Robert Wise bought the rights for the story after reading Shirley Jackson’s novel, The Haunting of Hill House, and later met with the author to discuss how she envisioned this story being brought to life on the screen. She is in fact the one who told him that one of the original titles she considered for her novel was the abbreviated “The Haunting.” What makes this movie work so well for me is the cinematography. Wise creates palpable atmosphere (I keep using that word in all these reviews! Atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere! Trumps blood and gore any day) with skewed camera angles, close-ups, twisting imagery, haunting establishing shots, all surrounding the eeriest effing house you can imagine. Even if you aren’t frightened by the story itself, I’d urge anyone interested in filmmaking to check this out to observe how master directors roll. Literally and figuratively.
  7. Identity
    • “As I was going up the stair / I met a man who wasn’t there. / He wasn’t there again today / I wish, I wish he’d go away.” This is admittedly an odd pick, and not one that stands up to multiple viewings. I was going to place The Sixth Sense here for the “twist at the end” film, but I decided that was too predictable. So here instead is this 2003 offering with its fairly impressive cast, including John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, Alfred Molina, Rebecca De Mornay, Clea DuVall, John C. McGinley, Jake Busey, and Pruitt Taylor Vince, who has made quite an impressive career out of his nystagmus (it’s a condition that causes your eyes to shift involuntarily). I love the big reveal at the end and still think that it was quite clever. But, like The Sixth Sense, you can only watch this one once for the scares. Any additional viewings will be just because you enjoy the story…which I do. It also sports one of the best “final lines” for any antagonist, which I quote quite frequently. What that says about me is fully up to interpretation.
  8. Scream
    • This one is a purely nostalgic pick for me. Anyone from my generation who grew up on a steady diet of horror movies will love this movie. Kevin Williamson created a smart, sharp, and genre-reverential wonder with this script. There are so many references to classic horror movies…Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Psycho, When a Stranger Calls, The Exorcist, Friday the 13th and much, much more…it’s a cornucopia of horror movie goodness, to be sure. Add to that some incredibly quotable lines throughout, pitch-perfect performances, and a musical cue near the beginning that will spell everything out for you if you’re paying close enough attention, and you have a recipe for a movie that I have watched almost as many times as the next film on my list.
  9. Silence of the Lambs
    • “Tell me, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?” Want to see the inspiration for Dana Scully? Even better, want to see my favorite Jodie Foster movie AND one of my favorite scary movies? Then pop in this 1991 gem from Jonathan Demme. Based on Thomas Harris’s second “Hannibal Lecter” book (although he was merely a bit player in Red Dragon), this movie is the only horror movie to ever win an Academy Award for Best Picture (it’s also in good company since only genre alums The Exorcist and Jaws have received nominations). I don’t even know how many times I’ve watched this movie, but I know that it’s well into the double digits by now. It is one of those perfect storm experiences: Amazing screenplay by Ted Tally; Oscar-winning directing by Demme; and brutally beautiful performance by EVERYONE, least of all being Foster, Anthony Hopkins (both of whom also won Oscars for this film), and Scott Glenn.
  10. What Lies Beneath
    • One of my favorite directors is Robert Zemeckis. He’s responsible for bringing some of my favorite movies to life, including Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Death Becomes Her (seriously, when are you ever going to release a special edition of this one, Robert? My patience is wearing thin…), Forrest Gump, Contact…all visually breathtaking movies in which he pushed the limits of the technological capabilities in the best possible ways. So is the case with this tale. I view this as one of the few horror movies in which the CGI and special effects are used in beautifully subtle ways, never drowning out the story but rather enhancing it in all the right ways. Bottom line: This is how horror movies should utilize CGI. Not as a fill-in for the fact that you don’t actually have a story to tell, but rather as ways to make your already scary story even more jump-inducing. Besides, how can you go wrong with Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer?

So there you go. I hope there’s something here that you might like to see. If not, then I will now direct you to my friend weathereye. He’s a horror hound as well, and he’s been running a Black October feature on his blog in which he’s reviewed a scary movie a day. If you can’t find something either here or at the Weather Station, then I don’t really know what to tell you 😉

I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween. Now, please excuse me. Turner Classic Movies is running a marathon of classic horror movies. I believe right now I have an appointment with The Abominable Dr. Phibes…

Flashback Friday: “You’re Home Early”

~ lobablanca

Please note that names and associations have been disguised to protect those who still don’t believe me 😉

So I’d like to think I’m a fairly level-headed individual, regardless of how much time I spend indulging my more fantastical pastimes. However, I also acknowledge that my imagination can sometimes get a bit carried away. Whether this incident is such an occasion or not, I’m still not sure. All I do know is that it still sends shivery currents through me whenever I think about it.

