When you’re a Halloween spirit shocked and overwhelmed by the cloying intrusion of Xmas well-ahead of time, it ain’t easy. I mean, I turned on my car radio on Halloween to find Frosty the Snowman playing…true story! This is why Halloween-spirited foxes are tempted to attack Xmas-playlist radio stations airing in October with chainsaws. It would only be poetic Justice, after all…
Now I’m already mourning the end of spooky season, but the Xmas people were already stepping all over me in late October. If Xmas feels that it deserves to be a two-month holiday, can’t we Halloween folks demand the same? Equal rights, eh Xmas? It’s only fair, after all…
Now Thanksgiving is perhaps the last chance to slow if not stop the Xmas juggernaut, but I don’t have much hope for that, as Thanksgiving icons are basically turkeys. Thanksgiving seems to be basically about grossly overeating, then unbuttoning the pants to fall asleep while watching football, at least in the minds of many…
Christmas just doesn’t listen. Never has, never will. It’s the Godzilla of holidays, fueled by commercialism and profit, and when money talks, business listens…
This doesn’t mean, however, that we can’t at least fight the good fight…and when people wish me “Happy Holidays,” I will urge them to remember Halloween! 🦊🦇🎃
Unto you, good readers, I show my inner self. Halloween’s here, a time that I relish more than Xmas. Let us rejoice and be glad in it with a few things that may help you get into the spirit of the season, one that is all too brief but precious in its brevity…
From Michael Jackson’s Halloween Special of several years ago (2017) we bring you Jim Parsons (best known as Sheldon Cooper) voicing Hay Man, and channeling the dance moves of Michael Jackson, complete with a back-up cast of animals that include foxes!What could be more appropriate than some foxes bustin’ some serious moves, because we’re feral, ‘ya see…because we’re bad…because we’re dangerous!
Yes, I’m an unabashed Halloween freak! I adore it, and resist all pressures to “outgrow” the holiday. One does not “outgrow” Halloween…it grows on you, and within you.- -Xmas spirit?- -I nurture the spirit of Halloween! I think that my enjoyment of horror gives me my dosage of Halloween year-round. It’s like a nutritional requirement for me, really…
We animal-spirits are a natural for Halloween, too. We can all draw inspiration from cats. Mine are daily trying to become more human, while I’m trying to become more like them. Perhaps we could meet in the middle…
Yes, Halloween has some dark elements, but it’s also a celebration, a kind of restorative reaching within yourself to validate and liberate what might be there. We need to kick back a bit against the bonds of civilization. This can be a cathartic experience, which ties in nicely with the furry fandom, which is communal but also intensely individual. We are never more free than when we embrace our inner animal…
So enjoy your Halloween, and carry a bit of it in your heart all-year round. I know that I do… 🦊
With Halloween less than a week away, I was initially happy to get an opportunity to view Renfield on Amazon Prime video, Now I want to stress that I’m mostly into werewolves as opposed to vampires, but have always found the character of Renfield interesting as Dracula’s quirky and troubled servant, and so was ready to see him take center stage and perhaps receive more character development.
Renfield, however, is one of those movies with a promising concept that fails to deliver due to bungled writing and a wandering, confused sense of what it wants to be. As a horror-comedy, it degrades the horrific elements, and becomes more of a social commentary bathed in blood. Nicolas Cage’s Dracula is played campyand over-the-top. He looks the part, but never reaches the dark and formidable majesty of Dracula, perhaps because you cannot be horrific and comic at the same time…
As for Renfield, he is in group therapy sessions led by a counselor/therapist who is clueless to the real situation but guides Renfield in seeing himself as the victim of an abusive relationship. “I deserve happiness,” pleads Renfield to Dracula. “You deserve only suffering!.” roars Cage’s Dracula as he slashes Renfield’s bowels. Renfield further struggles to update his wardrobe and acclimate to 21st century life, and maintains an upscale apartment. He is complimented on his “nice sweater,” and blesses nuns back when they bless him. Renfield comes across as a proper English gentleman, handsome even in a ruffled way…
Now when he eats bugs, Renfield acquires temporary vampiric powers, and becomes a masterful fighter with an accelerated healing factor, and eventually finds the gumption to confront Dracula. All ties to Bram Stoker’s source material have been abandoned at this point, however…
So there you have it…a good concept muddled by poor execution. While it does have its moments and is entertaining, Renfield may just drive you batty… 🦇
It’s daunting to deal with the Netflix series Stranger Things in a single post because of the scope and complexity of it. For those unfamiliar with it, suffice it to say that the series is a science fiction/horror delight, and it doesn’t get much sweeter than this!
