Here comes Peter Rottentail! It seems to be a recent trend in movies to reverse iconic benevolent or virtuous characters such as Santa, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, or Bambi to make them menacing and malevolent.– -Well, Easter is coming, and we’ve got a bad egg for your basket in the form of a malevolent Jackalope terrorizing a Texas town!
A jackalopeis kind of a shape-shifting creature that is part human and part giant horned rabbit, and it appears that local legend holds that such ravaged the area a century and a half ago. Guess who’s making a comeback, leading a demon bunny army, and just in time for the small town’s Easter-palooza!
The horror-comedy opens in late March, and you know about those mad March hares! It’s up to Texas determination and a professional bunny slayer to split a few hares… 🙀
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...
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…)
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…
If you blended Star Trek, Alien, and Jurassic Park together, you’d probably get something like the movie 65, now available on Netflix. The title refers to 65 million years ago when that legendary asteroid impacted with Earth, affecting the planetary history forever….
Now if you were to take an ancient alien-type pilot who was transporting 35 passengers in hypersleep to an unspecified destination before an asteroid shower perforated his ship and forced it to crash land on the Earth of 65 million years ago, you’d have the basic premise of the movie. Our pilot and the only other sole survivor, a girl, must brave the perils of ancient Earth, and locate their escape craft, all before the main asteroid of 65 million years ago arrives to ruin everyone’s day. The predacious dinosaurs who attack our hero and his charge are outclassed by his laser rifle and some really neat mini-bombs, but outnumber him greatly, making this a syfy survival flick.You know they’ll survive, but get knocked around a good bit with numerous close escapes, and it’s all rollicking good funthat’s paced well, and doesn’tpretend to be more than it is…
Laser (and phaser) rifles are definitely cool! They give you so much more of a presence than just a hand phaser. James T. Kirk knew this, and looked like a boss holding one. Did you know that his phaser rifle sold for $615,000 at auction? That’s not a bad trade-in allowance considering that it was an older model compared to those seen in The Next Generation. Wouldn’t you like to own a laser rifle? ‘Fess up, now…
But I digress…Adam Driver shines as the alien but humanoid pilot, looking and reminding me a bit of Keanu Reeves in the part. You may want to catch this Dino-tastic film, because it goes quickly to the action, and future tech versus saurian hordes is a fun ride… 🦊
With Artificial Intelligence and robotics improving and growing exponentially, we are seeing more speculations about their evolving role in the future in the media and film. The question is, will we get lovable, benign intellectual androids like Star Trek’s Data, or Terminators that are our intellectual and physical superiors, and relentlessly intent on our destruction?
Until fairly recently with the notable exception of the robotic Maria in the 1927 film Metropolis, many androids were depicted as styled after males. That boy’s club was recently invaded by the arrival of M3gan in the movie, and Arisa in the Netflix series, Better than Us.
Now Arisa (above) was styled as an attractive young woman, and her intended marketing in this country was as a sentient companion and sex toy. Surprise, however…her origin was in China, where she was originally designed as a kill-bot! When her perceived adopted family is endangered, Arisa shifts instantly into that mode, neutralizing threats with extreme prejudice, and absorbing gunfire with only cosmetic damage…
M3gan (Model 3 Generative Android) is created by a brilliant robotics engineer as a playmate, teacher, and care provider for her niece when that girl’s parents die in a road accident. Standing about 4’ tall and resembling a 10-year-old girl, M3gan is intended to protect her charge from physical and emotional harm, but exceeds the limits of her programming and soon eliminates a dog, a neighbor, a bully of a peer, and eventually the CEO of the company who intends to merchandise her, performing a memorable and inhumanly lithe dance before she does so. It’s kind of a pre-slaughter celebratory thing, ‘ya see…and who can blame the girl, since the CEO is only getting what he deserves?!
So bring on the killer fem-bots! I confess to being in love with robots and androids since first laying eyes on Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet….💕🦊
(…and so successful was M3gan that a sequel is in the works! Catch Better Than Us on Netflix, and M3gan on Amazon Prime Video…)
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!
FOXSYLVANIA 
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