Daily Memory

When we lived in England, we were always getting thrown into my father's Toyota Celica that was little bigger than a sardine can and toured the country side. We saw hills, rocks, cattle, ruins, bigger rocks, and sheep. I wish I could have appreciated it more, but alas, I didn't give a shit.

My sister and I would find ways to enjoy ourselves, this usually came in the form of running around a lot. The tragic side effect of this activity was that my sister was less than graceful and had a tendency to slip and fall in the grass. Not a big deal really, except my sister was also less than lucky and one knee would go directly into a fresh pile of sheep dung.

the good, the bad, THE UGLY

I don't know what to think here, I am torn, repulsed, and so intrigued. Is this even legal? I know there is a war between the zombie and vampire camp, but this makes about as much sense as Alien V. Predator and Freddy V. Jason you can't take two genres and have them battle it out.

I mean, this isn't even plausible, everyone knows that vampires don't exist.

Crap I bought but don't need

Alice

Fire & Ice bracelet
Norian's Bijou

Crap I want but don't need

Flowering Twig Necklace
Elizabeth Scott Botanical Jewelry

Scribble Silver Branch Earrings
Lila Ruby King

Fall In Love
Design by Nihan

Dog Soldiers

Vampires, zombies, serial killers… what about the werewolf? Well you are in luck, I am about to introduce you to the best werewolf movie I have ever seen, or that I remember at least. You see as many horror films as I do and it all becomes a bit blurry. Forget the crappy cover art and the “from the producers of…” line because everyone knows that a producer does squat except put enough money into a movie to get their name on it.

Something is afoot in Scotland, as shown by the mauled campers who have no point in being in the movie anyway so we move onto the part that does. We meet Private Cooper who I have a weird feeling I have seen in something else. Cooper is being hazed by the Special Forces and when he refuses to kill a dog, he is forced to run across campus in his skivvies, kidding, his Captain sends him back to the Army or something.

A few weeks later, Cooper and five other British Army men lead by Sergeant Wells played by Sean Pertwee, are dropped in the same area to perform a training mission. On their first night they come across a butchered cow and follow the trail of goop to find the camp that the Special Forces had set up, only it appears as though they got ripped a new one. They find a survivor in the same Captain that refused to let our friend Cooper, who still looks very familiar to me, join the Forces. Hindsight right? Well he babbles on about what jumped them and it doesn’t sound like they are very good at being Special Forces having gotten themselves all dead and everything.

Holy crap! Monsters! RUN! The living soldiers run for their lives, this way and that, one gets impaled on nature and Wells has his belly ripped open and his guts would fall out if he wasn’t holding them in. Yuck. When out of nowhere, a young woman who claims to be a zoologist appears and helps the survivors escape to her farm house. Building a base out of the house, the soldiers battle the onslaught of wolf creature throughout the night.

The effects are relatively very good for what the budget must have been, but the story, the action right amount of morbid humor, and the perfect amount of gore made for a monster movie that even my boyfriend remembered liking. It was a refreshing film after the countless Hollywood cookie cutter horrors that makes you appreciate how horror is interpreted outside our borders.

the good, THE BAD, the ugly

I love me some fried food, it's the Southern Belle in me I guess. So last night was our Condo association meeting, where we talk about condo fees and who is bothering who. Since no one has a condo large enough, they decided to hold it in my favorite local dive bar where Pub Trivia is held. I threw back some wine in anticipation of being attacked for some odd habit we have and I wanted to make sure my nerves were calm.

I get there late, order my bartender's equivalent of a Scorpion Bowl and a basket of onion rings. I then proceed to order two more drinks and polish off the plate of fried heaven. I hang out with my neighbor telling funny stories about my childhood for a few hours and head off to bed.

Soon, my stomach begins to churn and my body begins to shake with the chills. I try to ignore this feeling by rubbing my tummy and trying to fall asleep. Well, when the first cramp came I was happy that it was just going to be a case of the squirts. Once in the bathroom, I thought it best to maybe remain near a flushing unit, so I wrapped in a robe, turned off the lights and curled up on the bath mat.

Nothing happened for a while, so I thought I was in the clear to go back to bed, but once I stood up, it was all down hill from there. There are very few involuntary actions that you body can make that are as unpleasant as horking up friend onions, but after experiencing it last night, I can say I am officially traumatized and will be looking for a different plate of food in the future.