Stranger Things might be compared to the works of Stephen King blended through The X-Files and run through Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though the comparison is inadequate. If watching the series, begin with Season 1 Episode 1, or it will seem incomprehensible. You may think you’re watching a kid’s series at first as the protagonists are all pre-teens initially, but hang in…
The Duffer brothers who created the series set it in the sleepy Indiana town of Hawkins in the 1980’s, where the government has been conducting secret unethical experiments on children with psychic powers, kinda like human lab rats. One of them, named Eleven as her subject number, has awesome psychic powers, and is at the heart of the show…psychokinesis and remote viewing are among her talents. Raised in a lab, Eleven initially shows a lack of language training, conventional education, and even human contact, but is a fast study...
And it gets stranger still, turning out that there’s kind of a portal to another dimension in the area called the Upside Down, through which monsters pass, and abduct people when it suits them. Some of the monsters closely parallel those of Dungeons and Dragons, such as the Demogorgon or Demo-dog…
There are other monsters jumping between dimensions, too, like the Mind-Flayer, which can possess people and assume a variety of forms. Those possessed can be referred to as the Flayed… 🙀
At the top of the food chain is Vecna, which sounds like an insurance company but who is actually another lab experiment gone terribly awry, and turned to the dark side. Once human, Vecna resembles someone who has been flayed and burned, and also possesses powerful psychokinetic powers, which leads to epic good-versus-evil battles with Eleven.
Soon to enter its fifth season, Stranger Things brings together science fiction, horror, and a little leavening humor in a rare combination, and is likely to hook you into its winning formula...
Let me start by saying that I would be beyond excited and thrilled if living aliens or real alien corpses were actually produced. As Fox Mulder’s office poster proclaimed, “I Want To Believe.” I could die happy if positive proof of alien life were produced…
Jaime Maussan, a journalist and self-proclaimed Ufologist, recently presented to a Mexican congressional committee two supposed alien mummified “corpses” that were gray, had three fingers, bulbous heads, an “ET”-type elongated neck, and measured about 1-1/2′ in length. They were presented behind glass panels in small caskets, with the claim made that they were discovered in 2017 in algae mines in Cusco, Peru. They are supposed to be between 800 and 1,700 years old…
These “alien corpses” look phony at even casual photographic examination, and smart money holds that they are paper mache constructions overlayed on a doll body or wire armature. This makes them akin to sideshow gaffes like the “Rat Boy.”
The presenter of said defunct aliens has done such things before, unveiling in 2015 another “alien corpse” that turned out to be the remains of a long-deceased child with a head deformity.
So continue to “look to the skies,” but take comfort in the fact that if 1-1/2 foot tall aliens invade you, with little effort you could boot them into tomorrow… 👽
Do I see myself as being a leader? No, foxes are independent, often solitary animals. We do our own thing, and don’t operate with or out of packs.
Moreover, I lack the desire to lead. Can I lead? Absolutely, but I abhor the degree of self-surrender and the coping with internal politics that comes with leadership of a group. It is a vexation to the spirit. As a leader, you are unlikely to make all of your followers happy at the same time, yet you can exhaust yourself in trying. And if the group fails, a leader can be held responsible, even if he or she has a following of turkeys.
As someone wrote, those who refuse to lead are liable to be led by someone worse than themselves. Because of this, I have at times assumed leadership when no one else wanted to perform that function, or was capable of the role. I have done so reluctantly. My natural role in an organization appears to be in position #3, operating behind and in support of the leader and the second in command.
Those who wish to become leaders may wish to consider that power corrupts, and absolute powercorrupts absolutely. I’ve seen nice people become complete bastards when elevated to leadership positions.
The notion that monsters make the best heroes has been previously explored, for example in shows like Being Human, whose characters featured a werewolf, vampire. and ghost. The Imperfects on Netflix has a similar cast of unlikely prime characters, this time a banshee, a succubus, and my favorite, a chupacabra-shifter, who in his transformational state rather closely resembles a werewolf with the exception of external spiny projections that go from his forehead down his back…
Now Juan Ruiz, the chupacabra-shifter, essentially blacks out when he transforms, and in that transformational state has enhanced speed, razor-sharp claws and teeth, and one assumes, enhanced vision and hearing as well. He tends to eat at least part of his victims in his feral state, and when transformed back, has no recollection of how he got blood on his face or what he was doing that caused that. In all fairness, most of his victims were posing a serious threat to himself or his female companions the banshee and succubus. Just to be safe, however, those companions have been known to keep Juan bound up in situations where he is likely to be “triggered.” They’ve been known to playfully refer to him as “Chupi,” even going to far as to torment him by saying things like “cute Chupi” or “You’re a good Chupi.” “I hate you guys!,” responds Juan…
Now the show’s unlikely trio appear to be in their late teens to early twenties, prompting some to call this series a “coming of rage” show. Their condition is the result of a rogue scientist experimenting on them without their permission using stem cells, and their powers are unfortunate side effects of that experimentation. The trio spend much of the series pursuing the rogue scientist in an effort to get him to “fix” them, all the while being pursued by armed and shadowy agents intent on their control or if necessary, extermination. This in turn leads to some epic confrontations along the way. “They want monsters?,” notes the banshee, “We’ll GIVE them monsters!” With that, the banshee can blow people away with her voice, the succubus emits pheromones that can get their pursuers to fall under her control and shoot each other, and the chupacabra springs, bites, slices, and dices…
Now variations on the show’s themes as mentioned have been done before, and probably better. Still, the show has promise, which makes it unfortunate that Netflix cancelled the series after one season. Still, it remains possible that fan demand might bring the show back, since it was just finding its footing after one one season, and there are different directions that the series could go with just some tweaking…
(language and graphic violence warnings for the following clip. This ain’t Barney the Purple Dinosaur, folks…)
Everyone is someone else’s idea of a monster, so they say…so I guess that makes me one, too, at least in spirit…
If there’s still a ten-year-old boy buried in you somewhere, you can appreciate vintage 1960 science fiction movies like Dinosaurus, because hey, who among us wouldn’t jump at the chance to fight a T-Rex with a steam shovel?! You’ve always wanted to, right? ‘Fess up, now… 🦖
We all know that explosives, atomic or otherwise, can unleash beasts from the past from the ocean bottom, frozen underground rivers, you name it. So when blasting to expand a harbor on a Caribbean island brings a T-Rex, Brontosaurus, and caveman to the surface that are reanimated by lightning, you all know that mayhem is gonna ensue…but a least you may get a dinosaur ride out of it!
