Tuesday, October 29, 2013

This is a behind the scenes image from the setting of Kubrick’s THE SHINING. There are lots of other images in this treasure trove, and you can see them all at http://imgur.com/a/Ur9Zo#TakkNne


I think Jack Nicholson looked even scarier when he’s not in the role..

From the History Channel, the history of Halloween

Haunted House by Gene Simmons

A frightening image from SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK by Alvin Schwartz. .The artwork by Stephen Gammell.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKNIqG9J2KU?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=374]

Only a few more days to Halloween.. silver shamrock.


This YouTube video is a conglomeration of scenes from HALLOWEEN 3, the Season of the Witch.


I fondly remember old times gone by, gathering together with friends in a house of our choice, firing up the colortini, and watching the waves of Halloween flow through the air. 


Actually, what we did was a high-school type version of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000. We’d make comments and jokes, mock the film, and laugh throughout.. We did it for more than just Halloween 3, it was for many horror flicks. Our favorite character, as a group collectively, was Doctor Loomis. We coined a term “Loomicide” that would one day go on to become my late 1990s and early 2000s AOL screen name.. 


Oh, those good old days!


But in hindsight, dare I say, Halloween 3 is sort of a classic. I may have been met with scorn for that comment last century,  but I think people are rediscovering the awfulness and also amazingnenss of Halloween 3.


Sure,  the acting is terrible.. yes the scenery is awful.. and by all means, the flow of the movie is choppy and sloppy—but isn’t that what sort of makes it good in a sense?


However, think of it this way: Halloween 3 may have been the BEST of the entire series.


Sure, it didn’t feature the SHAPE, Michael Myers, donning the Shatner mask.. and no, it had no mentions of Laurie Strode.  There was a scene though where the tied up main star was forced to watch the original Halloween…


There were also some other lessons to be learned from Halloween 3, some cautionary tales to remember.. 


For instance: Bad parenting. The child who gets his head eaten by snakes and worms had really awful parents, they just seemed to want to be rid of their child.. they were selfish and had little skill in containing their son, who ran wild without attention. 


Another lesson: The overuse of television. In that time, the boob tube had antennas. Today, there’s no need with handheld devices and Twittering from all ends of the earth. Maybe, though, the fact that kids were glued to TV and almost slaves to it should be a lesson for all of us.


Something else: How powerful media is. And how many times influential hidden messages can be tucked into our shows. In this movie, kids were told to get home by 9 o’clock too put their Halloween masks on, and then eventually succumb to a massive amount of worms, snakes, bugs, and other things that would eat their brains.. Pretty scary if you minus out the acting of the movie. Maybe John Carpenter was actually trying to show that subliminal messages are alive and well, and that they could maybe make us do things against our will..? That or he just wanted to come up with an idea that was different. 


I tried contacting the legend, John Carpenter, for this, but his associate said he was not able to comment on Halloween 3 at this time. Understandable. I think he’s a little busier than me at the moment.


So in that sense, we need to look to past interviews to see what exactly John Carpenter intended on doing in THE SEASON OF THE WITCH. It’s worth remember that Carpenter really didn’t want to do any more Michael Myers related films. They actually envisioned that a fourth Halloween would have been a ghost story. Instead, since H3 flopped, the fourth was the RETURN  OF MICHAEL MYERS. And then there was a 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, … bla bla bla.. John Carpenter told Aint it Cool news that he didn’t understand why fans of Halloween hated the third installment so much.. He said, “Hey, man, I don’t know. I like HALLOWEEN 3. I like the story, especially weird evil Irish industrialists. It’s hilarious.” 


And it was hilarious .. It was awful. Wonderfully awful.


I go back now and think to myself that Debra Hill and John Carpenter touched on a number of themes that are actually quite scary. Yes, teenagers can mock it, just as I did with friends back in sultry summer night parties in the late 1990s… But maybe I have developed a renewed appreciation for this movie..


What could be scarier for a child that having your mom and dad buy you a mass produced mask because you were convinced by a commercial with an annoyingly catchy theme to do it.. and you jump on the bandwagon with millions of other American kids… and you wear your mask, at the same time as them, at 9pm on Halloween night.. and have your brain eaten by bugs?


Now that is scary for a kid.


