A Chicken Is Not Pillage

This Is How The Zompocalypse Begins

I especially love the cameo by 'Michelle Malkin' ...

Deep Thought

Mark T, having discussed his loathing for "-isms" like feminism, certainly appears to adore liberal purism.

A Brief Missive To Our More Rightward Brethren

The esteemed John Cole:

It has now been about 36 hours since the most definitive victory for conservatism ever, yet according to my sources, Obama is still President, the Senate still has 60 Democrats, and the House gained a Democrat.

I guess you have to live in the beltway or work for a cable network to truly understand election results.

A minor correction.  The clown circus Senate has only 57 Democrats, and Max Baucus.  This is something I think we shall have to remedy.

Congratulations!

In true Halloween spirit, my heartfelt congratulations go out to SIR Christopher Lee.

A Trio Of Treats

I'm posting this up a day early for Halloween, because I generally don't have the time to post *ON* Halloween.  Besides, who wants to spend Halloween skulking on the Intertubes.  I wanted to do a link post, but feel shamed by the epic past endeavors of certain Batgrl.  She would flood the 'tubes with more Halloween goodness in one place than any human could stand.  Perhaps that was her plan, to drive us mad with All-Hallows Eve joy.  Regardless, I am not her, and can only make a shallow attempt at doing justice to this holiday.

In my neighborhood, there are usually no trick-or-treaters at all.  So, when one does show up at the door, my beloved (and most everyone else in the hood) over indulges them with more candy than is sensible.  So here is my indulgence; the title says 3; expect more.

First, I don't comment at Metafilter anymore, but I still read it.  From there, I encountered one of the best analysis of monster might anywhere.  From Threat Quality Press, A Hierarchy of Monsters.  Please, do not stop there.  The comments to the Metafilter thread are priceless, especially those from  robocop is bleeding.

To really look at a hierarchy of threat, we need to start from the perspective of a potential victim and work our way up from there. As I can tell you from personal experience, there is little practical difference in being locked in a closet while the corpse of your dead wife, animated through dread magics, pounds on the door with cold, unyielding fists and being lost in a Bavarian forest, running from a chorus of howls and snarling, fanged mouths.

In the end, the victim's life will end. Whether it ends at the claws of a werewolf, fangs of a vampire, axe of a drowned kid, or nightmare of a dreamstalker doesn't matter.

This is quality stuff.

Second, the always clever Dave Merriman sends a link to the must-have insurance of the current century.  The other poseurs can move aside.  My Zombie Insurance is the product needed for the Zombpocalypse.

Third, enough with the imprecise verbiage!  WonderMark gives us the terms we need.  Presenting the Stoakes-Wibley Natural Index of Supernatural Collective Nouns.  It should be no surprise that my favorite is 'a vexation of zombies'.

Finally, I am not a video gamer.  I like games, and have played many.  However, a game must have a certain something to appeal to me.  Creepiness is high on my list of gaming joys.  Doom 3 had it's moments; F.E.A.R. was just shock value lame.  Undying remains one of my favorite games of all time.  But back in the old dark days of DOS, Phantasmagoria was all that and then some.  The video, filmed with live actors, was simply gravy to the creepy music and actual game exploration.  It is the videos that brought out the creepy flavor of all the weird stuff you had to do to prepare *not* to get killed in a horrific manner.  I know I'm probably johnny-come-lately to this, but the murderous cut-scenes have been posted online, and I-Mockery has compiled them in one handy spot for your horror viewing pleasure.  Yes, I know the demon looks stupid in the extreme, but this was revolutionary stuff as regards gaming.  And more to point, it was horrific.

Well, that's all I got.  Except this:

Fashion Freak
Uploaded by ptitepapaye. - Watch more music videos, in HD

Yes I know I've posted that before.  But that video is becoming something of holiday tradition with me ...

Happy Halloween, folks.

What Ever Happened To Hugs, Talking and Going to Sleep?

This can't be the direction we're headed, can it?

(Link is Not Safe For Work.)

Prediction

Every week I consider posting my NFL predictions for the weekend.  I usually remember my intention right about noon on Sunday.  To atone, via Owillis, my prognostication  for tonight's football contest.

Conservative Horror Films?

