Revisiting Old Haunts

This past Friday me and my old spook hunting buddy, Roberto, took to the old country roads in search of ghosts and ghouls and things that wander throughout the night.  We decided that we were going to visit two local Haunted Attractions that were not too far from Roberto's home.  We've visited these haunts before and were wondering how they had changed this year.

One haunt we visited for the first time just last year.  The other haunt we hadn't visited in a few years.

We didn't have a Mystery Machine, but we did have a Nissan SUV and a Tom Tom unit that helped us guide our way.  The first haunt that we visited was pretty easy to find since it was just down the highway from Roberto's.  It was an old, abandoned High School known as.....

HAUNTED HIGH - Touted as being America's only haunted high school and largest Midwestern haunt that would be closing after this year's haunt season, how could we say no?  The building itself is large, dimly lit from the outside and a bit foreboding.  The wait to get in wasn't too bad as we got there just before the haunt started its walkthroughs.  The only annoyance was the group of tweeners yapping and yelling and acting like a bunch of buffoons in front of us.  This is why most of us who are grown up detest the Justin Beiber and Twighard crowds.  Bleh.

Things looked a lot better once we saw that they were relegated to go through in their own group leaving us with a few other adults.  Heaven be praised!  The show got on the road once we went through a small door and went down a staircase that led us down into the dark bowels of the old school.

Having visited this haunt last year we were expecting a few changes and upgrades since then.  Unfortunately, there were very few if any at all.  I suppose when you're running a haunt that will be in its last year, I guess you figure, "Why spend more money on anything that will not be used again."  The facility will be torn down in the year to come to make way for affordable apartments.

This haunt did not change that much from the last time I reviewed it last year.  So read my old review here for a slightly more in depth description of the haunt.  One improvement they did make was that they had no Glee tie-in this year that kind of dumbed down the climax of last year's show.

It's sad to see a haunt close down when it still had a lot of room to grow and get better.  Oh, well.  On to our next dark adventure.

The next haunt was about 10 miles away, out in the countryside.  Being out in the middle of nowhere on a deathly cold night with only the full moon as your only light certainly added to the ambiance of our next haunted attraction.......

THE DARK SIDE - The first couple of times we visited this haunt, we always left feeling that it was a good solid spookfest that, in time, could grow and change to be a big haunt.  And it looks like they've tweaked some things and have added to the experience.  It was definitely an improvement since we were last there.  The waiting area has changed from being an outdoor wait to being inside of a huge and very dark hay barn.  You can barely make out the giant grim reaper that towers over the crowd as we wait to go through.  I guess if I had any issues with this haunt, it would be the wait.  It is a very long wait in a unheated barn.  Dress warm since they let 25 people people through at a time (at first) and then wait a good 15 minutes for the next 25.  We arrive at the haunt at around 8 PM and didn't start to go through the haunt until 9 PM.

But, once we got going and were led outside of the barn, the creep show started!  We were told the spooky history of the farmland and then led up a hill to a creepy old mine shaft.  The groups of 25 were then broken down into groups of 2 or 3.

The mine shaft was the first of the sections that this big haunt was broken down into.  "Decent" was the first chapter in the Dark Side's haunted farm.  The old mine that we had to traverse was one of the highlights of the haunt.  Great setting and effects!  It plopped us out to the next chapter, a moonlight tractor ride through the dark woods called Twilight Nightmare (not at all to be confused with the horrible, glimmery vampires!).  This part of the haunt included some fire breathing dragons and totems. It also had some ghouls come along for the ride.

The tractor plopped us out at the next section of the haunt, "Backwoods Revenge".  The walk in the woods featured a plethora of inbred hillbillies stalking us as we made our way through a graveyard and a messy butcher shop.

Once we found our way out of the woods, we came to a small corn maze filled with more hillbillies ("Schizophrenia").  These rednecks went out of their way to keep us going in circles for a while before we found the last attraction, "Foxglove Nursery".  Imagine a plant nursery where some sort of toxic chemical gets mixed with the plant life within.  There are a few plant people we had to contend with to find our way back out to the parking lot and to safety.

