An Unorthodox Halloween – Page 86

The Dragon Wars Redux.

Well, as you may know, I was initially wrong on the timing of Dragon Wars on Scifi. Turns out it aired on Saturday night, not Friday. I must have heard the commercial wrong.

But, we have a detailed review from the family!!!

Kyles review:

As you can see, not only was the movie so thrilling that he fell asleep, the audio was so rivetting, he was compelled to cover his ears with pillows…

Alec’s Review:

Fleeing both sight and sound of the movie in a valiant attempt to level up some pokemon, he remained pounding the buttons in his sleep, and muttering something about some nonsense pokemon name as I lifted him into bed.

Cosette’s review:

Asleep, and seemingly annoyed at the same time.

Of course, not ALL of us fell asleep.

Jen found it more entertaining to go play on the laptop. Of course, she could not do so on the table as normal. NOOOO…that might allow that mind numbing vibe eminating from the movie sink in. So, she fled to the bedroom floor. Perhaps that explains why she’s so apparantly happy in her review.

Indy, meanwhile, found his fascination with this spoon…

This from the cat who plays fetch, drinks from the toilet, begs for table scraps, chews on my shoes, and is well on his way to learning to heel. I keep being reminded of the line in “The Last Crusade”: “We named the DOG Indy…”

Watching bad movies is certainly an acquired trait/taste. There are those, like me, who grew up on “Mystery Science Theater 3000”. For us, these movies offer a great opportunity to laugh. And the more serious the movie tries to be, the funnier it is. Dragon Wars certainly falls into this category, but I have most certainly seen worse films. Which would mean better films.

It’s that time again.

Michaels has all their halloween stuff out. Back are the witches bottles, which are rather cute. And the assorted hand crafted signs. And, of course, all that spooky town stuff.

But, Michaels doesn’t stop there, they bring in some decent Gemmy props as well. If those are your thing. Plus all the lighted lawn ornaments and things.

*sigh*

JoAnn’s seems to be focusing on the cutesy market this year. Nicely ornate pumpkins and cute little smiling “scarecrows”.

Meanwhile, Hobby Lobby has a full Christmas section up and running already.

On one hand, I love to see all the Halloween stuff start flowing into the stores. On the other, I can’t recall when the last time I saw something I actually wanted to purchase was. It all is either too silly, costs way too much, or I can build better on my own.

Ah well.

In some site info, I’ve split the links between shopping and other stuff, and added some good descriptions of what you can expect on the other side of the links.

A very special Crappy Movie Friday Night!

I have spoken of Crappy Movie Friday Nights several times. AMC‘s “Fear Friday” that typically results in some of the most god-awefull horror films ever released being aired in the dead of the night on Friday night/Saturday morning.

However, AMC has been dropping the ball lately, and repeating the same showings every few weeks. In fact, this coming week is your chance to see The Exorcist II, if you have somehow missed it over the years. Even The Exorcist is airing, which you probably only have not seen if your parents forebade it from the house as being the embodiment of evil.

If you’re one of those few, here’s a recap of the exorcist for you in 30 seconds, played by bunnies to make it less evil:

See more hilarious remakes over here.

I’ve had to broaden the search for Crappy Movie Friday Nights. Fortunately, there’s a local network here in Utah that has been stepping up. UEN, normally a borish educational network has unleashed the unholy terror known as SciFi Fridays upon the local airways. Imagine my surprise when being bored with the AMC reshowing of Christine for what seems the dozenth time, surfing the channels to stumble on The Day of the Triffids over on UEN. In all of it’s unremastered glory, and looking as though it was being shown on an old reel projector.

Ever since, UEN has become a regular stop, with such wonderfull offerings as She Demons, Horror Hotel, and The Screaming Skull. It takes a special kind of awefull to come up with the tagline: We guarantee to bury you without charge if you die of fright during SCREAMING SKULL!

However…This weekend is one to surpass all others. It is once in a blue moon one has the opportunity to see a truly awefull masterpiece. This Friday brings us such an opportunity.

This Friday is a moment I’ve been waiting nearly a year for. Dragon Wars is hitting the small screen.