Sadly No! is like the good friend who makes you laugh, but when you help them move, they leave the heavy lifting to you.  So it is here.  They present the visage of John Hawkins, hawking movies for Halloween that are, in his opinion, conservative approved!  Unfortunately, Tintin gets distracted by pizza, and really, don't we all?  In his haste to describe conservative pie, Tintin neglects the challenge presented.  I can do no such thing.

There isn't a person who knows me, or has read this website for long many years, who doesn't know that I love horror movies.  I can appreciate the nuance and accept the gore.  These film extravaganzas are not terribly deep, never have been.  It is easy to see social or political relevance in some them, but that's nothing more than a gaming overlay, amusement for discussion and contemplation.  The search for social relevance in the genre is a personal quest to understand the director or the story teller in terms of one's own mythology, and has fuck-all to do with what the horror movie is all about.  Horror movies are about chilling you, the viewer, getting your adrenaline up.  In the best case, social conflict enhances that; in the worst it assumes that social conflict as scary and exploits it  for no thrills whatsoever.  Angst is personal, and varies subject to subject.  Good horror film makers understand that.  Bad ones, and John Hawkins, do not.

With that in mind, I offer my critiques of Hawkins Top Ten Conservative horror movies, and elucidate the shallow alternative descriptions he meant to write.

Cloverfield:

It is one of the good 'Giant Monster' movies, but face it, it doesn't hold a candle to the original Godzilla.  Hawkins gives credit to the creepiness of the filming, stolen directly from the Blair Witch Project.  The characters are fundamentally decent, if you ignore the backstabbing love liaisons.  Hawkins relies on the common trope of "ordinary people" to project a glimmer of conservatism.  How ordinary is a person going to be if a giant monster attacks their town?  Just because conservatives think it would be so, therefore it is, in the mind of Hawkins.  Being ordinary does not make one conservative, and acting a the viewer expects most often gets you killed in horror movies.  Oh, wait, it does here too.  The conservative trope that really gives Hawkins a stiffy is the brave military response, futile as it is.  Every giant monster movie ever made has the same thing, and in most, the military is victorious.  Think Them or Tarantula.  

Realistic Hawkins review:  Oh shit, that lib haven New York sure got it's ass kicked, hehe hehe.

The Dead Zone

Seriously?  How is this conservative?  Christopher Walkin plays a deranged mentalist, gifted with a power he didn't want, and slowly slipping into madness due to his visions that a President would cause Armageddon.  He commits suicide by cop trying to stop the holocaust, and exposes the 'bad guy' for a coward.  Hawkins' view of this movie is of a patriot, a movie filmed when Ronald Reagan was joking about nuking Russia, written by a man who thought Reagan was a monster.  Do I really need to clarify more how screwed up Hawkins' evaluation is here?  Well sure I do.

The Dead Zone is not a horror movie.  It's a thriller, like a spy movie, with a supernatural element.

The only real reason that anyone would or could concede that this movie is a 'patriotic' celebration of conservatism is that we have a Darkie in the White House that conservatives don't like, and someone, anyone, must stop him at all cost.  Glenn Beck probably thinks of this movie as porn, because he doesn't understand it.

Realistic Hawkins review:  Would somebody please try and kill that Kenyon?

The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

I can't even treat this film seriously.  It was God awful.  It was boring.  It was derivative of another film on this list, and it just sucked like a Hoover plugged to a 220 outlet.

Realistic Hawkins review:  They didn't declare war on Christmas so that's a plus ...

The Exorcist

I still find this to be one of the scariest movies I've ever seen.  It also has the best soundtrack of any horror film ever.  That's saying something coming from a huge fan of John Carpenter.  But let's be real.  This movie holds terror only for those steeped in Christian dogma, and nominally aware of Catholic faith.  I do find it contradictory that Hawkins celebrates this film as 'conservative' when it stands as an affront to evangelicals.  Also, self sacrifice is not a hallmark of conservatism, unless it's a priest, apparently.  Here's the dealio.  In this movie, the power of Jesus couldn't control the demonic entity.  Only human sacrifice could.  What would that message be, again?  And of course, Hollywood never treats the members of the clergy with respect, unless they do.  (Hawkins is amazing in that he contradicts himself in the same review.)

Realistic Hawkins review:  Dude, the underage chick does that thing with the cross.  Crap, where's my lotion?

