Thursday, January 19, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Dystopia
And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed - if all records told the same tale - then the lie passed into history and became truth.
'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'
George Orwell
click the eyes
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Space Suits
Turns out that the Space Jockey seen in the film ALIEN was just a space suit. A rotting fossilized space suit. A bones-pushed-out-from-the-inside, growing-out-of-its-chair space suit.
Man, I am NOT ok with this.
I wish I were friends with H.R. Giger. I'd call him up and see how he feels about this. Oh how we'd lament. Maybe over a pint.
More at dreadcentral.com
An Inhabitant Of Carcosa
The wind sighed in the bare branches of the dead trees and the gray grass bent to whisper its dread secret to the earth; but no other sound nor motion broke the awful repose of that dismal place.
Ambrose Bierce
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Mr. Plinkett's Return
Been waiting for this one: Red Letter Media's review of the dreadful Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Click below:
WARNING: Totally not work-appropriate.
Mattes, Miniatures, And Split-Screens
Watching horror movies on Saturday afternoons as a kid was one of those formative things. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were like uncles to me. And so were all the weird creatures they were fighting (especially that weird flat thing with a pink swan neck which sucked bones and bled chicken soup when chopped with an axe).
Low-tech special effects were part of it. They weren't used much, but when they were, you knew you were watching something truly special. You got used to seeing matte-painted skies and split screens with the characters in the foreground and exploding factories or castles in the background. It was never perfect, and you could always tell you were watching an effect, but you just knew someone put a lot of hard work into that scene. There was an elegance to it.
Found a blog through the Bloody Pit of Rod blog. A blog called Matte Shot. And it was wonderful to flip through this on a Saturday morning. Like a weird family reunion.
Click below:
The Matte Shot Blog.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Fallen Angel
Father O'Hara told Father Gallagher something even stranger. "One night the boy brushed off his handlers," he reportedly said, "and soared through the air at Father Bowdern standing some distance from the bed with a ritual book in his hands. Presumably Bowdern was about to be attacked but the boy got no further than the book. And when his hands hit that - I assure you, Gene, I saw this with my own eyes - he didn't tear the book, he dissolved it! The book vaporized into confetti and fell in small fine pieces to the floor!"
Text source.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Night Shift
I work the night shift. I've always worked the night shift. The night is a different world, hidden behind bedroom curtains for most. But not for me.
In the middle of a very warm October, and in the middle of a long stretch of empty street, I left the broken-down bus behind, and figured I'd walk the rest of the way. That's when I saw the house, up on an overgrown hill, at the top of a steep and cracked driveway. My bus had passed that house every night for as long as I can remember. And every night I'd see a faint steady glow from a low window closest the driveway. The glow of a television I had assumed. The house hadn't looked so abandoned and desolate from the inside of my bus as we shot past every night. But now, standing at the bottom of that long driveway, the pale greenish light seemed very out-of-place among all that ruin. And I was a little surprised when I caught myself halfway up the driveway walking towards it. It was steady, not fluttering or pulsating like the light from a TV. Just steady.
I crouched down by a basement window well which had been mostly filled with leaves, with only the upper portion of the window visible. I couldn't see the source of the light at first. It seemed to be coming from deep inside the basement. The bushes around the house were too thick and overgrown to look for another window with a better view, so I lowered my feet into the window well and slowly knelt down onto the leaves. With most of my body crammed into the well, I found a missing window pane among the filthy cloudy glass and peeked inside. I felt the moist coolness of the basement air on my face.
The basement was filled with the light. So bright and still. There was a large wide rectangular box in the center of the basement floor. More like a wooden frame, it was lidless, and each side only a few inches high. And it was overgrowing with tiny mushrooms. Hundreds and hundreds of bulbous growths. Glowing. Luminescent mushrooms. One side of the wooden frame had rotted away and even the loose spilled dirt was loaded with the glowing mushrooms.
I stared at them for a very long time. Before I saw her. Sitting in a chair. An old woman, hands folded on her lap, her old rocker facing the mushrooms. As my eyes adjusted to the strange light, I could see that her mouth was open - very wide. But it wasn't that at all. Her lower jaw was missing. And I could see the texture of her skin, flakes upon flakes, like a dry crust. Her eyes were shut tight. I could see more and more detail of her cracked pained face...
Then she slowly turned to look at me.
I froze. My face still pressed through the missing pane. And the only noise my shallow breathing. But her head hadn't turned. She hadn't moved. It was the light. The odd green light was shifting. Slowly shifting, crawling, across the basement walls. The light grew brighter, more intense. The old woman was now in total darkness. And the light - it was directing itself...focusing....on the broken basement window, and on me.
I could see tiny particles in the light, floating slowly in tiny waves. I inhaled a moist fungus scent. Putrid and foreign. A night scent. Spores. I could taste them. I could feel them.
I pushed away from the window. Pushed myself out of the window well. Stumbling. Then running. Trying to clear the taste. To outrun it.
I ran. Hating the night air. Hating the darkness. And just wanting the sun to rise.
Knowledge And Pride
I like plays. The good ones... Shakespeare... I like Titus Andronicus the best; it's sweet. Incidentally, did you know that you are talking to an artist? I sometimes do special things to my victims: things that are creative. Of course, it takes knowledge, pride in your work... For example, a decapitated head can continue to see for aproximately twenty seconds. So when I have one that's gawking, I always hold it up so that it can see its body. It's a little extra I throw in for no added charge.
I must admit it makes me chuckle every time.
The Gemini Killer
Image by Great Beyond.
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