Halloween 2012

[MekaGojira3k]

[MouthForWar]

[MekaGojira3k]

Going ahead and finishing up the Hammer Mummy stuff -

[eabaker]

[MouthForWar]

[MekaGojira3k]

[lhb412]

Book Review: The Lost and the Lurking by Manly Wade Wellman


Manly Wade Wellman was a sci-fi/fantasy/horror writer who's best known character is John, a character of the 'superntural detective' mode. He's been given the name 'Silver John' or 'John the Balladeer' by fans and publishers, but simply goes by his first name in the stories. Wellman did his first cycle of John short stories in the '50s, then quit, and 20 years later he brought John back for a series of 5 novels (novellas, really) and several more short stories until his death in the mid-'80s

John is a backwoods minstrel, roaming the Appalachian mountains primarily singing and collecting songs but always coming across various supernatural events: monsters, ghosts ('spooks'), Hoodoo men - and John, with his smarts and strength, does his best to help whoever is in trouble. Sometimes he diffuses the situation just by being the super-nice guy he is! Wellman was able to conjure up all sorts of evil in his stories (often drawn from genuine Southern folklore), but they're never totally black because he genuinely believes good would always triumph over evil and that we should always have faith in that.

This book is the third of the five John novellas Wellman wrote, and frankly, John works much better as a short story character. It's in that format that both Wellman and John shine, and it seems that so far these John novels have just marginally more substance than one of the short stories stretched out in length, but even while this book doesn't match the awesomeness of stories like 'Oh, Ugly Bird!' or 'Owls Hoot in the Daytime' it's still enjoyable because John is such a great character, and hearing him narrate another one of his adventures is like listening to an old friend. A warm, reassuring thing.

The plot has John surfacing in a middle-of-nowhere town on behest of the US government, who have apparently been keeping tabs on some of his adventures. Not having a well-funded BPRD, the United States apparently just decided to send John in when they begin to suspect supernatural fowl play. Once John is in the town he's pretty quickly figures out what's going on: Satanism, big time. The whole town is involved and John has only a few days until the Sabbat to stop whatever they've got planned.

To tell you the truth, nothing much happens in this story that couldn't have fit in a short story, but it's never dull because John's charisma carries the whole thing. His narration is, as always, worth the price of admission; peppering his tale with appropriate lyrics from a folk songs, bits of obscure wisdom in his explanations of what's going on, and just his own philosophy towards life.

The John stories typically have great monsters, but there's nothing here but a few brief, spectral demons.

If you're interested in John, then by all means pick up the Who Fears the Devil? paperback. It's collects all the John short stories, which are excellent. Also, the Hellboy story 'The Crooked Man' is an homage to Wellman's John stories, and apparently a comic adaptation of John himself is in the works.

[jellydonut25]

[klen7]

[jellydonut25]

[king_ghidorah]

[jellydonut25]

[XvGojira]

[jellydonut25]

[XvGojira]

[jellydonut25]

[XvGojira]

[jellydonut25]

[MouthForWar]

[jellydonut25]

[jellydonut25]

The Amityville Horror 2005 - this movie starts and you're kinda like "hey, this could be just as good as the original, if not a little better"...and then there's something about a torture room in the basement, and the basement is like this HUGE catacomb that could only possibly exist either on someone else's property or under the lake and it starts to play out like a music video and all you can think is "f*ck this...f*ck it to hell."
Amityville Haunting - F*ck this...f*ck it to hell



And I know I said I WASN'T going to do this but:
Saw - I actually kinda like this one...but the whole Zepp thing doesn't work, because he's such a dick...it doesn't fit with what else we've learned about his character. way too much of an intentional red-herring.
Saw II - immediately for me, the series loses its luster...although at least this one is kinda coherent and the action taking place in the traps is quasi-relevant to the story going on elsewhere.
Saw III - this is where the series takes a major dump on your face. there are traps and people die, but nothing happening in the trap scenario is really relevant to the story taking place. yeah, ok, i know there's a moment at the end and it ties into the future films and blah blah blah...but it isn't like the first two films, where what's happening in the trap actually drives the story...there's a story and there's a trap...and they are separate.
Saw IV - so, here's a guy who's been studying Jigsaw...has been trying to stop him and has gotten to learn his tricks and traps...and Jigsaw flat-out tells him right from the get-go that if he wants everyone to live, he simply has to "let go" (literally, he says "you will have to learn to let go") and he doesn't get that the whole point is that he doesn't intervene at all??? ugh. facepalm. oh and there's a story going on too about jigsaw and his various proteges and things...but it's only about as well-developed as my little synopsis...he has proteges and a couple things happen to them.

about to watch Saw V, which means that by tomorrow, i'll just have VI and VII.

[Dr Kain]

[MekaGojira3k]

Watching the Shining:

[jellydonut25]

Saw V - it strikes me (and not for the first time, and i'm sure this is something MANY other people have pointed out) that the biggest reason I hate this series is because people talk about how "clever" and "smart" it is and how "unexpected" and "shocking" the twists and such are...but it's not really any of those things except unexpected, but that's just because they PURPOSELY leave things out to make it unexpected and they never develop a single character to enough of an extent to make you think anything about them.
"Oh, I never thought THAT GUY was gonna do THAT!"
yeah, no sh*t...that guy barely even has a name...there are 50 characters and they are not any different from one another...that's not smart or clever, it's just overly convoluted, underexplained, and lazy.

If I wrote a story and it was about two kids in the woods and then at the end I was like "but actually, it was their mom's closet" would people think that was SMART??? no, they'd be pissed...ESPECIALLY if the twist was the only reason for the story's existence.

so anyway, Saw V...i forget...things happen to people and for some reason, Jigsaw's wife is around...what the f*ck ever...
Saw VI - I don't think the main trap could be any more divorced from the "plot" it's like there are two totally different half-hour movies, each one padded out to be 45 minutes long, that get spliced together.
Saw 3D - this is a comedy, right? it HAS to be....it's that hilariously poorly acted and scripted and made....it's a joke.


F*CK it. I'm done...I'm gonna go watch Re-Animator, because...headless men going down on chicks....

[XvGojira]