I have to tell you that the price hike from the years past was well invested.  They've added a lot more here and have gotten their barring on how to run an outdoor haunt.  The haunt lasts around the 40 minute mark which is pretty fantastic!  The wait can be a bit of a grind and they could put a few more effects during the tractor ride to pace it out better.  But, in the end it was fantastic!

So I visited three haunts this season, two more than last year.  I don't think I'll be lucky enough to go to to the six or more that I did in the good old days.  But, I enjoy the ones I can visit.


Speaking of visiting haunts, here's another virtual visit to a wonderful haunt through the magic that is YouTube.

Alice Cooper has been a favorite performer of Roberto's and mine for a very long time.  He's always incorporated some hefty doses of horror, gore and gallows humor into his songs and concerts.  It makes perfect sense that he would lend his imagination to a haunted maze at this year's Halloween Horror Nights.

So sit back, turn off the lights and enjoy Alice Cooper Goes to Hell through the eyes of the people at Sharpe Productions' YouTube channel.

That will be all for this post.  I hope to post something else very soon before the Halloween season is completely over, so keep an eye out for it.

Until next time, stay vertical!

Finally! A Decent Horror Film to Enjoy.

In a previous blog I was bemoaning the issue that it had been quite a spell since I had seen a Horror movie that I really enjoyed.  Well, last weekend I rented a German movie that I finally had a darn good time watching.  It wasn't one of the greatest movies, but in a genre that is infested with the same old, same old, it was refreshing.

The movie I speak of is called....

We Are The Night.

I've never been a big, artsy-fartsy fan of foreign films.  I know they have a lot to offer in our artistic culture of film, but I don't cotton well to trying to read subtitles during a movie that is filled to the gills with long stares and awkward silences.  YAWN!

But, I forged on through this film and was pleased I did (I set it on the English audio.  Hee).

From the get go, this film grabs your attention and tells a decent, modern day, vampire story the way it should be told.  And that is with some ass-kickin' and vampires that do little brooding.

The story revolves around a young, street savvy girl who is a small time thief.  Her life drastically changes when she is seduced and plunged into the world of the blood sucking dead.  As she learns the ways of being a part of a sexy, female vampire brood, she also yearns for the human life she left behind.  And of course, it all slowly falls apart.

The Germans did in one film what the Twilight films continue to fail miserably at.  And that's tell a decent, modern day vampire tale.

Sexiness, bloodshed, action sequences are all part of the formula that got my interest level all oozed up into this film.  Sure, there are some sexy vampiresses in this movie.  But, there's also a decent story.

Just check it out for yourselves.  If you like a good vampire story, it's worth it.


Quickly, we are coming to an end of the Halloween season and I have at least one more post for you that will be in the spooktacular vein.  I also may just have another Haunted Attraction review for you.  Cross your fingers.

Until next time, stay vertical! 

My Town is Haunted Up the Wazoo!.

We are now deep into the Halloween season and the ghosts and ghouls are wandering freely about these dark, cold, chilly nights.  Our first impression may be to lock our doors and hide under our covers.  But, if we truly want to experience the Halloween season we must go forth, out into the night and experience the world of the unknown.

Over time I have learned that my little, midwestern town is not immune to unearthly visitors.  In fact, I have reason to believe that this town is one of the most haunted in the United States.  Don't believe me?  Take a gander at THIS....

This documentary on local haunts was produced by students of my alma mater and is a fine documentation of the spooky visitors that inhabit our town.

