Oct 4- Aliens

Much like ghosts, aliens tend to be something of a blank slate. While vampires and werewolves usually follow the same set of rules, aliens and ghosts are much more flexible. If you wanted to make a similar questionnaire about aliens like the one I made for ghosts, the questions would be different, but there’d also be more of them. The obvious first choice is whether they are friendly or not. From there, you have to choose several other items. What do they look like? Are they intelligent? Why are they here? Where do they come from? Do they eat brains? What color is their blood? That last question may seem random, but pay attention to alien blood next time you see it. Aliens can be terrifying because again, we don’t know if they are hostile or not. And two, they don’t always follow the same logic and philosophies that humans do. What could seem dastardly to most people could be perfectly justified to an alien from another world.

A common theme that I’ve seen in alien movies is this extraterrestrial civilization saying that Earth is an underdeveloped planet, as are it’s people. Oh really? If that’s the case then why does the movie always end with earthlings kicking your ass? We may not have as cool space ships as you but at least we know how to fire a gun. In some cases, the humans use alien technology against them. That’s gotta be embarrassing for them.

  

Ideal Specimen- Xenomorphs

Holy crap, are these things scary as hell. They’re so intelligent they make the raptors from Jurassic Park look lobotomized. They bleed acid. They hunt by scent and hearing. They have two mouths to eat you with. They can impale you with their tale. And they have no eyes. So help me god they have no eyes. How can you look death in the eye, when it has no fucking eyes?!

I don't know what is more terrifying about them, their very existence or that they give birth by implanting an embryo inside a host and then the baby bursts out of that person's body.

That scene still gives me the creeps to this day.

If you want an idea of how terrifying xenomorphs can be, don’t just watch the first two movies, also play the video game Alien: Isolation. You are stuck on a ship, the inhabitants have gone nuts, the androids have gone haywire, and there is an infinite number of xenomorphs roaming around like they own the place. Because let’s face it, they pretty much do.

All things considered, xenomorphs can't really be considered evil. I mean, sure they are abominations of nature that eat and murder (in that order) everything in sight, but they are essentially fulfilling the most basic instinct of evolution: to survive and to thrive. Every organism has that goal whether advanced or not, xenomorphs are just dicks about it.

Oct 3- Ghosts

Ah, ghosts. The one horror element that never seems to get old. They might be the original horror villain because they are the first reason that we are afraid to turn off the lights, and they tend to be the subject of many scary stories we hear as kids. Think about it, there is a whole category of “ghost stories”. Ghosts are also the most flexible of monsters. You can make them threatening, as in The Woman in Black or they can be friendly like Casper or most of the ghosts on The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. You can also make up your own rules for ghosts depending on what you’re writing. It’s like you can play Mad Libs when writing a ghost story. I actually picture this kind of questionnare being filled out when writing a ghost story.

Circle one for each answer:

What are they haunting?    

  A specific area (such as a town or hotel)            A person or a group of people

Why are they haunting?     

Curse on the area                  Unfinished business                   Person(s) was an asshole to them in life

Is there any way for them to go away?                    Yes                                                No

If circled yes, explain below (bonus points if it involves human sacrifice):

Do they have any abilities? List them below:

Most of the time, they only circle one answer. They circle two, then things start to get needlessly complicated.

Ideal Specimen: Lloyd the Bartender

One of the brilliant aspects of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is the build up. At first it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot happening, but once the ghosts in the hotel start to reveal themselves, things get going very quickly. One of the first ghosts to appear is Lloyd the Bartender, who appears to Jack in a moment of weakness. We don’t know what to make of this guy. He seems more than friendly and polite, but considering how tense things have been building up, we don’t trust him at first. I think it’s the fact that you never actually see him blink. Much like Hannibal Lecter, there’s an uneasiness that comes when you are talking to a person who never seems to close their eyes. It just feels more like they are studying you, learning everything they can. And considering Lloyd is a supernatural entity, we can assume it won’t be that hard for him. And besides, he's a ghost. Why would a ghost blink?Now some may be expecting that I would put Grady instead of Lloyd, and I can understand that. But for me, Grady is the one who spoiled the mystery of the hotel. He was the one that confirmed to us that the hotel has sinister intentions and that it’s not just screwing with its inhabitants. Since a good portion of this movie is trying to figure things out, the questionable nature of Lloyd kept the theme going. Don’t get me wrong, Grady was cool, and the way he slowly lifted the veil and went from being friendly and polite to commanding and threatening was brilliant, but it was more fun when we were trying to answer questions ourselves. And that is another thing that people don’t really think about when it comes to ghost movies. It becomes a mystery of figuring out their nature and whether they can be stopped or not, and how.

