Welcome to the Necro Files, just off Highway 666. Follow the trail of general debauchery and complete and utter murder and mayhem. Reviews of top horror movies. Reviews of albums by top heavy metal bands. Do not feed the Garg!
A highly influential zombie film that still regards the White Zombie inspired traditional link between Voodoo and the undead with a modicum of respect. There are no toxic substances or medical explanations for zombies here, only Voodoo tainted blood.
A British made film from the prestigious Hammer collection. Highly recommended for horror buffs, especially because it is the only Hammer zombie film, but it would probably put fans of films paced like The Matrix to sleep. An unsettling sleep, but sleep nonetheless.
Plot synopsis
Sir James Forbes is a highly respected doctor. He is summoned to a remote Cornish village by one of his former students, doctor Peter Tompson, to help deal with a mysterious disease. The illness is killing off villagers, but since the locals are superstitious, the doctor had been unable to perform any kind of autopsy.
Sylvia, the daughter of Sir Forbes, accompanies her father on his journey to the countryside to reinforce her feeling of silver spoon superiority over the simpletons in the country. She is an English bird, and due to her characteristically pale skin it is hard to tell whether she is a zombie or not.
Sir James Forbes digs up a grave of a recently deceased villager, only to discover that the grave is empty. Only to be discovered by constable Swift, digging up a grave, looking like a very demented thrill seeker with his panting breath, his rolled up sleeves and his sweaty palms. Somehow, Sir Forbes manages to convince the constable not to charge him for grave robbing, and also to aid him in his investigation.
The investigation soon turns more exciting when more people are put to their graves, more empty graves are unearthed and more dead people start walking the earth.
A secretive local links all the risen dead in seemingly innocuous ways. The squire, Clive Hamilton, spent some time in Haiti and some Voodoo seemed to have followed him home.
Review
It is estimated that Plague of the Zombies offers social critique of the practices of slavery and colonialism. I did not really notice any such critique. What I did notice instead was that the male hierarchy in the film is distinctly represented by their facial hair.
Sir James Forbes is obviously the older alpha male who enjoys the highest regard. He has a hirsute appendage of the upper lip with graspable extremities, in other words a handlebar moustache.
Squire Clive Hamilton is the antagonist, who is a candidate for the next alpha male. He sports a modest approach to a mutton chop. This suggests that he is well groomed, however the fact that sporadic mutton chop remains on his cheeks suggest he has a wilder nature and that he is hiding something.
Doctor Tompson is a spineless nancy boy who is 19th century Emo or Buddhist, or perhaps both. He has no facial hair whatsoever, but he does sport a modest approach to the one eye fringe.
Jacqueline Pearce portrays the role of doctor Tompson's wife. She is promptly transformed into a chicita del morte, and along with Return of the Living Dead 3's Mindy Clarke, she is a certified C.I.L.F.
That's a corpse I'd like to find a good home for.
The only bone of contention I have with this film is the rather unimaginative ending. It just ends. There is no interesting twist in the plot, even though the audience is set up exactly for a marvellous twist in the plot. Clearly, this film came out before the 10 commandments of horror were conceived.
“Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true.” Buddha
The Million Blog Project
I'm # 123
Some correlations between Buddhism and emo
In The chauvinist guide to feminism, part 2, I poked fun at emo. Emo, just like religion, is an easy target, but just because it is an easy target doesn't mean it shouldn't be stomped on once in a while. Stomping on homo-erotic fascinations such as these reinforces their respective persecution complexi. Once, the Romans fed Christians to lions, now we merely feed their pathologies.
Shannon Elizabeth. Not emo. Not Buddhist. Just right.
I'd pick on Islam, but those guys don't know how to fly and I live in a tall building. I resolved to poke fun at something completely harmless and docile. From these hot topics, I chose Buddhism as the hot topic of the day.
No bugs were harmed during the writing of this post.
The Four Noble Truths
If you want to know more about this religion, try this 5 minute introduction to Buddhism. Buddhism is responsible for the cliché 'it's not a religion/car/pyramid scheme/hair removal product/bunch of bullshit, it's a way of life'.
Technically, Buddhism isn't a religion, because it is not about worshipping a god. It is about awakening to the real world and by awakening to the real world, Buddhists mean accepting the four noble truths. The four noble truths have nothing to do with Michael Moore or UFO sightings, they are:
Life means suffering
The origin of suffering is attachment
The cessation of suffering is attainable
There is a path to the cessation of suffering
Life means suffering?
This is Mr Self-harm, the emo deity. Mr Self-destruct? Thank you, Trent Reznor.
Life means suffering!
That does look like a statement that the one-eyed adolescents of gender defying cosmetic skills would cut into their thighs with a razor.
