NERDGASM LIVES!

Animalympics!

2012-01-22T08:17:00.000-08:00

Greetings Earth Dwellers, and once more unto the breach as we arrive at the penultimate entry in my Top 5 Alternative Animated Features countdown.
The most memorable cartoon experiences come of course from our childhood, when wonderment and suspension of disbelief allow us to experience the symphony of colour, movement and sound to its fullest extent. But not all of these experiences survive a revisit.
Although nostalgia is a powerful thing, the true test is watching it again and whether as an adult you are able to embrace it as you did when you were a child. The myriad levels and depth of some cartoons are such that they can always be enjoyed with any amount of watching.
Animalympics was one such animated feature.

At its most basic, its about animals (albeit anthropomorphic ones) competing in the Olympic games. Fantastic idea to begin with, as we've all asked the questions: Who would win in a fight between a kangaroo and a buffalo? Who would win in a race between a Crocodile and a leopard? etc. All these questions and more are answered in this film. But also the voice characterisations, the subtle humour and tongue-in-cheek puns, the story of adversity, triumph, love, and joy, combine to make an animated spectacle that I have always been able to watch and enjoy since I first saw it in 1985. The cherry on the top is the masterful soundtrack that was composed and performed by Graham Gouldman (10cc Bassist) and compliments the cartoon to sublime effect.

With the Olympics here upon us, in our very capital, Animalympics is perhaps more topical than ever.
Enjoy another muscial clip from the film and Ill see you at the next blog.
Big D out.

Fire & Ice and all things nice.

2012-01-22T07:16:00.000-08:00

A stirring score. Dark, stylised animation. Sword meets sorcery. It could only be Ralph Bakshi, and it could only be Fire & Ice.

Best known for his works: Lord of the Rings, Wizards, and Fritz the Cat, Ralph Bakshi teamed up with fantasy artist Frank Frazetta for the (1983) animated feature Fire & Ice.
Although given limited release and financially unsucessful, the film is no less enjoyable than any of the classic fantasy romps that were around at the time. Beastmaster, Conan et al.
In my opinion Bakshi's dark, brooding style coupled with the realisation of Frazetta's artwork make for a heady combination that is difficult to forget.
Of course the reason it is at my No.1 of alternative animated features is, as always, because of the lowest common denominator. A scantily clad woman. Princess Teegra.

She was the first, and probably only, cartoon character I lusted after with all the pant arousing passion that any young man could muster. Barefooted and wearing a microkini that remarkably defied all the laws of physics, she bounced around the screen with the wanton abandon of an over inflated novelty armchair.
Now I realise that Frank Frazetta's fantasy women are exactly that. Fantasy. Although porn star Daphne Rosen does bear some resemblence.

But I was young and impressionable... and, as most nerdy teenagers are, pathetic and desperately horny.
But all hornyness aside its an animated classic and a definate must for all fantasy fans.
Heres the theatrical trailer for the movie. Hopefully it'll whet your appetite and you'll go and watch it on Youtube.

If you can, watch the movie. NOW! There are some truly great moments. Pay special attention to the finale. Its essentially the Battle of Yavin, Death Star run, but through the ice trenches of Necron's stronghold, and instead of X-wings its Dragon Hawks. Fantasy-tastic!
There it is. The final installment in my Top 5 Alternative Animated Features.
Keep tuning in kids, and Ill see you at the next blog.
Big D out.

Music to my ears, and more than meets the eye.

2011-11-05T08:21:00.000-07:00

This cartoon has got it all. Life, death, high drama, and robots that turn into dinosaurs.
As well as Eric Idle, Orson Wells, and Mr. Spock. Ooh I nearly said Dr. Spock there, and you would have had to kill me.
The music for the film was nothing short of rocktastic! and had me punching the air (as well as my friend sat next to me) at every power chord and every exhilirating 80s Def Zeppelinny Halenesque riff that was tortured from the guitar.
I readily admit that NASA had to be contacted in order to calculate how many times I actually watched this movie/cartoon. Its off the fucking charts!

Transformers the Movie (1986) is where it was at, and in my nostalgia filled mind where it still is. Hollywood can keep their crappy Transformer films (you know the ones Im talking about) and kiss my shiny metal ass! Proving that simplicity is the key to adventure. It wasnt overburdened with bollocksy character developement or building to an ultimately dissapointing climax through tedious narrative. It started... there was a fight... then another fight... then some sentimentality... then another fight... then a break... then another fight... then a huge fight... and then it finished. PERFECT!
This has to be my Number 3 favourite alternative animated feature.
Ba weep granna weep ninny baap!

Where do we all live?

2011-05-16T05:54:00.000-07:00

Were do we we all live?
Well if you were smoking Morrocan Woodbines and listening to the Beatles in the 60s the answer would be: A Yellow Submarine.

The song released in 1966 would be the inspiration for an animated film of the same name 2 years later. I first saw it when I was 6 years old. I didnt have much in the way of musical taste, but was privvy to dad's occaisonal drunken frolic to the music of the Beatles.
I know its quite fashionable and some people think its a bold statement of their individuality to say that they do not like the music of the Beatles. I say these people are stunted, pretend, little half creatures, who will ultimately lead very sad lives. Its not because in all sincerity they dislike the Beatles, but usually because they think it gives them such an air of debonair chic to be contrary to such a monumentally, important episode in the history of music. In short, they are arse-heads.
Yellow Submarine gave me, a very young boy at the time, a context for the Beatle's music and so I instantly fell in love with the film. It was pretty much like an hour and a half music video of the Beatles.
The story, characters, music and highly stylised visuals and animation conspire together to make what I consider a fantastic animated experience.
Many years later I met one of the animators of the film, Geoff Loynes, who now, of all things makes his living as Santa Claus. An old-school animator, he is an absolute joy to converse with and still remembers the film fondly.
Although the opening is somewhat grey and desolate it had me hooked from the chorus: Aaaaaaah look at all the lonely people....

So No.4 in my Top 5 Alternative Animated Features is: Yellow Submarine, and to see you out here is one of my favourites from the film.

See you next blog for No.3.
Big D out.

Watership Down but not out.

2011-05-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

Greetings Earthlings. Lets talk cartoons shall we?
A colourful interplay of sights and sounds; larger than life, but totally accesible to the youngest of viewers.
Cartoons are a veritable Aladdin's cave of sacred memories for us all.

Luminaries such as, Disney, Hanna & Barbera, and the Warner Bros. stable each deserve a blog of their own, as perhaps does every anime studio. Maybe I'll visit these in later blogs, but rather than me bang on about their merits here, let me introduce you to my Top 5 Alternative Animated Features.
These are the ones I had on VHS and watched endlessly, or rented at the weekend from the local Video rental store (aaaah the 80s) to watch ad infinitum over the weekend, only to have my brother do exactly the same when he came of age. They are therefore indelibly etched on my psyche and their sentiments always in my heart.
Saying that I do remember purposely taping over one of my brother favourites: Flash Gordon (The Greatest Adventure of all). He used to watch the shitting thing 4 times a day.

Now awash with nostalgia after watching that, Ill probably go and watch the other 9 parts. It reminded me of happier times when my brother was a cute kid with missing front teeth and a lisp, when WWF moves were so much easier to do on him, and his will was that much more pliable. Rather than the billigerant, whiskey swigging, misanthrope he has become.

While Im here I'll use this blog a forum to express my regret at taping over my brothers treasured memory:
Im sorry for taping over your cartoon Adam, which you then spent the rest of your life searching for.
Here is a missing piece of your lost childhood. Please watch the rest of it on Youtube... AND STOP FUCKING COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW I TAPED OVER IT WHEN YOU WERE 8 YEARS OLD!
Aaaaand Im back in the room.
So my No.5 Alternate animated feature is:

With its dark and menacing undertones and its unabashed violence and horror (for a cartoon), many have argued that Watership Down is not for children. I say because of this, it is one of the most important childrens cartoons ever. An emotional tale of sentimentality, comedy, comeraderie, mortality and triumph over adversity, It ticks all the boxes. It certainly does not shy away from the sheer brutality of nature, and at times the horror is very palpable... but it is a cartoon. No one ever got upset because Jerry cut Tom's head off.
You have the accessability of a cartoon with some very grisly and indeed real, if unfortunate, aspects of life wrapped in superb story telling.
If a child has ever been traumatised by Watership Down then there was something wrong with the kid, not the film.
Cementing Watership Down's reputation as a life affirming experience, Nigel Hawthorne, John Hurt, Richard Briers and Zero Mostel use their vocal talents to sublime effect.

So, Watership Down, No.5 in my Alternative Animated Features list. Please tune into my next blog when we'll whip off the veil to reveal what is at No.4
Big D out.