Oct 2- Vampires

Number 2 on the list of most popular monsters as of late are vampires, though they seem to have seen their days come and go. Now, I know why they became more popular for a stretch, it’s because of Stephanie Meyer, even though her books had little to do with actual vampirism and more to do with being hot and immortal and misunderstood and having a personality that would make wet cardboard jealous. So we aren’t going to talk about them. We are here to talk about the old school vampires. The ones that suck the blood of the innocent, turn into bats or demons of hell, depending on which version you look at, and are so unholy and satanic that water with a cross on it will give them hives.

So why have vampires been so popular? Even before Twilight, vampires were already a staple of pop horror. One of the first horror films ever, Nosferatu, is a vampire flick. Think about it, in terms of being a horror icon, they really are the complete package. They suck blood, they prey on the weak, most of the time they got their powers as part of some Faustian bargain. And unlike zombies, who look like people but have lost all of their personality and humanity, vampires still get to keep that. And they get to keep their faces without any decay taking place. And they’re immortal which from a character stand point, makes them perfect for story telling. Many times a vampire is a character that has lived for centuries and has seen civilizations rise and fall. They’re viewers of the never ending story that is human history. This may play a part in why many vampires are people who have lost their humanity. They’ve seen the mistakes that mankind has made and continues to make, even though they should have learned from it the first few times. So, to them, they probably don’t see the killing of an innocent to be that big of a crime because they’re saving the world from one more idiot who would have contributed to humanity’s next big mistake.

Okay, it actually just hit me that I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen that angle played out in a vampire story, so whoever plans on writing a vampire novel next, feel free to use that. Just give me a writer’s cred for it. But I digress.

Ideal Specimen: Count Dracula

Well, who else am I going to name? Sure, there are other vampires that have left their mark, but none of them have had such a big impression than Dracula. He’s been adapted dozens of times and by different actors who all had their own spin on the blood sucking count from Bella Lugosi to the immortal Christopher Lee and my personal favorite, Gary Oldman. In a way, every time the horror genre goes through a reinvention, there’s going to be an adaptation of Dracula that puts emphasis on the style of the day. When Christopher Lee played Dracula, it was during the Hammer Horror days when horror films were very goofy with lots of fake looking blood and special effects that didn’t really hold up, even back then. However, when you look at it, you get the idea that those decisions were made on purpose. The whole idea behind these films was more about the visual style than anything else. If you want a more modern idea of what a Hammer Horror film was like, take a look at any of Tim Burton’s movies, particularly Sweeney Todd or Sleepy Hollow. When Gary Oldman played Dracula, it put more emphasis on the sexual nature of vampires than past films. Not that that was the whole focus of the movie, but it was definitely more present than past adaptations. Because when you’re immortal, you’re gonna have a lot of time on your hands, and when you have three eternally beautiful wives, you’re gonna find some use for both that time and those hands, giggidy. What’s more interesting is that Oldman’s, while being more sensual than past versions, is also much creepier. Even when he’s a young man, there’s something unsettling about him. I never really knew if he was going to turn Mina into a vampire or not.

Oldman’s Dracula was also the first time we saw just how powerful he could be. He can take on the form of almost anything from a young man to a wolf, to fog, to a demon out of hell. It made him more threatening because you never really knew what the limits to his abilities were. If you haven’t seen this movie, and you like vampires, check it out. Visually, there’s some good stuff, and the performances, with a few exceptions, are really good.