If you're still not a believer, you can come here and see for yourself.  During the summer and fall many Ghost Tours are available.  The one I took recently was Gothic Milwaukee Ghost Tours.  This will take you from Downtown Milwaukee's Cathedral Square, through the city streets, down to our River Walk and then back up to our town hall.  The ghosts stories revealed here include the ghost of the Pfister Hotel (Mr. Pfister himself), The Altar Boy Ghost of St. John's Cathedral, creepy Lake Michigan maritime tragedies as well as the ghost story involving our town hall.  There's also a photo opportunity with our famous Bronze Fonz.  The night I went was plagued with a rather nasty rain storm, but our tour guide found a safe haven where she told us a even more ghost stories. So rain or shine, you'll get your money's worth.

Another Ghost Tour you can take is the one featured in the above video.  Milwaukee Ghost Tours offers a tour down in our Third Ward area, which is just south of downtown and features wonderful bars, restaurants and boutiques.  I haven't had a chance to take this tour yet.  But, I'd love to if I could find souls brave enough to go with me.

Since you'd already be down in the Third Ward, you might as well venture right on over to Shaker's Cigar Bar.  Cigars, adult drinks AND ghosts?  Sign me up!!!  This old Milwaukee bar was once a brothel and speakeasy back in the day.  Many a spirit lurk about here and you can take a wonderfully guided tour.  It's a little on the pricey side compared to other ghost tours, but may be well worth it since you can finish it off with a nice cigar and great atmosphere.  I need to get down there more often!

Other local haunts that were touched upon in the documentary were The Rave (which I've blogged about HERE) and the Pabst Mansion.   I have a very close relative that was a one time tour guide at the Pabst  Mansion.  During his volunteer work there I would ask him if the creepy Victorian mansion was haunted.  He would tell me,  "No".  But, when his volunteer work ended he told me that he was told not to speak of the ghostly activity there.  They really want to focus on the historical side of the house.  But, yes, the house has some spooky things that go on in it.  Odd noises and voices can be heard up on the third floor office area.  They really need to be not so uptight about the ghosts and perhaps employ them into the tours.  They would probably have a far better draw that way.

So it's pretty frackin' cool to live in one of the most haunted cities in the US.  Even though nobody really reads this frellin' blog, if you happen to come across it and are not from Milwaukee, you need to come here!  If not for the beer, perhaps for the other numerous spirits that wisp about out city.


On that note, lets go to a fabricated haunt or Haunted Attraction as I like to call them.  Every year the Universal Theme Park puts on a Haunted Attraction extravaganza called Halloween Horror Nights.  One of the mazes they are featuring this year is based on the grosstasticly awesome AMC TV show The Walking Dead which just started its third season.  So lets head on through The Walking Dead maze......

Wonderful!  Enough zombies to wet your undead appetite for a good, long time!  And of course the new season that has just started is  incredible!!  In fact, I have my recorder set to tape it tonight since I'm going to be enjoying a family pumpkin carving party tonight.

I need to get going on some serious pumpkin carving.  So until next time, embrace the dead and try and stay vertical!

Zangz.

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.

Let's go sightseeing.....WITH THE DEAD!

Recently, I found myself yearning to go do something Halloween influenced as well as being able to take in the fall colors.  Due to a elongated (and very expensive) trip to my auto mechanic this past weekend, I was able to break away and take a little jaunt down the street from the shop where one of the oldest and most beautifully creeptastic graveyards is located.

Not only where the fall colors in their peak, the graveyard gave off a gothic eerie atmosphere even though it was broad daylight.  Come with me and let's walk among the graves.....bruahahahahah!  God I sound like a dramatic goth kid.

Can you hear them?

Our tour begins here looking at a plethora of very old graves dating back to the 1800's.  Stone after stone after stone has a story to tell of friends and family members as well as ancestors long passed.  Do you hear their whispers as we pass by?  I do.  WELL THEN, UNCLOG YOUR EARS, 'CAUSE I CAN HEAR THEM JUST FINE AND DANDY!  Sorry, I lost it for a minute.  Let's move on.  hey, look at this stone over here!

1850....a good year to die.

Here is a weathered grave of someone who has left their mortal coil over a century ago.  Does her spirit haunt this graveyard at night?  Or does she take up occupancy elsewhere?  Perhaps she is floating around an old victorian mansion somewhere.  Or perhaps she's waiting under your bed when you sleep at night?  Either way the results are creepy.

