Paraskevidekatriaphobia, the irrational and morbid fear that something really, really, but really bad is going to happen when the calendar turns to Friday the 13th.
Irrational? But there is a greater fear about a more definite and immediate threat of getting your head ‘sploded by cats. And there’s no name for that yet.
0927 hrs - 1/13/2011: they stopped speaking as I walked into the kitchen
Even Miss Jenny was excluded from their conversation… Whatever, man… ‘Spect the ‘stache…
Walrus? Walpurgis? Tom Selleck?
Eventually, Maz ambled back into the living room and “parked” himself in front of the television until…
I make melon go kablooie
Maz being nothing if not excessive, he ‘sploded another head, lifting his paw under the strain. Either that or he was passing gas.
See what I did there? No? Watch again!
For those who haven’t mastered their powers yet, and I pray they don’t, Tito recommends starting with something easy like the photobomb…
Hmmm… Is Nightshade Jenny trying to tell us something, I wonder?
Open. Open.Open.
Previously, on this channel, butt-head Maz Whang hissed at Jenny and at my wife when she picked him up to, let’s say “decrease the atmospheric pressure” in the room. Made me wish I had the camera ready, it looked like something out of the first “exorcist” and all I could think of was:
Ego te absolvo in nomine Patris, et Filiii, et Spiritus Sancti!!!!
Not Mazuzu Whang, but close enough. Tito, on the other hand, seems much more mellow and just very curious about the little ball of fur. There is a possibility that Tito could help in bringing her out of her shell, but we’ll explore that later.
Sugar and spice, huh?
In another post, this one about Mazuzu, I’d mentioned that it’s sometimes better to wait for the newly adopted to come up with their own name. And well, beyond the oh-so-sweet blinking gaze of Jenny’s blue peepers, I now sense something more than just the cute, vulnerable fuzzy-wuzzy that makes us go all kajagoogooey and ghoo-buh-ghee? Goo-buh-ghee-ish.
What happened yesterday, I can’t quite discount or otherwise sweep under the carpet. When in the safe room with my wife in the evening, Jenny decided to do a bit of exploring. Wonderful! Yes?
But when my wife was perceived to be getting “danger close” to the dish of wet food, Jenny fixed her with her ice-blue eyes and hissed a clear warning. Sooo-eee! We got us a handful there I think, so let’s see:
Hedwig \he(d)-wig\ as a girl’s name is of Old German origin, and the meaning of Hedwig is “contention, strife“. Actress Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Kiesler.
School bus driver Kyung-Chul (Min-Sik Choi) has a nice little toy affixed to the rear view mirror of his van: plastic angel wings which light up in cool blue. It’s cute looking and probably helps put the young women and girls he picks up at ease.
Yellow school van and little blue wings.
Choi as serial killer Kyung
But Kyung is a serial killer who brings his victims back to his lair to carve them up after raping them. He then provides a cannibalistic associate of his with their meat to consume.
Watch the trailer here:
One snowy night in the countryside, Kyung drives up to a station wagon stopped by the side of the road with a flat tire.
In 1348, the plague known as ‘black death’ is cutting wide and deep through the populations of Europe and has reached England with a vengeance. Some men have taken to question God, while others blame Him outright, forcing the Catholic Church to take drastic measures to assert itself.
Watch the trailer here:
Those communities not yet affected by the disease come under suspicion of witchcraft and emissaries are sent to investigate and return proof to the religious authorities.
On an island off the coast of Wales, Cat Williams (Jennifer Evans) and her boyfriend are making sexy times in a field when they are abducted by aliens. On the aliens’ ship, the boyfriend gets a most gruesome anal drilling before getting killed, while Cat is implanted with a baby alien and released.
To put it in perspective, Eric Cartman had it real easy by comparison.
Watch the trailer here:
A week later, tabloid TV reporter Michelle Fox (Emily Booth) sells her editor on the idea of doing a report on Cat’s story for Weird Worlde, their “reality” show investigating yetis, aliens and other tabloid fodder.
Irish farmer Dan Reilly (John Lynch) has fallen on hard times and agreed to let an obscure biotech concern conduct fertility experiments on his cows.
The idea is to speed up the maturation process while simultaneously increasing the animals’ fertility. The research is conducted by a non-too-friendly scientist named John (Marcel Iures), assisted by local vet Orla (Essie Davis).
Marcel Iures as “John”
Dan, the farmer, doesn’t quite understand the science behind the program and probably wouldn’t care if he actually saw the money he was promised. But both he and the vet, Orla, have yet to see some dough.
On a mining colony called Sirius 6B in the late 21st century, the survivors of two warring factions may have to join forces to survive a new threat: self-replicating weapons evolving of their own accord since being “fielded” by one side. “Screamers” are scavenging robots produced in underground factories for the alliance, burrowing just below the surface until they launch themselves at their prey, their razor sharp blades whirring at a painfully high pitch sounding like a scream. Scary and gory stuff.
Watch the trailer here:
They then slice their target to pieces and drag the gruesome remains below ground.
The DVD version of Saul Bass’ only feature length film is missing 9 minutes, cut by producers. The cuts were mostly at the end of the movie, surreal images and sequences they probably figured would turn audiences off.
And perhaps they were right, although in the end “Phase IV” was not a commercial success and as a result, Bass did not make another feature film.
Some of these images can be seen in the trailer below:
“Phase IV” belongs to a certain pantheon of sci-fi and horror films, films which some would qualify as visionary, cerebral and other adjectives reserved for “2001: a space odyssey”, “Farenheit 451”, “Solaris” and “THX 1138” to name a few.
Not all of “Phase IV” is satisfying or even readily attainable, in other words. What it has are some of the most chilling images and sequences and a script which takes the audience seriously: contrary to much of the poster art, “Phase IV” is no exploitation movie.
Well this is an interesting turn of events if it does get confirmed, and that is a big if, nay, make that a HUGE if. The troubled project “at the mountains of madness” has been kicked around furiously at Universal for some time, with various names thrown around, attached, detached, etc.
Now, Universal France had a blurb which was promptly taken down yesterday, with two new names which surprised the hell out of me: the post referred to director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (“Alien Resurrection“) at the helm, and the storyline would replace (or combine) the character of Danforth with H.P. Lovecraft himself (?!?).
This was also released as “encounter at Raven’s Gate”, most likely due to elements reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s “encounters of the third kind”. However, the aliens in “incident at Raven’s Gate” aren’t the least bit friendly, as we’ve seen now in many a horror film from Oz, everything out in the Bush is menacing.