Im Bane and Im WINNING!

2011-04-26T06:30:00.000-07:00

The place: Design & Business Centre, Islington, London
The Event: Kapow! Comic Convention

I stalked the comic lined aisles of Kapow! like a predator looking for my next victim.

'Hey... Bane... Can we get a pic with you?'
CRACK!
I must have broken the back of nearly a hundred people over the weekend. Happy smiling faces as they dangled over my knee like broken ragdolls.

No one was safe. Women, children, the socially inept...

By the second day I had already cemented my reputation and it preceded me.
'Hey... Bane... Can you break my back?'

Aaah, it was veritable music to my ears, and happily I broke backs for a second day.
I honestly dont think there was much of the weekend that I didnt come out of character.The mask hardly came off. I went to the pub and ordered drinks as Bane.

I went to the corner shop as Bane. And to my wifes chagrin I refused to take it off at bedtime.
There was a moment between me and the Landlady at O'Neils on Saturday evening, when she asked me to remove my mask.... I simply gave her the steely Bane stare and said:
'Do you know who I am woman?'
'Ill take it off for you...', she retorted.
And preceded to peel my mask off and dangle it infront of me. It could have been a Mary Jane and Spidey moment, and I must admit I did feel a touch of romance wash over me... But alas. I am Bane, and there is no room in my life for such things. Oh yeah, and my wife probably wouldnt have appreciated it.
The culmination of the weekend for me, was winning the cosplay parade. My stage performance left me feeling giddy and crapulent, and I lumbered from the stage doe eyed, grinningly inanely and cooing gently to myself.... under my Bane mask.
When I went up with the five finalists and was announced as the winner, Im sure I left my body for a second, and hovered... looking down at an achievement that a month ago was the stuff of fantasy and reserved for my daydreams.
I had gone to a Comic Convention.... dressed as Bane.... And I had won the coplay parade...

If I was younger I probably would've jizzed my pants. Being older and wiser I thought it would be better if I didnt, and I was right. A limited edition Tron box set XBox360 thingy was mine and the promise of VIP tickets to next years event. But more than anything the sheer joy of attending the weekend and meeting the people I did was kudos enough.
I knew a fair few people there. Dom, John and Dexter were legends. Claude was his usual inimitable self. Staff from Orbital and GOSH looked rosey cheeked and plump of fetlock. But I finally got to meet the people that had made everthing possible. HA:UK, thats Heroes Alliance UK for those of you not up on your acronyms. They are a group of super-powered humans, affiliated the Make A Wish foundation and do sterling work for charity. I love each one of them, and have decided to have their babies.

My special thanks goes out to Fran, Joe, Paul, Callum, Nick, Holly, Emmy, Ryan, Kate, Clare, Anais, Claire, David, Lee, Gareth, Max, Gemma, Drunkley(?), Stewart, Celia, Matt, Chelsea.... I really hope I havent missed anyone...
Please share my glory by watching the 2 videos of the cosplay parade:

Here are three of my favourite photos. One of me and a kid dressed as Batman, one of me showing that Bane does have a soft spot for Batman, and one done for me by my friend Chris.

Please continue to tune into my blog as normal service has now been resumed.
Big D out.

The Blackest of Holes.

2011-03-29T06:41:00.000-07:00

A slighlty darker tale than the usual Disney outings of the time, and riding on the tail of the Behemoth that had thundered through our lives in 1978 to leave its footprint indelibly on the sidewalk of sci-fi, cinema history,The Black Hole was at best, a forgettable story with some very memorable characters and moments.
Vincent as the sass talking, hovering robot and Ol' Bob as a forgotten, obsolete model with a redneck accent were instantly endearing to the young, Disney staple viewer such as myself.
Maximillian Schell as Reinhardt was delightlfully, manical and menacing in equal measure

and the rest of a very solid cast (Anthony Perkins and Ernest Borgnine et al) gave adequate performances.
But I think as a movie for youngsters it is ultimately... unsatisfying. Watching it again as an adult, I still like it and think there is some great moments, but most importantly the very unsettling and spooky moments seem just as spooky as when I watched it as a kid.
That bit where Anthony Perkins rips the mask off of the face of a supposed robot to find a zombified crew member, is still vivid and chilling.

Which brings me to my raison d'blog: Spooky Robots.
Maximillian is at No.1. There you have it.

Not because he is singularly the most spooky of robots, but simply because in this film is he put in a context that makes him a truly awful thing. An enforcer and taskmaster to the zombie crew members. A sadistical, silent, bully whose only appendages seem to be for the sole purpose of shredding people he deems fit to shred. And that dog-like obedience and loyalty he expresses for Reinhardt, which culminates in the horribly spooky scene where Maximillian and Reinhardt embrace in space and then become merged as one atop a precipice in a Hell-scape within the Black Hole. Egad! Freakily spooky!

So ends the Top 5 Spooky Robots countdown. Please tune in to my next blog where we'll find out if I have any ideas left.
Big D out.

Stepford MILF's

2011-03-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

A great sci-fi thriller. The 1975 original was a great piece of social satire, and still makes for both chilling and thought provoking watching today. Full of twee, effete housewives in floppy hats, flowery dresses and pinnies gliding around in a very unstettling suburban dream.
I could swear some of the sets were re-used in the late 70s early 80s porn films as, Im sure, were some of the wives.... and if they weren't they should have been. Grrrrr...
Im not sure I fully understood its impact when I first watched it as a kid. It was billed as sci-fi/Horror, yet there were no monsters, no robots that looked like robots, and definately no space battles. Of course the chills came from much subtler devices. The growing concern and eventual maniacal, panic of Katherine Ross is played to perfection and is really what carries the story along so effortlessly. The scene that still haunts me today is the films climax. It hasnt lost any of its power and it still gives me a twinge of the galloping hoopazootiks.

Of course many films have used the doppleganger to chilling effect. Both Invasion of the Bodysnatcher films (1956 & 1978) were masterful, and I've even mentioned The Two Faces of Evil from the Hammer TV show in an earlier blog, as my most chilling doppleganger moment. Even in the scene above with her nipples like carpenters thumbs, and a pair of devil's dumplings so pert you could tell the time by them (Im sure they said a quarter to nine), it doesn't detract from the horror, but cleverly juxtaposes it with something titillating and arousing. A combination that always makes me shift uncomfortably in my seat.
'...Help me somebody.... I dont know how I feel...'
Heres another great scene which proves spookyness doesnt need ghosts or the supernatural:

I thought we were friends indeed... Spooky robot No.2: The Stepford Wife.

Now before I sign off, time for another quick rant:
What the fuck did they do with the 2004 Stepford Wives remake? You thought I'd forgot about that eh?
Not fucking likely.
Christ! They had a half decent cast as well. Nicole Kidman can do a very good beleaguered wife (Dead Calm), Glen Close can definately do spooky (Fatal Attraction) and Bette Midler.... Well, she can do anything, and usually does.
A comedy? A bad comedy at that. It cut the dangling balls straight from under the true story's hairy crotch.
The Maitres of the Hollywood Cookie Cutter and the non-existent audiences they think theyre appealing to..... A little message.... FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU ALL..... HOLLYWOOD IS DEAD TO ME!
That is all...
Tune in for No.1 in the top 5 spookiest Robots countdown in my next blog.
Big D out.

Robo-ginga!

2011-03-02T08:26:00.000-08:00

Little bit of an esoteric one this. I am hoping some 'real' nerds read my blog, as its only a 'real' nerd who would know what Im talking about when I say: Demon Seed.
1977. (Again with the 70s!) The lovely Julie Christie stars as in a rather strange role that has her impregnated, or rather raped and impregnated, if you want to get down to mechanics, by an artificially intelligent computer called Proteus IV.
Proteus IV is apparently a system, incorporating organic elements in a quasi-neural-matrix giving it, to all intents and purposes, the power of thought. Now the voice alone is spooky. Spooooookily spooky, and believe it or not, it is none other than the voice of Robert Vaughn, who requested his name be removed from the credits. Vaughn in my opinion does the best spooky computer voice EVER!

But this is the Top 5 Spooky Robot Countdown, I hear you cry! Of course children, of course. Proteus IV isnt my choice.
It's Proteus VI's offspring that is so spooky it has to be seen to be believed.... (ROBO-GINGA ALERT!)

