Archive for the ‘furry’ category

The Terror – – Go for Broke; Gore

March 26, 2018

 

Watching The Walking Dead Sunday night,  I was unexpectedly treated to an unannounced and unadvertised preview of The Terror.  Quite a change of scenario, but I’ll take two hours of horror over one any night!

“An adventure for Queen and Country!”

Probably, not everyone will be able to get into The Terror because of its period drama aspects.  The pilot episode (Go for Broke) was mostly set-up and mood-setter, and some will be turned off by the rather trudging pace initially prevalent.  I love this kind of thing, however, and enjoy its attention to detail and atmosphere.  It’s all there; the dim  lighting, the creaking of the great wooden ship, and the magnificent desolation of the arctic.  Life was far more elemental in the mid-nineteenth century in a way that we early 21st century folks can only dimly imagine.

Executive producer Ridley Scott brings a touch of Alien space horror to this tale, however.  All of the elements are there; combine a bunch of superstitious sailors in close quarters in unknown and dangerous situations, and you’re bound to get a body count.  Even the first episode, Go for Broke, brought us death, disease, delusion, and even a “space walk” in the form of deep sea diving.  

The creepiness factor slowly started to ramp up in the second episode, Gore.  Locked in ice, the two ships send out expedition teams to seek the best passage through the ice, one of which meets with severe mishap when the tense group spooked by a night storm shoots an Inuit man in the company of his daughter.  A member of this team shortly later is seized and carried off by a creature that they think is a bear, but most likely is a Tuunbaq.  Taken back to the ship, the Inuit male succumbs to his injuries, his daughter advising the commanding officers (who profess that they want to help despite having shot her father) that they must leave or will vanish…

The sci fi/horror themes of malfunction, isolation, and paranoia that factored into such classics as The Thing are beginning to kick in here, and I’m on board for this arctic nautical nightmare!

 

“The Terror” is Coming!

March 19, 2018

I love creepy stuff, and there’s so little of it that’s done really well!  For this reason, I’m really looking forward to The Terror, an upcoming horror series on the AMC network. Based on a novel by Dan Simmons and the ill-fated real life Franklin Expedition, The Terror looks like wonderful stuff indeed.  

Incorporating elements of the movies The Thing with Alien and the rich period atmospherics and fine acting of the Penny Dreadful tv series, The Terror has it all.  It kind of combines a real-life historical event, the Franklin Expedition, with a horror/fantasy overlay. This kind of thing has been done in a lot of sci fi/alternative history fiction, and has lately been seen in films like Abraham Lincoln:  Vampire Hunter.

Now the ill-fated Franklin Expedition was real stuff which was kicked off in 1845 when the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror left England in search of a segment of the Northwest Passage, a kind of 19th century wormhole which it was felt would convey trade to the Orient.  The vessels, advanced for their day, became hopelessly ice-locked in the Canadian Arctic, forcing their crews to abandon ship and walk in search of a settlement.  They faced slow and miserable deaths from exposure, starvation, and lead poisoning caused by their badly-canned food.  All 129 souls on board the ships died from their ordeal.

In the television horror drama, the Royal Navy expedition instead of finding the Northwest Passage discovers a cunning, monstrous gothic-style predator who stalks the crew in a game of survival which could impact the region and its indigenous people forever.  For a tale of frozen wastes, sailing ships, and Arctic monsters I’m booking passage on The Terror for sure!


Geico’s “Manatees in Novelty Tees”

February 26, 2018

This Geico commercial must rank pretty high on the silliness scale.  As a family visits a aquarium and pauses before the manatee (“sea cow”) exhibit, they are rewarded by a view of a quartet of the creatures, each wearing a different colored tee shirt, complete with slogan.  There are many surprising things in this world, you see…what’s not surprising is how much money the father, Matt, saved when he switched his insurance to Geico.  

“What does ‘come at me bro,’ mean?,” questions the son.  Dad replies that it’s something you say to a friend.  It’s good to know that manatees, sluggish though they may be, have a sense of fashion.  I do hope that their tee-shirts have color-safe dyes…

 


“Haunted Cabin” on”Terror in the Woods

December 11, 2017

 

The Haunted Cabin episode of “Terror in the Woods” (S1/Ep8) was basically a ghost story, but with a side order of cryptid thrown in.  The story was pleasantly scary and creepy, and I like that!

