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! 🦊🦇🎃
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...
It looks like Mickey Mouse got char-broiled, and has certainly seen better days…I’m referring, of course to the Richmond Rat Boy, a small, seemingly-mummified object anonymously donated to the Wayne County Historical Museum in Indiana. The Rat Boy appears to sport a rodent’s head atop a humanoid body that boasts details such as claws and teeth…
Now sadly, Rat Boy was never alive, but has been determined to have been crafted of plaster of Paris and clay over an armature. Animal claws, pointed teeth, and hair were added to lend a touch of realism to the figure. A note was left with the figure saying that it was found long ago in the basement of a local hospital, and once belonged to a circus-worker friend of the donor’s late grandfather…
Now Rat Boy is thought by museum staff to have been a gaff, a cryptid fabricated as a sideshow attraction in circuses that toured America in the 1910’s to the 1930’s. A more memorable example was the notorious Fiji Mermaid once exhibited by P.T. Barnum. They might have charged you a dime to a quarter to see such draws back in the day. Nowadays we can laugh at those gullible people of an earlier time, having reality television and conspiracy theories today…
So while Rat Boy may not be real, you can still buy your very own Rat Boy T-shirt to remember him by. “Be the first one on your block,every cat in the neighborhood will be in shock,” to recall the late great Soupy Sales in his song, Do the Mouse!
Being a mascot therapist must be a highly specialized niche within psychotherapy, and a sweet gig if you can get it. The clients are all quite remarkable, like the green catfish mascot who’s questioning his whole existence, and having anxiety over the fact that NJM has no mascots. “Identity crisis,” writes the therapist dutifully in her note pad…
Prompted to tell her more, the giant catfish comments almost tearfully that he also can’t seem to blink. “I meant more about NJM,” redirects the therapist.– –Ohh, the angst, the suffering here!We hear a muffled wailing sound, and the scene shifts to the waiting room, where we see a penguin and a robot mascot on the couch, awaiting their turn with the doctor. They are all good mascots with their tales of woe, no doubt, but unfortunately NJM doesn’t use mascots. Pity that, because these all look like good mascots…
Now if these fellows can’t find employment as mascots, surely they could fit into the Otherkin community… 🦊
I would be remiss if I failed to remind you that September 25th is National Comic Book Day! ‘Fess up now…how many of you grew up lingering over the pages of a comic book, and fantasizing about how great your life would be if you had a superpower…like, any one of them!
I had the rare kind of father who would actually bring me home a comic book or Mad Magazine occasionally when he came home from the store with the Sunday paper. It wasn’t just any comic book, either. Nope, it had to be a superhero one! My early years were spent paging through DC comics icons like Superman and The Green Lantern. Later, I would learn of the backstories of more obscure comic heroes like The Phantom and even Mandrake the Magician!“The Phantom is rough on roughnecks,” old jungle saying…
This led me down the rabbit hole in adulthood of discovering even more notable precursors such as The Shadow. When special effects reached a level where superhero movies were better than laughable, we were really off to the races with DC and Marvel characters, some more memorable than others, and renewing or finding new fan bases in the adult population…
And it all started with comic books, so remember this holy day. And I still have my Green Lantern ring, folks, two actually. If only the darn things worked, if only! Well, hope springs eternal, so they say…gotta keep trying! “In brightest day, in blackest night…”
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... 🦊
Say it ain’t so…Winnie the Pooh as a serial killer?! Yes, it is so in an upcoming horror movie. Winnie the Pooh and Piglet too have gone feral, abandoned by college-bound Christopher Robin and basically starving. It’s not exactly the beloved A.A. Milne characters from the original 1926 story here, nor their Disney versions. Nope, the boys have gone rogue, reverting to their wild roots and becoming seriously creepy. Piglet even sports tusks, and is clad in black…
In a scene which to me seems reminiscent of Steven King’s Christine, Pooh-bear is driving an ominous-looking vehicle. Just don’t bother looking for Eeyore the donkey, although you’ll see his tombstone. The boys have already killed and eaten him…
With the Winnie the Pooh tale now in the public domain, liberties may be taken with the classic story, although the film strives not to run afoul of Disney copyrights by omitting certain characters like Tigger, and changing the clothing styles of others. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is not a big budget horror movie, and was supposedly shot in just ten days.