Another creeped-out creation of Proteus' is an invalid's wheelchair with a mechanical limb attached to it. Yes, you heard me correctly. Like something straight out of Herbie Hancock's 'Rockit'.
So, what do you call the child of an artificial intelligence and a human? I suppose the term 'robot' will fit loosely. This particular robot gains a hell of a lot of extra spook points for having ginger hair as well. (ROBO-GINGA ALERT!)
So the Demon Seed is No.3 in my Top 5 Spooky Robots countdown.
The films premise is an intelligent, thought provoking one, but one which I think is not fully exploited due in large part to production values. Originally a novel by Dean Koontz, it is still worth a read or in fact a watch.
Tune in to Spooky robot No.2 in my next blog.
Big D out.

Logan's Drub

2011-02-26T06:09:00.000-08:00

Its been mentioned once before, but for the sheer creepiness of the robot in it, I will invoke the film again:
Logan's Run.
Now dont get me wrong, It hasn't been mentioned twice in this blog because I think it was the best that sci-fi had to offer in the 70s and not because it is one of my all time favourites, but it does have what I consider to be one of the spookiest fucking robots ever!
His design, his movement, his wierd, spaced out, dialogue, the fact he likes to freeze humans and feed them to the unsuspecting populace above, and of course his super-creepy catchphrase:
'Fish and plankton, and seagreens and proteins from the sea....'
A harmless enough sentance, but said with such insidious intent, it makes my flesh crawl.
His poetic, monologue and lyrical waxing about his birds and the wind whispering his name is beautiful but has such fatalistic undertones. Like someone trying to woo you before fatally raping you.

On my journeys through many a movie blog, the robot in Logan's Run seems to be much derided. Why? I have no idea. One assumes if these so-called critics are splashing about in the vast sea of 70s sci-fi they must at least like or have an understanding of the genre. If so, the merit of this most creepiest of robots would be apparent.
Saying that though, a reader had commented on one blog saying:
'If they all lived their lives in a domed city, how comes Michael York's character has an English accent?'
Fuck me... Who are we dealing with here? Because you mother sucks cocks in Hell, thats why.
Please express your disgust at the writer and the moronic reader who left a comment at: Movie Blog: Logan's Run
Anyway, 'Box' for that be his name is No. 4 in my Top 5 Creepy Robot countdown. Can they get any creepier? Tune in to my next blog to find out.
Big D out.

C-Creepio!

2011-02-22T04:35:00.000-08:00

ROBOT.
Tempting to think it might be an acronym like LASER (Light Amplification through Stimulated Emission of Radiation), the word is actually Czech, and means simply worker or slave.

Zombie-like in cadence and mannerisms. Slow, ponderous and unswerving in their loyalty to their maker.... and paradoxically ready to run amok and kill their maker at the drop of a hat, is perhaps how we see the classic robot. But the image, role and perception of the robot has changed myriad times through sci-fi history. One thing though, has always remained a constant for me. Some are cool, some are cute, some are even humourous. But they are all.... CREEPY. Brrrrr... (shiver)
To illustrate my feelings here starts the Top 5 Creepiest Robots countdown.

Now I suppose the first of movie's creepy robots has to be Maria from Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), but then again every single character from every black & white movie from the 1920s is creepy. Those silent, googley-eyed, actors, with their over-the-top physical gestures and the camera speed giving their movements a frantic, jittery air of the maniacal is enough to creep out the person who knitted Freddy Kreugers sweater.

The imposing and impenetrable, mute, brute, Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) is another example. Klaatu Barada Nikto. I hear you say. A phrase that would echo down through cinema history. Toys, Army of Darkness, Tron are a few films which make use of the (para)phrase.

Now Im going to get in so much trouble for my first entry at No.5 in the Creepiest Robots countdown.
Hell, I may even get death threats.
C-3PO. There I said it.

I know him and love him like an uvuncular metal man. I can even quote most of his memorable lines from the original trilogy.
But this is one uncle I wouldnt leave alone with my kids.
Having a camp robot is creepy enough, but there are times when his neurotic campness just spills over into Creepsville. The fact that he walks like Peggy Bundy doesnt help either. And he constantly wears that expression of mild alarm. Like that of a post-pooper whose finger has just breached the integrity of some cheap toilet paper.
Then to have him walking around (ro)bot naked with all his bits and workings showing in the prequel, like some wierd and shameless naturist was the vertiable LED on the circuit board.

'Remember R2, this is our little secret. You dare to tell Master Luke and you'll get sent to Anchorhead or I'll let those horrible Sandpeople touch you again... you know how you hate when those Sandpeople touch you... those rough hands... not like me R2.... not like me....'
And God only knows what happened in that cramped, little escape pod on the way down to Tatooine.

There you have it. Creepy Robot No.5 - C3PO
Tune in to my next blog as we get even creepier!
Big D out.

Why I do the NerDgasm Quiz.

2011-02-17T10:31:00.000-08:00

Fuck the schmultz! I love it!
I honestly do. Sure, overcrowding, tie-breakers, awkward publicans and soho crack-heads all stress me out and sometimes throw a spanner in the works, but its just a question of taking the spanner back out and hitting them over the head with it!
At the end of the night, if everyone has had a good time and enjoyed my merry NerDgasm Shenanigans then its all worth it.
NerDgasm is about riding a Grifter over to your mates after you'd watched Tizwaz when you were 10 years old.

Its about remembering how you felt when Darth Vader stepped onto the Blockade Runner in the opening 10 minutes of A New Hope. Its about how cool it was to see Hulk rip Wolverine in half and throw his legs up a mountain.

Sweaty hands clutching a d20,

the last level on Manic Miner, watching Doctor Who save the Universe again, opening a He-Man action figure, playing Top Trumps.....

All this and much more.

Its been going for well over a year now, and Im pleased to say it does have a devoted following, I think partly because there is nothing quite like it.
Where else can you listen the theme of Robocop, answer questions on how the Death Star's thermal exhuast port should be targetted and top it off with a talk about the rape scene in Marshall Law?

All this amongst the gentle company of other nerds.
It made my heart well with emotion to see two people actually playing Magic the Gathering when I arrived for the last NerDgasm quiz on Sunday. Truly, this is a special advent. It has perhaps become larger than me (although thats quite difficult) and is hopefully now about what each nerd brings to every NerDgasm. A point also labelled when a member of one team yelled a lamentful 'KHAAAAAAAAN....' as they slipped from 3rd place to 4th place when the scores were finally announced.

When I first started it, I wanted to make it like a favourite TV programme that no nerd would ever want to miss. Hopefully this has worked on some level.
I personally work better under pressure, so although I have a basic framework for the quiz and have a pretty good idea whats going into each one, I usually leave everything to the last minute and frantically write questions, edit film clips and collect the sound bites a day or so before the quiz. I also do this as sometimes when new guests confirm attendance, I add questions that I think they will enjoy, and try at least to make what I think will be an even playing field. This has actually proved to be disastrous. I change questions, compile a new picture round, accomodate for the extra people, print extra sheets, add more prizes and fill more sweety bags only to find the bastards dont even turn up.
The worst fuckers are the nerds that I have spoken to, that I know would actually enjoy the NerDgasm if they could get their scrawny asses along, but instead whinge and whine about their barely adequate psychic defenses, saying: Im not very good at answering questions. Ooh what would the other nerds think if I got a question wrong? My skin begins to flake if I dont update my facebook page every 5 minutes. FUCKERS!
I also enjoy shopping for the mutlifarious prizes that feature every NerDgasm.
The prizes are a combination of things that I come across in shops and things I actively search for or find on eBay.
The sweets are now a permanent addition also, since they were added at the Halloween Quiz and seemed to go down so well. They are hand picked by me and lovingly placed in those stripey, paper bags that you all know and love.
May I just make a little reminder that the NerDgasm is 100% me. Its costs dearly of my time and funds, but the kudos I get in return is all worth it. The people I have met and the friends Ive made, and the friends that have been made by others, is really what the night is all about...... Oh ok. The night is about proving that you a far better than any of the other nerds that would even dare try to answer a question on She-Hulks cup size.

Vive la difference! Vive le NerDgasm!
See you for fun, friendship, and fuckery at the Easter NerDgasm!

Sweeeeet Caroline!

2011-02-14T02:50:00.000-08:00

My First Lady of Fantasy!

Hot enough to fry bacon on that gorgeous mid-section is the perfectly formed Caroline Munroe, who comes in at my Primo slot.

As if starring alongside Doug McClure in ‘At the Earth’s Core’

as a savage, animal-skin clad, heaving vision of beauty, wasn’t enough, she also heaved her way through the Golden Voyage of Sinbad with her two fleshy hemispheres of delight almost bursting through her sequined ensemble,

was the deadly, seductively winking, chopper pilot, Naomi, in The Spy Who Loved Me, and was the only redeeming feature of one of the worst films, sci fi or otherwise, in existence: Star Crash, where she gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘curved space’.

