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“Stranger Things” a Multidimensional Delight!

October 16, 2023

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...

Categories: alternative realities, anthropomorphic, bizarre, creature features, horror, paranormal, psychic, sci fi, surrealism in life, twisted reality
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Still Lovin’ Vintage SyFy Movies…

August 29, 2023

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…

Categories: alternative realities, creature features, extinct species, horror, movies, sci fi
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Of Mechanical Beasts: the “Metalhead” episode of “Black Mirror”

June 16, 2023

Set in the monochrome hell of a bleak, dystopian future where artificial intelligence has driven civilization into the ground and all but eradicated humanity, three scavengers enter a warehouse in search of needed supplies to help an injured companion. They extract a box which looks promising, but hidden behind the box is a robotic guard dog…

The Robo-dog, like the creations of Skynet, is an efficient killing machine. It sprays the three humans with tracking shrapnel, and kills one swiftly with a firearm integrated into a limb. The two survivors flee to their vehicles with the Robo-dog in pursuit; this mech is relentless and merciless, and it gallops after them, smashing into one vehicle and killing the driver…

That leaves only the one woman, Bella, alive to battle the robotic horror. Fortunately she’s cut from the same cloth as Linda Hamilton and Sigourney Weaver, crashing her vehicle in an attempt to crush the metalhead but only damaging one of its limbs. That damage renders the robotic dog incapable of climbing a tree, and loss of battery power forces it to power down until it can do a solar recharge. It does so, however, and the pursuit continues…

The Robo-dog selects a knife as an alternative weapon, but the survivalist woman blinds it’s visual sensors with paint. It continues to come after her using auditory sensors, and it takes two shotgun blasts to put it down. Before being destroyed, however, the killer Robo again sprays the woman with tracking shrapnel, one of which lodges hopelessly beyond removal in her jugular.

The tales of Netflix’s “Black Mirror” seldom have happy endings, however, and more robo-dogs are on the way, far more than could be out-battled. The dark tale does, however, end with a twist, leaving the viewer dazed and dazzled…what a rush!

(Battle-damaged Robo-fox on the attack…)

Categories: alternative realities, artificial intelligence, biomechanical, creature features, furry, horror, sci fi, television
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“Cloverfield 2” is Coming!

February 6, 2023

Not everyone is a fan of the CloverVerse, but Cloverfield has been called the best Godzilla-type movie done by Hollywood. The original 2008 Cloverfield movie was commercially successful, although in my case it was an acquired taste due to the “found footage” format of the film as filmed by the shell-shocked, ground-level perspective of the young people who attempted to survive a monstrous attack.

10 Cloverfield Lane from 2016 was a different kind of offshoot of the franchise, anchored by the star power and acting of John Goodman, and set in the paranoid and claustrophobic setting of an isolated survivalist rather than in the big city. We did get to see some actual aliens in the closing segments of the film, and they were worth waiting for, having advanced technology and biomechanical ships…

Then there was 2018’s The Cloverfield Paradox, a muddled and confusing installment set on an orbiting space station where an international team of scientists attempted to solve Earth’s critical energy crisis using a particle accelerator but unintentionally opening a rift in space to an alternative dimension from which flowed monsters to our reality. Rifts in space…where would science fiction tales be without them?! This device however explains how Earth received the Cloverfield monster (code name, “Clover”) in the first place, and so is a necessary link in the CloverVerse. As the sole surviving scientist returns to Earth, the enormous monster is already here, and rears its hideous head into the heavens, roaring in the last moment of the film. The Cloverfield Paradox was relegated almost immediately to Netflix, and may largely be seen only there today…

There is little that is presently known about the next planned Cloverfield movie, other than that it intends to be a direct sequel to the 2008 original, and may pick up from where the creature, having thoroughly trashed New York, has survived a tactical nuke. Reportedly the “found footage” viewpoint of the original film will be abandoned, so the monster won’t be shown just in fleeting partial glimpses again. Rumors are rampant; we may see the whole of human civilization plagued by multiple monsters, or perhaps a new creature will be introduced to fight against the original. Kaiju type films have been known to do those kinds of things, and it should provide a fine spectacle in any case… RAWRRR! 🙀

( Watch the skies!!!)