Look how the fall colors add beauty to the grave stones.

These five gravestones sit under a tree emblazoned with leaves.  Soon those leaves will fall to the ground and groundskeeper Ernie will have to rake them all up.  While he's raking them, he'll bitch about the workload of raking.  He'll be so preoccupied with complaining that he will not notice the corpses rising out of the graves nearby.  He'll turn around once it's too late and the living dead will feast on his flesh as his cries go ignored.  Just like in a horror movie.  I swear to god that will happen.  My imagination runs amok.

If you look closely, you'll notice the moon is still out.  It was around 11:00 in the morning and the overseer of the night was still keeping it's eye on the dead.  It's with good reason when it's around the Halloween season.

At the top of the large hill within the graveyard there sits a mysterious mausoleum.  What or who dwells within is a mystery.  The grounds keepers keep it good and locked up.  Is it to keep people out, or perhaps to keep something inside?  (Got that little quote from the Haunted Mansion.  Not very original, but still effective).

Don't frackin' BLINK!!!

There was a recent archeological finding within the moors of England.  A very old tablet was unearthed with ancient writing that was recently translated from what was believed to be a forgotten druid language.  It warned of a race of beings from another world that would pose as statues of angels so they could watch us from afar.  As soon as we would turn our heads away from them, THEY WOULD POUNCE and devour our souls.  There was also some writings about a man in a blue box, but that isn't important right now.  What is important is the fact that I spent 4 hours staring at this friggin' statue until I realized that sometimes "a statue is just a statue" and that a dullard with an overactive imagination is just a dullard with an overactive imagination.

It is now time to leave the dead to their rest.  For it is still daylight and the cold, hard ground under the daytime sunlight is the only protection we have.  Once the dusk approaches, things will start to stir and lurk about, sniffing at the night air for human flesh or the souls of the living.  We have several hours before the dead rise, so lets make a good and safe beat and path out of here.  I hope you've had a nice walk amongst the graves.


On to more Halloween activities.  I promised you another visit to a YouTube haunted attraction so lets go.  Here's a behind the scenes walk through the Factory of Terror, brought o you by HauntCon.

Apparently the dead have followed me home and I now have to exorcise my apartment.  Just my luck.  Until next time.

Zangz.

And a Gruesome Death It Was...

The Halloween season always helps us focus upon our interests of the macabre, the ghoulish and the grisly.

I know that I will spend a good portion of the season watching quite a few horror movies in which hapless victims meet their demise in what is usually quite a gory, blood filled state. The more movies I watch, the more I am starting to realize that Hollywood is running out of original ideas on how to kill off their characters. There's only so many buckets of fake blood, or even computer generated blood, that can be utilized that can still impress. In fact, you really don't need a lot of blood for a good old fashioned movie demise these days.

One film studio that has always delivered when it has come to dramatic deaths of their characters is the House of Mouse. Throughout the years Disney has dished out some nasty amounts of karmatic comeuppance for its villains of its animated, family friendly films.

After doing a little research on this subject, I've come across this video compilation posted by a YouTuber who obviously had the same thoughts of the darkness in Disney as I did.

For your viewing pleasure, here are a collection of Disney villains meeting an abrupt, and many times brutal ending.

There. Wasn't that just darkly scrumptious? We had some stabbing, some impaling, being dragged to hell, a hanging and quite a few falling to death from a great height.

Retake another gander at the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs falling to her death. Not only is it insinuated that the huge rock she is trying to dislodge falls down on top of her, it is also implied at that two hungry vultures descend down to the body to peck away at what is left of the old gal. How wonderfully morose. A lot of those princesses that little girls worship certainly earned their crowns off of the blood of others. Justly so, I suppose.

Let's leave these despicable masterminds to the abandonment of their mortal coils and do something a little more Halloween themed. I think another trip to a haunted attraction is just what the mad doctor ordered.