In deepest Kentucky in the Red River Gorge, a rustic cabin sat in the woods on an abandoned logging road that married couple Bill and Charisse chose as kind of a retirement retreat.  Bill held the fort while Charisse worked hard for the money at a city job about two hours away.  Now Bill was a college grad, not some yahoo, and he put up a security camera outside the cabin.  One night around two to three a.m., said camera picked up a sporadic green mist that seemed to morph in and out.  We, the viewers, were shown the actual footage, and it did look like a floaty mist to me! Alerted by the security camera, Bill went outside and thought that he saw a ghost…

…other creepy things then transpired.  Bill’s TV and Playstation came on twice by themselves!  Now Bill was suitably creeped out by this. I mean, would you want ghosts messin’ with your PlayStation?! They’d stay on it for hours, and leave slime all over the console and controllers, for cripes sake! Bill then did what any sensible person would do, and spent the night in his car.

A week later, Bill’s trusty security camera showed a ball of white light that seemed to come out of the ground and which floated along the area; ghost alert! Viewers were also shown this footage. Bill trucked into town, speaking to and showing locals the footage; not surprisingly, they thought it ghostly.

Now comes the Bigfoot alert; walking outside his cabin in the woods, Bill hit a tree with a branch, and thought that it was answered with other knocks. Bill experienced fear and panic, since ghosts and Bigfoot make for a full paranormal schedule. A friend later visited him, and they found strange footprints with four digits and hooked claws; pictures were taken of this, which viewers of the episode were again shown.

His wife later returned to join Bill, and things went smoothly for a time until they heard howling and barking of a guttural, hellhound nature. They tried to record the commotion, but the sound stopped. Later when watching a ghost show on television, the two decided it would be a kick to casually try and summon a spirit themselves. Be careful what you ask for, because a loud knocking then came to their door, although nothing was there when the door was answered!

So our protagonist again went to the nearest town, showing the locals and woodsmen his latest videos and pics of the strange footprint.  Not surprisingly, they couldn’t explain them but agreed that they were freaky.  It was learned, however, that the cabin Bill and Charisse had bought was built for an ailing daughter who died in the cabin.  The cabin has since continued to be plagued by paranormal activity…spooky!  

“The Shape of Water” is Extraordinary!

December 7, 2017

It’s being called everything from a sympathetic re-telling of “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” to an origins story for the Abe Sapien character from Hellboy, but by most accounts The Shape of Water is one of the best films that Guillermo del Toro has produced.  

Set circa 1962 during the depths of the Cold War, the fantasy drama concerns the unlikely relationship between a mute female custodian, Elisa,  and an intelligent amphibious humanoid creature torn from South America and kept in a secret government laboratory in Baltimore.  It’s readily believable for any dabbler in government conspiracy theories.  Called “the Asset” by his captors, the being faces exploitation and eventual “harvesting” in order that his biology might be further studied and applied to the space program.  As their relationship deepens, the humble cleaning lady resolves to take action to save a unique individual from captivity and worse…and “the Asset” has additional capabilities of his own…

The film works on many levels, and is rightfully up for numerous awards.  Seeing it might be the best Xmas present that you could give yourself!

Ernie the Elephant…

November 27, 2017


One of the latest commercial pitch-beasts is Ernie the Elephant, voiced by John Cena.  Although a fish out of water or elephant away from the jungle, Ernie is strangely at home everywhere, and would be infinitely more affable as a symbol of the Republican Party than the sitting American president.  

Now Ernie prefers pistachios to peanuts, and touts them for the Wonderful Pistachio company at a variety of sites including a ball field (above) and even in an elevator where he’s set off a weight sensor alarm. Ernie regards pistachios as a healthy snack, which he relates to be important in a age of unrealistic body images; ain’t it the truth! Nothing says healthy snack more than an elephant with saggy gray skin and a ton of junk in the trunk, apparently.

Elephants in commercials are rare, with the icon for Elephant Insurance being the other exemplar who comes to mind.  Ernie is far more laid back, however, and if you have to have an elephant in the living room, I’d rather that it be this easy-going guy.  In my mad world I’d love to see a cross-over series with cgi animal characters such as Ernie, Chester Cheeto, and the milk-that-messes-with-you cow from the Lactaide commercials…now that’s entertainment!



