Come this Friday, its all about 007!

The spooks have returned to the dark side for another year.  Those that fear the dark can now walk freely out in it without any worry of their soul or brains being left compromised for the dead to steal or feast upon.  Another Halloween has come and gone and I'm hoping you all had a great one and had the opportunity to do at least one thing spooky this past season.

I usually end up lamenting the Halloween season and usually use the first post after the holiday to complain, bash and generally blaspheme against the upcoming X-mas season.  Well, I'm not going to waste any energy doing so this year.  Why?  Well, usually after Halloween I have little to look forward to except cold, snowy weather and a severely injured bank account.  But, this year there is reason to be joyous!

Come this Friday, we'll all be singing the praises of Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson and Sam Mendes as they bring us, what is being touted as, THE best James Bond movie of the decade, Skyfall.

I devoted a complete blog post (may have spoilers to major plot points!) to my anticipation of this movie a while back and now the week has come where Bond will return to the theaters after a small delay due to a legal bout when MGM went bankrupt and incompetent lawyers were lagging on getting matters resolved so production on this wonderment could commence.

Friday's the day!  I have a reserved ticket to a 7:00 PM showing at a local theater and I find myself counting the minutes.  I'll be seeing it with the same people and in the same theater that I saw the last Bond film.  It's no secret that I've been a Bond fan for a very long time and the excitement when a new movie comes out is sometimes uncontrollable.

Even though I gave the last Bond adventure, Quantum of Solace some great praises in the review I posted here, I have to admit, that compared to its predecessor, Casino Royale, it was greatly lacking in both characterization and story telling.  Early reviews of Skyfall state the complete opposite.  Not only is Skyfall rumored to have an incredible story line that really explores Bond's past and demons, it also tackles his relationship with his superior, "M", a Bond fan favorite character.

there's also the matter of the main villain, Silvo, who is rumored to be one of the best Bond villains since Blofeld and Goldfinger.

Ya know, it sounds like I'm already giving the movie a review before I've even seen it.  I'll tell you what.  You can bet your sweet bippy that I'll have my review posted within the next week.  And I don't intend it to be completely spoiler free as there are some major things that get rattled about within the Bond mythos that take place in this film.

Ok, then.  The next post you'll read on this blog will be the review of the movie

S K Y F A L L.

I can't frackin' wait!  STAY VERTICAL!

Halloween Comes, Cthulhu Rises and a Mouse Acquire the Galactic Empire.....

This shall be my final post of the Halloween season.  For tomorrow night ushers in the end of "the time of the dead", where the unliving, ghouls and shadows of the night crawl back to the netherworld for another year.  It's always hard to say goodbye to the best season of the entire year only to then have to hunker down and brace oneself for the craptastic holiday season.  But, I think I had a pretty good run this year.

I went to three Haunted Attractions, dank numerous Octoberfests and Pumpkin ales, went to a couple of Halloween parties and watched quite a few Halloween themed YouTube videos, some of which I shared with you all here on my blog.

I'd like to share one more big one with you.  Throughout the last decade or so I got myself aquatinted with the spooky world of the Cthulhu  Mythos that was created by the late author H.P. Lovecraft.  Lovecraft's works have greatly influenced the modern horror genre.  It would take up quite a few blog posts to explain exactly what I'm posting about.  So, as a special Halloween treat, I give you a documentary on the author and his writings.  Even if you're not aquatinted with Lovecraft's works, I think you'll find this show very interesting.  It's a bit on the long side.  So I suggest you turn off the lights, sit down with your last Octoberfest or pumpkin ale and your favorite snack and enjoy the world of Cthulhu.

That's probably the most educational thing I've posted here in the history of this blog.  I think I just gained a +20 to my Intelligence roll.  I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting as hell.


Ok.  I didn't plan to write about anything Star Wars related during the Halloween season, but how can I not mention the big ass Star Wars news elephant that is sitting in the middle of the room as of today.  If you've had your head up a Bantha's sphincter for the last several hour, it was announced that the Walt Disney Corporation will acquire all of Lucasfilms as well as all the rights to all things Star Wars.

HOLY FRACKIN' CRAP!!!!!

Talk about a mind blowing announcement!  Oh, but wait.  There's more.  Disney plans to actually make Star Wars, Episodes 7 through 9.  George Lucas has vehemently denied that these movies would ever get made.  But, since he's selling his Star Wars empire to Disney for FOUR BILLION dollars I guess The House of Mouse needs to make a few bucks back.  God I hope they don't frell these films up.

I have mixed feelings about this.  On one hand I'm always cautious of a uber-conglomerate taking control of anything I love.  Huge corporations usually have only one thing on the mind, and that's $$$$$$$.  And they usually are quite quick to compromise and distort anything beloved by millions for the ultimate, almighty dollar.  Disney is no exception.