So be afraid, be very afraid of Pooh and Piglet sneaking up on you in your bath. In this horror comedy, you might not even recognize them anymore.- – Aieee! 🙀
We’ve seen the fairy tale-inspired commercials of Nature’s Own breads before, and they’re great, spinning off from the Goldilocks saga with the Three Bears, and the Three Little Pigs tale, enjoying a french toast breakfast with the Big Bad Wolf. Well, now we have a version of Little Red Riding Hood, and it’s equally good and memorable…
The wolf that traipses to the cottage door here is large, muscular, and formidable in appearance. Granny inside is clearly no match for him. Entering the dwelling, the wolf licks his chops…is he anticipating an easy meal of Granny?
But no…it’s an easy meal with Granny! When Little Red makes her way to the house wearing her signaturegarb, the wolf is seated peacefully at the tablewith Granny, the perfect gentleman! Why kill Granny when she’s the perfect sandwich-maker, after all? Little Red enters the door and beholds the unexpected scene, her eyes wide. “What big eyes you have!,” comments the wolf to Red, in a perfect role-reversal.
See, isn’t this nice? Granny, Little Red, and the Wolf all seated amicably at the table. Why make war when you can make a sandwich? Perhaps Putin could heed this counsel…
In the depths of winter and the continuing pandemic, we could all use a little King Shark right now! Anthropomorphic sharks are a rare breed indeed, and this one is a metahuman criminal denizen of DC’s extended universe, a villain who somehow manages to be cute and even likable despite a taste for human flesh…
The son of a “King of All Sharks,” King Shark (real name Nanaue) is a demigod who is voiced to perfection by Sylvester Stallone in the Suicide Squad 2 movie. Stallone’s mumbling, monotone delivery suits the man-shark character well. Although quite deadly and almost indestructible, King Shark (shown above reading a book in prison upside down) is child-like and dull-witted, speaking in short, simple phrases. Just point him in the right direction, and then get out of his way!
You would want to be King Shark’s friend, because if you were not, you’d be nom nom, namely something good to eat. King Shark doesn’t eat his friends, although almost anything else organic would be considered fair game. He may be seen chewing happily on a human head and other body parts of those opposing him in the movie…
So catch King Shark as memorably created in the Suicide Squad movie. And when he celebrates Shark Week, you’d better party along…. 🦊
We’re all familiar with Disney’s 1940 adaptation of Pinocchio, and Pinocchio’s conscienceJiminyCricket,complete with formal clothing and umbrella. In a new retelling of the Pinocchio tale by Guillermodel Toro, the cricket is just as verbal but far more insectile, telling his audience that he “lived in theheart of the wooden boy.” Vaguely chilling, right? He’s even got a revised name…Sebastian J. Cricket! Plus this bug looks almost alien.- – I Iike him already!
Set in Italy in the 1930’s with Mussolini’s fascist power rising, this Pinocchio is depicted as a lost soul in a world he cannot understand. Disney sanitized the original Carlo Collodi tale, which included the cricket being killed early on and his ghost serving as Pinocchio’s conscience! Guillermo del Toro promises to return some of the original Frankenstein or nightmarish elements to the story, which included boys being turned into donkeys on Pleasure Island.
Sofor a darker, scarier version of Pinocchio that’s “aboutas far removed fromDisney as you can get,” you may want to check out this Pinocchio coming toNetflix in December 2022…and tell them that Sebastian J. Cricket sent you,buwahahaha!
FOXSYLVANIA 
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