The origin of suffering is attachment
Attachment. Right. Attachment to some of these might point to the origin of suffering:
Myspace
Hair dye
Shitty punk bands. Actually, that's a tautology. You could just say punk bands
Eyeliner
Muppet fringes
Hair removal gone wrong
For a girl, chatting up a girl and getting a guy
For a guy, chatting up a guy and getting a girl
For a girl, chatting up a guy and getting a girl
For a guy, chatting up a girl and getting a girl. Well, this only causes suffering when you are emo
But most of all, attachment to those ridiculously tight trousers. You would have to be Jewish, with the circumcision done by an extremely drunk Rabbi who lost his contact lenses at a Bar Mitzvah earlier that day to fit into those.
That might explain the affinity to cutting. It might also explain why one would think that life is suffering. When someone takes a scalpel to your wabos, or anywhere near it, there is reason enough for a life of angst filled with depression.
The cessation of suffering is attainable
The bad news is, a foreskin can't grow back. And neither will your wabos. And neither will your hair once you start balding from too much dye. The good news is tears may be wiped away. Even when they leave deep grooves in your eyeliner.
Emo thinks the cessation of suffering comes with death. In practice, it usually comes after puberty.
There is a path to the cessation of suffering
To achieve a cessation of suffering, Buddhism prescribes the noble eightfold path. This path is meant to be a journey that leads to the gaining of wisdom, ethical conduct and mental development.
Right View
Right Intention
Right Speech
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration
This is were emo gets left behind. Emo does not seem to think there is a cessation of suffering during this lifetime.
Is emo influenced by Buddhism?
Both emo and Buddhism claim that life means suffering. I'm sure Paris Hilton has endured a life of immense hardship and unbelievable suffering.
Both emo and Buddhism claims that attachment is the origin of suffering. To Buddhism, it means attachment to mundane things like wealth and health insurance. To emo, it means attachment to the commercial nature of our society - to the mainstream, but in practice it means attachment to your gender.
Both emo and Buddhism see a cessation to suffering. To emo, the release of endorphins due to self-harm is the temporary cessation. To Buddhism, detachment is the cessation.
Finally, emo and Buddhism do not see eye to eye when it comes to the way to cease suffering. Emo and Buddhism just don't see one eye to epicanthic fold eyes when it comes to this crucial point.
Jane's Addiction, inventive and experimental drag queens from the eighties. Inventive means they didn't really write songs. Experimental means they took lots of drugs and messed around on instruments while high. Drugs. The ignoble onefold path to the cessation of suffering.
In conclusion, I would say there is a 75% correlation between the doctrine of Buddhism and emo. The other 25% of emo is just gay. You could argue that Jane's Addiction is responsible for emo, but I think it is more likely that Marilyn Manson or Trent Reznor caused emo, much to their dismay.
Since the Buddha encourages individualist thinking, and emo demands conforming to their look and way of life, I feel Buddhism "the way of life" deserves some credit as a valuable meme.
Zombies, lots of gore and buckets of blood. This is a terrible horror film, but I happen to like terrible horror movies, especially when they contain zombies, lots of gore and buckets of blood.
Plot
You mean you need a plot when you have zombies, lots of gore and buckets of blood? All you need is zealous observation of my ten commandments of horror.
Review
Naturally, an outbreak of zombies means we have to get the military to nuke them. In order to gather all the zombies at an appropriate place for their genocide, you need serious zombie-human diplomacy skills. It's not always as simple as letting them run mindlessly after fireworks or after a little girl in a red hood.
Being a conflict catalyst myself, I don't know much about resolving conflict. I googled a bit and found a helpful guide from mister Jim Murdoch, named the Five Finger Rule for Conflict.
Rule 1: Take a hike
Rule 2: Remember that when you point to accuse someone that 3 fingers are pointing back.
Rule 3: Show no aggression.
Rule 4: Remember the love bond.
Rule 5: Don’t fight over little things.
The Five Finger Rules for Resolving Zombie Conflict
These rules are adapted and designed to gain a strategic advantage over zombies. These rules are not helpful when trying to resolve inner conflict, because
you can't take a hike from yourself
when you point one finger at yourself, three are pointing away
you are already angry with yourself
loving yourself results in hairy palms and god killing a kitten
inner conflict often results from big things
Nevertheless, when a zombie holocaust is desired the five finger rules are suitable to resolve conflict. These rules sometimes work with metaphorical zombies like Pro-Life supporters and religious zealots too. No, you can't lead them to a genocide. Politicians need their votes.
Rule 1. The Thumb: Take a hike. Our heroes Curt Reynolds (J. Trevor Edmond) and Julie Walker (Melinda Clark) break the first rule of zombie-human diplomacy and opt to take a bike instead. Curt's father works at a military facility where they experiment with 2-4-5 Trioxin gas. This gas brings people back from the dead. And it isn't even Easter!
Curiously, 2-4-5 Trioxin is originally designed to be a marijuana defoliant. The premise of 2-4-5 Trioxin is based on 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (Common name: Trioxone), which is also a defoliant. This would make the structure of 2,4,5 Trioxin more or less accurate and its name slightly better than complete thumb suck.
2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid is better known as Agent Orange. Agent Orange is unlikely to catch on as a recreational drug.