The Fog

Don't get me wrong, I love this film.  But it is not 'conservative'.  The pirates kill anyone who gets in their way, regardless of party affiliation.  It doesn't matter if the town gets its comeuppance; they screwed with pirates, for Christ's sake.  In Hawkins' world, Pirates=Good, Descendants of Townfolk=Bad.  We all like Pirates, of course, but come the fuck right on.  Aren't conservatives the same bunch of assholes screaming, 'well I didn't kill Injuns or enslave people, so I'm not to blame'.  The point of the movie is:  YES, you really are.

Realistic Hawkins review:  Oh shit, that lib haven in California sure got it's ass kicked, hehe hehe

The Mist

Seriously, this is my favorite horror film of the last ten years.  Now, Hawkins describes it thusly:

A sinister story about a deadly government experiment and how quickly human beings can become primitive again when they're isolated, alone, and in danger.

Did he even watch the damned movie?  The primitive he's describing is Christian fundamentalism.  Anyone who's ever read a Chick Tract knows the danger of Christian Talibangelicals under stress.  The antagonist of the film is a female James Dobson on crack.  How is this even remotely conservative?  This movie is anti-out-of-control military, pro-humanist and extremely anti-fundamental religion.

Realistic Hawkins review:  They'd have been safe if they'd given up to God.  And Gubmint sucks; lack of Gubmint will turn you into a killer, so the Gubmint sucks.

Quarantine

I admit, I like this film.  The same film techniques as Blair Witch and Cloverfield were used here, to great effect.  Hawkins reads this as some kind of anti-Gubmint screed, and suggests that you don't get trapped in a building with the Gubmint outside and zombies you didn't even know about inside.  Socialist cops and firefighters try to do their jobs and the Gubmint betrays them.  They should have done their own conservative thing ... BY NOT RESPONDING TO THE CALL?  This review, more than any other, convinces me that Hawkins is a fucking moron.

Realistic Hawkins review:  At least the hot MSM journalist gets munched ... And the gubmint wants to protect you from rabies.  They should have just wizarded up a cure out of their socialist asses.  HOW DARE THEY PROTECT THE PUBLIC! (Quarantines are fascist, man.)

The Reanimator

This movie is conservative ... to the psychotic.  Yes, there is a message about playing God, and it's not a nice one.  That was Lovecraft's intent when he wrote the damned thing.  The message?  Don't experiment to save lives because it might save Grandma.  Let her die.

Realistic Hawkins review:  Dude, chick gets tongue raped by a corpse.  Where's my lotion ...

The Silence Of The Lambs

NOT A HORROR MOVIE!  It's a thriller, and a very good one.  But, contrary to Hawkins' earlier points, it shows quite clearly that the Gubmint is looking out for you and hiring the best and the brightest.  Notice, Hawkins doesn't say how this movie was 'conservative'.  He was just trying to fill his list, and ran home to momma as it were.  Ohhh, let's feed 'em a cop movie; they'll like that.   I call total bullshit on this.  What this movie really says is that horror is out there.  Sometimes Gubmint can helps, sometimes it can't.

Realistic Hawkins review:  That scene where the dude who plays Captain Stotlemayer puts his dick tween his legs?  Yeah, I've done that.

And,  The Tripper

I couldn't even make it half way through this suckfest.  Even by slasher movie standards, this is not a good film.  But I do notice that it's the only film that Hawkins even weakly linked to.  Perhaps he's terrified of IMDB.  Hawkins' review is remarkably telling, however:

In a couple of spots near the end of the movie, it does manage to grate conservative sensibilities. However, that mild annoyance does not to detract from the sweet, sweet joy of watching a guy in a Ronald Reagan mask taking an ax to dirty, drug addled hippies throughout the movie.

Hawkins only wants to see his Straw Man of liberals die horribly.  There's really nothing else to qualify this as a "conservative film".

Realistic Hawkins review:  Libruls DIE DIE DIE!  Someone else please, because I'm too chickenshit ... and I still can't find my lotion.  MOM....

Perhaps I will post the best liberal horror movies for Halloween.  I doubt it, though.  The spirit of the holiday is fear, and that knows no ideology.

I'll Take That Bet

Sadly No! offers the truly funny.