Crap I want but don't need

Mr. "Tea" hand doodled mug
Tea and Toast

Magical Journey Women's T-Shirt
Sir Mitchell

Unicorn no.3
Penguin & Fish

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane

I came across this movie randomly, I knew it was a horror obviously, but I didn’t expect it to be halfway decent. For all intense and purposes, it’s a slasher flick but without people wearing leather masks or a location with a shady past. It doesn’t use the standard format of a typical slice and dice movie, it makes it seem almost plausible even though we are suspending our disbelief for 90 minutes.

In Texas, where all fucked up people are from, Mandy Lane is a student at {insert name of random town} High School. Beautiful and popular, Mandy is still an outsider, having become an orphan at a young age and raised by her aunt. She keeps company with the “A” crowd, but is best friends with a boy who is shunned and taunted by her peers. She is invited to a pool party by your typical jock but Mandy insists that she will only come if her friend Emmet can come with her. Since all the boys love Mandy Lane, the jock extends the invite and then proceed to pick on him. Emmet and the Jock end up on the roof of the house watching Mandy when Emmet convinces Mr. Jock to jump from the roof into the pool to impress her. Well, being drunk and dumb, they guy jumps and cracks his head and dies.

Time passes quickly to nine months later. Mandy is currently ignoring Emmet due to the non-direct homicide at the party, and is still the object of desire for many of the male student body. Some non redheaded boy named Red invites a small group of friends to his father’s ranch because I think it is a law that a Texan has a ranch, in hopes that Mandy will be convinced to join them. There would be no movie if she didn’t, so she does. ROAD TRIP! Road trips in movies are always 10 times less boring than real road trips, why is that?

The party of six arrive at the ranch, meet the ranch hand Garth, then proceed to laugh, drink, frolic in the lake, play Truth or Dare and try to hit on Mandy, because it is ALL about Mandy. When the sun goes down, a mysterious intruder arrives and proceeds to slowly pick off the party members one by one and then begins to taunt those remaining in the ranch house throughout the night.

Perhaps what sets this Slasher film apart from the others, is that is uses a modicum of your intellect similar to the way Scream was not your typical teen horror film and asked you to understand and relate not only heroes, but to the villains as well.

Daily Memory

I like attention, I cannot lie about that, as long as it is attention that I have purposely tried to obtain. So when my little sister came into this world, I was pissed I wasn't the star in the family.

Being an artistic child, I would spend hours drawing on rolls of paper my mother would bring home from work. I would create a long tapestry of monsters and maidens and flying fish in t-shirts. Realizing that since "Lil E" came home with my mother, no one cared about what I was drawing anymore. Pissed, I came up with a brilliant plan to get that well deserved attention back. I started drawing sheet after sheet of squiggles and bringing them to my mother over and over again telling her they were "fireworks".

It backfired of course. My mother became tired of me drawing sub par pictures of "fireworks" and she told me to grow up. Damn I was stupid.

THE GOOD, the bad, the ugly

Seriously. Looking at the before images, I even wonder how it is that I am not a victim of some strange flesh eating virus.

But when I finally rose from my bed a 3pm on Saturday, sure that my drunken stupor from the night before had made its way through my system, I began to tackle the task of the last major room in my home. Emptying the small room was a breeze, assembling the wooden French named stand took the entire duration of Twilight but putting the millions of tiny tubes and bottles into piles of keep and trash but putting everything back into the bathroom made me lose my shit. I threw out 75% of everything and nearly burned all electronic devices in effigy rather than figure out how to organize it all.

A long conversation with my honey at the top of the world centered my chi and everything fell into place. I just hope the cat doesn't take a dump on my brand new bath rugs.

Crap I want but don't need

small storage basket
Megan Auman

Petula Berry, Original Art doll
Holli

Teabag Teaspoon Cup and Saucer First Edition
Bailey Doesn't Bark

The King of Kong

I really like documentaries that point out and exaggerate something or someone I can hate. The King of Kong introduced me to Billy Mitchell, a Grade “A” douche bag. Oh, and to sniveling minions, I hate them too.

The King of Kong is a documentary about the holder of the highest record in Donkey Kong. For way too many years the crown rested on the head of one mulleted Billy Mitchell. An arrogant son-of-a-bitch who dons patriotic ties, arranges for publicity photos with models, makes what is most likely a shitty hot sauce and claims his initials are U.S.A. Don’t you hate him already?