Rule 2. The Pointer: Remember that when you point to accuse someone that 3 fingers are pointing back. Curt and Julie decide to break into the military facility to see if what Curt's dad does for a living merits his long hours away from home and his binge drinking. Curt and Julie are miraculously not spotted while breaking into a military complex with seriously tight security. The G-men must be adverse to conflict. They should have a long, hard talk with their guidance counsellors.
Rule 3. Middle Finger: Show no aggression. Once inside the military complex, Curt and Julie witness how a corpse gets reanimated. The zombie shows lots of aggression, which is dealt with by means of a hi-tech badminton weapon. Except the gaurds shot like little girls and the zombie gets animate again. He gets up, boogies and mauls half of the girlie guards. Curt and Julie get aroused after seeing this corpse get up and boogie.
The first and worst looking zombie in this horror movie. The rest of the zombies look much better - especially Julie!
The sub-text here is that if you show aggression, your ass would be artillery food, whereas if you don't show aggression, you get to do the nasty awkwardly while still wearing your underwear. Yes, Curt and Julie think Jockey is luxurious birth control. Or maybe they intended to use 2-4-5 Trioxin as a sort of twisted birth control? Corpse boogie kink, I like it.
Rule 4. Ring Finger: Remember the love bond. Despite Rule 3, Curt and Julie show aggression while riding Curt's bike. Julie gets killed in the following accident. Curt remembers the love bond and reanimates Julie's corpse with 2-4-5 Trioxin at the military base so they can do the nasty again, this time without constrictive underwear. Or her pulse. Necrophiliac kink, I like it.
Rule 5. Little Finger: Don’t fight over little things. Don't pet the sweaty things, don't sweat the petty things. Petty things, like the fact that your girlfriend now resembles a zombie who desperately wants to maul people and eat their brains.
Petty things, like the fact that this newly cultivated hobby is not just a bad case of PMS, but your girlfriend actually is a zombie who needs to eat brains in order to stay alive.
Petty things, like the death of illegal immigrants, who die at the hands of your merciless girlfriend in her insatiable thirst for fresh brains and this makes it really hard for you to adhere to Rule 4 - Remember the love bond.
Petty things, like the fact that you upset a few industrial size containers of 2-4-5 Trioxin at your dad's work and you are likely to be grounded for a very, very long time if giving in to your raging teenage hormones doesn't render the entire country into zombies. In fact, your dad is likely to beat you so hard you won't remember anything for a couple of days thanks to mild traumatic brain injury.
But don't worry, a concussion is daddy's way of telling you he is remembering Rule 4 - Remember the love bond.
Zombies, lots of gore from the goremeister Brian Yuzna (who also did Faust: Love of the Damned and who also produced fellow goremeister Stuart Gordon's Dagon) and buckets of blood!
Steven Spielberg, one of the most celebrated directors of our time.
This evolved out of a forum game. The purpose of the game is to provide a completely inappropriate synopsis for movies. This inappropriate synopsis should either
spoil the plot
offend the reader
offend the writer
offend the reader, offend the writer and spoil the plot
be otherwise inappropriate
If you sugar-coated a synopsis with quiet diplomacy and politically correct terms and it still had a foul politically incorrect stench, you are on the right track.
Reminds me of a similar game president Robert Mugabe and president Thabo Mbeki like to play with people's lives, namely give a completely inappropriate synopsis of the current state of your country.
My version of completely inappropriate movie synopses will not endanger human lives (other than my own, perhaps) and is less hurtful. But not much.
I did not try to be as politically incorrect as I could, but I did try to step on a few toes. To aid me in my quest, I looked at a list of isms political correctness tries to sweep under the carpet:
ageism – I somehow missed this one
racism – check
religious intolerance - check
sexism – check
xenophobia – check
If your toes are hurting after reading these, I achieved my purpose.
The politically incorrect and completely inappropriate guide to selected Steven Spielberg films
Film poster for Jews. I mean, Jaws.
Jaws This Darwinian view on the potential outcome of global warming where the whiteys get mauled by a gigantic great white shark for their colonialist ways doesn't have a single brother who gets killed. Everyone knows black people can't swim. That's what you get for going against nature and putting your white ass where Jesus didn't put it. This movie does have a great white, but it's not you. Ha ha, honky! Ha ha!
Close Encounters of the Third Kind A man and his faeces cake get abducted by aliens who like Jean Michel Jarre way too much. Xenu tricks him with fancy lights, fancy aeronautics and the smell of patchouli to sacrifice his rectum willingly to their advanced science, elongated appendages and culinary skills they clearly abducted from the French. The search for one intergalactic faeces cake to bind them all.
E.T - The Extra-Terrestrial An illegal alien who actually wants to leave America, the land of opportunity. He skips the tardy queues at the immigration office by calling his parents to pick him up and take him back to Mexico. That's somewhere in Africa, right?
Poltergeist Dabblers in the occult get what they deserve. Amen, Jesus. Amen.
