“I’m not a “rainbows and unicorns” kinda guy, but this brief NJM commercial features a well-rendered unicorn in a very Arthurian atmosphere…
When two guys go traipsing through a pristine and dense unspoiled forest talking about the one’s car, ethereal fantasy-type music plays, and a majestic white unicorn appears between some trees! He’s anthropomorphic and so can speak, of course, so he comments that the most magical things about NJM insurance is that they put their customers first. When asked by one of the two guys if he’s a mascot, the unicorn adamantly denies it, and proclaims that he’s just a fan of the insurance. Unicorns, if memory serves, could best be tamed by a virgin…
I guess that we could all use an occasional unicorn in our lives, which beats a pesky insurance salesman any day…
Yes, there’s something in the barn, and it’s not a moo-cow but rather a Norwegian barn elf in this black horror comedy that plays like the movie Gremlins run through National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation…
It seems that a rather annoying American millennial-type family has inherited a Norwegian farm estate where their distant relative died trying to expel or exterminate the barn elf, succeeding only in dying a fiery death. Oblivious to Norwegian traditions and mythology, the Griswold-type family tries to impose gaudy American holiday traditions on the estate in the process of converting it to a bed-and-breakfast type inn…
This serves to make the barn elf angry, as they are creatures that despise change, bright lights, noise, and modernism in general. Only the family’s pre-teen son Lucas understands this, solely believing in the entity, and forging an alliance with the being by giving it cookies. If you are nice to such an elf, they will do service to you such as remove snow and split and stack firewood. Offend an elf, however, and open warfare results, with the mythical beings being able to call in reinforcements of their fellows…
You wouldn’t like such elves when they are truly angry. They are tribal, not adverse to killing, and will use primitive and environmental weaponry. When they stumble into your liquor cabinet, they’ll indulge themselves, and throw raucous parties…
The Americans are guided in their struggles by an expert in Norwegian folklore, who chides them with such admonitions as “This isn’t America. We don’t go about shooting each other in the faces!” A sensible people, Norwegians prefer negotiation.
Cookies are also powerful negotiation chips, if used in a timely fashion. Proper respect for folkloric beings is always in order, too. So be nice to your barn elf, should you have one… 🦊
As Monty Python and the Holy Grail memorably showed us, the Middle Ages were not totally dead and dreary times, especially if approached with a sense of wry humor. Simpsons creator Matt Groening does exactly that in Disenchantment on Netflix, and the series works on many levels, especially if you like history, myth, and satire…
While too complex to adequately cover in a single blog post, the series concerns the life and exploits of a medieval princess, Tiabeanie (Bean for short), a teenaged hellion adept at gambling and barroom-style fighting who has modern sensitivities, and rebels against medieval conventions such as arranged royal marriages…
Seeking to chart her own way through life, Bean is accompanied by mythic medieval companions that mirror the duality of her own nature; an innocent, idealistic elf appropriately named Elfo, and a black demon straight from Hell called Luci (short for Lucifer)…
Luci is my standout favorite in the series, a 9,000-year-old demon as inky-black as the original Felix the Cat, and thought by most who encounter him to be a weird, talking cat. Yes, Luci is the furry character in the series, having horns, fangs, and a forked tail, who despite his denials often postures bodily and presents like a cat. Sent from Hell to guide the Princess towards chaos, indulgence, and destruction, Luci proclaims himself to be “the guy who makes you feel good about doing bad.” This is one cool, laid-back, savvy demon!
This cat-like demon evolves, however, taking a serious liking to Princess Bean, becoming a loyal companion, fighting against her foes, and eventually dying for her…a sacrifice so noble that Luci appears before God in heaven, earning the status of ascended demon, a kind of reverse Lucifer, if you will…a bad guy who becomes good!