One summer during my misspent youth, I stayed with relatives in their always lovely house that made lots of lovely noises. Things were always…settling. Floorboards would pop and shift with the cycling of the HVAC unit, keeping up an almost steady symphony of creaking. This creeped me out the first few days of my stay, but after a while I got used to it and I learned to tell the difference between this temperature-induced shifting and the more substantial creak caused by physical weight.

So on this particular day, I was in the kitchen unloading the dishwasher. As I remember, it was around 1 or 2 in the afternoon, and I was the only person inside the house at the time. I could see the two others who were home with me outside in the backyard.

At the time, the house was outfitted with an alarm system that ran sensors to the doors and windows so that whenever one was opened, it would activate an electronic chime. I heard one of these chimes, coming from the region of the basement where one of the doors that led to the yard and the door for the garage were located. I looked up and saw that both people were still outside. Since they were in the yard near the back door, I figured they would have noticed someone coming in that way, so I assumed the chime was to the garage door.

A few seconds later, I heard the creak of someone walking up the stairs, with a pause on the split foyer before continuing up to the floor where I was. Again, I knew that the stairs sounded a particular way when someone walked up them, and this was definitely that sound. I also recognized the pause before continuing upstairs as similar to the daily ritual of, let’s call this person AB, coming in from work and stopping on the split foyer to hang up her bag and keys before continuing upstairs.

Logically, therefore, I assumed that what I was hearing was AB coming home early. I also assumed that she must have heard the others outside and thought that I was with them, which was why she wasn’t saying anything. I remember calling out her name and saying, “You’re home early.”

Rather than a response, I heard the creaking continue down the hall toward the bedrooms. Again, though, this was what AB always did: came home, dropped off her stuff, and went to the back to change. She must not have heard me, so I just continued putting away dishes.

When I finished about 10 minutes later, the others were still outside, so I decided that I’d join them. I looked down the hall, thinking that I would shout that I was heading outside, but I noticed that the bedroom door was open. I called out AB’s name. Nothing. So I walked down, thinking maybe she was in the bathroom or the en suite.

I don’t think I can properly explain the feeling when I got to the end of the hall and realized that no one was down there…not even the family dog, which was outside with the others. I remember the physical sensation was a sudden sweatiness combined with chills. Plus, there was the flip-floppy feeling of riding a roller coaster going on inside, but without the intermingled fun feeling. This most definitely was not what I would deem fun. Still, I persisted in believing that I wasn’t hearing things. I called out for AB one more time. Still nothing. I went into the room, looked into the en suite and bathroom. Empty. I checked the other bedrooms, but I already knew I wasn’t going to find anyone.

Needless to say, I hauled ass outside as quickly as I could. I went out through the front door and circled around the long way so that I could pass the garage. The door was down and when I looked inside, there were no cars.

I didn’t go back inside by myself the rest of that day.

I’ve always wondered about the extent of our mental abilities, what the untapped regions of our brains are actually capable of conjuring. Could I have subconsciously picked up on a noise that made me think AB was home, and my brain just continued filling in the noises that I expected to hear?

Or maybe AB was at work wishing she was at home, and that somehow triggered these phantom noises in the house, mimicking what she wished she was actually doing? Or was I simply imagining it all? Letting slip loose the reins on my imagination and conjuring a scene that plays out all the time in the scary movies that I love so much?

I still don’t know. Not long after this incident, I had another unsettling experience in this house. Again, I was alone. This time I was sitting in the living room. I had just put in a VHS recording of Dune. From my position on the couch, the previously mentioned hallway was to my left. It was a dull, drizzly day, so the house was darker than usual. I had on one of the table lamps, but there were no other lights on upstairs.

About 10 minutes into the movie, I noticed a flicker of something to my left. I didn’t pay it much attention, though, until I noticed it again a few minutes later. I looked down the hall. Nothing but darkness. Maybe another 10 minutes went by and I noticed the flicker again. I looked down the hall…and now there was light coming from the first bedroom.

Again the sweaty chills. The first encounter still unnervingly fresh in my mind, I decided I wasn’t going to pay attention to this little “issue.” I went back to watching the movie, but I noted the flicker of the light going out a few minutes later.