John Williams score, Christopher Plummer stars, but it all starts to go down-hill once David Hasselhoff turns up…. Nah! Come to think of it the whole fucking film from beginning to end is a pile of feculence, Hasselhoff or otherwise. Please watch it if you like drumming your fingers, rolling your eyes and saying ‘for fuck sake!’

She also starred in innumerable horror movies, Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter and Dracula AD 1972 being two, among my favourites.

Worth noting is that she refused countless offers, during her career, to pose showing her beaver, split or otherwise. Her long term contract with Hammer for instance, had her turn down the lead roles in Doctor Jekyll and Sister Hyde, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, and Vampirella because they required nudity. It is also perhaps worth mentioning that she holds the distinction of being the only woman ever undeniably killed by James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me.

Here she is still grinning and looking lovely at 61 years of age. Undauted by the hordes of sweaty nerds that must surround her at this fantasy convention.

The type of bird you would have married and still not been disappointed 30 years later. Cuh! I bet she wouldnt even mind rummaging through your old dusty back issues with you on a Sunday afternoon.
Gawd Bless her and all who sail in her!

I hope youve enjoyed oggling this flesh-fest as much as Ive enjoyed compiling it.
Please continue to tune in for the finest in all thing Nerdish!
Big D out.

GET YOUR ROCOS OFF!

2011-02-08T06:19:00.000-08:00

Cleo Rocos (Rocco) is a joyful, vision of bountiful, bouncing, playful, delight. Kenny Everett’s faithful sidekick to the end; they say there’s nothing sexier than a woman with a sense of fun and a sinful sense of humour, and Cleo had that… and much more.

Early, saucy memories/mammarys of Cleo and the Hot Gossip girls on The Kenny Everett Show gave me the archetype of what I thought a woman should be like. Curvey, bouncy and fun. Rather like those inflatable castles.

Her antics on TV and the much forgotten film: Bloodbath at the House of Death, have ensured her a place in my heart, and in the top 10 Retro Nerd Babes. This half Greek, Brazilian born, boob laden, beauty, bounces in at a very respectable No.2

I once met her, and she was as divine in person as I could ever have imagined her. She called me ‘A big, noodley thing…’ and I loved her more for it. Aaaah to be Cleo’s Big Noodley thing.

She even let me phone my brother so he could talk to her as well (or rather pant heavily down the phone). She was just pure and genuine class, accompanied by two of the most familiar and well loved bosoms from my childhood.

Please tune in to my next blog for my final installment of the Hot Retro Nerd Babes Countdown!
Big D out.

Dusk till (soft) Porn

2011-02-03T03:19:00.000-08:00

The lucky No.3 spot in our Top 10 Hot, Retro, Nerd, Babe Countdown is:

Ok. Now I might get some stick for giving this particular hot, babe the label: retro.
But... it was 15 years ago that my senses were first sexually assaulted by the vision that was Salma Hayek, emerging from a red, steamy aperture, with a symbolic, writhing, albino serpent, coiled sensually around her neck.
The little known name of her character was Santanico Pandemonium and the film was of course: Dusk till Dawn.

1996. Yes, that long ago. I remember having to wipe the saliva from my chin and lock myself in the toilet for 5 minutes, after that particular scene. She was nothing short of a fantasy vision, the like of which I thought was reserved only for when such artists as Frank Frazetta put pencil to paper. Just looking at her hips and thighs makes my hernia start to play up.
There is little more to say after that, other than express my utter disappointment at what she then became.

Errrrr.... Do any of you still recognise her? Yes, it is still Salma Hayek. Minus the whole lot woman flesh that made her the most sumptuous piece of pant arousing totty of the late 90s. When will the fashionistas of today realise that men do not like their women to look like pre-pubescent boys.
Well... men not of the clergy anyway.

Ok gents, loosen your pants and gaze in sexual awe at the Santanico Pandemonium snake dance!

Tune in to my next blog for some more nostalgic mammaries!
Big D out.

Jungle-Beast-Bond Babe!

2011-01-30T05:59:00.000-08:00

The athletic poise, and taut physique of a panther. The striking blue eyes. The hairstyle that could withstand an attack from a Sabre-Tooth Tiger....

It can be no less than Tanya Roberts. An 80s uber-babe that takes no less than 4th place in my Hot Retro Nerd Babes Countdown.
Now, shame on you if you havent experienced her in any of her sexy incarnations. Replacing Shelley Hack in the final series (5) of Charlies Angels, absolutely stunning in fantasy romp Beastmaster,

showing even more rippling flesh in Sheena: Queen of the Jungle,

This shot made her gynaecologist blush.

and appearing where every good sex bomb should, as a Bond Babe, in View to a Kill.
She was one of the most popular sex symbols of the 80s.
The soft porn thriller Inner Sanctum seemed a little bit of a fall from grace in 1991, but there was little that the Bronx born, babelicious Tanya could have done that would have upset me, short of announcing she was actually a man in drag. (Although there were some shots in that particular film which would have made that statement highly unlikely.)
As is evident in my babe countdown, animal skin bikinis seem to play a big part in my formative titillation. But what can I say? Nothing says: Lets go behind that bush and make mad, passionate, animal sex... until we're caught, more than an animal skin bikini.
Please watch the trailer of one my favourite appearances of Tanya, and one of my favourite fantasy films of all time: The Beastmaster.

Tune in to my next blog for the lucky No.3 spot.
Big D out.

Bar-Bar-Bar, Bar - Barbarella

2011-01-13T10:42:00.000-08:00

Jane Fonda's gorgeous, big haired, free-lovin', hippychick, space vixen takes a stand (or rather doggy postion) at our number 5 spot.
Now Ive got to be really honest and say I didnt see this semi-erotic, space tale until only a few years ago.
Ok. It did look dated, but I thought in a rather pleasant and nostalgic way. It still seemed to retain some of the hippy sentiments of the 60s and you even get more than one glimpse of Jane's perfectly, pert Boobarellas!
French and English versions were shot simultaneously, with Jane (being a fluent French speaker) doing her own lines in French. Let me say she is even sexier when speaking en Francais - ooh la la!

All said, the sex scenes are non explicit, but what did it for me was the scene where she is strapped into the Ex-sex-sive machine which is played like an organ (whoops, double-entrendre alert!) and adminsters sexual pleasure in doses that can be lethal. Well, the poor machine cant keep as Barbarella writhes and moans in ecstasy, and overloads. BOOM!
De Laurentis would return to camp sci-fi with the 80s classic Flash Gordon.

My only comparable Barbarella fantasy would be meeting a loved-up, tripped out sci-fi hippychick after having smoked too many Beatles records and perhaps having supped from a cup of psychedelic fungus. I mean, I’ve been to enough festivals, taken enough dubious substances, and let my personal hygiene drop below the norm to tell you that drug-induced, free love aint all it’s cracked up to be.

Here, watch the truly gorgeous, Jane Fonda give a tititalling, zero-g, strip-tease as 1968 sci fi cult classic babe, Barbarella...

Tune in to my next blog were it becomes obvious I have an animal skin bikini fetish.
Big D out.

Planet of the Babe!

2011-01-03T07:36:00.000-08:00

Next up is Linda Harrison… Who?

Oh, that’s the bird from Planet of the Apes to you nerds. (Not to be confused with the Linda Harrison that competed in the Slalom canoing events in the 1970s)

That sultry, simpleton. That curvaceous, cave-woman who could barely say her name or write it in the ground with a stick, let alone give you a shopping list or nag you to an early grave.

N.. No.. Nooova… (You all remember the scene)

Every mans dream, all this neonate minded, sex bomb wanted to do is sleep, eat, draw stick pictures in the sand, and shag like it was 3950 something. (In-joke for Planet of the Apes fans)

I like the word ‘shag’ it sounds soft and furry, a bit like Nova’s bikini. Not the word ‘bonk’ which just sounds accidental. ‘Oh I’m awfully sorry for bonking you dear…’

Now, no disrespect to the women of today, but if someone wanted to fire me into space to return to a future Earth conquered by violent Apes.... wait for it... in which aforementioned Apes tethered me to Linda Harrison as her life partner, I would probably go for it.

And get this! She was also the first actress to play a live-action Wonder Woman in 'Who's afraid of Diana Prince' in 1967

Anyways, Linda is my Retro Nerd Babe No.6 who appears in both the Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and cuts a damn, fine figure as Nova in her furry bikini ensemble. Although in all fairness to all the other actors, that’s not too hard when the rest of the cast are dressed as chimps.

Tune in to my next blog for our half-way point, and check out who is No.5 in the Top 10 Hot Retro Nerd Babes Countdown!

EX-FOLIATE!

2010-12-26T05:10:00.000-08:00

Sexy enough to arouse a Dalek’s plunger, in at No.7 is Katy Manning.

