Sunday 25 December 2011

Christmastime is here, lets make it creepy Pt. 3 (Christmas Eve Mutterings)

Well before we all saturate ourselves in various roasted beasts I thought I would give out a few more out there Christmas thoughts to mull over. First of all when it comes to gift giving I have found some great stuff this year, such as: Gingerdead Men cookie cutters, toxic waste drinking glasses, the evidence knife, blood soaked shower curtains and the albums A Very Scary Solstice and An Even Scarier Solstice. If any of these things were to be found under my tree or in my stocking, it would be a very merry Christmas indeed.
Christmas baking just became even more fun for me.
So I am at my parents house for Christmas and tonight my dad and I made a few gingerbread cookies, he started to get a bit more original:
My Dad just keeps getting more awesome
In the movie world I found out something pretty neat, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale which I loved was actually based on two short films starring the same Finnish men. Here are the links to them: Rare Exports Inc. and its sequel Rare Exports: The Official Safety Instructions. I also watched the Bump In the Night Christmas Special and it was a great trip down memory lane. Of course I had to hear about another film to add to my list of ones to watch, Treevenge, so it may be watched within the next 24 hours.

Well it is getting late and I want to get to bed so I can wake up in the morning and find out what Santa/Odin/The Wizard of Yule brought me.

Tuesday 13 December 2011

Christmastime is here, lets make it creepy Pt. 2 (Rare Exports & Santa's Slay)

Well it has been just a bit over a week since I stated the Christmas movies I wanted to see this year... and I've already watched both of them. So now I get to tell you all about them, but I will be keeping it short and sweet so that the magic of them won't be ruined before you ahead of time.

Most boring workplace ever.
First let me tell you about what is now one of my favourite Christmas movies. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale has completely re-affirmed my love of Scandinavian horror/supernatural films. First Dead Snow from Norway, then Let the Right One In from Sweden and now Rare Exports from Finland, somehow the Scandinavians know how to develop characters so that I actually care about them. In essence this movie is about an American company digging up Santa in Finland, who was not the loveable elf we grew up with, a Finnish family finds a rather surly naked old man and try to sell him back to the company. The son in this film may at the beginning seem nothing more than an innocent naive little boy, but by the end of the film I can guarantee you will think he is one of the most badass kids on screen.

Sometimes badasses come in adorable packages.
Now most websites have classified this movie as horror, but personally I would classify it as a supernatural adventure. In fact if it weren't for the amount of F-bombs dropped I would classify this movie as rather family friendly with pretty much a zero death toll and only one gory scene. I would say that if you have older kids (roughly 10 and up), who you are alright with hearing swear words, this is a great movie to rent for your family this holiday season. Also a great accompaniment for this movie would be a nice plate of gingerbread cookies. I certainly know I will be sharing it with my family this Christmas once our baking is done.

Next up we have Santa's Slay, definitely less family friendly and well less character and plot development to be honest. So it turns out Santa is actually the son of Satan, but after losing a bet he was forced to be nice for 1000 years and it just so happened that 2005 (the year the film was made) is 1000 years after that bet. Santa is then free in the film to wreak all the havoc he missed out on for that millennium during his birthday (Christmas) and the only people who can stop him are a 16 year old, his crazy grandpa who knows the truth and his girlfriend.

The only other time I've seen Santa this ripped was in
Santa with Muscles
Now while this movie is by no means a cinematic masterpiece, what it is great for is a good old fashioned horror movie marathon with a large group of friends. I watched it with a friend, so even when we got distracted, we were still able to keep up with what was going on in the plot. Since what I have learned from experience in a good horror movie night, by the second movie most people actually aren't paying attention so one that doesn't have dialogue as a must that you can easily follow makes a great choice. Also it is definitely full of some great Christmas puns and a fair amount of cameos at the beginning. So watch it with these things in mind and you will have a great time with Santa's Slay.

Oh so since I am trying to think of more creepy, offbeat or scary Christmas movies I will be searching for a Chrismas special from a show I loved during my childhood, Mr. Bumpy and another horror movie I read about briefly called Saint. I will be sure to tell you how those go.

Friday 9 December 2011

Beating the Dead Alive (AKA Braindead)

As an actor at the very beginning of my career I am currently taking a full-time acting program. Now as a part of this program by the end of this six month intensive I have to complete a 110 page script using the Save the Cat method of screenwriting. Now this Save the Cat book has a bunch of exercises in it and one of them is to take movies similar to the one you plan on writing and figure out the 15 beats to it.

Now I figured since I was going to do this I might as well start with one of my favourite movies which I think is the most similar to mine despite not being the same Blake Snyder genre as the one I am writing. So after the break you will find the 15 beats in Peter Jackson's Dead Alive (Braindead). Now it is full of spoilers so if you haven't seen this movie yet and don't want to know what happens ahead of time stop reading now.

I probably shouldn't find this attractive, but for some
reason I do....

Thursday 8 December 2011

My Macabre Mind: Why my Dad is AWESOME!

Last week was my Dad's __th birthday which I visited home for and so I have decided in honour of this awesome dude I am going to celebrate what makes him super fantastic great.

So my love of horror and science fiction pretty much comes from him. When I was little the family joke was that I thought Captain Jean-Luc Picard was my grandfather because Star Trek: TNG was on so much at my house. (I still think Patrick Stewart would be one of the best grandfathers ever.) Thanks to him I was had the amazing experience of seeing the holy trinity of Star Wars movies in theatres, and needless to say I was an Ewok for Halloween that year. Oh and to all you parents out there NEVER let you children watch the Ewok movie, only bad things will come of it.

Facepalming before the internet.
Probably what he did to influence me the most was our weekly Ren & Stimpy sessions when I was a toddler, after that it is a bit hard to grow up anything but a somewhat warped girl. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not complaining and am quite proud of who I am thanks to him. There was of course also Reboot and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to come a bit after the Ren & Stimpy years, so you know I was in good hands.

I remember the night he brought home a movie and I finally stopped being afraid of watching horror movies. I had enjoyed them for a long time and remember laughing at ones like the Grudge with him when I was a tween, but there was always massive amounts of dread on my part until the movie was actually playing. The movie that changed all that for me was Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. I had actually told my dad "I'm too scared to watch that movie", but he still rented it and I am so glad he did. I was absolutely petrified to watch it because believe it or not I used to be really terrified of zombie movies. So he turned on the movie and even though I wasn't planning on I started watching it, started laughing and got sucked in. By the end of the movie I had a moment where I realized "What was I so afraid of?" and after that point horror movies now instil anticipation and excitement rather than fear of being afraid.

Dad, if you end up reading this just know you are the best Dad I could possibly have and you are just the bees knees.

Oh and he also has good taste in music as well.

Friday 2 December 2011

Christmastime is here, lets make it creepy Pt. 1

It's that time of the year again, when couples constantly cozy up, children make their wishlists and families gather to celebrate the season together. Yes like most people I too enjoy the upbeat tradition filled side of the season, but that doesn't mean I become some sweet little cheezy girl, no I still love horror and science fiction during the holidays. There is even so much Christmas themed material to choose from. So to start off your holiday season right, here is a list of some more interesting films involving Christmas in some way:

-The Children (reaffirmed my lack of desire to reproduce)
-Black Christmas (I've only seen the original)
-Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (so bad it's good)
-Edward Scissor Hands (little less obvious than Nightmare Before Christmas)

As the season goes along I will be adding some more films to this list. So far this year I am hoping to watch Santa's Slay and Rare Exports.