So catch Disenchantment on Netflix, if only to visit this fantastic, drinking, smoking, drug-ingesting cat-like thing that I’d be pleased to have in my corner, anytime! Bad boys, of course, can make you feel so good!🦊
You probably won’t see many Icelandic folk-horror/fantasy films in your day, and Lamb is one of them. From the A24 studio that gave us such films as Hereditary, their latest film crosses genres, confounds us, and almost defies description. I had earlier posted on Lamb as a unique film that was coming prior to being able to view it, and now having seen the flick, I can confirm that Lamb is extraordinary, even though it is likely to mess with your head.The best films often do…
So submitted for your approval is the strange tale of Ingvar and Maria, two childless sheep ranchers living in a remote part of Iceland who one night come upon the birth of a mutation in their livestock, a lamb with humanoid features. They basically take the newborn into their house, place it into a crib in their bedroom, and raise it as their own, a sweet child with an ovine head but scattered human features which despite being a hybrid adapts well to life in the isolated world with human foster parents. This is comical but touching at the same time, and her “parents” are quite happy with their non-traditional family…
Now as a furry, I can probably transition to the world of anthropomorphic animals and animal-human hybrids more easily than most people outside of the fandom. I’m totally cool with the notion of folks raising something that is neither fully animal nor human, and in fact I am envious of them! You can dress such a creature in human clothing, treat it as a loved member of family, and even take them places with you, messing with mundane people as you do so. – -What could be better than that?!
What usually happens, however, is that other people won’t understand, will judge and condemn you, and in some fashion come after you as one harboring an abomination. I rather expected a mob armed with torches and pitchforks to come calling, and demand that this lamb be surrendered to them.Fortunately, this does not happen although there are a fewtense moments when we are led to believe that Ada’s “uncle” is leading her off to shotgun her. This too doesn’t happen, and “Uncle Petur” becomes a convert…
Now Ada the lamb-child is revealed to us gradually as a hybrid, having one human hand and a hoof. She uses bipedal locomotion, and is about the size of a four-year-old. She cannot speak, but understands and responds to human language. Ada plays with her human mother, and is very sweet! I’ve seen human brats behave far less lovably…
But unfortunately, the story doesn’t end well but in violence against a target we didn’t expect when Ada’s biological father comes calling, also anthropomorphic and true nightmare fuel. Talk about Ram Tough! When you mess with nature, there are consequences, it would seem. This points to the need to keep firearms out of the hands and hooves of beasts.- – Are you listening, Congress?!
At any rate, Lamb may leave you scratching your head, wondering what you have just seen, and perhaps questioning the lines of separation between humans and animals, as well as questioning our relationship with the natural world. And that’s a good thing, really….so two paws up for Lamb, which now can be seen on some premium networks... 🦊
Where hot funk music meets the paranormal and an iconic horror tradition, you have Here Comes the Mummies. Everyone has to have a gimmick, right? Well, the members of this band dress up as mummies at every performance, complete with subtle variations in their wrappings, make-up, and individual names such as Mummy Cass.– – Get it? A play on Momma Cass! Oh, some of you are too young to remember her. A pity, that…
There’s a backstory, too. It seems that these guys hit on Pharos’ daughter, and so were cursed. Yes, these guys suffered for their art! An early album of the Mummies is titled, Undead Live. Many of their concerts begin with the band members entering to an impressive throbbing drum line as an Egyptian-esque theme plays, with the lead singer roaring at the crowd when all are assembled. Then it’s on with the electric guitars and abrass ensemble that includes saxophones and trumpets as well as a keyboardist. These Mummies have their act together, and know how to put on a show! It’s comic and cool at the same time. Crowds leave their concerts smiling, so it’s a happy afterlife. Prepare to be mummified…Arrrgh! 🙀
Pharonic sax…no, not sex, get your minds out of the gutter!