Oh, how beautifull! This Friday, on SciFi channel (check local listings for time).

I recall seeing the previews for it’s theatrical release. And, boy, did it look wonderfull. There was also no way in hell I was paying money for it. To TV in under a year…not bad…

Come on, it’s DRAGONS fighting each other while thrashing the military and LA. You KNOW you want to see that. (Emily, I’m looking at you…)

So, pop that popcorn, grab the kids, and sit back with me this Friday to take in what is sure to be a most horrible movie night.

Banner troubles, and a present.

So, we got the lovely banner all made and stained…but what insignia should I put on it?

There are my classics. “The Faces”. Pick one, and run with it. I made these faces years ago, and they’ve hung around ever since to where I see them more or less as something of a personal signature in reguards to all things halloween.

Couple skull designs I was kicking around. While superficially fitting, they all tended to scream ‘pirates’.

And, in my mind, I keep seeing a white handprint. Something akin to the Uruk-Hais. Yet, I do not feel this alone to be enough.

Several tribal inspired knot designs similarly do not feel ‘right’.

Well, it will come when the time is right.

And, in other news, I finally found me a Mola Ram!!!

See, Lego. Hasbro is not afraid of the burning heart. It works fine. Now, go make me a lego set that features the scene!

Never happen. Lego couldn’t even manage to get the proper heart-ripping into their video game.

This on a game that features hearts bouncing around on the floor anytime someone/something is killed anyway.

This was a fairly big deal in our house, actually. Alec got this game for his birthday. And, while I was busy remodeling, I got a couple excited children hollering for me to come see, they had finally made it to the heart-ripping scene. Such disappointment…

The thing is a SUPERB scene. I understand it nearly gave Temple of Doom an R rating, instead created the PG-13 rating, and had to be editted in europe to be shown.

Great headdress, wierd chanting, fire, creepy statues, necklaces made of human skulls, hearts being ripped out, catching on fire, drums seemingly made from heads, maniacal laughter…not sure I quite agree with the clown makeup on the lesser priests there. Even makes their ‘evil’ face while pushing the lever to drop the poor sap into the pit look odd. Still, one could watch this endlessly for inspiration…

Banners and bones.

Earlier I had spoken of a randome photo album who had inspired me to think on something new with a rather interesting picture.

I wanted a banner of my own. Such a simple design, and so fitting, and intimidating, it was perfect for our yard. Now, while bulap is fine and all, it really doesn’t have that special level of foreboding that I personally wanted for my own banner. No, we needed something just a tad more…tribal.

So, taking the lessons of Fred into account, we covered the bulap in a layer of latex. The result come out looking something like a tanned piece of hide. Looking over my stock of wood stains, we began with a “Red Sedona”. Now, originally, this stuff gave a nice reddish tan look.

Even in darker patches, it was only faintly ‘red’ in nature. Something about sitting in the heat of the garage for a few years had tempered it to show RED. So it was, I may as well have been bathing my new banner in blood out in the back yard.

More red than I planned on, but let’s run with it, and make it look like it’s been stained in blood while we’re at it. The “Red Sedona” was followed up by some “Red Mahogany” and finally, the whole thing highlighted with some “Ebony”. The results of which very well could be mistaken for drying blood. Especially under the firelight…

Now we’ve got to make the pole, and find a nice paint to form an insignia to emblazen this thing with. I’m thinking white will look best, with how dark it turned out.

Also, we took a trip out to my parents to visit Fred. There in the driveway testing him out and trying to come up with the perfect height for him.

There I am, his kneecaps at my eye level, craning my neck to look up at his decayed visage that it struck me. What in the hell was I thinking? What’s worse, we have the ability to put him to where his feet are over my head!

Kyle wants him taller, Alec wants him shorter, Jen thinks he’s about right where he’s at. I’m at a point I want to do some tests to see how much pollution of lighting we’ll get from the torches with differing height and lighting arrangements.

Finally, I’ve started to work on a special necklace to add to my costume. Making a cast to make some beads out of my Squirrel Monkey skull.