This time we're going to visit a wonderful little location near Atlanta called The Netherworld. This is from their walk through from 2009.

I love it when a haunt has a pre-show and a bit of a storyline as well.

I've got to get going as I'm going over to my sister's place to help put up Halloween decorations with the help of my my niece, "Lil' G". So that will be it for now. But keep you eyes open here for more Halloween themed posts!

I'm outta here like a Disney villain.

Zangz.

The Season of the Sinister Approaches!

I can't hold it in any longer!  My love for the Halloween season is just oozing out of all of my orifices.  It's getting quite messy and I'm all out of Resolve rug cleaner.  So I had to do something about it here on my blog!   

I know we are over a month away from the actual date, but as I have always believed, Halloween is far more than just one date on a calendar.  It is a whole season of dark magic the flows through the cold air.  All of the tell tale signs are about and in alignment.  We have all sorts of Pumpkin Ales and Octoberfest Lagers hitting the beer shelves.  Halloween costume and prop shops are popping up all over the place.  The local Haunted Attractions are putting together their final touches to their dark walkthroughs.  The night air is cold with mysterious energies from beyond.    IT IS TIME!

Of course I changed up the theme of the blog for the Halloween season as I have in past years.  You'll also notice a few more small esthetic changes, such as the font of the blog being bigger.  The small type was starting to get to me in my old age, so I made it bigger for easier reading.

Now on to more ghoulish delights.  Lets go full throttle into one of my all time favorite past times of the Halloween season, which would be Haunted Attractions!  I used to visit anywhere from four to eight of them a year and do reviews on them.  As time passes, people get married, have families and get mega-busy.  These days, I'm lucky if I can drag friends to one a year.  This is why I've started virtually visiting them on YouTube.  It may sound lame and sad, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  A Haunt junkie has gotta do what he's gotta do.  I need my Haunt fix and I'll get it anyway I can.

So, during this season of Halloween, I'd like to take you on a few virtual haunt walkthroughs of famous haunts all around the nation through the magic of YouTube.

The first one we'll be traversing through was located at the California theme park, Knottsberry Farm (aptly retitled, Knotts Scary Farms during the Halloween season).  The maze is called, VIRUS Z and was run in 2011.  It is 1950's kitsch meets zombie apocalypse.  ENTER IF YOU DARE!!!!

Now that was a heck of a lot of fun, wasn't it.  There isn't anything more nostalgic than fleeing zombies through a town of the 1950's.  It's kind of an alternate history walkthrough.  Pretty cool!

Since it's still early in the evening and we're already at Knotts Scary Farm, lets visit another haunted maze they have here.  This one is based on a twisted doll factory where the ghouls within make their lifelike dolls with very special parts.  Bruhahahaha!  Let's visit THE DOLL FACTORY!

How'd you like those freaky, doll faced factory workers?  Pretty creepy.  They also had some pretty interesting furniture in that one room.  I wonder if you can get them at Ikea?  The background music is wonderfully creepy as well.  Sadly, last year was the closing year for this attraction.  It will be replaced with something new this year.

Both of these video come from the YouTube channel, Theme Park Adventures, a website that features dark attractions at amusement parks.

Well, kiddos, that it for today.  Each of my blogs during Halloween will feature a different haunted Attraction walkthrough or featurette.  So you have that to look forward to.

Until next time, take this friendly advise.  Always check under the bed and in the bedroom closet before you go to sleep at night.  That way you can rule out those two locations for the undead when the inexplicable banging  starts up in the middle of the night.

Bruahahahahah!

zangz.

The Death of G4: Is this the beginning of the backlash?

We've been blessed to experience the renaissance of geek culture expand and blow up, integrating itself firmly into the progressiveness of what is considered pop culture.

I hate using the word "normal", because it is very limiting in its own definition when describing what the geek community is about.  Instead I'll say we've finally achieved some sort of place and comfort zone within the world.