Gremlins The heart warming tale of a man and his gerbils. Features a few good reasons why men shouldn't cook. Contains scenes of suggested felching.
The Color Purple In this tale about the ordeal one Muslim woman had to endure during the crusades, Whoopi Goldberg proves that as a black person, she only got that Affirmative Action Oscar because she has a Jewish surname. Welcome to Hollywood.
Hook Freud gets his day when a grown man prefers to live a life of frolicking with prepubescent boys instead of living with a woman of his own age who is willing to smell his farts, cook his food and clean his house. Maybe she reminds him of his mother and living with little boys is easier than living with his guilt. I pray that Jesus delivers this man from his homosexual abominations before he is old enough to wear nappies again. Amen, Jesus. Amen.
Schindler's List A near black and white comedy based on life in Nazi Germany, which is transformed into a tragedy when a German soldier dies.
Amistad Amistad proves that making films about Jewish suffrage is more profitable than making films about black people being exploited. It is fashionable to hate Nazis, but it's not fashionable to hate slave drivers when they are so close to home. The movie features black people from the 1800s. They couldn't swim back then and they can't swim now.
A.I: Artificial Intelligence One of Hollywood's best directors delivers one of his best projects. Pity Spielberg had to get involved to turn Kubrick's final project into another boy and his alienation (alien nation?) film. Not even the advanced robotics portrayed in the film could make the gay white android dance. Black people can't swim, white people can't dance. Not even as gay androids. Amen, Charles Darwin. Amen.
Minority Report This is a futuristic documentary about the kind of dystopian life Tom Cruise and Scientology want for us all. For our own good. Amen, L Ron Hubbard. Amen.
Another completely inappropriate synopsis
Yes, the three little pigs is offensive and completely inappropriate. I wonder how inappropriate it is since Green Jelly mixed it with secular rock music?
Now that's completely inappropriate for a niche blog dedicated to heavy metal albums and horror films. Racism, xenophobia, sexism, ageism and religious intolerance is one thing. Actually, they are five things, but secular rock music is another thing all together. I think I crossed the line this time. Don't despair, there will be more heavy metal and horror films as soon as I burnt all my Fleetwood Mac LPs.
Completely Inappropriate Links
Baa, baa black sheep. Yes, it is ageism at its worst. Or was that religious intolerance? Whatever.
The three little pigs story offends nappy-headed hos and thus the UK refuses to transmit this harmful meme in its schools. Well, as a vegetarian I'm offended by phrases such as: "Behead those who insult salami!". Or was that: "Behead those who insult Islam?". I can never remember.
Top 10 politically incorrect phrases of 2007. Good for a laugh. In Australia, you can't say:"Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!". You have to say: "Ha, ha, ha!". Well, I just did.
The first real metal album I ever heard, and still probably the best. This is a completely biased review, because I love this album more than I love blonde lesbians making out with me.
I love this album almost as much as I love blonde bisexual girls making out with me. Every metal album I have heard since has been measured by Divine Intervention. The album, not the cow probing or the Elvis Presley U.F.O sightings.
Blonde bisexual girls making out with each other. Just kidding, this is 213 performed live by Slayer. Hell yeah!
Review
This album came out in 1994, the year grunge king Kurt Cobain committed suicide. Grunge was all the rage. Slayer hasn't delivered an album since 1990's Seasons In The Abyss. Since then, they lost a key member – drummer Dave Lombardo. Will Slayer bow down to the slacker grunge mediocrity of Pearl Jam and Nirvana? Nay nay.
Slayer gets new drummer Paul Bostaph to introduce this album with some wild drum rolls. After that, you get some awesome riffs with enough tempo changes to make Yes or King Crimson envious.
The seminal Thrash band is no stranger to controversy. Since the days of Angel of Death, Slayer has endorsed morbid imagery – enough so to cause some critics to accuse them of Satanic and Neo-Nazi views. Slayer adds fuel to the fire with Divine Intervention, firstly with the sleeve. The cover has a skeleton on a pentagram formed by swords – the band's emblem of sorts.
On the disk, you will find the image of a fan with the word 'Slayer' slashed into each wrist. I can just imagine how this lead to much misguided dabbling in Satanism and self-harm.
Various newspaper clippings are portrayed on the inside of the sleeve, with selected words blacked out. In typical anti-censorship, anti-government and anti-religious control stance. Albums like these are like alchemy. They turn you into metal.
Jane Austen, in all her pride and prejudice. Don't let her Victorian dress or her hessian underthings fool you. This lady had a bitter satirical bite. Apparently, she was no Slayer fan either.
Lyrically, this is no Jane Austen novel either.
SS-3 refers to the license plate number of the car Reinhard Heydrich travelled in when he was shot.
213 is based on the dealings of Jeffrey Dahmer. 213 refers to his apartment number.
Reynhard Heydrich. Don't let the fancy suit fool you. This is a wicked, wicked man. Apparently, he's no Jane Austen fan either.
213 also features some of the sickest metal lyrics ever.