Categories: aliens, alternative realities, animal presence, creature features, doomsday, furry horror, horror, movies, sci fi
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“Godzilla vs. Kong” Arriving…

March 4, 2021


In these times of a deadly global pandemic and an insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol, you probably figured that a Godzilla vs. Kong movie was inevitable.  We may even be jaded to it, kind of like “Yeah, it figures, whatever!”  But after years in the planning and multiple delays in 2020, Godzilla vs. Kong is at last set to open in late March.  

Described as a “massive monster brawl,” this latest installment in the MonsterVerse unites in mortal combat the iconic franchise figures of King Kong, who has appeared in a dozen films, and Godzilla, the veteran of three dozen flicks.  Both franchises began cinematic renewal and revitalization programs beginning in 2014, with Godzilla establishing himself as “King of the Titans,” and mankind in this universe being in fearful coexistence with them.  King Kong, for his part, has done well in his domain on Skull Island, and has demonstrated his ability to dominate in battle large reptilian creatures, including three T-Rexes at once.  This makes him a serious contender in any monster match, even if he is essentially a giant ape…

 

Now in the current crossover matchup, Godzilla has become seriously ticked off, and is rampaging around the planet, prompting mankind to recruit King Kong as a defensive agent.  Kong has the advantage of superior intelligence and agility, whereas Godzilla is elemental and practically indestructible, plus he has that radioactive breath thing going on.  You have to choose sides in this combat, and I confess to being a Godzilla loyalist.  He is just magnificent emerging from the sea, an unfathomable, breathtaking, and unstoppable force of nature!  Kong may be King, but Godzilla is…well, a god.  The Internet is having a field day over the upcoming battle royal, and we are at least promised by the producer that one of the combatants will win.  There’s nothing we monster movie fans hate more than ambiguous endings, which are all too common and very unsatisfying.  If I wanted a “write your own ending” conclusion, I wouldn’t be bankrolling someone else to write the script.

Regardless of who emerges victorious in the epic fray, we are promised more MonsterVerse films to come…and there is the revelation that some thing manifested as seismic activity within the hollow Earth may be instigating the fracas to begin with, like a cosmic conspiracy theorist. Perhaps there is a common, real enemy. All is probably not as it appears, with plenty of hooks to hang future movies on.  Producers do, after all, want your interest piqued, and your movie dollars supporting their efforts…Rawrr!  

 

 

Categories: alternative realities, animals, anthropomorphic, creature features, famous furries, furry, movies

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“Real Vampires” on MonsterQuest…

November 6, 2020

 
We can’t all be vampires, much less Dracula…some of us are just children of the night, and I can live with that.  It’s not that I dislike vampires, it’s just that I’m much more of a werewolf guy! Besides, we children of the night have a hell of a band, being know for our music.  Alright, now we’re just a garage band, but watch for our breakout album…

…that being said, MonsterQuest recently aired a new episode titled, Real Vampires.  Now vampiric legends exist in 95% of human cultures, with the oldest originating thousands of years ago in China and India.  Kali the Hindu goddess was one such example.  A word of warning that some gruesome things covered in the episode follow…

Flashing forward to more modern times, we have the case of “JB,” who was buried in the 1800’s in Willington, Connecticut.   His remains were accidentally discovered in 1990, and his body exhumed due to its unusual condition, which included the remains being mutilated, with the corpse decapitated, the ribs broken, and the thighbones disarticulated and placed into an “X” formation on the chest…some people thought that they were destroying a vampire here.  Modern forensic investigations found that the poor soul had suffered tuberculosis, revealed in the thickening of his rib bones.  Terminal tuberculin victims cough up blood towards the end of the disease progression, which to the unenlightened may have suggested a blood feeder rather than a disease victim.