So, out of work Steve Weibe, who could be the kindest most patient person who never actually accomplished anything, wants to break the record. Little did he know, Mitchell has no intention of letting someone beat his score from 1982. Weibe buys the arcade game and sets it up in the garage. By using his engineering ability and having recently been bitten by a radioactive monkey, Weibe plots out the patterns of the game and annihilates Mitchell’s score. Having caught it on tape while his son is in the background crying that he is about to shit his pants, Weibe submits the video to Walter Day who is the keeper of the records, and an asshole who spends all day dressed like he works at foot locker. They judge the tape and reluctantly break the news to Mitchell and quietly announce to anyone concerned that Weibe is the new champion.

Apparently, if you reach I high score on an arcade game over 25 years ago, you can make any pimply 40 year old virgin do your bidding, you know, if they get permission from their mother first to stay out later than 9pm. Well Mitchell gets one of his butt monkeys to fly out to the West coast, break into Weibe’s garage, and then take apart the machine to see if he had it rigged. What I can’t believe is that Weibe didn’t call the police. But anyway, the two dudes discover that the circuit board was bought from Mitchell’s rival “Mr. Awesome”. But because the board was provided by “Mr. Awesome” Weibe’s score is not recognized. This is where I ask why Weibe didn’t just let this little clique continue their circle jerk and walk away.

Unfortunately Weibe doesn’t and a battle for the title ensues. You will come to loath Billy Mitchell, the desire to stab a bitch will be stronger than you ever felt it before. See this movie if you need your blood to boil, or see this movie because it is absolutely fantastic, this is what documentaries should be.

the good, THE BAD, the ugly

For everyone out there that thought that the guy with four popped collars was the biggest douche bag, let me introduce you to Billy Mitchell.

Billy Mitchell used to hold the record in Donkey Kong but was pummeled by Steve Weibe. After losing his title Billy can now be found hocking his hot sauce, combing his fingers through his party in the back, wearing one of his many patriotic ties and giving us the thumbs up.

I just found out he beat Weibe and got his title back. I so want to cut him

Crap I want but don't need

il Cavaliere - Hand Stitched Leather Satchel
Feral Empire

Wasabi Hoops
Maui Dive Girl Designs

Copper Olive Branches
Inspirational Images

From Within

I am almost disappointed when I see a good horror movie, this is due to the fact that I know that very few will measure up. From Within was a movie that left me craving more movies like this. Grouped in with After Dark’s Horrorfest III, I must say that I am impressed. The only movie I can compare it to would be The Abandoned which was a part of the first Horrorfest.

From Within takes place in a small, deeply religious town in Maryland. And opens with a teenage couple sitting together at dawn. The two are your typical angst ridden teens rebelling against the hypocrisies of religion and already my best friends. They speak too low for me to fully understand, but when the boy pulls out a gun and then proceeds to blow off his head in front of his girlfriend, I was already hooked. As the credits play we are introduced to a collage of the town as it wakes, your typical small town with its collection of small town minds.

Lindsay, our protagonist is trying on new church dresses with her chain smoking step mother as the blood covered girlfriend comes barreling down the street and into the clothing store. Babbling about someone chasing her she flips out and jams a pair of scissors into her neck. Her father runs to her side and we very subtly see him flinch as something moves from his daughter into him.

The rash of suicides continue like a chain reaction, from one person to another, and the blame for the curse goes directly to the brother of the first suicide victim. A fellow outcast who’s mother was murdered in a fire caused by an angry town mob when they suspected her for the death of one of their own.

Seeing the change in the community and her church, Lindsay befriends Aiden, the first victims brother in hopes of discovering the cause of the curse and how to end it. This need to reverse the curse is heightened when Lindsay herself is afflicted and she and Aiden rush to find the counter curse.

It was a very well done psychological horror where the curse is represented as visions of ourselves. It is about us versus us. Another aspect that drew me in was the portrayal of the church through the whole affair. Support quickly turned to irrational fear and hatred which then became a mob seeking holy revenge behind the barrel of a shot gun. It could be my dislike for organized religion, or for a good horror that doesn’t use a chainsaw to illicit a fear reaction from the audience. From Within was well paced and well acted that I recommend to anyone who is looking to use a little more of their grey matter during a typical horror flick.