Draw Something: Hungry Zombie

In keeping with the macabre theme from my poem yesterday, I thought I'd doodle a hungry zombie. Unfortunately, it seems he has lost his jaw somewhere, along with a few of his brain cells. AAARGGGHHH!

The Lust.

What crawls from 'neath the bubbling muck
Renouncing oblivion to ravage amok
Oozing stale gasps of long captured souls
Dropped deep below to bygone holes
Bursting through forests and deepest of lakes
Terrors to give you the chills and the shakes
Encroaching the fields of our schools and homes
Flesh intended to fill catacombs
Nothing is safe and nothing is sacred
From shambling horrors rancid and naked
Teeth and claws left dripping with gore
Entrails aglow on the moonlit floor
Life reduced to fleeting ephemera
Death endures to dance in the viscera
An unholy fable formed by acrid chrysalis
Fetid revulsion with a stench limitless
Plunging the surface to rip at the hide
Sloughing off layers no relief implied
Encircling putrescence denies your escape
Hunger unbound their mouths all agape
Piece of you here and a piece of you there
Truth be told there's plenty to share
Rest easy tonight the struggle is over
Better to die than live without closure
A burden to walk the black earth eternal
Cursed to feed a lust most infernal

I Prefer Predator 2 Over The Original.

Predator. It's a certified classic. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime battles a sneaky extraterrestrial killer with a taste for human blood. We can all agree that Predator set a benchmark in action films. It also helped to launch Arnold into mega-level super-stardom.

And yet, I like Predator 2 better.

Mind you, my preference for the sequel is in no way a statement on the first film. Predator is flat-out awesome in every way. Instead, look at my predilection for Predator 2 as a matter of personal taste. I'll explain why and perhaps you'll agree.

Urban Warfare - One of the biggest reasons why I like Predator 2 better is because of the setting. Sure, a killer alien rampaging through the jungle can be interesting, but I'd much rather see how the conflict plays out in an urban landscape. Changing from the jungles of Central America to the sprawling city Los Angeles adds a greater sense of danger and collateral damage. Even better... it provides more prey for the Predator to attack.

More Predator Tech - The 'City Hunter' Predator in the sequel sports an increased amount of technology. The now common Smart Disc made its first appearance in this movie. The Predator's Bio-Mask had an increased range of scanning modes, making it easier to find his prey. This Predator also sported the deadly speargun, telescoping spear and the immensely painful netgun. That's a lot of ways to slaughter!

Gary Busey - Come on... Busey adds a certain je ne sais quoi to every film he graces. That wild-eyed, crazy bastard seems credible, no matter how nutty and outlandish he plays his characters. As Agent Keyes, Busey swings his cocky attitude throughout every scene he's in. He even manages to almost defeat the Predator with a really smart plan. Almost.

Bill Paxton - The other great acting addition to Predator 2 is undoubtedly seasoned performer Bill Paxton. Sure, his portrayal of Detective Lambert is brash and over-confident, but that's what we love about him. Eerily echoing PFC Hudson from Aliens, he holds out against the Predator for as long as he can... until his head and spinal column become a trophy for the alien warrior.

Expanded Predator Universe - The Predator mythos established with the first film is expanded upon greatly in the second. We see a little bit of the motivation for why he hunts. We see what kinds of tools the hunter uses. We even get to see what the Predator won't hunt (pregnant women). In the final act of the film, the Predator shows that it's not afraid to sacrifice a hand just to survive (and even does a little bit of funky field medicine in the process). Finally, the inside of the Predator's space ship is revealed! Plus, as icing on the cake, there are even MORE Predators that show up. Which leads me to...

The Xenomorph Skull - This is where the entangled Alien versus Predator concept all began. If you think about it, this is one of the first major American films to drop an easter egg BEFORE easter eggs were even a thing. Seeing that Xenomorph skull hanging in the Predator's ship was just really frickin' cool and sent fans everywhere into a total frenzy. Could the Aliens and Predators actually face off? Were the two species in the same shared fictional universe? Yep. Sweet.

Danny Glover Defeats the Predator - Whereas Dutch in Predator only managed to defeat the 'Jungle Hunter' because the creature committed suicide, Glover's Lieutenant Harrigan actually finishes the 'City Hunter' off in combat mano-a-mano. How? By stabbing that ugly monster with its own Smart Disc. That takes humongous balls!

Agree? Disagree? Share you feedback and let me know what you think.

Just Some MonsterVision Videos.

Nothing crazy or absurd to share tonight, folks. Just delivering to you some solid entertainment to pass the evening away. That being said, here's a couple great videos of the classic MonsterVision featuring Joe Bob Briggs. Enjoy!

The Creature From The Black Lagoon Gill-Man Costume.