Oct 1- Zombies

Perhaps it is a cliché, but if I’m going to talk about scary villains, I have to talk about zombies. In the past several years, zombies have really seen a renewal in their popularity. Of course we all know about the hit series The Walking Dead, but there have been several other areas where zombies have popped up from our video games to even a few movies. Some may like the Resident Evil franchise, but there have been several other zombie flicks (that have been much better). Of course there is 28 Days Later, and there’s the criminally underrated Warm Bodies and the zombie comedies Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. So why all the popularity? How is it that legions of undead, unthinking bodies have become so prevailant? Well, for a few reasons. For starters, in almost every zombie movie there is a theme of people being shells of their former selves. When a character sees a loved one that has been killed and brought back, it’s a heart wrenching moment for them because they see the person that they once knew and loved, but nothing of what made them who they are is remaining. All that’s left is an instinct to run, kill and eat everything and everyone in sight. Some of the heaviest scenes in The Walking Dead are of people being faced with such a situation. There’s also been a running theme of once they die, somebody has to put a bullet in their brain as insurance that they won’t return as a zombie, or walker as they are called. This sounds like a job for the most willing candidate, but in The Walking Dead, the person who double taps is the person who was closest to them. In that way, it’s seen as a mercy for the dying person and a rite of passage for those who have to pull the trigger. That’s a very dark and twisted detail to add to an already twisted subject.

Typically, zombies tend to be caused by one of two different things: curses and epidemics. These days, most zombies tend to be a result of some drastic experiment or some horrible plague that nobody can identify. The more old school zombies were the result of some curse that raises the dead.

Ideal Specimen: The White Walkers (or The Others) from Game of Thrones

Yeah, who’d have thought that a show featuring dragons, magic and political intrigue would have time for zombies? Well, Game of Thrones certainly does. Actually, white walkers are about as creepy as they get. Nobody really knows for sure where they came from or who made them that way, we just know that if you come across one, the best thing to do would be to burn it, or stab it with obsidian or valyrian steel, the sharpest metal on earth. Their leader is the snowy Darth Maul you see above known only as the Night’s King, who with a wave of his hand can raise the dead, no matter how old they are or what shape they were in when they died. If the person died by having their throat slashed and their arm cut off, that just becomes a minor inconvenience, they don't even seem to notice it.

A flesh wound, if you will

 One of the creepiest scenes in the show is when the Night’s King raises multitudes of dead people around him, men women and children all. There's no chanting, no ritual, no spell being uttered he just raises his hands, and the dead rise with them. And this brings up a question that I have long asked about zombie outbreaks. Which is more intimidating? An epidemic that sees all living things as fair game, or a demon out of hell that can see the difference between adult and child, and just doesn’t care? I mean either way, you’re screwed. 

She's actually the first walker you see in the show

Month of October: Villains

So here we are, the month of October, where we celebrate the reformation of the medieval roman catholic church into the modern denominations that we are free to worship and participate in to this very day. Or, at least that is all they told us in our ultra conservative traditional Lutheran schools. Seriously, Oct 31 was never actually called Halloween in my school. They never even referred to it as All Hallows Eve. It was just Reformation Day.

So, in honor of the lost time I spent in High School ignoring the very existence of Halloween, I’ve decided that I’m going to try something a little different for the month of October. Every day this month, I’m going to talk about villains. In film, television, literature, even a few villainous urban legends that made us frightened of looking under the bed.

Why you may ask? Because I love villains! Whether they are creepy, funny or just annoying. Sometimes the villain can be the most memorable part of a story. How many non-comic book nerds can identify The Joker? How many people that have never seen Star Wars can recognize Darth Vader? The answer is just about everyone because they have become some of the most easily recognized characters in culture.

So, in honor of these characters and their villainous deeds, I’m going to talk about one villain each day for the month of October leading up to Halloween. Some days, I’ll be talking about a group or classification instead of just one specific, in which case I’ll mention the most notable example of why they are so scary and so prevalent. Don’t understand what I mean? Well, join me in Day 1 for a better idea.

How to Make a Proper Terminator Sequel

You don't. You leave the first two be since they are both modern sci-fi cinematic classics. But this is Hollywood we are talking about, the people who will kick a dead horse even after it's just a skeleton.

So here is my idea for a Terminator sequel.

We have it take place in the future during the machine and human war. The idea of time travel has not been introduced yet, so this will take place during that exposition that Kyle Reese was giving to Sarah Connor during the first movie. At one point, he mentions that the machines were sending in terminators that looked like humans to be spies, similar to the Nazi's during the Battle of the Bulge. Here is the time where we get to explore some more of that time period and gives more weight to the desparation that both sides were feeling when they decided to screw with the rules of time and space by rigging the game.