She didn’t have the brains of Zoe or Liz, the olde worlde charm of Victoria or even the kilt wearing penchant of Jamie. She was a simple, clumsy girl next door sorta companion… who wore leather knee length boots. Grrrr…

(Thinking about it now, maybe I should make a top 10 list of the Doctors Companions)

Unfortunately the naked Dalek posing she did for soft porn Girl Illustrated Magazine is reputed to have spelled disaster for her career.

Whether that’s true or not, Katy, I will always fondly remember you as the lovely Jo Jo Grant (in-joke for other Whovians).

Here is a convicts great-grand-daughter, trying to be as sexy as Katy. Nah love! Id rather see a naked Cyberman accost Toyah Wilcox.

Unfortunately Katy now greets fat, sweaty Dr. Who fans at sci-fi conventions.

After escaping Ice Warriors, Autons, Ogrons, Drashigs, Draconians, Axons and Daemons, who’d have thought she would have fallen foul of Botox!

Please tune in to my next blog... OR I WILL EX-FOLIATE YOU!
Big D out.

Wham-Bam! Thank you Suzanne!

2010-12-10T12:38:00.000-08:00

Suzanne Danielle I consider the English Raquel Welch, errrr… of the 80s.

No Hollywood glam, BBC make up would do just fine, and she could still sparkle as brightly as any star in Hollywood. Carry on Emmanuelle cast this long legged, athletic beauty, amongst Carry On stalwarts and although not the best Carry On by a long shot, Suzanne still leaves me breathless.

She appeared again and again in my young life. The Professionals, Morcambe and Wise, Arabian Adventure with Christopher Lee as the villainous Caliph, a regular on Give Us a Clue and the Mike Yarwood show, Tales of the Unexpected, she played a Movellan in Destiny of the Daleks,

a slave girl in the Flash Gordon film,

aaaaand... she was the killer in the Hammer House of Horror TV show episode The Carpathian Eagle.
Now this was a really weird one for me. I remember feeling that strange, infant feeling of guilty arousal emanating from somewhere in the vicinity of my pyjama bottoms while watching her in this episode, but also being terrified of her because after each seduction scene she would cut out her victims heart. No matter how I tried, I just couldn’t reconcile myself with being afraid that she might kill me, to her causing my baby-making-stick to go all hard. God knows how that formative experience has marred me for the rest of my life. Even so she makes a very respectable No.8 in my Nerd Babe countdown.

Watch the trailer of Carry On Emmanuelle for a dollop of nostalgia and a whole heap of double entendres!

Tune in to my next blog for No.7 in my Hot, Retro, Nerd Babe Countdown.
Big D out!

WIIILLMAAAAA!

2010-12-04T03:21:00.000-08:00

Here we are at No.9 in the Top 10 Retro Nerd Babes.

Erin Grey was of course the wholesome piece of loveliness that was Wilma Deering… Pardon me, Colonel Wilma Deering, in the 80s Buck Rogers TV show.

A vision of immaculate hair and dentistry, she was enough to lighten up any young boys Saturday evening.

Perfectly American, I would have loved to have tried a warm piece of her apple pie… Hmmm cinnamon!

Buck Rogers was of course played by Gil Gerard…. Gil Gerard… Hmmm… Rolls off the tongue rather well that. Gil Gerard… You try it… Gil Gerard… Fucking magic!

Other regulars included Twiki the robot, Flava Flav accessory Dr. Theopolis and the wizened, raisin skinned Dr. Elias Huer.

Those of you looking for a good Wilma Deering episode check out the Space Vampire one, where she gets all sexy.

The most terrifying thing about the Space Vampire is the budget for his costume. Incidentally, his name is Vorvon. Hmm. Sounds like a cross between a Swedish make of car and a French dynasty.

So GIL GERARD! is No.9 in my Hot, Retro, Nerd Babe Countdown...errr... I mean Erin Grey.... (Damn what have I said)
Please check out how cool Erin still is in this interview at ComicCon:

Sex sells and excels

2010-12-01T08:37:00.000-08:00

Oookay, the graph on the statistics panel of my blog is starting to look like the ECG of an Emergency Room patient whose fading fast.
What better way to administer cardio-pulmonary ressusitation than to simply show you pictures of Sexy Women.
10ccs of HOT TOTTY stat!
So in order to revitalise the blog, here starts my Top 10 Hot, Retro, Nerd Babes countdown.
Yes! Tune in this week and next as we countdown to who was our first, four-tissue fantasy, which beautiful woman was the first to accompany us into a locked toilet (albeit in the form of a two dimensional image) and which nerdy babe-licious icon could stir us into hermetic bouts of self-abuse.
So prepare yourself for some cracking in-jokes and a delicious serving of sumptuous woman-flesh as we begin: Big D's Top 10 Hot, Retro, Nerd Babes.

The original, pre-historic, pin-up girl is of course none other than Raquel Welch and she is a well, worthy bit of fluff to start our cavalcade.

Running, hiding and panting heavily as huge lizards thrashed about, she is Loana ‘The fair one’ in the film 1 million years BC. (1966)
The film is largely ahistorical, but who cares when it has a young Raquel Welch doing athletic things in a skimpy animal skin bikini. There is no other way to describe her, than as being utterly breath-taking.
She is a member of the ‘shell’ tribe, a slightly more civilised tribe than their neighbours, the 'rock' tribe. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. She’s not the only bird running around showing how fun it was to titillate cave men.

She shows the outcast Tumak the joys of painting, music, rudimentary language and the missionary position, as his backwards tribe have never evolved past doggy style.

She is also Cora, in a delightful, white cat-suit, in nerd classic The Fantastic Voyage. (1966)

A team of scientists and square jawed closet homos are miniaturised and injected into a human, in order to cure his… gall stones? Or something…

Although enjoying her immensely as a child, Ill tell you the trouble I have with Raquel now. She is almost like a divine icon. An untouchable being who has transcended the sexual to become a numinous entity of lust and ladyshaved smoothness.

As a result, I fear I would be struck down if I ever had rude thoughts about her.

So she effortlessly slides in at No.10 in my countdown.
Please watch the clip... but try not to have naughty thoughts...

Tune in to my next blog for No.9 in the Hot, Retro, Nerd, Babes Countdown.
Big D out.

A long time ago, in a cinema far, far away...

2010-11-28T07:05:00.000-08:00

Before the shrug of shoulders... Before the collective sigh of unsuprised acceptance... Before reaching for the mouse to click on another link because you're sure you've read all you could possibly read about Star Wars...
Please give me a moment of your time. Lets just take time to sit in an imaginary room... Yes, thats it... All of us. Cast your minds back... back... back...
Look at us. Little Billy, Darren, ooh and Martin in the corner there. Garys here as well. Mark, David, Peter, James & Joe, that tom-boy Lorraine, and even that smelly kid with the sticky toys, Steven. Aahh, who could forget him farting loudly in assembly and then shitting himself later in PE?
The one thing that united us in our days of formative infancy? Was it our favourite hymn in assembly? Was it whether Scrappy Doo had ruined Scooby Doo? Was it those watery, oh-so-not-heinz spaghetti hoops served with that lumpy mash at school dinners? No...
STAR WARES! Star Wars reigned supreme 1977 thru... FOREVER. Between 1977-1984 alone, Kenner had sold 300 million Star Wars figures to the likes of our smiling, fat little faces and pudgey grasping mittens.
Whether you had bought them from James Selbys in Holloway, Harvey Johns in Parkway or even the 80s shopping mecca, Brent Crosss, we all brought our Star Wars figures in to school. We threw them at each other, rough-housed with them, stuck them into each others orifices, little knowing that they would be worth a small fortune if we had been the wierd, twisted, outcasts of humanity who'd actually kept them in their unopened packets.