New England vampiric beliefs likely came from eastern Europe, where in Hungary in the 16th century, Countess Elizabeth Bathory,  the “Blood Countess,” was obsessed with maintaining her fading youth and lured young girls into her service over a twenty  year period of time, later torturing and killing them and bathing in and drinking their blood; she would be convicted of 80 counts of murder, and is thought to have been one of the most prolific female serial killers in history.  In 1784, the Johnson children were exhumed to presumably break a vampire curse, which often involved removing and burning or destroying internal organs of the deceased.  Years before Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, a woman called Mercy Brown in 1892 was exhumed two months after her death due to suspected vampirism, and had her heart cut out, burned to ashes, and fed to her brother, the gruesome ritual failing to prevent his death from tuberculosis, then called “consumption.”

So what gives with these people?!  Mysterious plagues, superstition, and a lack of scientific understanding can drive people to do strange and horrendous things.  Disease processes and even human decomposition were poorly understood, with such things appearing paranormal to those unfamiliar with them.  Rigor mortis and then the subsequent relaxation of muscular tissue after death can cause corpses to move somewhat, with the gases of decomposition also causing bloating and at times the expulsion of bodily fluid through the mouth that can appear blood-like.  Subsequently, those looking for vampires could appear to find them through changes in the corpses of deceased individuals. – – Get the torches, pitchforks, and stakes ready, we got us an “undead” vamp here!

Even more recently, a “vampire clan” operating in Eustis, Florida in 1996 killed the parents of one of their disciples, their leader drinking small amounts of the blood of the victims.  “Clinical vampirism” has professionally been recognized as a delusion that the blood of others is needed to survive.

After examining this extensive but not exhaustive history, MonsterQuest last examined the phenomenon of psychic vampires, who reportedly feed off the life force of others and are not themselves “the undead.”  A psychic investigator shown on camera during the episode found that a so-called psychic vampire could slightly affect a measured electromagnetic field in an interaction with another person that they were “feeding” off.  I think that many of us know people who can drain the energy out of a room by entering it…

The legend of vampires is embedded in popular culture, and involves power over someone or something else.  Portrayed over the ages as anything from outsiders to dark heroes, vampires symbolize a deep human hunger…

 

 

Categories: controversial, creature features, historical perspectives, Mythology, paranormal, Questionably creepy, unexplained
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“The Masked Singer,” Back for Season 4!

September 14, 2020


People tend to either love or hate The Masked Singer on Fox, and we were provided a preview of the upcoming season’s costumes recently.  Shown above are Baby Alien, Serpent, and Seahorse.  Additionally the animal kingdom will be represented by Giraffe, Jellyfish, Crocodile, and fictitiously Dragon.  The show itself for those unfamiliar with it is kind of a singing competition run through a furry convention, a unique type of cheerful and inspired insanity.

There are a number of “firsts” represented among this season’s contestants.  At eight feet tall, Giraffe is the tallest costume ever, and is attired in a style reminiscent of French aristocracy.  Baby Alien is the first costume to be fronted by a puppet, Serpent’s costume has animatronic features, and the Snowy Owls (below) represent the first double-headed costume.

 

So you may want to drop in on The Masked Singer, Season 4 which will debut on September 23rd…

Categories: alternative realities, animal presence, animals, anthropomorphic, Brilliant but twisted, creature features, fantasy, feathered friends, furries, furry, furry television, fursuits, imaginary animals, television, twisted reality
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Frank’s RedHot TV commercial, “Every Food…”

September 8, 2020


Even in the bizarre and unforgettable year of 2020, this Frank’s RedHot commercial stands out.  The announcer’s voiceover kicks the ad off, proclaiming how he “puts that s#!t on everything.” What follows are some of the qualifying items, like pizza, a co-worker’s lunch, and “whatever this is.”  We are then shown a woman (above) about to put the sauce on some kind of tentacled thing, which commendably is still alive, and fighting back in a spirited fashion with cutlery!  This would appear to be one die-hard dinner, which unfortunately the woman appears ultimately able to jab her fork into.  Poor, valiant octopus-like thing!–Hath not a cephalopod eyes?!