You can't talk about the classic monsters of cinema without mentioning the Gill-Man. The eponymous Creature From The Black Lagoon possesses a devilish alien physique, but somehow still exudes a sympathetic human quality. It's an iconic, unforgettable design that has carried the Creature's legacy far beyond the three films he starred in during the 1950's. Just think -- it's over fifty years later and I'm writing about the Gill-Man, a rubber-suit monster from a black and white movie, on the internet. That's the definition of notoriety and awesomeness.

The Gill-Man suit was designed by Millicent Patrick, though for many years she went uncredited for her work. What most may not realize is that Patrick also created the aliens from It Came From Outer Space (1953), the mutants from This Island Earth (1955) and the monstrous villains from The Mole People (1956), among many other film fiends. Her ability to design impressive and catchy monsters for film was second to none. For that, all fans of classic horror should collectively say a big thank you to Patrick.

There were multiple Gill-Man suits produced for the three Creature films. All were produced from foam rubber, which made the suits very light and flexible. This was especially necessary for the underwater scenes. For the water sequences, actor, stuntman and champion swimmer Ricou Browning performed without the aid of an air line. He's reported to have been able to hold his breath for up to four minutes, thereby making the Creature's swimming seem more authentic. Had bubbles been leaking out of the suit, I can't imagine how that would have affected the Creature's on-screen presence.

Because the Gill-Man suits were made from foam rubber, they do not still exist. Foam rubber breaks down over time due to exposure to the air. Eventually it falls to dust. If you ever come across a memorabilia retailer claiming to have all or part of an original Gill-Man suit, then it's a fake. Alas, no original Gill-Man suits still exist, but that's alright. The Creature is forever preserved in all its cinematic glory on the silver screen!

For further information, check out the following links!

Horror Icon: Millicent Patrick

An extensive interview with Ben Chapman, the actor whom played the Gill-Man during the out-of-water scenes in Creature From The Black Lagoon.

The Difference Between Horror and Gore Movies.

This past weekend, Eli Roth's latest slaughter-fest The Green Inferno opened in theaters nationwide. It grossed approximately $3.5 million dollars via 1,540 theaters. Lauded as one of Roth's most gruesome and visually disturbing films yet, The Green Inferno is a brutal cannibalism movie from start to finish. To summarize without spoiling the plot, a group of college students become trapped in the rain forest with a tribe of man-eating cannibals. Extreme acts of graphic mutilation, violence and death ensue. Therein exists the problem with this film, along with other works under Roth's belt (Hostel, Cabin Fever). Many are quick to label such graphic, gory movies as horror. Honestly... they couldn't be any farther from the truth.

Gore is not the same thing as horror. It's in a class all to itself.

When I think of horror movies, I can't help but be reminded of the classics -- Dracula, The Wolfman, and Night of the Living Dead for example. These films and others like them reflect what a horror film should be. Atmosphere and mood are extremely important, as is the element of suspense. A horror film magnetically draws the viewer into its narrative. Ultimately, the hardest misconception to break is that horror movies are required to frighten the viewer. This simply isn't true. The spectacle of the horror film exists to present an alternative reality, one with fantastical components that break from the ordinary. The viewer can temporarily step away from reality and rendezvous with a monster or a ghost. Maybe this new reality has more familiar elements like a serial killer on the loose, but highlights an increased air of suspense. Horror movies make the viewer want to watch because they feature stories far removed from boring, everyday life. The characters within them run through a gamut of emotions -- fear, paranoia, sadness and even laughter. Ultimately, we know that the horror film is not real. It's a fantasy that we can revisit whenever we want -- a proverbial vacation into a world of the unknown.

Gore movies don't possess en masse any of the classic elements of horror. They're about one thing and one thing only: shocking the viewer with as many brutal scenes of death, dismemberment, exploding guts, flesh-eating, ripped viscera and corpse mutilation as virtually possible. A gore film wants your stomach to hurt; it wants you to vomit. The gross-out factor is top priority. The more disgusting and absolutely repulsive the final product, the better. In fact, a gore film wants to be so abominable that you may stop believing it's a fantasy.

This isn't going to end well.

This isn't to say that a horror film may not have a gory scene in it. Many great horror movies have gory elements dropped here or there throughout their story. Take John Carpenter's The Thing for example. There are numerous moments where the villainous creature in the film enacts grisly violence against the characters trapped with it. There's one large difference, though. The film itself uses the element of gore much like a spice in a recipe. Just a dash of gore is sprinkled sporadically to intensify the suspense. The viewer readily understands how much danger the characters are in without being completely sickened. Even over-the-top slasher movies like the Friday the 13th series or the A Nightmare on Elm Street series can still be considered horror films. Though they may use gore as a part of their presentation, the element serves as a means of imbuing danger or comedy. I'd even like to cite an example where horror, gore and humor come together to form a perfect storm of black comedy -- Peter Jackson's Braindead. There are some especially violent scenes in that film with blood and guts flying everywhere, but they're all played for laughs in a non-serious way. Alternatively, a gore movie is like a recipe with a whole lot of only one ingredient -- severe physical violence.