When it clicked on again, I decide that I needed to figure out what was going on (if this was actually a horror movie, I’d obviously not be the character who survives to the end). I walked into the room, which was of course empty, and saw that the light was coming from a nightlight next to the bed. I checked the plug, thinking that it was maybe loose. Nope, didn’t seem to be. So I turned off the light by its switch…and then unplugged it. Just to be on the safe side.

I went back out into the living room, where the dog was still sleeping on the love seat like she’d been ever since I started the movie. Aren’t dogs supposed to get excited in the presence of something paranormal? She barely registered my return, so I decided that I was just letting my imagination get the better of me again. I moved to the end of the couch closest to the loveseat and sat angled so that I could see the hallway and the stairs that were right next to the living room. I watched the rest of the movie, but I think I was watching the hall more. To this day, when I think of Dune, I think of that afternoon. However, I can’t tell you a damn thing about the movie itself.

Later, I told AB that I thought the plug on that nightlight might be faulty and explained what had happened. They checked it out, it seemed to work fine. Never flickered on and off again as far as I know.

I’ve been in this house many, many times since that summer. I’ve even stayed there alone a few times since then. The settling noises can still leave me feeling unsettled every now and then, but nothing like these two experiences has ever happened to me since.

AB still scoffs at me when I talk about these incidents. But it’s that kind of scoff that leaves me with the impression that she’s seen or heard things there that she wasn’t quite certain of either. Isn’t that right? 😉

Pre-Halloween Treat

~ lobablanca
Okay, who's sewing this back on for me?!
Okay, who's sewing this back on for me?!

I’ve got something in the works for the main event (nothing major, so don’t get your undies too bunched), but here’s a little pre-Halloween treat of a recommendation for you: Drag Me To Hell. Or as I’d like to call it, Button, Button, Who’s Cursed the Button?

Loba loves scary movies. For this reason, Loba loves Sam Raimi. He, Wes Craven, Tobe Hooper, and John Carpenter helped to pretty much define the horror genre that I grew to love as a wee pup in the 80s. Many of my favorite movies, in fact, come from this phantasmagorical collection of directors.

Raimi hasn’t really focused on horror in quite a while…unless others out there were as horrified by Spider-Man 3 as I was, then I retract this statement completely. However, his last “real” scary movie was 2000’s The Gift, which for some reason didn’t make much of a mark in my memory. I remember that it stars Cate Blanchett and features Keanu Reeves playing a bit of a dickish character, but that’s about all I can give you without looking it up.

Then, of course, he became tangled in spinning the massive web of the Spider-Man mythology. He slammed it out of the park with parts 1 and 2, but after 3 maybe even he realized that it was time to cleanse his directorial palate of the taste of radioactive spiders.

And so he came back home to his horror roots.

[Actually, though, if he’d come back to his “roots,” he would have done yet another movie about a group of friends finding evil in a secluded cabin in the woods. Seriously, Sam, how many more times are you going to do this idea? No disrespect, but Bruce is getting a bit too old to keep whipping out his boomstick for you.]

Back on track: Drag Me To Hell is nothing less than exquisite. If you dig watching a classic horror-style revenge story unfold in classic Raimi style (meaning lots of bone rattles and over-the-top grossness held together by ridiculously well-timed moments of Raimi’s trademark gallows humor), you simply have to watch this movie. I can’t think of one thing from this movie that I didn’t adore (although there were a couple of scenes that left me a bit green around the gills…the “face gumming” suffered by our heroine left me feeling extremely grossed out).

Also, the audio is spot-on chilling. I don’t think any other movie has ever made the rusty screech of a swinging gate so utterly terrifying. I also have to say that the “pwink” sound of a staple coming loose during a particularly tense scene was a wonderfully funny post-production touch.

I want to say so much more about this movie, gush like a little fan girl about my favorite moments…but I want you all to go out and watch it for yourselves to discover the squee-inducing glee that I discovered. It’s been a long time since I saw a horror movie that delighted me as much as this one did. Raimi proves that he can still make us jump and laugh just like the old days, even without Bruce Campbell’s assistance (although other Raimi trademarks are present, including his brother Ted and that freakin’ pimp Oldsmobile Delta 88…where the hell does he keep that road boat in between movies?!). So check it out, see if it makes you as happy as it made me.

