The Best of the Bad: The Horror of my Youth

For Halloween this year, I wanted to share with you some of my favorite BAD horror movies. By bad, I mean of course, good, but bad.  They are not polished or necessarily deep, nor would the acting in them win any awards, other than a Razzie, mayhaps, but they are some of my favorites of all time.

(for those viewing by RSS, there are trailers for each video on the actual blarg)

The Stuff (1985)

The acting is really horrible (as you can see in the trailer), but it is really amusing, and only slightly gross.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

This has it all, sex, gore, graphic nudity, witty teenaged banter, creepy older men trying to hump teenagers, bad acting, and it is fairly bizarre to boot. The ending has apparently made it a cult classic, so join the cult. The kool aid is delicious.

Frankenhooker (1990)

 The VHS box of this at our local video store, when I was in high school, had a button on it that would declare "Hey, wanna date? Got some money?" when pushed. This was repeated by me and friends throughout high school and college, which got me some weird looks, let me tell you. It is hysterical, though, and bizarre and icky (not really gorey like things are today, but icky all the same). And did I mention it is funny. Horror comedy at its best.

House (1986)

Again, funny, and scary.  There is some good creature work in this and it stars The Greatest American Hero! My sister and I watched this as young teens, and then made our dad watch it with us because we thought it was really good and really scary.  He spent the first 5 minutes asking us "Is this the scary part?" and declaring "This doesn't seem very scary." And then, he spent the rest of our teenaged years terrifying us by sneaking outside to press his face against random windows, since he looks like one of the scary characters in the movie. He might be the reason I have intestinal issues.


Invaders from Mars (1986)

This movie has always been one of my favorites. It is unfortunate that it is not on DVD, but it can be viewed in entirety on YouTube.  It is a  remake of the 1953 Invaders from Mars that nods to the original. This movie fascinated me as a kid, and is more suspense and creepy sci-fi than flat-out horror, really, though it does have some creepy creature design done by Stan Winston who is responsible for some of the best special effects in cinema (Alien, The Thing, Edward Scissor Hands, seriously, the man is legend).


So, now that I have shared my favorites of the B rated horror classics, that I hope you will check out for Halloween, what would you recommend I watch?

Hanukkah 2011- 7th Night- There was a sale!

This is usually the sweet spot.  The day after Christmas sometimes can bring some AWESOME gifts that are now half-price and cheap enough to buy for people you care about. And sometimes, it can just bring a lot of cheap crap that you still don't want but OMG, there is more of it. YAY!

Guess which one you got tonight!

(see another post if you can't figure out how to open the present)

Holiday Movie Review: ThanksKilling

I would like to share with you one of the most poignant films of the Thanksgiving season.  It is THE best Thanksgiving movie I have ever seen in the Comedy Horror genre.  It is also one of the only Thanksgiving movies I have ever seen in said genre, but that is beside the point, because if you have not seen the movie ThanksKilling, you are really missing out.

Some of the better points:

• Gratuitous nudity in the first seconds of the film.
• A really punny foul-mouthed murdering turkey.
• INCREDIBLY bad acting... like REALLY bad. So bad.
• Gore and lots of it.
• Hilariously funny plot- the interactions with the killer are my favorite part.
• The opening music. Gobble gobble gobble.

This movie, however, is TOTALLY not for kids and it is absolutely not for people who don't like bad words or nudity or BAD ACTING. But if you enjoy funny and gory, or can handle gory and bad acting for funny, watch this movie.  It is available for instant viewing on Netflix, and on Hulu and it can be bought on DVD finally.

Again, it is BAD... if you go into it expecting a serious, high-production, horror movie, you might well hate it, but since people who would listen to my suggestions anyway like me and my dumb humor, you should highly enjoy this movie.

And, I was going to post the trailer, but it gives away too much in my opinion, so here is a teaser trailer... that has nsfw language.

This review/suggestion is not paid and was made of my own volition. It is just a great bad movie that is perfect for an adult holiday!

Special Secret Family Recipe

Any time I hear about meat that is made from a "special secret family recipe," my brain immediately translates that as "IT'S MADE OF HUMANS!"

October Sticker Spooktacular!

Two LIMITED EDITION stickers this month, because Halloween is my favorite (other than my birthday, which is TOMORROW)!

Handmade, sent by standard post, 31 of each is available until Oct. 31st, at which point they will be gone, gone, gonesky.

RSS viewers, stickers and art are available for purchase on the actual blarg page.

No longer for sale, sorry!

No longer for sale, sorry!

Each sticker is approximately 4"x3".  Hand cut.  Please remember to choose a payment option before clicking "buy me!"- International buyers, please choose international shipping for the first sticker and US pricing for any additional stickers.


