Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Wednesday, 20 March 2019

I think I'm back.......

I've not felt this good in over 11 years. I'm back and I do hold grudges. As do most people.

Fortune Favours the Bold

(Not so) Guilty Pleasures: Video Games - Berzerk (1980)

As a kid, I always dug this video game. Fun, frustrating and just....well, fun. Also, one of the earliest arcade games to use voice samples and a crude form of AI.

Berzerk

Evil Otto still haunts my dreams to this day.

Tuesday, 19 March 2019

(Not so) Guilty Pleasures: Food - Hamburgers

Hamburgers.

If you're in the UK (or East Coast USA), it has to be "Five Guys".

Monday, 18 March 2019

(Not so) Guilty Pleasures: Toni Basil "Mickey"

Sunday, 17 March 2019

(Not so) guilty Pleasures: Pulp Horror from the 80's - Plasmid.

This book always felt like it should have been adapted by the BBC (apparently, it was based on a screenplay - see link below).

Plasmid

"In the Fairfield Institute of Genetic Research patient Thomas Barker is having a restless night. So he decides to work off some steam by ripping Drs. Swinton & Forrester into bloody pieces, and then tear his way out of his cell. Barker is a convict that is infected with a "plasmid"; a bit of genetic material that can transfer some characteristic of one animal to another. Barker's plasmid has been irradiated and transplanted to him by Professor Fraser, your typical cold-fish, very mad-scientist, and professional all-around a-hole for whom which all people's lives but his own have no value. And because his grant is coming up for renewal, he has gone rogue by recklessly veering from his own planned scientific protocol.

Meanwhile, rising star, an ambitious investigative reporter Paula Scott of the radio station Metropole Radio 199 is in a tiff with her boss and future lover Stephen Sharp over a published story. That is until she proves her point, and that her facts are right and can't be refuted"

The book was kind of a proto Harry Adam-Knight novel and very very pulp horror in the kind of way only the Brits can do.

I first read this when I was about 13 after engaging with my obsessions concerning post apocalyptic societies. It was *very* Day of the Triffids and also linked into the British paranoia of not trusting the Government that was in power at that time.

Alongside a healthy dose of social breakdown, lack of press freedom and a spunky female lead character, the book also fed into a type of Cronenbergian take on body horror that was, shall we say, quite nasty.

It's not the best book in the world but something that was a product of its era. Fun, dumb and a blast to read, in equal measures.

A copy can be purchased here - mine cost £0.45 back in the day but expect to pay £95 now!! Shall we blame the price increase on Brexit? ;)

Saturday, 16 March 2019

(Not so) Guilty Pleasures: Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks.

One of the best Doctor Who stories ever committed to screen.

Need I say more?

Genesis of the Daleks

The ideas, concepts and the story just sum up how speculative fiction is pretty bloody brilliant.

Yep, as a good Who fan, I have one of these in my collection. I am predictable ;)

But, not respectable! ;)

Friday, 15 March 2019

Photo Friday!

Thursday, 14 March 2019

(Not so) Guilty Pleasures: The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue

The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue

And, the official trailer:

This is a quite a favourite in our household and has a number of quotable lines, our favourite being:

"You look like an Edna"...

Going back to my previous post made a while ago that explored Romero's Dawn of the Dead; the Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue is one of the first truly great post Night of the Living Dead zombie movies.

Shot in England, and Spain, the film highlights issues surrounding pollution, the environment and a corrupt police force (which was *very* forward thinking for its time)

I saw this after DOTD and felt a twinge of disappointment (no shopping malls and a distinct lack of action) but over the years, it has grown on me (and Linda) due to the atmosphere, the cinematography and the way it "humanises" the genre as the story is mostly told through the eyes of two innocent, relatively normal people who have been dragged into events that are beyond their understanding.

Several years ago, Linda treated me to a birthday tour of the locations and I managed to take a few photos.

Apart from being a great movie, it has an awesome soundtrack.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, 13 March 2019

(Not so) Guilty Pleasures (Literature): A Child Across the Sky

I was introduced to the writing of Jonathan Carroll several decades ago. His words, unlike many others, live inside you after reading his books.

This has to be one of my favourite books of all time. Nightmarish, funny, sexy, intriguing and very very dark with a hint of redemption. The dialog and characterisation is just....amazing. Characters like Weber, Sasha and Wyatt are so life like yet perfect in many ways that most of us would never be lucky enough (within our limited lifetimes) to meet people such as them. However, Philip Strayhorn is made of the worst nightmares. Evil is a concept, in my opinion, but...temptation and weakness resides in all of us.

A Child Across the Sky.

"Flashing back and forth in time, the story concerns the apparent suicide of filmmaker Philip Strayhorn, whose bizarre Midnight series has attained cult status. Strayhorn's best friend, Weber Gregston, a filmmaker with a more intellectual bent, is drawn into a dizzying series of events by a videotape that Philip leaves him. The wickedly imaginative twists and turns that follow are only one facet of this intriguing tale, which seems at times like a framework on which to hang a myriad of metaphysical notions. What, for instance, is one to make of a tattoo of a crow that comes alive in an airplane lavatory? Carroll's style is elegant; his writing is by turns disturbing, fey, sardonic, grim--frequently within a single paragraph. The unexpected lies at the heart of this novel, and readers seeking a provocative and stimulating--though not always easy--read will be rewarded" (Source)

This book is part of a trilogy that started with Bones of the Moon and ended (in a heartbreaking way but offered us a beautiful and redemptive resolution) with From the Teeth of Angels. (All of the books can be read in isolation but I highly recommend reading them in order to see how the characters evolve and become entirely different people).

One day, I will get that tattoo of a crow but both of my closest friends have now passed away so it seems a little, "out of time".

Monday, 11 March 2019

(Not so) Guilty Pleasures: The Raid/Raid 2

This, if you love action movies is one of the best ever made. And, it was directed by an English dude!

But, if you are squeamish....meoooow.mmmmmm...mmmmmm...mowww!

Now, in context, I think the people behind the Walking Dead might have just watched these movies and then *owned* it...in order to create one of the best fucking episodes ever!