Now, all I can hope is that Raimi’s next scary movie isn’t Spider-Man 4…

Dead Guy in a Little Coat

~ lobablanca

It’s not a new thing for companies to resurrect deceased actors to plug their merchandise. Fred Astaire came back for one more dance…with Dirt Devil cleaners. His Funny Face co-star Audrey Hepburn was reanimated for some dancing as well, to advertise skinny black pants for GAP. And, as if their beer wasn’t reason enough to stay away from them, Coors did the ultimate in tacky by bringing back The Duke to hawk Coors Light. Really, guys? Do you think Marion Morrison would drink your skunky light beer?

But this latest one? It made my soul shrink a little bit from the sheer misery of it all.

What. The. Hell.

It’s one level of tacky to bring back long-gone actors for some forced product shilling. But Chris Farley has barely been gone more than a decade. Never mind too tacky…isn’t this simply WAY too soon? And David Spade? We all know that you pretty much lost your meal ticket when Chris died, but this really nailed that fact home in a huge, ugly way. You’re still riding his gravy train, man, and now it’s not just sad…it’s sick.

I love Tommy Boy. I think it’s one of the greatest movies to come from a former SNL cast member. Chris Farley was a brilliant physical comedian with demons far larger than even he could tackle. But what he left behind still makes me laugh (and occasionally cry out “Holy Schnike!”). To see his work reduced to nothing more than background noise to Spade’s Direct TV spiel? To quote Tommy Boy, “Richard, what’s happening?!”

50BC09: Book Number 37

~ lobablanca

agahc

Poor George Davies. He’s got a big problem…and I’m not talking about the fictional one described within the pages of my latest read. No, little Georgie has a bigger problem than that. He’s got the problem of the inevitable comparison to Regan MacNeil. You all know Regan, right? Little girl who lives over in Georgetown with her mom? Green pallor? Bit of a chiropractic challenge? Doesn’t like split pea soup, but really likes crucifixes? Yeah…kind of a hard act to follow on amateur night, that’s for sure.

Truthfully, though, it’s not completely fair to compare Justin Evans’s debut novel, A Good and Happy Child, to William Peter Blatty’s unnerving horror masterpiece, The Exorcist. Hell, it isn’t even really all that fair to have a link to Blatty’s book embedded in this review of Evans’s novel. But it is what it is.

The Exorcist happens to be one of my favorite horror novels. It’s also one of the few novels that I’ve actually had to put down while reading, because the overload it was causing to my way-too-active imagination was more than I could stand. It’s also become my own diamond standard for any possession novel I have read since (before you even ask, no, I haven’t read that many…I’m not that demented). So it was with A Good and Happy Child.

While Evans’s novel is nowhere near as atmospheric or frightening as Blatty’s, it holds its own fairly capably. The novel becomes even more impressive when you learn that this is Evans’s debut book. Not bad for his first time at bat. Plus, it’s not quite as straightforward as you might at first assume. There aren’t many sharp-edged twists, but rather slow, sloping curves that obfuscate your view of what’s ahead just enough to make the reveal around the bend delightfully unnerving.

Admittedly, I was hoping for something a bit more frightening since All Hallow’s Eve doth approach, and I do loves me some scariness. Also, there were several moments throughout the story in which I could sense that certain events and revelations were coming simply from the setup. I think that’s less the fault of the author and more the result of a lifetime of gorging myself on Stephen King and Nightmare Theater. All that being said, as its own story, separate from the inevitable comparisons to Blatty and others from its genre, A Good and Happy Child was a mostly satisfying read that will keep you awake at night if only because you want to keep reading to find out what happens next.

Final score: 3/5. I give Evans an extra half point for coming out of the gate with a strong, entertaining first try. It won’t chill you to the marrow like Blatty’s story can, but it’s a great start to his literary career.

Flashback Friday: Audition

~ lobablanca

Have you ever seen a movie that makes you squirm from the sheer wrongness of its existence? No? Then you have obviously never seen Takashi Miike’s 1999 movie Audition.

This was my first taste of real Japanese horror. I had already seen the American remakes of Ju-on and Ringu, but not their original counterparts. The Grudge was mediocre, but The Ring rattled my bones enough that I wanted to see something more, something original to Japanese horror that we hadn’t attempted to copy yet. Netflix recommended this and another movie, Ichi the Killer. I chose this.