Death, love's final embrace Your cool tenderness Memories, keep love alive Memories, will never die
Doesn't look like much, but once you know what the song is about it gets a bit more chilly.
Definitely still one of my favourite metal albums.
"All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; all this claiming of superiority and imputing of inferiority belong to the private-school stage of human existence where there are sides, and it is necessary for one side to beat another side." Virginia Woolf
The Rolling Stones launched their album Black and Blue with a controversial press campaign. A billboard depicting an S&M fan beaten black and blue read: "I'm Black and Blue from the Rolling Stones — and I love it!". This outraged radical feminists and the billboard ad was removed.
The Rolling Stones billboard advert for their album, Black and Blue. Note the offensive caption has been removed.
Sadomasochism occurs with consent from all parties present. It is not the same thing as abuse. To complain about an advert such as this shows the inability to understand a sadomasochistic lifestyle. I don't purport to be an S&M teddy, but an attack on women's rights it is not. In fact, it is a celebration of freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of expression. Or free dominatrix of expression. If S&M aficionados complained about how they were portrayed in public, there would be cause for concern.
Without belittling the social problem of spouse abuse, would this image still be as offensive if the bound and beaten creature were a male?
The truth is the ad portrayed a woman in a situation where she wanted to be. It did not portray a woman being crushed under the wheels of patriarchy. Sadomasochism is far from the norm and unlikely to catch on. The ad was a witty pun on the phrase 'black and blue', not an attack on women and certainly not an ideological manipulation to keep women in the kitchen or in servitude to men. One needs only to read about the notches on Mick Jagger's bedpost to know he has notches on each side of the batting teams. Hardly a role model for patriarchy.
Without freedom of speech, nobody would be allowed to stand up for feminism either.
Politiclit correctness: The influence of Feminism on political correctness
"I listen to feminists and all these radical gals - most of them are failures. They've blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women just need a man in the house. That's all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they're mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They're sexist. They hate men - that's their problem." Jerry Falwell
Critics of the political correctness movement point out the following:
proponents of political correctness show the same sensitivity to terms they deem offensive
certain groups are still being alienated, if under different terms
more often than not, political propaganda is sought where none exists
Political correctness is a kind of censorship. It is not to our benefit. It is getting caught up indefinitely in definitions.
Affirmative Action
"The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it." Roseanne Barr
To hire someone because of their gender is exactly the same as not hiring someone because of their gender. Similarly, to hire someone because of their skin colour is the same injustice as not hiring someone because of their skin colour.
Hire someone who can do the job, and who will fit in with your company culture. Nobody has the right to a job or to a promotion, you have to earn it. If we are endorsing a system that is based on anything but merit, we are heading for more problems than a demographically unrepresentative workforce.
Affirmative action causes the same injustice it is meant to prevent, namely treating people as types. There are some women who are just as competent as some men in any given profession, but it is not valid to say any given man and any given woman can do the same job equally well.
Pornography
"Women are all female impersonators to some degree." Susan Brownmiller
Susan Brownmiller is one of the founding fathers, er mothers, of Women Against Pornography. She argues that rape is defined by men. All men keep women in a perpetual state of fear of being raped. This is part of the evil patriarchal plan to keep women in a separate and inferior class to men.
This is ludicrous, simply because there are equal amounts of female and male consumers of pornography. If this rape threat was so real, are women watching pornography to learn how to keep men under a constant fear of being raped?
It is still going to be difficult for a man to prove that he was raped by a woman. When a guy is raped by a woman, it is called seduction. Why? Because women do not really have anything to insert into the genital areas of a man, and a man does not have genital areas which give themselves to insertion lightly. This is the nature of the beast, it is not an ideological plan to keep women chained, but a physical anomaly. Certainly, I would not like anything to be inserted into my genital areas, but it is not a realistic fear I have to live with.
To say I am threatening women with rape because I have a penis is like saying guns are dangerous. Guns are not dangerous by themselves, someone has to load the gun and pull the trigger. Owning a gun is not wrong. Stealing a gun and committing robberies with it are wrongs. Similarly, rape is wrong. Having the tools to commit rape is not. At least not all feminists are raving lunatics. Wendy McElroy stands as a voice of individualist anarchist reason. See the link to her feminist guide to pornography at the bottom of the post.
All the guys reading this: it is OK to have a penis. All the girls reading this: it is OK to have a penis once in a while.
And pornography is OK for adults. And by adults, I mean men, women and hermaphrodites. Just not pornography with kids or animals.
Biological roles
"Women's Liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It's the men who are discriminated against. They can't bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that." Golda Meir
Well Golda, I thought so too.
Mr(?) Lee Mingwei, a pregnant man. Exactly what is his child going to suckle on? On second thoughts, I do not need to know. To each his own. Keep your kid out of my yard and it won't get shot.
This seriously casts a shadow of doubt upon my notion that boys have a penis, girls have a vagina. I'm going to rock back and forth in the shower while burning all my clothes.