So the story begins during the latter half of the machine war. John Connor has become leader of the human resistance and now it looks like the humans have Skynet on the ropes. Rather than start an all out assault though, the machines do what Kyle Reese was talking about, they try sending in machines that look like humans to spy on the Resistance. After a few times of trial and error, where the models have really fake looking skin, Skynet finally has perfected the art of creating terminators that look like humans. Not only that, but John Connor receives word that Skynet has also found a way to create perfect duplicates of already existing people, even getting them to perfectly mirror a person's personality, and their memories, similar to the robots from the movie The World's End. And much like The World's End, they dispose of the original host once the process is complete. The beauty of this is that, since their personality and memories will be copied into the robot as well, there won't be any sign of anything wrong with them or that they had been replaced by a replicate of themselves. Now keep in mind that this is not like the Marcus Terminator from Salvation where he still had a human heart and human consciousness, so he still had the ability to make his own choices, nor will it be like the new Terminator in Genysis which is a human that has been infected by a terminator or some crap like that. I haven't seen it but from the trailer, it looked pretty dumb. No, this is a terminator that wears the skin and personality of a previously existing person. Their purpose is to spy on the resistance, learn what they can, sow seeds of confusion among the ranks, and eventually kill the resistance leadership, including John Connor from within. This is also before the liquid metal technology was created so it can't take on the appearance of multiple people, it's limited to being one person. Take the historic Battle of the Bulge from World War II and add Terminators to it and viola, you have a Terminator story that doesn't get overly convoluted or continuously screw with the time line.

 This was Skynet's initial plan for ending the war on their terms. John Connor also receives information that during their last encounter assaulting a Skynet facility, the machines captured one or more of John's inner circle to act as these ops. John doesn't know who has been captured, or how many, nor is he aware of how many may be posing as officers or foot soldiers. At this point in the game, Skynet is not aware of John Connor's importance, they just know he is the leader of the resistance, they don't know that he is the one that will spell doom for them. Nor do they know of the importance of Kyle Reese. In fact, Reese being involved in this story would be minimal. I know that making him a target would up the stakes, but it makes no sense for Skynet to view him as such a threat at this point because neither side has developed the capabilities of time travel. Maybe it can be hinted at in the end, but don't use it to set up future sequels because those of us who have seen the other movies already know where it goes from here.

On top of a level of paranoia spreading in John Connor's mind, he doesn't know how he is going to figure out who the 'tratior' is. he can't interrogate them nor can he just start executing people because unless he gets it right the first time, he's going to be seen as going crazy. And he can't make his concerns public because then Skynet will know he's onto them and they will force their hand.

And most importantly: DON'T SPOIL WHO THE TERMINATOR IS IN THE MARKETING!!! For such a big budget franchise, this seems to be the one mistake they are constantly making.

Now the argument could be made that this doesn't add a lot of suspense, since we know that certain characters have to survive in order to continue/start the story of the originals. And yeah, you have a point, but if hollywood clearly doesn't give a shit about continuously screwing up the backstory, then why should I be chastised for trying to keep it the same? And besides, the events of this story would add a level of desparation to what motivates our heroes and villains in the first two movies. Both know what is at stake when they send their players into the past now, and showing more of the machine war could shed light for the audience. Just don't try to screw up the timeline even more. They've tried it three times since T2: Judgement Day, and it just gets stupider.

And there you have it, a Terminator story that does not screw up the story line. It also adds a level of mystery and suspense to the story that was also present in the first two movies. Contrary to popular belief, the action scenes is not the only thing that makes Terminator good. It's also that there was an element of horror present in the first two movies when the machines first showed up in the present.

Also, here's a tip: when casting John Connor, let Michael Biehn play John Connor. Since he played Kyle Reese in the original, in kinda makes sense that John Connor would also look like Michael Biehn

It's almost like they could be father and son!

What we all need to remember about Jurassic World

             It’s a familiar feeling isn’t it? The feeling of reliving your childhood as an adult. It can be a pleasant feeling, but it can also be deceiving. Just because an old friend is coming back to say hi doesn’t mean that they are always going to be there with the best news, or the best intentions.