“Terror in the Woods” Werewolf and Demon in the Woods

November 23, 2017


Terror in the Woods does not refer to the state of the weeds and brush in my backyard, but is rather an entertaining if uneven offering on the Destination America channel network, your gateway to the paranormal!   While not the best paranormal show I’ve ever seen, Woods is certainly not the worst, and is probably worth a look if you’re into this kind of thing, especially in light of the dearth of new show material involving cryptids.

Now the Werewolf and Demon in the Woods episode (S1/Ep5) featured two segments, the first of which involved two campers, David and Lisa, who while traveling on Roanoke Island in North Carolina encountered a wolf-like creature with glowing yellow eyes that was about four feet tall and challenged the male of the pair who investigated sounds that he heard outside of his camper and the vehicle that he was pulling it with.  Things got freaky when the beast stood up upon two legs, which increased his standing height to about seven feet.  The wolf-thing then approached the guy, closing the distance while ambulating on two legs!  In the best Clint Eastwood tradition, the guy then pulled a magnum and fired a round at the creature, believing himself to have struck it in the shoulder.  This seemed to annoy rather than deter the beast.  When he perceived a second creature growling, the unhappy camper perceived himself to be outnumbered, wisely retreated to his vehicle, and beat a hasty retreat.  Later at a gas station, the motorist asked another person if he had ever seen something strange in the woods, and the reticent stranger admitted that he had.  This is the stuff of urban legends!

The second segment, Demon in the Woods, involved college-aged geo-cachers who carried their search for buried objects into the night where they found evidence of a satanic ritual in a clearing in the woods.  Discovered was a fenced-in circle with hanging objects around, similar to those portrayed in The Blait Witch Project.  The guys heard growling, grunting sounds which seemed to encircle them, and they took off running.  The tale-teller, Davey, went back for a straggler, and was again surrounded by a sound that seemed to pursue them as they fled.  Limbs and sticks were heard breaking as the duo fled.  While there was no physical presence seen, the sound seemed to be palpable, and shook them.  They felt that something was trying to drive them out of the woods.  It was later learned that a demonic cult held sessions in the area that they had visited… ooh!  (Face-palm scream)

So be careful when you go out in the woods, for “the nights are dark, and full of terrors.”  And that’s the way that I like it! 

 

Aspen Dental Well Commercial…

November 8, 2017

If you’ve ever watched an episode of “Lassie,” this commercial may resonate with you, because it presents a variation on a classic scenario from the old television series where young Timmy falls into a well, and it’s up to the faithful collie Lassie to summon rescuers.  Timmy needed a dog to take care of him, ‘ya see…

The story elements are essentially there, with the alteration that two adults rather than Timmy are trapped in the well.  The canine on the surface is sent for help, but returns with…a dentist.  Although this is Aspen Dental’s heroic dentist, the misunderstanding well victims nonetheless tell the dog that she is bad before the intervening dentist drops a rope over the well’s edge, telling those captives that use of it will be a little like flossing.  They are in a cavity, after all…

That’s just a little dental humor coming from the man in the white clinical coat, who is equally adept at defeating bank robbers, rescuing folks from elevators, or starting cars stranded in the desert.  Perhaps in the future, the Aspen Dental guy will take on a personification of gum disease, tooth decay, or plaque.  He might even travel with a youthful sidekick called Oral Hygiene.  At any rate, it’s good to know that Lassie hasn’t been forgotten…and do watch out for abandoned wells out there!  

Halloween at Last!

November 1, 2017

To all my readers, a Happy HalloweenSamhain Greetings, Memorable All Souls Day, and Feliz Dia De Los Muertos!

The Kat Lady Kit Kat Halloween Commercial…

October 21, 2017


People with multiple cats tend to be regarded as demented; “Crazy Cat Lady” is practically part of the language.  Well, cats can really come into their own on Halloween, as illustrated in this 2016 Kit Kat candy commercial.  The brief spot begins when a mother out with Trick-or-Treating kids asks them whose house they want to visit first.  “The Cat Lady!,” they gleefully shriek.

Next we are shown the woman in question, seated comfortably in her home.  The doorbell rings, and immediately one cat across from her unfurls an impressive set of bat-like wings.  Next an Egyptian-styled cat saunters regally across the room. “It’s go-time, Kitty-Cat!,” announces the woman as she grabs a bowl filled with Kit Kat treats.  

So have a break…have a Kit Kat bar!  Wouldn’t you like to have a winged cat?  And Halloween is a lifestyle for some of us, really…