Sex and gender: the cultural roles of women
"Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry." Gloria Steinem
And apparently, some of us are becoming the women we want to marry too. I'm not just talking about Mr(?) Lee Mingwei. Hello, emo.
Is that a boy? Is that a girl? You blew it up! Ah, damn you, myspace! God damn you all to hell!
An emo I found on google. Funny how they all conform to non-conformity by growning one-eyed fringes and dressing like nancy boys. Yes, gender bending is the way to claim your individuality. You go, girl!
See this, feminism? See what you have done?
This seriously casts a shadow of doubt upon my notion that boys have a penis, girls have a vagina. I'm going to rock back and forth in the shower while burning all my clothes. Again.
Linguistics: Feminism in language
"How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!" Maya Angelou, not exactly stretching the boundaries of her intellectual freedom. Herstory
Yes, apparently female and male histories are different. Radically different. I guess this is why the Celts have hailed Boudica as a hero. Oops, I mean heroine.
Seriously, if you were strapped to an EEG machine and you showed a twitch when any of the following words are read, chances are you are bigoted and hateful:
Midwife
Male Nurse
Manhole
Manowar
Womanowar
Black coffee
White Christmas
Black plague
White sugar
Baa, baa, black sheep
Euro-centric
He
Mankind
Female judge
Manpower
Hysterectomy. Well, maybe you have a point.
The problem lies with you. We are entitled to our freedom. We do not become more free by limiting the freedom of others.
Conclusion
"I glanced into alt.feminazis today and found a lively debate about whether the feminist claim that 'all men are potential rapists' leads to the conclusion 'Jesus was a potential rapist.' (It does. See Aristotle's Logic, part one. If all x are y, and j is an x, then j is y.)
I think this issue arouses so much fury because people are not aware that group-hate has never become unfashionable. Only the target groups ever change. Thus, the Ku Klux Klan's dogma 'All black men are potential rapists' is ignorant, awful and politically incorrect, because it targets a group now on the 'unfashionable to hate' list. The feminist 'all men are potential rapists' is enlightened, educated and politically correct because it targets a group now on the 'fashionable to hate' list.
You must always hate the right group to maintain your modernity. To become post-modern, find even more groups to hate.
Only idiots like Jesus (a potential rapist) and Buddha (another of that ilk) ever proposed living without hate of any groups.....Oh, and Korzybski, who described group hatreds as neuro-linguistic hallucinations symptomatic of what he called unsanity. But he was another potential rapist." Robert Anton Wilson
“Vincent Price was the kind of actor who could make a golf game seem foreboding.”Merlyn Trey Hunter
Conclusion
A 1959 black and white horror film that is still more scary than any politically correct, demographically represented teenie bopper Paris Hilton-starring Hollywood remakes of latter years. Honestly, the House of Wax teen movie remake should rather be called House of P.C. Cheap Plastic.
The pace of the film is odd. Other than that, it is a good film.
Plot
Fredrick Loren (Vincent Price) is a sinister playboy who hosts an amusing party shindig at his haunted mansion.
Each guest gets a tiny coffin with a loaded handgun in it and as much single malt scotch as they can carry. The survivors get $10 000. No, I did not put my pinkie in my mouth when I typed that.
Of course, it's not as smooth as surviving the night in a haunted mansion with a bunch of AA (armed alcoholics) members and an imposing acid bath in the fine wine cellar. Fredrick's wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart, who looks very fetching in this movie) and her lover, Lance (Richard Long) steer clear of the single malt whiskey, indicating that they intend to keep their shooting straight. The plot thickens.
Fortunately, there are no such things as ghosts. Or are there? What goes bump in the night? Is it just Britney Spears spending one night in Paris Hilton, filming the ordeal to put her career back on track?
We are talking about the girl who snogged Madonna. It's not a case of don't put that in your mouth, you don't know where it's been. It's more a case of don't put that in your mouth, you know EXACTLY where it's been!
And Paris is the opposite of a Hilton Hotel. You know there are reservations at a Hilton Hotel.
Rest assured. The plot of House on Haunted Hill is sinister, but not that sinister.
"There's something about disemboweling a homunculus of Hilton that screams 'fine art'." - Wired Magazine
"A bizarre art campaign to warn against the dangers of drunk driving." - The New Zealand Herald
Review
House on Haunted Hill starts off with screaming multiple orgasms. OK, so perhaps it's an agonising scream. I'm a guy, I can't tell the difference, but the scream seems like a good start. Then there are a couple of floating heads introducing the film. You just know you are in good company.
After that, the film gets a bit boring. It takes a while before the tension builds, but there are a few frightening moments that they somehow manage to concoct with one of the most fake ghosts caught on video.
One of the great Vincent Price movies, House of Haunted Hill is directed and produced by William Castle. Castle had the habit of marketing his films with spy gadgets. For this film, some cinemas were fitted with an elaborate pulley system which dragged a skeleton across the ceiling at opportune times.