                Okay, I know that may have sounded like an odd warning of Cold War like paranoia, but it’s an important thing to keep in mind when it comes to the watching of Jurassic World, along with several other upcoming movies including Terminator, Star Wars and Batman v Superman. Think back to when you first saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Remember how excited we all were for it? Our parents saw the original three when they were either growing up or in college, and we got to grow up with the adventures of the gun-toting archaeologist. Honestly, I’m hard pressed to think of a person who wouldn’t be excited to see a new Indiana Jones. I remember remarking as we sat down in the theater how I had been waiting since I was 5 to actually see an Indiana Jones movie in the theaters. Our parents were excited to see it on the big screen again and we were excited to see it on the big screen for the first time…

Until we actually saw it. Yeah…. I remember seeing it with my dad on his birthday and afterwards neither of us really knew what to make of it. I actually wanted to fool myself into thinking it was a good movie. Now that I think about it, I actually went into the grieving process after I saw Crystal Skull. I denied that it was a bad movie, thinking maybe it was a bad dream and that the real movie was on the way, I grew angry that it even existed, I bargained with God about being a better person for perhaps getting a better version of the movie, then I just got really freaking depressed that my childhood dream had been ruined, and now after extensive therapy, I have finally come to terms with it. I don’t own it, nor do I ever wish to watch it again, but that’s okay. I can’t control it, I can only control my own feelings.

But I digress. My point being that when we all go to see Jurassic World next Friday, it is important that we remember the feelings we had when we saw Crystal Skull. After going through that colossal let down we need to remember to not get ourselves overly hyped, because it could turn out to suck and we could all end up back in therapy. However, on the flip side it’s also important to take into account that just because we shouldn’t get our hopes up, doesn’t mean that we should expect it to suck, because then the movie could suck, but not nearly as much as we thought it would, so we are going to pass it off as a good movie. That’s called letting them off the hook and we can’t do that when our collective childhood hangs in the balance.

Fortunately for Jurassic World, there have already been two sequels, the opinions of which range from “meh” to “full on shotgun diarrhea” as one of my friends put it. How he knows what that feels like is beyond me, but I won’t be going to him for dieting advice. Having said that, Jurassic World doesn’t have the highest of high expectations to live up to, just the highest of high hopes that we won’t get to see a raptor get gymnastic-kicked out a window.

At the same time, we need to also give the film makers the benefit of the doubt. The director and writers worked hard to come up with an original story to tell that doesn’t just piggy back off of the first movie. When asked why the original characters, such as Grant Satler and Malcolm wouldn’t be in this movie, Colin Trevorow said that the only reason they would go back to the island is if the writers came up with a lame ass reason for them to come back. He also said that Jurassic Park is ultimately about the consequences of using science to tamper with nature, a la Frankenstein, (remember the quote “life finds a way”) but with the original characters thrown back into the mix, it would just be a story about the shitty luck of these three people. You see that right there shows that the studio didn’t just pick a name out of a hat, they went with a fan who knew what the story was and what it wasn’t. And the idea that they created original characters to continue the story is just further evidence of that.

Alright, I know that I am giving you some conflicting messages here, so let's just get to my ultimate point. Here are the three things you need to do before you go to see Jurassic World.

1.       Calm down- as you are waiting in line at the theater, take some time to calm your mind. The more calm you are, the more able you will be to view the movie fairly.

2.       Don’t watch all three to get caught up- If you want to refamiliarize yourself with the story, then just watch the first one, because based on what I’ve seen in the trailers and the imdb synopsis, the first one seems to be the only one to take into account, seeing as they only mention the original theme park, but not the incident in San Diego or that other incident involving the other island where a bunch of pterodactyls escaped. If those events were taken into account, I don’t think anybody in the world would be open to the idea of a dinosaur theme park.

3.       Learn to leave reality at the door- already, I’ve heard criticism about how unrealistic the idea of creating hybrid dinosaurs is, or the idea that Chris Pratt has trained a squad of Raptors. First off, fuck you, because having trained raptors is badass. Secondly, how grounded in reality are you expecting a movie to be when it’s already involved taking a tiny sample of million-year-old DNA out of a fossilized mosquito who has still remained intact all this time, and using it to create dinosaurs, without the governments of the world investigating or trying to shut the park down, or for them to not have protests from hippies about dinosaurs’ rights? Or the governments of the world or terrorist groups trying to turn these beasts into engines of war? See, already you have had to suspend your disbelief just a little bit. As for the raptors thing, yeah they are the deadliest creatures and one of the smartest animals to have ever existed, but dolphins are pretty damn smart too, and look at the stuff people are making them do at Sea World. It’s kind of humiliating when you think about it. Using raptors as your personal motorcycle hunting posse seems like they are getting away unscathed.