Do I think gore movies should be banned? Not at all. I believe in free speech and am totally against censorship. If you want to make movies where people are torn apart and disemboweled, well then wonderful. You're well within your rights to commit such vile brutality to film. I might not like or appreciate gory movies, but they have every right to be produced.

When it comes to the fans of such violent, stomach-churning films, I can't help but wonder. Why would anyone want to watch people being viciously torn to pieces? There's little merit in witnessing a person die in a grisly manner, real or otherwise. Does seeing a person's eyes being ripped from their head and eaten bring you pleasure? Does watching a person's entrails being clawed out of their abdomen and consumed by rampaging savages generate happiness? If you can answer yes, then I can only find myself arriving at the next logical conclusion... is the mutilation and evisceration of the human form something you enjoy? If so, are you living vicariously through the traumatic violence on screen? I would certainly hope not, but I am left to ponder the altogether stunning alternative.

Let me be clear -- I don't want to pick on Eli Roth. Technically, he's a fine filmmaker with a knack for knowing how to piece a memorable movie together. Certainly, there are other producers and directors that have crafted just as disturbing gore features, if not more so. Some examples that immediately come to my mind are Lucio Fulci's The New York Ripper and Hideshi Hino's Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh & Blood. Yet, I can't be any clearer in my motivations for writing this article. Let's provide a proper distinction between a horror film and a gore film.

Gore doth not a horror movie make.

The Most Gruesome Nintendo Entertainment System Video Games!

Mario, Luigi, Zelda, Kirby, Samus Aran... just a few names that pop up when discussing the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Of the 713 official NES games released in the US and European markets, there are hundreds of quality titles that incite joy, happiness and jubilation... and then there are some that aren't so kid friendly. I present to you some of the gruesomest of all NES games!

Ghoul School - Borrowing some of the plot elements from Class of Nuke'Em High, Ghoul School is all about killing your mutated and demonically possessed classmates. You play as Spike O'Hara, a typical loser with a crush on head cheerleader Samantha Pompom. Of course, the demons kidnap Samantha and only you can save here from a hellish nightmare. Battling your way through an endless puzzle of rooms, you've got to find the right weapons to survive the endless hordes of eyeball monsters, gillmen, zombies, ghosts, snot beasts and killer monkeys. This game is all about putting the monster students down... permanently.

Friday the 13th - This game comes as no surprise. The object is to prevent Jason Voorhees from killing kids. That's right -- an actual NES game where you're trying to stop a child killer. How this ever got published, I've got no clue. The game is notorious for its difficulty, but damn if it isn't fun. More often than not, you're going to die at the hands of Jason -- he's absolutely brutal. For those of you with major gaming skills, you can actually battle the floating decapitated head of Jason's mother for an added bonus. Who knew stopping a child-slaughtering maniac could be so fun?!

Monster Party - Ever want to fight the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster, Count Dracula and a plant creature bearing an eerie similarity to Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors? Then Monster Party is the game for you! You'll battle wave after wave of history's most famous monsters. All the while, the levels are comprised of bleeding skulls, slime pits, dark caverns, haunted Egyptian tombs and more! Another example of the infamous phrase 'Nintendo Hard', Monster Party will definitely satisfy your taste for blood.

Shadowgate - Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! That's all you'll do in Shadowgate, a game filled with a notorious amount of instant deaths and booby traps. This is a point-and-click adventure game, one of the few examples on the NES. In the game, your goal is to prevent the summoning of Behemoth from the literal depths of Hell. You'll have to solve every last puzzle in a near-endless castle before facing off against the devilish Warlock Lord. Be prepared to die a lot. Practice makes perfect!

Zombie Nation - The world has gone to utter crap. America is in ruins. The only force left to save humanity is the floating head of a dead samurai. I kid you not... I can't make this nonsense up. Zombie Nation pits the severed head of Namakubi against the villainous Darc Seed, an alien that has turned most the United States into a land filled with zombies and other monstrous mutants. As Namakubi, you have to blast your way through the undead in four nearly impossible levels of mayhem. Your weapons? Oh... JUST YOUR OWN EYEBALLS AND VOMIT!

Battle Chess - You might be scratching your head at my final example, but I assure you -- Battle Chess is all about sadistic murder. Taking the classic game of wits and strategy and flipping it on its head, Battle Chess actually shows you the pieces killing each other. The multitude of murder scenes are outrageous and hilarious. Watch as the Rook completely flattens the Knight or the Bishop as he slices the King into three pieces! This game is all about watching as many player pieces die as possible -- whether you lose the match or not is almost irrelevant. Death has never been so much fun!