The brief commercial continues to say that Frank’s RedHot may be put on “astronaut food,” and we are shown an astronaut floating in an encapsulated zero-g environment, his leg and body enveloped by the flexible tentacle of his multi-limbed alien captor floating right next to him, who questions whether the sauce may be put on astronauts.  “Everything!,” reassures the announcer, to which the alien succinctly replies, “Yum!”

So there you have it…serving and being served, eating and being eaten, just part of the food chain.  And don’t forget Frank’s RedHot sauce, which is the “perfect blend of flavor and heat.”  You can “put that s#!t on everything.”  Bon appetit, y’all…

 

   

 

Categories: advertising, aliens, anthropomorphic, Brilliant but twisted, commercials, creature features, furry, sci fi, television, twisted reality
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“A Quiet Place” Has It All…

July 1, 2020

In this time of the pandemic, it’s perhaps understandable that many of us would be drawn to apocalyptic fiction and cinema, and A Quiet Place (2018) is one of the best done and most striking films to emerge in this gendre in recent years.  It’s edge of the seat horror and  science fiction that blends elements reminiscent of the Alien, Cloverfield, and Walking Dead franchises, depicting humanity overwhelmed by vicious and powerful aliens who are blind, but hunt very effectively by sound.  Human survivors of this meteor-borne invasion are therefore forced to live furtive and hidden existences, avoiding the generation of sound, and communicating by sign language.  As a result, there is little spoken dialogue in the film, although captioned subtitles appear to translate the signing to the audience.

As for the aliens depicted in Quiet Place, they are neither warm and friendly nor possessed of high technology; they simply want to eat you, and are well-equipped to do so, possessed of clawed extremities and impressive dentition.  There is no evidence of higher cognition here, but rather animal cunning.  In appearance, they are somewhat insectile or bat-like, possessed of an armored exoskeleton of sorts and ambulating briskly on all fours but capable of rearing up on hind legs at which times they can appear disturbingly humanoid.  They use echolocation, and might not be able to perceive you as prey from several feet away if you are perfectly still and quiet.  Their auditory aurifaces when open dwarf any human ears…

Although a horror movie, A Quiet Place is of the rare type of horror movie with heart, as a family and its relationships is at the center of it.  There are unpleasant things to see such as the death of a child family member, but it’s handled non-graphically; a blur of motion, and he’s carried off.  The tension conveyed in the film, however, is almost palpable.  The survivalist husband and father (John Kasinski) and his wife (Emily Blunt) are rock-solid, and their  eldest child (Millicent Simmonds), a gifted young hearing impaired actress, projects a wonderful adaptive kind of Wednesday Addams darkness; she adapts and prevails.  The surviving female family members left standing at the end of the film are more than the equal of the vicious monsters headed their way, kind of like Ripley and Newt in a farmland showdown.  Catch A Quiet Place if like myself you enjoy intelligent innovative horror with heart… 

 

 

Categories: aliens, anomalies, creature features, doomsday, horror
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Progressive’s “Motaur” Commercial

July 4, 2019

This is truly bizarre; cool and creepy at the same time, like some fiendish device created by Skynet to work towards the extermination of the human race.  We’ve all heard of Centaurs, those fusions of man and horse, and we know about Minotaurs, those hybrids of bull and man. Cyborgs are a fusion of man and machine, and apparently if we make the inorganic components those of a motorcycle, we’ve got ourselves a Motaur…word play intentional.

The Progressive commercial plays off of the close linkage between a biker and their machine, and the Motaur (played by Terrence Terrell) is literally fused to his, although in conversation with bikers he reveals that he sometimes wishes for legs with his machine components on top.  “For those who love to ride, there’s Progressive,” we are told by the announcer, leaving us to wonder if an ailing Motaur sees a physician or a mechanic…and how many miles per gallon does he get?!

Categories: absurdities, advertising, anomalies, biomechanical, Brilliant but twisted, commercials, creature features, Questionably creepy, television, twisted reality
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