Posts Tagged ‘horror’

it’s PEOPLE!!!!

Sun ,29/03/2020

Make Room! Make Room! versus Soylent Green: can film trump book?

Thankfully given the age (and the genius of Phil Hartman, RIP), it’s pretty hard to spoil 1973’s Soylent Green at this point. Saw this article in The Guardian this am and have to completely agree, movie is far better and more focused than the book, way better zap ending, too. I also knew (later) about this being EGR‘s final performance but not about the cancer diagnosis he never told others about – truly poignant. And of course Charlton Heston in his usual over-the-top craziness, gotta love that, perfect casting choice.

This riot/scoops scene completely freaked me out as a kid watching this, I had no idea what happened to the people once they were thrown in the truck, so scary.

here’s another take on the movie from 2013:

Soylent Green Is (More Than) People

The article does in fact leave out one other very cool piece of trivia – that movie was arguably the debut of one of the very first video games, Computer Space – the game is briefly shown when the Soylent executive and his GF are playing it in their condo, before he gets wacked, very early in the movie. Another piece of Nolan Bushnell marketing sharpshooting, although that game itself ultimately was a flop. But boy are they worth something these days….

candybowl

Westworld sales pitch…

Tue ,08/11/2016

sounds about right….

candybowl

Burned.

Sat ,23/04/2016

(finally) a new Alex Verus book has come out, Burned. And like all the previous ones, I ripped through this once as fast as I could, because these are great books! Continued character development is strong and believable, although I hope Mr. Jacka gives poor Alex a break in the next one (it’s likely another year-long wait, sigh). Anyway, you can read my posts about the previous books, or just get out there and start reading the entire series already!

Other voices linked from here.

candybowl

Ha!

Sun ,02/08/2015

joy of tech

candybowl

Seriously….Dark.

Sun ,14/06/2015

So, a couple years ago I got the Black Mirror 2-season series on DVD from Scarecrow and watched them. All of these shows are very, very dark and take a Twilight Zone anthology approach with a bit of Max Headroom (‘twenty minutes into the future’) and then really take a dark, dark turn. Tales from the Darkside – eat your heart out.

At that time, there was one more episode done – ‘White Christmas‘ that I hadn’t watched yet (it came out a few months after the series season 2) – finally saw it today. This has to be among the darkest of all the episodes, with a double-twist ending that hits you right between the eyes. Boom. Not for the easily depressed, or those that believe all these dadburn dystopian shows lately are actually LEADING us to those same dystopias! This is just really messed up stuff.

Anyway, for those who dare, i found it on YT (linked below, with Portuguese subtitles) or you might be able to actually watch it on demand from UK Channel 4.

good luck.

candybowl

Christopher Lee – RIP

Sat ,13/06/2015

One of the baddest of the all-time bad guys passed away over the weekend – Christopher Lee, at 93. RIP, Lord Summerisle…..

Christopher Lee dies at the age of 93

Wikipedia bio
IMDB

candybowl

Bane…!

Mon ,10/11/2014

saw this in passing on YT – then looked up the episode elsewhere and watched it. You ever watch something thinking it’s going to be funny and then you wish you had that time back? This is arguably the only really good joke in the episode, and it’s the last 30 seconds…..but gotta love that ‘bane’ voice though…..respect his authoritah! 🙂

candybowl

Very, very cool….

Sat ,16/08/2014

Scarecrow Video raising $100K on Kickstarter to preserve world’s largest archive of movies

for those of you who don’t know who/what Scarecrow Video is, you need to get INFORMED. 🙂

candybowl

HR Giger, RIP.

Mon ,04/08/2014

HR Giger has passed away as of this past May, just found out about it tonight.

‘Alien’ artist H.R. Giger dead at 74

Love him or hate him, he was certainly one-of-a-kind and one wonders where the ‘goth industry’ would have been without him – much of its art can certainly be considered a Giger ripoff at some point or another.

Definitely not art for the timid or faint of heart, most well known for the xenomorph alien, movie artwork and set design in Alien (reused in the sequels), the ELP and Debbie Harry album covers, and a bit more obscure, one of the original attempts to make a movie out of Dune. I actually have copies of both Dark Seed videogames on my shelf, need to break those out sometime…..

In whatever eerie, disturbing bio-mechanoid resting place you now inhabit, rest in peace, Herr Giger.

candybowl

Black Mirror – no question about it….

Wed ,18/12/2013

Finished watching the recent BBC television anthology show Black Mirror tonight. Scarecrow has the series on DVD, albeit only Region 2 PAL format for now (no USA release yet).

This is one dark show. It’s basically two series (so far), each one is three shows, none are connected to one another. Think of Twilight Zone meets the (somewhat subtle) horror aspects of The Matrix, with the forboding, ever-present sense of doom from The Prisoner and a bit of the bleak outlook from Max Headroom to top it off.

These shows make you think, but make no mistake – they are very, very dark. Not horror per se, but just very dark in tone and outlook. Hard to say if they are being cynical or simply realistic but certainly Rod Serling would be a fan, there’s no question.

I’m not going to talk about any of the plots, because to even read about them on Wikipedia would spoil some of the effect – just watch the show. But there are some things in each show that are hard to watch, be forewarned. I personally thought the first series was a bit better than the second, although the second episode of the second series is a complete mind-trip in the best 70s dystopian sense, updated for the 21st century. The other two episodes for the second series were a bit weaker IMHO, somewhat predictable. But all of them certainly make you think (or even worry)!

Black Mirror on IMDB

candybowl