The Annabelle Doll.

Do you believe in haunted dolls?

No, of course not. Only simpletons believe in such nonsense. You're reading this blog, so you are obviously intelligent. But, I digress.

I recently learned of a supposedly haunted doll called Annabelle. I frequent a number of classic horror film related blogs. One such blog recently made reference to a new movie hitting theaters, also called Annabelle. This film claims to be based on a totally true story, to which my Fraud-O-Meter began to go off. Here's the scoop.

Photo Credit - Soles Denounce, New York Post

Annabelle is a doll in the possession of Lorraine Warren. She's the widow of longtime paranormal investigator Ed Warren. Lorraine herself has claimed to be a medium and to possess otherworldly powers. The Warrens claim to have received this doll from a mother and daughter in the 1970's. The doll would make small, gradual movements around the daughter's apartment, eventually moving from one room to the next. Upon holding a seance, they learned that the spirit of a deceased child named Annabelle inhabited the doll, hence the name. This child was found dead on the grounds of the apartment building long before it was built.

As if the story wasn't total donkey crap already, the silliness continues...

Once the Warrens began to investigate the doll, they determined that the information learned in the seance wasn't "true". Human spirits of the deceased can only possess other humans. Inhuman spirits, such as demons, are apparently allowed to possess inanimate objects, though.

Apparently the Warrens have a rule book for ghosts in the afterlife...

As the Warrens continued to study the doll, they found that it had the tendency to be present when other people had fatal or near-fatal accidents. Based upon their "evidence", the demon was in the second stage of infestation. Had the doll been allowed to continue to reside in the apartment, it would have evolved towards higher levels of infestation and eventually possessed a human being. This, most certainly, would have lead to full on possession and a murderous rampage. The Warrens took the doll to their personal museum of haunted paraphernalia, where it resides to this day. The doll sits behind a locked glass case, with a warning not to touch or taunt it. Visitors to the museum can see the doll on display.

There are so many holes in this story, I could pilot a sailboat through it blindfolded.

• If the doll really is possessed by an inhuman demonic spirit, couldn't it "leap" from one inanimate object to the next? Say from the doll to a cell phone. Or perhaps into a lamp post? Nay... even better - an automobile!
• The information made public by the Warrens provides no source material or physical evidence. All references to the involved parties are ambiguous. No explanation is given as to whom the victims were, nor how the doll appeared to be moving.
• If a powerful demonic spirit resides in the doll, then how in the holy hell does a glass case prevent it from causing trouble? Do you really think a demon would claw its way up from the depths of Hell... only to be stopped by a single pane of glass? If the doll can move, then couldn't it break the glass?
• How come no one else but the Warrens have claimed to have seen this doll move?
• Why didn't the doll reflect the demonic spirit it contained before the Warrens learned of it? Don't you think a doll moving on its own would have made international news in the '70s?

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. This whole story is a sham of epic proportions. A film has finally been produced about this doll, relegating this entire hoax into the category of snake oil. I would suspect that this was the intent all along. Maintain the story long enough and surely some producer would come along to create a major motion picture about it, right?

Here's a link to the official Annabelle Doll page at the Warren's website -- The New England Society for Psychic Research. As you can clearly see on their webpage, they were already geared up and ready for the film's release. The story of the Annabelle Doll is littered with grammatical errors and logistical inaccuracies. It is as if a child wrote the story for English class at the last possible moment.

For my older or more studious readers, you may have heard of Ed and Lorraine Warren before. In fact, you most certainly have. They were the "lead" investigators of the real (and I say that loosely) Amityville Horror home. During their analysis of the Amityville house, they claimed to have been pushed around by demonic entities. History seems to repeat itself over and over -- create a story about ghosts, claim it's true, then wait for a movie to be made. Got it!

The Amityville Horror House, formerly 112 Ocean Avenue

Photo Credit - SpiritSociety.org

And yet, this same plot invoked itself AGAIN with another case the Warrens "investigated". Ever heard of the horror film "The Haunting in Connecticut"?

Yep, the Warrens had their hand in that story too. They apparently contacted the Snedeker family, whom rented a home in the mid 1980's and encountered ghosts there. Through the Warrens, a book was published that detailed the events in the home (just like had been done previously with the Amityville House). The book's author has since recanted the information contained within, stating that it was mostly made up to make it scary. Here's a great article about the entirety of the Snedeker case at Live Science. I could at least respect the Warrens the slightest bit more if they tried something original with each new tale. But no... they just keep going back to the same old well.

*Yawn*

I can't make this stuff up, folks.

(But apparently the Warrens can)