One such cable channel that caters to that place within the world is G4.  The channel rose to fame within geek culture when it featured many special interest shows on technology and video games.  They spoke to gamers and geeks, not at them.

As years past by, their programming decisions became more and more idiotic and started to ostracize the G4 fans.  What programing guru decided to cancel a number of G4's shows and put in their place non-stop episodes of COPS?

And just recently there were a couple mysterious exits from two of G4's most popular hosts, Adam Sessler and Kevin Pereira.

Without much surprise NBC, who owns G4, announced a week ago that they are intentionally doing away with the only two shows that have anything left to do with geek interests and are "re-branding" for more of a D-bag crowd (or as they put it, readers of GQ).

Read an article on the subject HERE.

This comes as no surprise for anyone who witnessed the decline and downfall of what was once a pretty cool outlet for the geek community.  Their own stupid decisions throughout the years have lead to this.

I don't mean to turn this post into a eulogy for G4.  G4 has been brain dead for years.  What I am wondering is if this a harbinger of a backlash to the Geek / Nerd subculture that has been growing and moving forward for the last decade.

Trends come and go, and some seemingly wear out their welcome.  If you over publicize any one trend for too long, there tends to be a backlash against it.  Take for example the Heavy Metal scene of the 80's.  Sure Heavy Metal is still  going strong, but it is nowhere as popular as it once was back in the day.

Once the Grunge bands started to infiltrate the heavy music scene, there became a period where Heavy Metal had to retreat back underground.  I worry that the same may happen to geek culture.

After all, it is the elitist powers that control corporate America.  It is the frat boys and sorority girls (or "cool kids") that run the companies that turn the gears of America.  How many of them are going to understand or care about the geek culture and our importance within the consumer economy?

Just another dark thought that has been tooling around in my mind-skull for the last few days and I thought I'd share this little depressing morsel with the rest of you to ponder on about.


Speaking of DARK, you'll be seeing the changes of the annual Halloween make-over of my blog by the next post, because I can contain my excitement for the macabre holiday no longer!

Until next time, watch you back, because that shadow you thought you saw moving at night out of the corner of your eye was probably something undead and just waiting for you to fall asleep tonight so that it may pounce!

Zangz.

An AMAZING short film you all need to see!

This morning I awoke to that wonderful chill in the air that gets the creative juices squirting around in my mind.

It's a tell tale sign that my sinisterly spooky favorite time of year is just around the corner! I'm actually going to be starting to do Halloweenesqe activities later this evening when I take a Gothic Ghost Tour of the downtown area of Milwaukee.

I'll let you know how it goes once this blog ramps up it's annual celebration of Halloween in the coming weeks.

But, for right now I want to direct your attention to a magnificent little treat that someone drew my attention to recently.  It will take a mere 34 minutes of time to view this wonderful piece of work, but it will be well worth it.

The genre of Steampunk is a mashing up of an alternate history with fantasy and Sci-Fi thrown into the mix.  It revolves around a historical world that usually focuses on Victorian times where the machinations of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne actually exist and work.  Rather than progressing on into a full blown electrical future, society has advanced on the power of steam.  Usually there's great pulp adventure waiting to be had in the stories of Steampunk.

With the rise of the internet in our own time, we can go on-line and see fan made films as well as smaller independent movies that are available for mass consumption without being bogged down or stiffed by the corporate monsters that movie companies and the media can be.  Some people in Australia took advantage of this and came up with the little wonder you are hopefully going to take time to view.

 I could jibber jab on and on about this short film, but I think I'll just let you view it and soak it in.  I present to you, Aurora - A Steampunk Short Film....

Fan-fracking-tastic, wasn't it!  This is what you get when you have people with a creative and imaginative vision, who may not have the money that Hollywood does, but have the dream to make something happen.

Bravo.

I'll have a few more posts with other excellent fan films coming up on later dates.  We also have to look forward to the Halloween make over this blog usually gets during the Season of Screams!

So keep your eyes out for that.  And until next time, as a very wise sage once told me, Stay Vertical!