Possibly this girl below has had worse dates than this one, too. At least she doesn’t have to provide an intellectually stimulating conversation…
Now the climatic scene of Dinosaurus featured a foreman (Caucasian, of course!) in an excavator battling a T-Rex on the edge of a precipice. This has got to be iconic for brains versus brawn, or the modern versus the primitive…and we’ve seen variations on this theme play out on cinema screens since, such as Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in a power lifter suit fighting the formidable alien queen in Aliens…
Well, our human hero in Dinosaurus gives the T-Rex several uppercuts with the earth mover bucket before deciding that he can get better momentum against the carnivore by swinging the whole rig around against him, a tactic which wins the day and gives us hope for tourism on that Caribbean island…hooray for heavy equipment manufacturers and Earth-denuding capitalism! 😸
Whether it’s for simple nostalgic value, to laugh along with outdated special effects, or to simply appreciate the heritage of the genre, vintage science fiction movies continue to be a kick to watch…
Werewolves on a train? – –Well, why not…it worked for snakes on a plane, and monsters and other nasties can be even more horrifying if their victims are somehow in a confined space with less chance to run or escape…
So take a British night train out of London, have it break down in a deep, dark forest infested by werewolves, and you’re set for some claustrophobic gory fun. Being British, however, this will be a proper train, complete with a tea cart girl dispensing tea and chicken sandwiches. There is a guard on duty, working a second shift but well-attired in a dress jacket, asking passengers for tickets…
Things start to go awry when the train hits a deer which clogs under the wheels, necessitating a stop where the investigating engineer becomes victim #1. Werewolves gradually approach and then infiltrate the train, which passengers progressively barricade. As the barricades are breached, the characters of passengers are revealed, and hand-to-hand combat becomes necessary with the werewolves, which to me rather resemble Yeti with upgraded dentition…these are humanoid werewolves, with not nearly enough hair and snout. I like a werewolf with a good muzzle, so I fault the creature design…
As the Nazis discovered, you can only push Brits so far, and in one memorable scene, a well-attired book-reading gentleman goes absolutely medieval on a werewolf’s head with a fire axe! Howl is recommended for moments of black humor such as this, and you can catch this 2015 film on Netflix or Utube…
It was back in the 1960’s that we first encountered the Gorn in the Arena episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. Who can forget William Shatner as James T. Kirk grappling with a hulking rubbery-suited reptilian creature intent upon killing him? Great stuff then, and a comic delight now!
The Gorn also appeared to fight with Captain Archer in the under-rated series Enterprise; he shot one multiple times, presumably to ensure that it was dead. Guess who won’t be joining The Federation any time soon? So it’s good to see the mean keen green guys revised, revamped, and updated for modern times, for the Gorn are classic Trek“ heavies…”
Unlike Kirk, the young Spock that we see in Strange New Worlds did not spare the life of an offending Gorn, but in all fairness it was either the Gorn or Spock and company who were going to be offed. Yes, the Spock of Strange New Worlds can go medieval when the situation calls for it…whoever would have thought?!
The Gorn have been reimagined, too, into a faster, far morenimble and ambulatory species reminiscent of thealiens which plagued Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. They even implant human hosts! Captain Pike, he of the uplifting hair, considers them “monsters.”
With the season cliffhanger ending with intelligent, space-faring reptilians descending on an outnumbered Enterprise, Captain Pike will have to pull something out of his hair to defeat the lizard horde.- – What a pity we have to wait to see Part 2!
FOXSYLVANIA 
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