And special extra items, again, because Halloween is REALLY my favorite:

$15.50

Dracullama- Original Hand Drawn and Painted, ACEO in protective plastic sleeve. 3.5" x 2.5"

$12.50

SOLD

Candy Corn Trick or Treat- Original Hand Drawn and Painted, ACEO in protective plastic sleeve. 3.5" x 2.5"

$14.50

Zed- Original hand drawn and inked, ACEO in protective plastic sleeve. 3.5" x 2.5"

$9.50

Pumpkin Pie on Maple Leaves- Original hand drawn and painted, ACEO in protective plastic sleeve. 3.5" x 2.5"

What is an ACEO?
ACEO stands for "Art Card- Editions and Originals."  All of the ACEOs I am offering here are originals and there is only one of each.  They are the size of a standard trading card.  Are made of cold pressed 150# watercolor paper and are each hand made by me and are stored in a protective acid free plastic pouch to keep them safe.  They will be sent in a standard envelope by first class post which is included in the price.

Peep the Vote!

These are the entries for the First Annual Cheeseblarg Peeps Challenge (and I expect a bigger turn out next year, or else!).
This year, the theme was "Horror Movies Scenes."

And here they are, in alphabetical order, by entrant's first name:

Halloween by Kimberly Bowers

Nightmare on Peep Street (also) by Kimberly Bowers

Psycho by MsMM

Hellraiser Peep by Rhea Blackthorne

There is a voting page over at Facebook, or, if you are disinclined to go there, you can vote here.
But either way, please congratulate these ladies on actually participating and doing a damned fine job, at that.
Voting ends at 11:59 pm PDT, tonight! Winner will be announced on Facebook.

p.s. Next year, the theme will be.... video games! Start planning now!

You Got Red On You!

I was just going to upload these to Cheeseblarg's Facebook Fan Page but alas, I worked really hard on this and I want to show it off all in one centrally located spot, not unlike the Winchester!

My final Peeps Horror Challenge Diorama-  Three scenes from Shaun of the Dead (which is a fantastic movie that you should see, if you've not seen it and like your horror movies funny and gory!)

Haven't you had your tea? 

(their positions are switched, my bad)

WHITE LINES!

Hey, hey! Over here!

Plus more detail shots so you can see all the details and different angles.

Peeps Horror Challenge!

I'm spending the rest of this weekend finishing my Peeps Horror Challenge Dioramas for the contest (with prize of some sort that I shall figure out) over at the Facebook fan page that ends on the 10th, whilst sniffling and wondering how my body can produce SO MUCH snot.
For those of you who are allergic to the page, here are some images of what I have done so far:

What I'm currently working on (to be revealed on the page when done):

Finished images:

You still have 3 days to submit an image to the Cheeseblarg wall for a chance to win a possibly fabulous prize, or maybe something weird and drawn by me. My pieces will not be in the running for a prize, obviously. Why would I send myself a prize? That is a total waste of postage! Unless someone wants to send me a prize for all my effort.  I wouldn't mind that.
At the very least, it is hella fun to make things and it is an excuse to eat lots of peeps! You know you wanna!

Bring out your dead!

I tried to fix my camera and ended up killing it.
I am usually good at everything and can fix anything given basic instructions, but, I might as well have had hammers for hands when attempting this repair.

I have a newfound respect for camera repair people because, while I did manage to avoid breaking down into to tears while trying, for 30 minutes, to get the 3rd of 5 orange cables back into its tiny silver toothed home after possibly successfully replacing the LCD screen (that I broke by dropping it), I did not avoid yelling "GET IN YOUR HOME!!!!!!!!!!!! AUGH!!!" or wishing everything and everyone dead in exchange for it JUST GETTING IN THERE, about the time when the black bar that snuggly holds the evil orange cable in place snapped off in my hand (or well, at the end of my finger because it was not even as wide as my finger and about the width of three hairs- and it was the biggest of the 5) and then snapped in half after that, as I delicately tried to put in back in to the almost microscopic hole it popped out of on my 40th attempt to get the damned cable back in.

So my adorable pink camera who served me well for almost 5 years is caput.  My friend was kind enough to procure me a new one so I could continue the photographic work I was doing with the now-dead one (see my cooking site), but I would like to be able to pay him back for it, so if anyone needs some llamas drawn for them (and is willing to exchange monetary credits for said drawing), let me know.


AND, a challenge.  Peep horror movie scenes… see Cheeseblarg’s Facebook Page for details!

I vant to suck your blood!

I am usually fairly level-headed and logical, silly, yes, but firmly rooted in reality.

However, I have learned that I am not immune from drawing completely ridiculous conclusions when my brain is challenged by information that just doesn't make sense in how it knows the world is supposed to work.