Some early hits of The Mummies such as Believe include nice musical evocations of ancient Egypt and paranormal references, as in the lyrics, “Do you believe in things you cannot see? Do you take your superstition seriously?” Ancient astronauts theorists would be pleased…
It’s bizarre but wildly entertaining, and these guys are accomplished musicians who even incorporate some choreography into their numbers. I swear that I saw a mummy twerk at me! Anyways, I like these guys, and if that makes me a Mummy’s boy, so be it! They’re on tour this summer…
As the Mummies would tell us in Ra Ra Ra, “When all is said and done,/ we’re not the first to be here / There’s nothing new underneath the sun.” We could all use a little twisted ancient Egyptian revival in these mad times, right? So spread the word and rock on, bandaged brothers! 🦊
Thecurrent Double Feature season of American Horror Story is exactly that, with the first Red Tide segments being about ghoulish vampires, and the second DeathValley feature centering on aliens. I’m only going to comment on Death Valley to keep things more contained, and frankly because I’m a bit tired of vampire themes, although admittedly Red Tide is innovative.
Now aliens I can really get my teeth into (with apologies to the vampires). What makes Death Valley a real hoot is the number of historical personalities portrayed, ranging from Eisenhower and Nixon (above) to JFK, Marilyn Monroe, and even an all-too brief appearance by Amelia Earhart, who without having aged in 20 years is delivered to the Eisenhower administration and pregnant with an alien child…yes, you heard that right! Well, a little later on Amelia has her alien baby and it’s a bad one, because it kills Amelia and the docs and nurses in the room until Ike and a couple of soldiers shoot it dead. This is wild stuff, and wildly entertaining!
Now you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Mamie Eisenhower possessed by an alien consciousnessand levitating, with her eyes a milky white. The aliens communicate through possession of a human intermediaryat times, and can cause the heads of opposing humans to explode by a wave of their hands, which is messy but compelling viewing. Wouldn’t you love to be able to do that?! Anyways, by possessing Mamie they gain emotional leverage over Ike so he agrees to allow the quiet abduction of several thousand people a year in exchange for alien technology. One of the goodies so obtained are cell phones, taken for granted now but unbelievable stuff during the Eisenhower years. Ike suffers angst over this, but hey, the aliens would simply have gone to the Russians had we not allowed them to abductpeople, impregnate them, and breed hybrids so their race can survive on Earth.
Some of thealien genetic engineering projectsfall short of the desired outcome, however, with disconcerting results like the humanoid above with one alien and one human eye…and the aliens can impregnate anyone and use them as a vessel, including males!
So catch Death Valley from Double Feature on the current season of American Horror Story. It unites so much of the mythic speculation on alien contacts and designs, with historical personages thrown in as you’ve never seen them before, very reminiscent of The X-Files and just as much fun… 🦊
Mary had a little lamb, goes the familiar nursery rhyme…and so, apparently, did a childless couple depicted in the upcoming movie Lamb, set in rugged rural Iceland. Now the couple (Maria and Ingvar) did not produce the hybrid themselves, but rather received it as the product of a kind of supernatural visitation to their sheep shed during lambing season. They regard the hybrid as a gift, and raise it as their own rather defensively, the human-ovine child bringing the couple happiness and filling in the gap in their lives. The lamb-child is raised in a crib and fed from a bottle, becoming a bipedal furry humanoid of sorts.- – Kinda the ultimate blended family, right?
Called “the strangest movie of the year,” Lamb crosses a number of borders and genres as good films so often do, and viewers are left confused thinking about whether they’ve seen a folkloric horror flick or some kind of absurdist comedy. Perhaps a bit of both in what’s been described as a “visual poem.” The lamb-child herself is the product of puppetry, performance acting, and CGI blended seamlessly.
This isn’t Sheepsquatch, but we of the furry fandom are quite familiar and comfortable with the notion of animal-human hybrids; I’m on board with this! We all know people who think that their kid is a little lamb whereas they’re really a little devil, right? Reviewers of the film are not overly talkative about the details of it out of fear that doing so might spoil the cinematic experience for viewers. Produced by the A24 studio that has done such films as The Lighthouse, Hereditary, and The Witch, the film may become a cult classic. Lamb brings forth the elemental beauty of the Icelandic landscape, and touches upon the deep, often unfathomable relationship between animals and humans…and that’s not a baaad thing! Watch for Lamb premiering in the U.S. October 8th… 🐑
FOXSYLVANIA 
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