But, on the good side, they did buy Marvel Entertainment and look how friggin' good Marvel's The Avengers turned out to be.  If they focused on the fans wants and needs for Star Wars, they could really bring some exciting stuff to the table.  We'll have to wait this all out and see what transpires.


And that is it for the Halloween Season for me.  The next thing to get excited about?

And to all of you......

Stay Vertical all you ghosties and ghoulies and long leggedy beasties!

A Blogload of Spookiness and Then Some.

At some point during the Halloween season I like to dedicate at least one blog post to horror movie reviews of the plethora of horror movies I watch throughout the season.  But, to be bluntly honest, it's been quite a spell since I  have watched a horror movie that I felt is worth mentioning.  Most of today's horror movies are copy cats of one another.  It's either a brutal, gore-fest or it's trying really hard to be a psychological, paranormal thriller using tricks to try and creep us out that have been used a thousand times before.

So this year I may just put the horror movie reviews on the back burner.  Hopefully, down the road, I'll watch a horror movie that will be cool enough to tell you all about.

In the meantime, I do have something Halloween themed I can review for you.  I had the fortune to visit a new Haunted Attraction in town.  My buddy, Bones, and I braved up and hit the road south of here to visit.....

The Abandoned Haunted House Complex - This haunt is brand spanking new and has been in development for the last two years.  I remember seeing the building with the sign on it that read "Haunted House Complex" when I would be going south toward Chicago, usually to visit the local Renaissance fair that is nearby.  I always wondered about it because I heard very little about it.  It's a big enough building that once housed a banquette hall and bar. Apparently it was still in the building stages.

After going through this past Friday night, Bones and I were pretty impressed with it.  It's main strength is with its scare-actors.  All were in character at all times and having a blast, which can be fully witnessed if you get there early enough, just before it opens, when all of the ghouls come rushing out from behind a small and dilapidated farm house adjacent to the complex.  Before most of them enter into the complex they spook and freak out patrons that are in line.  A few of the ghouls stay outside to continue to torment the patrons waiting to get in.  One creepy clown was especially effective on the group of young girls afflicted with coulrophobia.

The outside of the complex isn't adorned with too much of a creepy facade.  There is a body hanging from a noose, however.  Once you enter into the first room of the haunt, it is evident that the settings improve greatly from the outside.  A very good talent for detail is evident throughout the haunt, making most of the settings pretty cool to look at.  The lighting effects were also pretty mesmerizing in some places.  There is a severe lack of hydraulic or pneumatic special effect props here that you'll find in many local haunts.  This haunt relies on it's heavy use of scare-actors jumping out from the corners of darkness.  Some of my favorite areas where the hallways where severed heads and body parts where hanging by ropes, swaying back on forth and you had to navigate around them.  That was pretty much all the prop movement that was utilized in this haunt.  There was also another part where I was convinced we were going in circles... or where we?

It was also a pretty decent in its length.  I'd say it took a good 20 minutes or so to get through the whole thing.  And we were moving at a decent pace too.

If I had to come up with a negative I'd have to say the price is a little steep in what they are offering.  Many local haunts deliver just as good an experience for under the $20 it costs to go through this haunt.      Perhaps, if in future years, they could incorporate a few big ticket effects they could justify the full $20 price.  It's not cheap to run a haunt.  I get that.  But, you also want to stay competitive.

But, in the end, this place is fun and shows a lot of promise.  Major kudos to the actors and actresses in this place.  They are a top notch group!


Now I've regaled you with my visit to a haunt, let's all go to one together.  This is a special viewing of a haunt known as Lemp Brewery located in St. Louis, MO.  It was filmed during a "lights on" tour for a Haunted Attraction symposium.  It is broken down in a few parts and brougt to YouTube by the wonderful people at McKamey Manor.  Don't let the "lights on" fool you.  It is still a wonderful and spooky attraction to behold.  Here we go....

Ya know.  Since we got this footage form McKamey Manor (currently in San Diego), why don't we visit them also?

That's a heck of a lot of haunting for today.  Let's move on to another topic other than Halloween and Haunted attractions.  Trust me.  This subject will be worth it.

There has been a lot of Buzz about the new James Bond Movie coming out next month.   Reviews of Skyfall are already starting to surface and people are saying that this will be one of the greatest Bond movies of all time.  I don't want o get myself over excited, but November 9th can't come soon enough!

You can read brief summaries of the reviews HERE!  Only the reviewer for The Gardian seems to be a fuddy duddy about the movie.

Here's a few more goodies to wet the appetite before Skyfall's release!

So there you go.   A post with a whole bevy of video goodies to get you into the Halloween mode as well as the Skyfall mode.