That incident, in this case, was the time that my husband had innocently propped a mirrored tile up against the front of the mirror next to our bed.  I had been laying in bed watching a movie and I sat up to go to the bathroom and looked to my left at the mirror, because I always look in mirrors if there is a mirror available, or at my reflection in windows, cars, etc.  I'm obsessed with looking at myself. Anyway... I sat up and looked to the left and the mirrored tile just happened to be exactly where my head was and when I looked, instead of seeing my face in the mirror as I expected, I saw only the white reflection of the wall behind me (which was actually the ceiling I was seeing).

And my immediate thought was, "OMG! I'm a vampire!!!" And then in my flailing panic, I realized that when I moved I could see myself around the white patch of mirror, and then I felt dumb... and also relieved that I was not a vampire.

Monster Math- Zombies and Negative Numbers

It’s been a while, but Monster Math is back and it's coming to get you, Martha!  Today, we will be battling the number apocalypse with :

NEGATIVE NUMBERS - Zombies and Survivors

First of all we have two teams, positive numbers, which are represented by living humans, or survivors, and negative numbers, which are then, obviously, the undead, zeds, zombies.

positive numbers                      negative numbers

ADDITION

Let’s start with an addition word problem. Addition with negative numbers is just comparing, canceling, and letting the bodies fall as they will.

We have seven humans, hiding out in a rickety old warehouse, with a surprisingly large arsenal of shotguns and buckshot.  Five ambling undead come stumbling out of the local cemetery that has been rained upon by an unknown chemical that reanimates corpses, most likely created by the government as a chemical warfare agent. Who will survive the inevitable fight?

This would be represented as 7+ -5.

Now, our humans are not trained in combat at all, and whether they are or not, to fit the plot of the math problem, we know that they are incredibly bad at fighting zombies and anyone who kills a zombie ends up getting bitten and must die.  As in real life, if there is a zombie attack, it is best to hide and stay out of it, but alas, these are brave, if not foolhardy,  little positive humans and so, they are jumping right into this fight.

Christmas Giveaway Contest (details inside)

I live in Montana.  It is weirder than any other place I have ever lived or been to, ever.  So, I went to this store so that my husband could get a present for my mom and we happened upon this bizarre figurine:

Which we promptly bought because... it's a creepy guy holding a calf... and he's named Mike (which is my husband's name) AND he looks like Michael Meyers if he were a farmer. Really, how could we pass it up?

But guess what!?  I also found something for you guys too.  What is it?! (click through to see contest details)

Monster Math- Variables and Demon Possession

A lot of people are afraid of algebra.  I think that it is because they don't know that algebra is just basic math dressed up in scary costumes. I mean, for the most part, it is just addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division-- it is just a matter of understanding how they are dressed up to understand the concepts.  But don't worry, I'm here to unmask the monsters of math for you, kinda like in that movie Van Helsing, only not so boring that you want to throw yourself off the balcony to avoid having to watch anymore.

Variables

Variables are like the Regan McNeil of algebra.  Each variable used to be a cute little number but then they made the bad choice to play with a Ouija board wherein Captain Howdy turns them into pea soup spitting letters of fear and uncertainty.  Yes, they seem scary, but basically are just a demon-possessed number masquerading as a letter.

With variables, your job is to figure out what number that letter used to be to free them of their demon.  Yup, each math problem where you are solving for a variable is a mini exorcism!

Suggested watching: The Exorcist, Jennifer's Body

Distributive Property

The distributive property in algebra can be likened to the movie Rosemary's Baby.  You take possessed numbers (aka variables) and their mates (should they have any) and spread their seed into the other numbers in the parentheses next door.  Once everyone is done with their multiplying orgy of the damned, you combine like terms into teams, that is, demon numbers combine by addition or subtraction, as do plain ole numbers who have avoided being possessed.  They are organized from most possessed to least possessed as follows:

(y+2) (y+2)

y²+2y+2y+4

y²+4y+4

* note- this concept works with possessing aliens also!

Suggested watching: Village of the Damned, The Stuff

Factoring

Factoring is the paternity test of algebra. Where did all these variables come from?  How do I get rid of them!? How did I get to be such a great lawyer even though I talk like a surfer pretending to have a southern accent? Well, let's take a look at who the parents REALLY were.
In factoring with variables, you want to get it so that you end up with the parents; the groups of entities that created the original problem.
To do this you separate out as much of the variable expression as you can.
VARIABLE EXPRESSION!?  Yes, variable expression...
15y² would be an example of a variable expression. It means that there are 15 double possessed y's.
y+2 would also be an example of a variable expression.
Variable expressions would be the entities I was talking about above.  In the case of horror movies, it is usually just a very religious woman and the devil. In the case below, it is 5x² and (1+4x).

5x² + 20x³

 5x²(1 + 4x)

<sup>Suggested Watching: The Devil's Advocate, Angel Heart


Stay tuned for more monster math-- Negative Numbers and Zombies - coming soon!</sup>