Vincent Price sports a stylish handlebar moustache in this film. That's almost as cool as a popped collar. That's not the same kind of cool as a Nile album. It's also not quite as cool as Shock.
The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the house on haunted hill. This estate, known as the Ennis House, is built in the Mayan revival style. Wright believed in organic architecture. This means he believed a new building should blend in with its environment instead of visually fighting with its surroundings. He did not grow houses using hydroponic farming techniques. The Ennis House is an impressive erection. Almost as impressive as my monster cock.
How do you feel about the recent Vincent Price remake craze? I am legend, House of Wax, House on Haunted Hill... I still prefer the original Vincent Price films. Watching remakes is about as much fun as reading tips for a flat stomach or going through detoxification. Speak your mind - leave me a comment!
Conclusion Pete Sandoval on drums and the Mexecutioner, Jesse Pintado, on guitar for the last album he recorded before he sadly passed away due to a liver that couldn't keep up with the party. It is the only grindcore album I own, and my knowledge of the genre is limited to singing along to a few Anal Blast songs, so take my review with a pinch of salt and a shot of tequila. But I like it.
After recently reading up on clostridium botulinum, I decided this little fellow is so awesome that I had to dedicate most of my new layout to the bacterium. You may know c.botulinum as food poisoning or Botox, but I know it as the cause of botulism. Probably the most toxic substance known, a 2 kg bag of c.botulinum has enough potential to destroy mankind. Cthulhu would however make for a more cinematic apocalypse.
That's what could be lurking in your baked beans. Image taken from marlerblog.com.
muscle weakness, and eventually muscular paralysis
Quite a little terrorizer.
Review
All of the music is written by Pete Sandoval (Morbid Angel) and Jesse Pintado. Expect killer riffs and lots of brutality, although I found for the most part this album is less taxing than most grindcore out there. Read: sick, but slightly more melodic. If you are a grindcore purist, this might not be a good thing. I mean all the tracks are longer than a minute.
Pete Sandoval's drumming may cause double vision.
Anthony Rezhawk does a rasp of Cerberus similar to Steve Tucker's very own bark. Could just be my recent overdose of Morbid Angel, but this is the kind of growling I like. He also wrote all the lyrics. In proud grindcore tradition, a couple of verses are offered, after which the song title is repeated a few times. This is not rocket science, but it is good for shaking your fist. I said Cerberus, not cerebral.
Ghost Train is a kind of piano and skull-fucking double bass pedal drumming interlude. The kind that would make Jaws float upside down. This track could cause drooping eyelids. Even for sharks.
Apocalyptic visions delivered in slurred speech, with a slight tequila and mescaline nasal drip. Ah, tequila. Just the thing for a dry mouth.
The fact that all the tracks are longer than a minute makes for difficult swallowing. Similar to health drugs. But that's only if you are a grindcore purist. Sandoval plays in one of the founding bands of technical death, so a little meandering is expected with the brutality. Rest assured - there's enough complexity to merit an average of 3,5 minutes per track.
Muscle weakness? No, there's not much of that here. This is a review for Terrorizer, not c.botulinum. But if you've ever had one of those 24 hour fill-station shop pies, I'm sure you could write a good review of c.botulinum, or at least salmonella enteritidis.
A seal basking in the sun. Apparently it tastes like chicken.
Ever since the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) kicked Glen Benton's ass, I've been intrigued by these vigilante fanatics. I am a recovering Protestant, with a mind warped by petty indoctrinations concerning the dangers of sex, drugs and Satan.
Ever since reading Rock-musiek: Die reg om te weet (Rock music: The right to know) by Dr Rodney 'Die Rod' Seale, and subsequently discovering that his claims were largely baseless and his concerns largely unfounded, I've been intrigued by rock music and by extension, heavy metal.
His other book, Satanisme: Die reg om te weet (Satanism: The right to know), sparked the Promethean flame in my life, and for this I am eternally indebted to Dr Seale. I've since been cautious to jump on the bandwagon of any moral panic, preferring to evaluate the claims of moral watchdogs critically before I do something stupid I might regret later. Like chaining myself to a tree.
Dr Seale's spirit lives on in the war on drugs, the war against terror and Peta's war against omnivorous humans with a penchant for the finer things in life. Like seal pelt clothing. And sex, drugs and Satan. Ironically, Dr Seale's name lives on in this post too.
Good reasons to hunt a seal
Seal hunting happens for the same reasons as any other kind of hunting:
For food. Contrary to Peta propaganda, seal meat is actually a source of food for small coastal communities. It is simply not true that only the pelt is used and the rest of the seal is discarded. Seal meat is an important source of protein, vitamin A and omega fatty acids.
For fun. That is, as a sport. Since 2006, the Norwegian government has allowed tourists to hunt seals.
For profit. Seal pelts are quite expensive. And the more noise Peta and other animal rights activists make about it, the more expensive the pelts will become. Which means, more incentive to hunt seals.