Zangz.

The Dark Knight Rises!

Now that I've seen the film twice and had some time to simmer down and let the film's resonance bang around in my little noggin a while, I'm ready to give my review on Christopher Nolan's, The Dark Knight Rises as if anybody really had time to care what I think on the matter.  Let's just pretend for right now, Ok?

THER MAY BE WHAT COULD BE CONSTRUED AS SPOILERS!  If you haven't seen the film yet, turn your eyes away unless you want to whine and cry on how a lonely, pathetic blogger ruined your whole movie experience after nearly a month after the film opened.  I will try and keep the spoilers to a respectable level and not try and give too much away just in case you want to peek.

Here we go....

After viewing the film the first time, I was surprised that there was a contingency of geek genre reviewers who were disappointed in Nolan's third and final story of his Batman trilogy.  I was pretty blown away and quite happy with what I saw.  Wondering if I was too wrapped up in the moment, I decided to see The Dark Knight Rises again a few weeks later to see if I was still under the spell of the hype and excitement (I don't know if anybody ever saw my spellbinding review on Star Wars, Ep. I: The Phantom Menace on my old, defunct website after I had just seen the movie.  I thought it was the coolest thing ever!  Yikes.).

I walked out of the theater a second time feeling just as satisfied as I had the first time.  It had me wondering, "What is wrong with people?  Did they see the same movie I did?"  Perhaps Nolan's second film in his Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight was too damn good of a Batman movie.  No new villain was ever going to replace Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker, no matter who you could have gotten to play the role or what Batman villain you put in there.  That was a touch of magic that was not going to duplicate itself ever again.

Yes, Rises' plot is a bit denser and there's a portion of the movie where you are asked to suspend your disbelief a little more than you usually would have to in one of Nolan's Batman movies (yet not to nipples on the bat suit degree).  It's a movie based on the COMIC BOOK of the dark, brooding character of BATMAN, for crisakes.  Get over it, sit back and enjoy the film.

This film takes place eight years after the tragic occurrences that concluded at the end of The Dark Knight.  Batman has been out of commission for that time and his alter ego, millionaire Bruce Wayne, has been living like an invalid in his big mansion rarely stepping out into the streets of Gotham.  It takes a crazed, masked terrorist known as Bane to get Wayne to don the Batman cowl once again and leap into action.

I felt that Tom Hardy's Bane was far more interesting and frightening than the big, pro-wrestling looking hulk that the character is based on in the comics.  There is no secret "venom" serum that makes him superhumanly strong, just a criminal mastermind way of life and very good training in weaponry and combat that make him a perfect Batman foil.  Sure, Bane is big and physically imposing, but what makes him most dangerous is that he truly is of great intellect.  He is a James Bond villain as well as one of James Bond villains' henchmen all rolled up into one.  He's a man with a dark plan and he will turn Gotham city upside down before it is all said and done.  And he will brutally do away with anybody who foils his plans or gets in the way of his goal without a second thought.

I have to admit, I haven't really followed Anne Hathaway's career all that much.  I always saw her as another beautifull actress who got engaged to a corrupt millionaire, to be quite blunt about it.  When I heard Hathaway was going to play the "Catwoman" roll in the film, I had to wonder what she could bring to the roll.  I went with my gut feeling in trusting in Christopher Nolan.  I have to say that she totally pulled it off!  I really, enjoyed her interpretation of the cat burglar, Selina Kyle.  Her dry wit and take no prisoners approach to the roll was fun and very different than Michelle Pfeiffer's darker and more pulpy version of the character from twenty years past.  On a side note, I found it interesting that I can't recall her character ever being referred to as Cat Woman in the film and Hathaway is credited simply as Selina Kyle.

Christian Bale's Batman is a bit more melancholy in this film.  He knows that far more is at stake and that the safety of an entire city lies on his shoulders.  We know that he's already sacrificed his reputation with the people of Gotham City at the end of The Dark Knight.  This film asks the question, how much farther is he willing to go.  As it ends up, pretty far.  Bale brings back the gritty voiced vigilante we loved from the last two movies.