We pulled the light-sabres out (come on, you know you used to call them light-savers, or some other misheard derivative), lost all those fiddly, little guns they came with, only to borrow mis-sized ones from other toys as a substitute, I even remember biting the antennae off of Greedo in a fit of rage! The 3.75" action figure had been born, and Kenner's stroke of genius would be copied ad infinitum. (Yes, yes, Im aware of Matel's 6.1" Masters of the Universe range.)
School playtimes were filled with an unholy chorus of 'eeuuuuoogh..... eeuuuuoogh.... eeuuuoogh' as we ran rabidly around the playground shooting imaginary lasers at each other. Sure, there might have been an occaisonal game of Battlestar Galactica, or if we were feeling cheeky, even a game of Battle Beyond the Stars, but the staple chant of the Playground was 'Whooo wants to play Staaaar Waaars!'
'eeuuuuoogh..... eeuuuuoogh.... eeuuuoogh' to playground stabbings... Where did it all go so wrong?
The Star Wars experience defined an entire generation. Those strange, strange people, our age, you sometimes meet, who plead ignorance and say they have never seen the films, are either those sad knobbers who have tried to add a bit of alternate mystique into their identities by lieing, and by pretending they dont have TVs, or are the ones who had really, wierd parents who refused to let their kids do anything fun or imaginative in the hope they would grow into sociopaths, serial killers or accountants.
I was one of the lucky ones who saw the original Star Wars (A New Hope) at the Dominion Theatre (yes the one at Tottenham Court Rd.) with both, thats right BOTH of my parents. Forget one liking horror and the other liking sci-fi, this felt like a history shaking event that the whole family had to be party to. And we were.
We were there. BANG! 1977, Dominion Theatre, watching Star Wars for the very first time. FUCK YEAH! My No.1 seminal sci-fi moment.
Yes, I am a Star Wars child. I lived it. I loved it. You would have to categorically prove the entire cast of the original trilogy were all paedophiles in order to even dent my sacred memories.
I still recall being on a bus with my mum and suddenly having an anxiety attack about growing up.
'What if I stopped liking Star Wars?' I thought. I think that dreaded song Puff the Magic Dragon was responsible. Jacky Papers growing up and forgetting about his old friend Puff? That song used to really upset me. I remember on that bus promising myself that growing up would not change me. That fickle little Jacky Papers fucker! WHERE ARE YOU PUFF?
We have all seen the original film (except for aforementioned wierdos) so rather than a replay of our favourite scenes, heres some rarer trailers and commercials from the 70s & 80s. Some of them are... strange... but interesting.

How could Star Wars not be at No.1 of any Sci fi list?
Big D out.

Gorilla Warfare!

2010-11-21T06:58:00.000-08:00

Early, early, early, memories of Planet of the Apes. Vague and gossamer. Images of the TV show blurred unrecognisably with the movies. A photo of a 4 year old at Selfridges with Urko and Cornelius standing either side. A photo I sadly no longer have.

Planet of the Apes must have had quite an effect on me. In the photo I look absolutely petrified as these two heavily made-up, ape-men tower menacingly over me, but I remember being resolute enough to go and stand next to them and have my photo taken, just for the kudos. Magical memories.
I have of course seen the quintology of the Planet of the Apes countless times from boy to man and know and love them like old friends. The 1974 TV show Im not as familiar with but seem to remember the protagonists being a sort of Starsky and Hutch - blonde, brunette - arrangement. Apparently the show was unpopular and cancelled in the States, but ran for its full series here in the UK and was shown again in 1994 by Channel 4.
So ingrained was Planet of the Apes in my head as a kid, that I distincly remember watching TV and hearing a report of guerilla warfare in Africa. Not being old enough to discern the word 'guerilla' from 'gorilla', I immedeately thought the Planet of the Apes scenario was now an inevitability. After much screaming and shouting and no small amount of fuss, my mum finally assured me that guerilla warfare was a very different thing from what I imagined.
The films make for good watching (some better than others), and even with todays special effects and make up there is still something magical about the original costumes that doesnt make them feel dated. Sure nit-pick if you must, but the handful of chimp faeces that Tim Burton threw in our faces in 2001 wont even be remembered in another 10 years time, when people will still be watching and enjoying the original films, not just for nostaglia reasons, but because they are good entertainment. Moments of special effects sewn loosely together with bad dialogue and wrapped in a horrendous plot are no substitute.
Here is one of my favourite lines from the original film:

Unfortunately, the final scene has become such a cliche it has lost all its power and gravitas. But try, if you can, to watch it as a member of an unsuspecting audience in a movie theatre, who is about to witness it for the very first time.
This is my seminal sci-fi moment No.2

Tune in to my next blog when we'll see what we all expected anyway.
Big D out.

Silence is Golden.

2010-11-16T14:33:00.000-08:00

Bruce Dern's tree-hugging, robot loving, neurotic in space, is the next subject for my Seminal Sci-fi Moment.
Silent Running is perhaps the most emotional I have ever become whilst watching sci-fi.

Most of you probably know the story. On the Earth all natural plant life has become extinct and what remains is kept in enormous domes, attached to freighters which orbit Saturn. The film's subject is topical even today.
Bruce Dern's performance is truly endearing and even though his character kills the rest of his crew in order to save the animals and plants which he cultivates in the domes, no sympathy is lost for his cause. His crew members and indeed Earth Government, seem flippant and quite at ease in ordering the destruction of his lifes work and indeed the only remaining examples of specific Earth flora and fauna in (one must assume) the universe.
He then becomes a fugitive, with three robots (service drones) and a single intact dome.
The finale sees him destroying himself and one of the robots (one has also been lost earlier in the film after becoming detactched from the side of the ship whilst doing repairs) as he jettisons the last remaining dome into deep space.
Regardless of the plight of Earth's forests and wildlife, the small, mute, bipedal, ambling robots, which Bruce Dern's character (Freeman Lowell) names Huey, Duey and Louis, were the subject of my emotional focus when I first saw the film as a kid. The robot that stays behind with Lowell has been crippled by an accident, and the emotional attachment Lowell builds with these companions seemed as important to me as the fate of the forests in the dome.
The last robot is put aboard the dome so he can maitain the eco system and tend the forest.
At the end of the film, there is hope that the dome will travel, and the forest survive, being tended by the little robot, and perhaps germinate on an alien planet somewhere. But for me, as a kid, watching the final scene of a little robot, all alone, with a colourful little tin watering can wandering through the dome's forests, while the hauntingly beautiful music of Peter Schickele, sang by Joan Baez, plays in the background, something burst inside of me. I bit back tears as my father led me from the cinema. And when I just could not hold them in any longer I pretended to fall and hurt myself and burst into a flood of tears. I always enjoyed our sci-fi cinema trips so I wanted to keep my pretense of being daddy's stoic little boy and never told him the truth about why I cried for an hour after watching Silent Running. Of course mum could tell something was up when we got home, and I told her very secretly about the poor little robot before I went to bed... before bursting into tears again.
This has to be a very tearful Seminal Sci-fi Moment No.3

From Zero to Hero.

2010-11-16T04:00:00.000-08:00

As a quick aside, from my Seminal Sci-fi moments, after letting my comic reading slip slightly, I thought I'd give a quick review of a comic I was given.

Enjoy!

Soldier Zero. Not just any old Soldier Zero, but no less than Stan Lee’s Soldier Zero.

So what are all these titles with Stan Lee’s brand signature emblazoned over them like Kellog’s over a cornflake packet?

Well apparently the wily octogenarian has written a new universe and a host of characters for BOOM! Studios.

Now I use the term ‘written’ loosely, as Paul Cornell seems to be the one writing Soldier Zero, and Stan Lee is listed as being... the Grand Poobah... ?

Hmmm. Shows how out of touch I am. I thought Grand Poobah was a rank in the Ku Klux Klan. Whooops!

One cant help but think that this is perhaps a great marketing ploy to get people to buy the title. Is it why I bought the title? Yes, it probably is, so the marketing ploy worked.

I suppose the real question is then, did I enjoy it?

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and I do think first issues need to make some sort of impact on their reader. Now, this can be a tricky task, because for a fresh title that has little to link it to any other of the comic universes, characters and storyline have to established from scratch.

Bringing it bang up to date,

Afghanistan

veteran in a wheelchair returns to civilian life to find a new type of battlefield. And yes, it’s handled with a sensitivity and reverence I found refreshing. But from the opening splash of a manga-esque protagonist battling a space-ship, to the following page of a young man in a wheelchair. I felt I knew what was going to happen and the middle of the comic was just filler. No it doesn’t stink, and it’s not altogether boring, just perhaps forgivably predictable for an origin issue.

Saying that, I’m a man that could read a thousand comics of Hulk punching someone, and be quite content. So my comic needs are simple. Perhaps for the more intellectually demanding comic reader they might not forgive so easily.

The art by Javier Pina (Batman and Superman) renders the universe with his usual smooth, crisp defined lines, and no ambiguity. Just the way I like it. And no I don’t like pickle on my cheese sandwiches either.

Incidentally, Marvel’s new title Superior just went for the same angle, although granted it was MS that had confined their character to a wheelchair, so just as an exercise I cast my addled mind back through comic history to find what other examples I could come up with off the top of my head.

Oracle from the pages of DC, Box from the early Alpha flight comics, The Black Racer… Oh! And I almost forgot Professor X. (Never would have heard the last of that, hey X-fans?)

Any-hoo, aforementioned wheelchair bound protagonist and awkward date, are (quite literally) struck by a dying, extra-terrestrial entity and a sort of Captain Mar-vel cosmic symbiosis ensues which enables him to a) save his date from being crushed, b)Walk again, albeit in the style of an upright quadruped. c) Scare people from behind shrubs and bushes.