All I can say is that if you can watch this movie in its entirety without feeling the tendrils of abject terror and nausea grip you at least once, then you are made of a constitution far steelier than any I could imagine. Removing the fact that the story separate from the horror elements is highly disturbing, this is one effed-up movie, its horror smashing into you in wave after wave of stomach-churning imagery. The burlap bag. The bowl. The acupuncture needles. The final 15 minutes alone were enough to leave me far paler than my usual Irish pallor.

Shiver.

Will I ever watch this movie again? To paraphrase the great Whitney Houston, “Oh, hell to the no.” I didn’t even want to re-watch the trailer for this posting. Will I ever watch Ichi the Killer? I’m thinking that’s a big no as well. Then why on earth am I writing about Audition? Think of it as Loba’s personal version of The Ring: By passing along the terror and the nausea to you all, I’m cleansing my soul of some seriously deranged karmic damage.

Sorry about that. But, to be honest, I’d rather find Samara Morgan hiding out in my closet any day of the week over ever having a run-in with Asami Yamazaki and her burlap bag or her bowl full of…well…you’ll have to watch the movie to find that one out…

Totally Looks Like, Loba Geek Edition

~ lobablanca

Have you ever visited the site Totally Looks Like? It’s one of the blogs associated with FAILblog.org, which I love and link to on the right.

I’m willing to bet, at some point in Totally Looks Like’s history, someone has pointed out the following:

pn_km

Tell me that Patricia Neal doesn’t look like she could be Kate Mulgrew’s mother? Maybe Captain Janeway got her love of space travel from listening to all those wild stories about Klaatu and his robot Gort…

Want an even more obscure comparison? Okay, how about this one:

ch_ta

The woman on the left is Candace Hilligoss, who stars in one of my all-time favorite horror movies, Carnival of Souls. On the right is, of course, Tori Amos. The really ironic thing about this similarity is that Hilligoss plays an organist in Carnival of Souls, which is a lovely comparison to Tori’s piano skillz.

Okay, that’s all I really wanted to say. Please go back to your regularly scheduled normalcy 🙂

Great Talent, Greater Heart

~ lobablanca

songsforjenny

I’m very lucky to have some incredibly talented ImagiFriendsTM. I come now to praise the efforts of one such talent. His name is Tony and he’s a rockin’ musician/poet/podcaster from the Land of 10,000 Lakes (and a million mosquitoes).

Last year, Tony’s sister Jenny passed away from ALS, “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.” To honor his sister’s life and strength, Tony gathered together some ultra-fine musicians from around the world and created a tribute CD, Songs for Jenny. I’ve been listening to my copy for several days now. I’m listening to it right now, actually. It’s a tight collection of songs that weaves a beautiful pastiche of love, hope, honor, and remembering.

Even greater is the fact that all the proceeds from the sale of this CD will go to the ALS Association of Minnesota, to help further research that will hopefully one day find a cure for this disease.

So, enough of my blathering. Head on over to SongsforJenny.com and order your own copy. You’ll be buying what I can assure you is a great compilation of music and you’ll be giving money to a very worthy cause…double karma points, my friends.

Flashback Supplemental: The Haunted Boy of Cottage City

~ lobablanca

Looking back, I’m a bit disappointed in my last Flashback Friday. I was a bit off my game that evening, and what I ended up posting was nowhere near what I was hoping it would be. True, it was fun to reminisce about these books, but since most people are never going to be able to get their hands on any of them, it was a bit pointless to tell you about them, eh?

So here is a supplemental offering: An article from Strange Magazine, “The Haunted Boy of Cottage City,” about the true story that inspired William Peter Blatty to pen The Exorcist, one of the greatest horror novels ever written that would later be turned into one of the greatest horror movies ever filmed.

Blatty is even more legendary in the D.C. area since he discovered the inspiration for The Exorcist while studying at Georgetown University, which you will note plays a prominent role in the book and the movie. In fact, any self-respecting horror fan in this area has made the mandatory pilgrimage to the infamous Exorcist Steps at least once. Yes, I count myself as one of these happy horror pilgrims. So, of course I would be interested in learning more about the true story that inspired one of my all-time favorite fictional accounts of demonic possession.

Whether or not you find either the fictional account or the true version scary is up to your own personal tolerance levels for this type of story. However, I think the investigative depths of this article are to be commended. I’d always wondered about the young boy who was supposedly the inspiration for Regan MacNeil, but truth be told, I couldn’t be bothered to do the investigation myself. Thank goodness for Strange Magazine!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the article and forgive me for my less-than-stellar Flashback Friday from last week. Mea culpa, denizens.