The supporting cast also do a rockin' job in their rolls.  Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are always welcome additions to the Batman movies.  They've kind have become the "Q" and "M" of Nolan's Batman films.  And of course the always fan-fracking-tastic, Gary Oldman.  I will be hard pressed to think of any other actor in the role of Commissioner Gordon.  God I love that actor.  Every role he plays is pure frelling brilliance!!!  Joseph Gordan Levitt's cop with a heart of gold is damn good too and we'll get to see him rise up the ladder of Hollywood as more great rolls come his way.  Wether you agree or not with the little twist that is revealed at the end of the film with his character and how it messes with the Batman mythos, he still pulls off a fine job.  Marion Cotillard plays an interesting role as a fellow philanthropist that falls for Bruce Wayne and ends up playing a pivotal role in the story line.  And as a Torchwood Fan, it was fun as hell seeing Burn Goreman playing the role as an unscrupulous assistant to a corrupt businessman.

Any hard core fan of the comics should know there is no way that Nolan was going to do a retelling of the Batman comic story arc "Knightfall" that featured Bane and the crippling of the Batman back in the 90's in its full, down to the letter script.  But, Nolan did bring in some pretty major plot points from that story and infused it with his own tale.  Batman is broken and he does have to RISE to return to save the day.  I also love how he brought back the story line from the first Batman movie, Batman Begins, to help wrap up his trilogy.

Being a Batman fanboy, I caught on to what may be the big plot twist about halfway through the movie when I started asking myself, "What is this one character's purpose in the story?  Something isn't right here."  Then it dawned on me who this character could actually be from the comic book series.  I think I audibly gasped in the theater when it hit me like a lead brick to the chest.  I was right and Gotham City suffered for it.

There are a couple of socio-political messages that we can glean from this picture when it comes to the state of Gotham City at the beginning of the film and what it goes through during the middle and end.  We can look at the beginning and understand Cat Woman's perspective and relate to where we are as a society today in her "....you're all going to wonder how you can live so large and leave so little for the rest of us" view.  the Occupy This and Occupy That movements are happening in the real world for a reason, people.  It is this view that leads to Bane and his terrorist brood into taking advantage of the people of Gotham and making them believe that there is a legitimate reason for the way he turns Gotham into a, shall we call it, anarchist state when in reality, there's something more sinister behind it.  How far do we go to fight the greed of the rich?  Are we willing to sell our own souls?

As for the action sequences, they are every bit as good as they were in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.  The brawls between Bane and Batman are brutal as you can hear every crunch of bone and mash of muscle with every punch.  The grand finally chase scene is almost as good as the one in The Dark Knight.  This time they incorporate a bit of dog fighting finesse in the skies of Gotham.

I'm trying to rummage through my mind to find any major issues that I had with this film.  I can find hardly any at all.  Too long?  At one hour and forty-some minutes it felt like an hour had gone by.  Does it ask you to suspend disbelief too much.  Well, there is the trauma and changes that Gotham city goes through that are a bit more epic than we have seen in the two previous films.  But, that didn't seem to bother me.

Is it as good as the previous two films.  Yes.

Perhaps fans that expected this to be clone of The Dark Knight or wanted the Bane story and Batman mythos to follow the Batman comic verbatim were disappointed.  But, if you have an understanding of what Nolan  has brought to the Batman film story, you'll get it.

After seeing Nolan's work on these three Batman films, I'd live to see his take on a James Bond film.  I can't wait for Sam Mendes, Skyfall this November and I think Nolan could do and excellent job as well.  He's showed interest, so who knows.


In other geeky thoughts.....

The weather has been getting a bit chilly and the Octoberfests are hitting the shelves.  Too soon to get into spookosity mood?  Perhaps.  Perhaps.......

BRUHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Until next time, stay vertical!

Zangz.