I did find myself wanting to find out if he’s going to be able to control this symbiotic blessing/curse, whether this cataclysmic, cosmic event has re-attached his spine when he reverts to his human form, and find out what’s the deal with one hand having three fingers and the other having five? So perhaps next month, my comic sack will have issue 2

So… It’s a very readable first issue that’s easy on the eye too. But is that truly a recommendation or am I just trying not to offend Stan Lee? Well, I’m not saying that the House of Ideas has run out of ideas, but they are perhaps pouring old wine into a new bottle.

Quater-massive Attack!

2010-11-09T22:23:00.000-08:00

Greetings Earthlings,
So, a thoroughly home-grown sci-fi icon, Bernard Quatermass is up for the seminal sci-fi moment No.4 accolade.
A very British creation having his roots in BBC serials and radio dramas, he was a rocket scientist who had conducted top secret work for the British War effort, apparently 'mapped the tropics' in his early life, and became head of the British Space Programme to launch a manned rocket into space. What a thoroughly spiffing chap eh? There was even a 'Quatermass in the Third Reich' prequel adventure which never came to fruition, were he was to travel to Nazi Germany during the 1936 Berlin Olympics to become involved with Wernher Von Braun, but end up helping Jewish refugees escape the Nazi regime.
It wasnt until Hammer Studios committed his deeds to the big screen that he received worldwide recognition. Unfortunately they picked an American actor to play the lead, so as not to alienate the American audiences and help distribution.
Quatermass and the Pit was another of Hammer's successes. With the Devil himself turning out to be a huge Martian Entity that came to Earth millions of years ago.
Perhaps not as pro-active as Dr. Who, or as wacky as Doc Brown but definately not a mere sidekick like Doctor Zarkhov, he had become almost ineffectual by the time John Mills played him in the 1979 TV serial The Quatermass Conclusion. Here we see him as a vulnerable and confused old man who just wants to find his missing grandaughter, and for the most part seems little interested with the apparent alien intelligence that harvests young humans from beyond space (Come on! Make the connection Quatermass!).
The show was, perhaps for nostalgia reasons, my favourite of the wily old scientist's adventures.
He would receive a 21st century make-over in the 2005 remake of the Quatermass Experiment, to mixed reviews.
So my seminal moment lies within The Quatermass Conclusion. It has quite a moving ending, and even on re-visiting it several years ago it still brought a lump to my throat.
Its a compelling and intelligent sci-fi drama that was perhaps too British for its own good. As a result there was little interest from film distributors and it acheived very little international presence.
The nursery ryhme chanting which seems an archaic attempt to memorialise the evil of the alien intelligence is an unsettling background accompanyment to almost every episode and its gritty, all too British dystopia really hits home for us indigenous stock. London is inhabited by desperate, bloodthirsty gangs, the police are brutish, thugs and black cab drivers are rude and awkward... Hmmm. When was this set again?
The episode in which the alien intelligence strikes Wembley stadium, and like a diner who has ordered too much, cannot finish his meal, is a perfect example. The vaporised human proteins that the alien cannot assimilate turning the sky green as the sun rises. Quatermass escapes by inadvertently hiding in the underground car park.

The next scene I want to show you is truly chilling.
One of the survivors from the alien intelligence's attacks is at hospital and decides to pay a slight homage to The Exorcist.

And lastly, my favourite quote from the series:

Aaah the voice of a generation: Stop trying to know things...
Tune in to my next blog to see me cry like a little boy...
Big D out.

Sci-Fi-Fo-Fum, I smell the blood of Logan's Run!

2010-11-04T17:03:00.000-07:00

Greetings Earthlings,
With Halloween and the horrific fading, fast from view, like a distant star, twinkling its last twinkle above morning's horizon, perhaps it is fitting that we turn our gaze skyward.
The cosmos. To infinity and beyond... The night sky with its immense, inky, blackness, punctuated by the light of celestial bodies is of course a prime inspiration for sci-fi.
And sci-fi is where Id like to take you with the next 5 blogs dedicated to my most seminal sci fi moments.
As I have said in previous blogs, the line between sci-fi and horror is a thin, blurred one, forever changing its position. And although many of my sci-fi memories did in fact shock and scare me, there wasnt that lasting terror; that lingering, creeping dread that I found horror movies gave me.
For my love of sci-fi I have my dad to thank. Writers like Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Heinlen, and Vonnegut inspired and moved him, and filled his sober moments with the fantastic. In his not so sober moments he would listen to the Beatles and dance around the front room in his underpants.
At a very young age he took me to see 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Now I already had a footing in sci-fi, as I watched the early saturday morning, black & white, episodes of Buster Crabbe's Flash Gordon, and 2001's opening scene of ape men braining each other had me sold for the next 20 minutes. But after that... I fell asleep. This is not to say 2001 isnt a great movie, but my neonate mind just couldnt reach far enough to grasp its lofty concepts, or indeed scenes with 15 minutes of dialogue. Where are those crazy ape men? I kept thinking.
Fear ye not. My father did not give up on me. 20,000 leagues under the sea followed. Soylent Green. Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, Silent Running, The Omega Man.
There were not many 70's sci fi flicks that we missed. Just like mum would waive my usual bed time so I could stay up late and watch horror with her, dad was a very charming man, and got me past many a cinema attendant to see films whose ratings I was far to young for, feeling my minds expansion would be safe under his supervision. After all, who knows their son better than their dad.
And sure enough my palatte began appreciate the vintage of sci-fi.
Whereas horror delivers sudden scares and an instant gratification from its gore, a taste in sci fi usually has to be acquired, developed; their concepts are meant to plant seeds for further thought. Most sci-fi films are asking that you start to view things in a different way. They are designed to move you very differently from a horror film.
That really is not to say that there are no horror films that do this. Just that the premise of each genre has its archetypes... and ironically enough, one of these archetypes is the very film I fell asleep to.

And so my narrative brings us to my seminal sci-fi moment number 5.
Logan's Run was my first vision of a future dystopia... disguised as a future utopia... You see? Quite complicated for a young kid. But, I got it. Even my young mind could discern that the virtues of this 'utopia' were far outweighed by its inherent flaws. Dead by 30? Even at my age, 30 seemed uncomfortably close. My dad for instance was 30 when he had me, and so would have been Carousel fodder long before he would have had a chance to take me to see the film.
Michael York's character is again a complicated prospect for a 5 year old. A sort of anti-hero who has been picked for an undercover mission, fucked over by the central computer, and alienated from his friends. Its only halfway through the film that he realises, and decides that growing old might be a viable possibilty and alternative to getting blown up on your 30th birthday.
The book is markedly different, and although the film was my first exposure to the Logan's Run universe and a precious memory, I do actually prefer the book, where lastday age is a measely 21!
Saying that, the imagery in the film is great. The lastday Carousel scene is... unfortgettable. The costumes are futuristic but still retain a funeral dread and spooky look to them.
The scene is terribly unsettling. Its not just the fact that consenting 30 year olds are being vaporised to the climactic chants of the looneys in the crowd, there just seems something fatalistically orgiastic about the writhing participants, and something grotesquely voyeuristic about the slavering, spectators. Although I couldnt have said those words at 5 years old, Im sure I kinda felt that same vibe.
The scene I think labels my point about sci-fi and horror being close bed-fellows.
This has to be my seminal, sci-fi moment No.5

Tune into my next blog for a piece of very English sci-fi.
Big D out.

Halloween Nerdgasm Quiz Report.

2010-11-03T05:49:00.000-07:00

Greetings Earthlings,
Yes, it has come and it has gone, and a tremendous amount of fun was had inbetween its coming and going.
I speak of none other than the Halloween Nerdgasm Quiz which was a packed, shoulder-to-shoulder, fancy dressed, phantasmaglorious exxxplosion of fun!

The Fabulous Scarey Clarey

Sorry this report comes so late in the week, but I lay comatose for several days following the Halloween festivities.
My Halloween sweety bags were a great success, with teams shouting loud enough to break wine glasses and set car alarms off for miles around. Unfortunately at the end, the winning teams rushed all the prizes and raped any and all treats I had left in reserve. I have a strange feeling my brother was behind it.

My bro as Lex Luthor and me as some sort of nice bloke...