Until next time, stay vertical!

Zangz.

A spoilerific blog post of my anticipation of Skyfall

I have two warnings for this particular post.

#1.  As the title of the post infers, there may be some serious spoilers within this post.  If you don't want to know a darn thing about the next, highly anticipated James Bond movie, Skyfall, due in theaters in early November, then you may not want to venture any further after the link to the trailer.

#2.  If you choose to accept, I have two assignments for you to complete before I go on with my post.


So the first assignment starts below.  View the UK trailer for Skyfall as many times as your geeklovin' heart contends...

Now that you've watched it four or five times visit the link posted below (WARNING: Possible SPOILERS abound as the author of this post breaks down the trailer you just watched and guesses at major plot points of the film.  One plot point might be a biggin'!  If this event does happen in the film, it will blow our collective minds!  You have been warned!  Click at your own discretion)......

CommanderBond.net's Skyfall teaser trailer breakdown.

Now I will interject my own thoughts on the trailer you just viewed and article which you just read.  Not that my thoughts are worth a hill of beans.  I do this for my own amusement.  What the frell?!?!  

This portion is also spoiler loaded.  (Scroll down to read since Blogger will not allow me to black it out so you can highlight it to read. (????)  Sorry, blame Blogger.)

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Being a huge Bond fan, I was elated when I heard that Sony and MGM ended their legal issues and went head first into preproduction of the delayed 23rd James Bond movie, Skyfall.  As usual, I promised myself that I didn't want to know a damned thing about the story or plot of the film before I saw it on the big screen this November.

Well, that fell through as I subscribed to the official James Bond YouTube channel and Facebooked them as well.  I can't help myself.  They've just concluded principal photography for the film and news is starting to leak out.

At first viewing of the trailer when it was released on the masses a few weeks ago, I thought it was a real classy, slick, artistic view of things to come.  But, it didn't really reveal too much of what the hell was going in the film.  Or so I ignorantly thought.

When I came across the above article, it revealed some pretty heavy revelations that could go down in this film.

Let's start with the title itself, "Skyfall".  There is a scene where Bond is taking a psychological, word association test.  When the term "Skyfall" comes up, Bond turns sullen and ends the test abruptly.  I originally thought the title was some sort of weapon that was gleaned from the old days of the Bond movies where there was some sort of satellite weapon aimed at the earth's surface by some terrorist organization that was holding the world at ransom.  After reading the article I believe Skyfall to possibly some sort of important reference to Bond's  deceased parents.

In the books and some of the movies, it is revealed that Bond's mom and dad, who died in a mysterious "mountain climbing accident"when Bond was a child, may have had some sort of dealings with the British secret service in the past.  Their deaths are mentioned in one or tow of the movies and their involvement with MI6 is mentioned somewhere in the literature.  It's all very brief, which gives the writers of the movie to get in there and dig deep and create a real background for his late parents.

In the article, there is a building that will play a major part in the film that is called "Skyfall Lodge".  Is this Bond's childhood home?  Is this why it hits such a nerve when it is mentioned to Bond?  I know the lodge will become a major set piece for a huge action sequence in the film.  Possibly the grand crescendo to the film itself.  What will take place there?  Will everybody get out alive?

That's the big question the linked article brings up.

This leads me to my next assumption of the movie.  I'm thinking that a huge character we Bond fans have all grown to know and love will be 86'd in this film.

Now if you've scrolled down to read, scroll down further to read this if think you can take it....  venture downward........

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From what I've read in the posted article, I sadly believe that Dame Judy Dench's "M" may be killed off in Skyfall.  If you have the article still up on-line in another tab or window, scroll down to the seventh teaser image where Ralph Fiennes is looking at Dench's M.  If you read the text below you may see where this is all going.  If Dench is out for the 4th Daniel Craig Bond film, old Voldermort could fit the bill of a decent conservative, stogy, "M" that could harken back to the older movies.  But it would lose a lot of heart that Dench brought to the character.

Now why in the hell would the producers of the Bond flicks be giving Judy Dench, the woman who single handedly rebooted the character of "M", the heave-ho?  I don't think it's entirely their decision.

I've heard a rumor that Dame Judy Dench has been dealing with some very serious eye conditions where her sight is slowly, but surely failing her.  She may be settling down from the acting world and thus leaving the James Bond films for good.  A horrible scenario, but it would fit the puzzle pieces together.

Now this is all conjecture and guesswork form myself based on the article, based on the trailer itself.  No one, outside of the people who worked on the film, will know the truth until November of this year.  We could all be terribly wrong and Dench would be in this thing for another number of years.  Either way, it's going to be one hell of a thrill ride this November!

Zangz.