There are only five nations in the world that allow seal hunting, namely Canada, Norway, Russia, Greenland and our neighbours, Namibia. In all of these countries, seal hunting is strictly regulated. Seals may be shot, but the bullets may damage the pelt of the seal. For this reason, a special kind of weapon called a hakapik is used. It is a kind of club, with a hammer on the one side of the head and a pike on the other.
A hakapik, the weapon used to hunt seals in order to protect the pelt. Apparently, it's as humane as hunting gets.
It is this method of clubbing that gets Peta up in arms. Seal hunting as a tourist activity is only allowed in Norway, and then never with a hakapik. Tourist hunters are only allowed to shoot the seals, since clubbing requires a specific technique to minimise pain to the seal.
Some animal rights activists acting like animals. Solidarity, brother!
Reasons not to hunt a seal
Besides running the risk of being harassed by fanatics like Peta.
For moral reasons. If you find seal hunting morally objectionable, you would have to be a vegan. Research has shown that clubbing or shooting a seal in the wild is no more painful than killing an animal in an abattoir. If you eat meat, but you feel sick every time you see a seal being clubbed in the press, I would seriously doubt your integrity.
For environmental reasons. Seals are not endangered. This is another myth spread by animal rights activists. There are more environmental reasons to allow seal hunting than to ban seal hunting. Seals could seriously impact the number of cod in the water. Seal hunting quotas are largely determined by culling needs.
Seal hunting, just like any hunting, offers the prey a sporting chance. Personally, I find it more morally objectionable to domesticate animals purely for the sake of eating them than to go out in the wild, in excruciating conditions, with a hand weapon, chasing after an animal in its own habitat. While synthetic materials do offer the same function as pelt, they may contain dangerous toxins with more environmental impact than biodegradable and reusable pelt.
The seal hunting thing is just another moral panic. A moral panic is a public outcry, echoing the belief that a group of people are deviant and pose a threat to society, without any basis for such a claim. Since seals are not endangered, clubbing causes as much anguish as killing animals in an abattoir and seal hunting offers a livelihood to human beings (who take precedence over animals if you ask me), there is no valid reason to stop seal hunting.
Conclusion A grizzly tale, but not a gory one in the horror-porn torture porn gorno tradition of Hostel. Saw is strictly driven by suspense and intricate plot. Highly entertaining and with more twists in the plot than in a koeksister. A beacon of original light shining through the darkness of politically correct angsty teen creature features.
One of Tannie Marie's koeksisters. Tannie Marie ships koeksisters all over America, bringing a touch of Boere culture to the new world.
Plot Two men find themselves in a locked bathroom, while on videotape. No, it's not George Michael and a member of the Village People. It is Dr Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and photographer Adam Faulkner (Leigh Whannell). They find a corpse between them, which holds a tape recorder and a gun. Talk about a silver lining. They each find a cassette in their pockets, with their names on it. The cassettes instruct Dr Gordon to kill Adam within a given time frame.
Of course doctors usually save lives, with the notable exception of the South African minister of health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who rather saves witch doctors and their superstitions. Dr Gordon is persuaded to join the dark side of Dr Tshabalala-Msimang and Dr Hannibal Lecter when he finds out that his family is kept hostage by an evil man.
Review
For some reason, Saw is grouped with Hostel and Devil's Rejects in the torture porn or gorno (gore + porno) genre. This genre is described as being devoid of suitable metaphor for its explicit scenes of nudity and violence. Personally, I found Saw to have many suitable metaphors and the version I have on DVD is bloody but not gory. Not that I mind blood and guts for the sake of blood and guts, but just to prove the point, Saw features no nudity that I can recall.
Since it is claimed that the Jigsaw Killer never actually kills anyone himself, the film is highly original. The exception is photographer Adam Faulkner, but I won't give away anything.
Saw has an excellent plot. I pride myself in identifying the killers in this sort of film early on. Of course, I was right, but only half right. I love being outsmarted.
The Jigsaw Killer, so named because he leaves the imprint of a jigsaw puzzle piece on his victims, is hailed as the new Freddy Krueger. This antagonist of the Saw series is a person with a terminal illness who wishes to teach his victims the value of their lives by placing them in virtually inescapable situations. They could learn the same valuable lesson by waiting in line at customs instead. The irony here is the victims have a choice between their lives or the lives of others, whereas the Jigsaw Killer has no choice.
This film attempts to answer the question of what one would do when one is faced with the options of acting civil for the greater good, or acting in your own best interest at the peril of strangers in a life or death situation. For this reason, the Wikipedia article on the Jigsaw Killer identifies certain Darwinian, Nietzschean and Deleuzian traits in the methods of the Jigsaw Killer.
In contrast with other excellent serial killer films like Manhunter, the focus here is on the psychological ordeal of the victims instead of on the complications of the personality of the killer. This is not a case of finding a new mask and a new weapon for a generic mass murderer and ticking his victims off one by one. The character of the Jigsaw Killer is carefully crafted, but the viewer is not forced to be a fanboy with trading cards. Excellent film!