NEW YORK TIMES hits: The White House response on Monday to the expanding disclosures of American spying on foreign leaders, their governments and millions of their citizens was a pathetic mix of unsatisfying assurances about reviews under way, platitudes about the need for security in an insecure age, and the odd defense that the president didn’t know that American spies had tapped the German chancellor’s cellphone for 10 years.

NEW YORK TIMES hits: The White House response on Monday to the expanding disclosures of American spying on foreign leaders, their governments and millions of their citizens was a pathetic mix of unsatisfying assurances about reviews under way, platitudes about the need for security in an insecure age, and the odd defense that the president didn’t know that American spies had tapped the German chancellor’s cellphone for 10 years.

Monday, October 28, 2013

When I was a kid, there were ‘scary stories to tell in the dark’ … and then there was ‘HAROLD' .. 


For some reason it was one of the more haunting tales in my early times..

Obama admin. knew millions could not keep their health insurance

NBC news reports this:

President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.

Obama admin. knew millions could not keep their health insurance

Katy Perry to naked female pop stars: ‘put it away’ .. she wants female singers to stop getting naked

So.. would Miss Katy ‘roar’ at this?



Katy Perry to naked female pop stars: ‘put it away’ .. she wants female singers to stop getting naked

Tweeting Bra: Sends Tweets Every Time It's Unclasped

It’s for breast cancer awareness month.


But don’t phones potentially add to risks.. do we want our phones  next to our breasts? Do we even want our bras to tweet!?


What a strange twist of teets.


Tweeting Bra: Sends Tweets Every Time It's Unclasped

Bigfoot in Maine? 10-foot-tall ‘wild man’ was killed in 1886, newspapers reported

So the truth was out there. Then.


Bigfoot in Maine? 10-foot-tall ‘wild man’ was killed in 1886, newspapers reported

Meet the actor who plays dead for a living.. Chuck Lamb has appeared in numerous shows and movies … as a dead man. Naturally he is pale and bald, so seemingly has .. just looks dead? But Lamb is a professional dead man, the one that producers call when they need a victim..

Nightmares and dreamscapes

It has been well over a decade since my paternal grandmother died. Over the years I have been given the gift of having some dreams about her—however she was never actually in them.. only her vacant house and her empty garden. Last night, that changed. I had a dream that we were saying goodbye to her house and her life (a long time after mind you) and she was in it.. she gave me a great big hug and whispered “where did the time go?” and finally “I love you.’ Even though it was a dream it felt like magic.. My dream ended with me asking her, “Do you believe in God” and ….boom. The alarm clock began to do its early morning magic-buster.. I never got an answer.. But I know that she loves me.. Ironically, this was also the first dream in which my son was actually in it—I have been a dad for two and a half years but this was a first.. I was showing my son Ayden a pear tree she had.. I found an old toy in her house..

But as for that potent God question?

Alarm clock.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Rare Zapruder footage: Multiple JFK assassins

Rare Zapruder footage: Multiple JFK assassins

THE WEEK OF THE WITCH

The season of the witch is here.. for some, this is the time of year where the thin line between reality and ‘over there’ vanishes for a while.. Ancient tradition would cause us to wear those costumes, carve those Jack O’Lanterns..


Pagan rituals that persist today.


It’s also a time where, in my opinion, I feel it becomes a virtual ‘full moon’ for the week.. The strange, the creepy, the macabre. It begins today..

Samsung must pay $340,000 after paying people to write bad reviews

Samsung must pay $340,000 after paying people to write bad reviews

Study: 30% of Americans Get Their News on Facebook

And 70% don’t read news.


Study: 30% of Americans Get Their News on Facebook

Someone challenged hackers to investigate him and what they found out is chilling

This is a must read…


Someone challenged hackers to investigate him and what they found out is chilling

What’s Halloween week without a star going a little too far?


Julianne Hough says sorry for blackface Halloween makeup..

This is horrible.. Disgusting news from New York City: Stabbing rampage hits Brooklyn.. a man was arrested after butchering a woman and her four children.. According to reports this Sunday morning, a ‘crazed man’ turned the Sunset Park home into a slaughterhouse.. The woman was 37. She had four young children.. The man has been identified as the children’s mentally troubled older cousin.. This is such a horrible story..


The killing is being called a mass stabbing..
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