The scores were the closest they have ever been in any Nerdgasm quiz yet! First place and second place were battled out over a tie-breaker at 53points, and third and fourth place had 52points which again went to a tie-breaking decider. Even fifth place had 49points (Well done Joe's team) which shows that teams were only a question or two away from the first place crown.
As far as the ABC warriors go, Dom has made it very clear (via links, posts and references) that Ro-Jaws can indeed be considered an ABC warrior (a question on which 1st place was decided).
All in all though, everyone seemed to enjoy the questions, lovingly researched and written by my good self, and the audio round got the best reception yet, with a soulful muscial interlude by yours truly... errr... thats me in case anyone wondered. Nearly everyone there knew the song, which was Audrey IIs 'Mean Green Mother...' from The Little Shop of Horrors. Please listen to the original and tell me who you think was best. :)

Levi Stubbs is of course the man behind Audrey IIs voice and is a fucking genius. His voice is like honey being drizzled over a Ferrero Roche and then inserted into my ear!
I do have to admit at this point, that I was heavily stressed out at the Quiz. The stubborn, steak-eating septegenarians in the spot where I needed to set up my equipment were my first hurdle (swallow damn you, swallow!), and then to be honest I didnt expect as many people to turn up to the quiz, as did. My sweetie bags and quiz sheets were thankfully in abundance, which is more than could be said for the tables and chairs, with teams crammed into corners and standing on each others toes. But I think on the whole it was a success. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, including myself after a couple of beers had calmed my nerves. Everyone went home with their quiz, blood lust sated until the next Nerdgasm. Indeed an after party was had at a local bar led by none other than newcomers Cuz-Carly and Dean, and the group of groovy ghoulies that made up their team.

Here is the lovely Laura as DC's Black Canary and Cuz Carly as... Gonzo from the Muppets.

So, there you have it. Please follow my blog for more updates on upcoming quizzes.
Big D's NerDgasm Quiz. Bringing you the best in Sci fi, fantasy, horror, cartoons, comedy, comics and retro TV.
As all attendees can proudly attest with puffed chests and a gleam of lunacy in their eyes: I HAVE HAD A NERDGASM!

A quiet night in with the wife...

2010-10-29T04:39:00.000-07:00

Greetings Earthlings,
Where do I find the time?
I remember when time was a bountiful thing. Summers lasted forever. Entire weekends could be spent round a friends house. And a whole day could be wasted as one saw fit.
Alas, like sand through a tightly clenched fist does time now run through my fingers. As you get older time seems to get less and less, the days less satisfying, maybe thats what Einsteins theory of relativity is all about. The friends I dont see anymore. The hobbies I no longer pursue. The projects I no longer have time for.
A classic line I remember from Homer Simpson: If God wants me to be in church an hour a week, He should have made the week an hour longer...
Such is the precious commodity that is TIME.
Aah, but are we not told to gracefully surrender the notions of youth as we climb the temporal ladder of entropy? And what is spare time if not to be filled with mans folly?
And fill it with folly I do. Computer games have always been my guilty pleasure. Countless hours of....fun. There, I said it. FUN. Sure, a certain amount of frustration as well, but the satisfaction of leading an army to victory, of governing a civilisation to the pinnacle of its existence, of commanding a fleet of Battlcruisers to interstellar war, or even on a more personal level, stabbing someone in the neck or blowing someones head off with a shotgun. Theres is nothing like it. And together with todays level of immersion its never felt so real.
Okay, well both fuss and derision swirled around Medal of Honour, Tier 1 release earlier this month. Why? Well the Medal of Honour franchise is a big, healthy, strapping brute with a solid heritage, made slightly lame by a number of successful attempts to steal its crown. The first Medal of Honour title was co-produced by none other than Steven Spielberg and was at the time one of the best Nazi trouncing FPS' out there. Having milked WWII's teats dry however, games such as Call of Duty now take us onto the modern, super-tech battlefield of today against insurgents and terrorists. A lot was expected of Medal of Honour Tier 1, thanks in no small part to clever PR and hyping it up the arse. The thing I liked the most about it was that it didnt feel as if it was trying to be Call of Duty. Which is difficult when Call of Duty has set the bench mark for modern first-person-shooters. One things for sure it doesnt surpass Call of Duty. But is fresh enough to be enjoyed. Clunky and clumsy in places and a Multiplayer that just lacks the volume of customisation that most of its rivals have, I can see why it has not ranked as highly as it should. With a big, hyped title from a strong stable like it has, I think a lot of people were expecting it to blow the bollocks off of Call of Duty. Nah! Not a chance and with Call of Duty's new title looming for a release next month this Medal of Honour title has a danger of being lost in the mix. Saying that I dont feel disappointed when I play it, and the Multiplayer will probably keep me coming back for quite some time... because it is markedly different from Call of Duty. I enjoy the gritty, atmosphere it has. You can smell the desert musk, and feel the sand on the back of your throat as you play through the campaign. Good, but not as good as perhaps it should have been.

Big D's tips on a successful marriage: Always keep a door to your world (however small) open to your partner. My wife hates horror, superheroes and computer games. Hmmm... Why havent I killed her yet?
Non, non, non. Vive Le Difference! It is our differences that keep us united. A raging ying to a sobering yang. I have always left a door to my world open to my wife, and sometimes... just sometimes, you get it just right. Seek and find or Hidden object games are a little sedate for me, but my wife and I have enjoyed them in tandem. Games like Dire Grove, Mystery at Hillcrest High, Tunguska, are just a few... Their skewed logic is sometimes infuriating but on the whole they are fun, and even more so with your loved one.
My latest triumph in marital relations was Cities XL 2011. Again a fairly recent game, and not one to get your pulse racing. But the content, the playability and the attention to detail is fabulous. Forget staring into your Aquariums, never mind tending your ant-farms, flea circuses? Thing of the past mate.
Me and my wife have built a small city and civilisation in great depth and detail, arguing... sorry deliberating over whether to put a council estate next to the executive housing complex, whether we should spend money on a pier and marina, where we should build our city dump site, and how to solve the problem of traffic congestion in the middle of town. I have just got my way and built and observatory, and she got hers by building a scenic castle on the outskirts of town, overlooking the coast. So... Cities XL 2011, nice, scenic, unrushed, stress relieving, marriage saving fun.

In closing I'd like to give a nod to Amensia: The Dark Descent. A bugdet title that delivers frights, jumps and things that go bump, wuuooooah! and aaaaaaeeerrggh! in equal measure. A stylish, atmospheric game thats not outstanding, but adequately does what you expect it to do. So, a horrible thumbs up for Amnesia: The Dark Descent, if anyone wants a frightful experience on their computer this Halloween.
(All game reviews are PC format)
Big D out.

Dopplegang-tastic!

2010-10-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

Now, way back in the mists of time, I remember having an Enid Blyton audio cassette. I seem to recall it was a Famous Five story involving smugglers, but werent they all? I would listen to aforementioned tape before bed, and Blyton's wholeseome yarn would lower me gently into the Land of Nod.
As I grew, however, Enid Blyton was found wanting, as my swelling lust for terror and all things horrific craved blood & monsters!
I borrowed a vinyl record from my local library, a Dracula-hybrid story of some description, and on a shopping trip to John Lewis with my mum, I asked her to buy me a new audio cassette; Tales of Terror: Edgar Allen Poe I had chosen.
Unfortunately the library record was scratched to buggery and barely audible and Poe's prose went straight over my 7 year old head. I could tell by the way the narrator was reading, that it was meant to be scary, but 'Vainly I had sought to borrow, from my books surcease of sorrow...' did little for me. What a savage, little philistinic child I was. But worry ye not, I would revisit Poe some time later and fall in love with him.
Mum was always sympathetic to my horror needs, and we would sit up late at weekends and watch horror double bills. This is converse to my dad who would take me to the Everyman Cinema in Hampstead where we would watch Sci Fi double bills. My parents were a sort of Horror-Sci Fi Jack Spratt and his wife. It has always suprised me that neither of them could make the jump either way, as there is such a blurry line between where sci fi stops and horror begins, and indeed vice versa. But all said, they could find common ground in a film like Alien.
Ill cover sci-fi in later blogs, but as we all know this is my last entry in the Halloween countdown of my personal and unforgetable moments of horror. Lists and top 10's are of course very personal and highly subjective things, and this last one brings me back again to the good old English style of horror to which I was exposed to so much of as a kid. This is horror moment No.5.

A happy 70s family in a happy car on a happy road going on a happy holiday.
That first shot of the hitch-hiker, stiff legged and motionless on the bank above the road still gives me the heebies. I remember being on holiday with my family in Spain and seeing hitch-hikers along the road as we drove around the country in our hire car. Jeezus! I begged, teary eyed and breathless not to stop and pick them up. I peered at each hitch-hiker we passed through my fingers wondering if they were the embodiment of pure evil.
The story of the Doppleganger is an ancient one, but I dont think I have ever seen it done so terrifyingly as in this episode of Hammer House of Horror's TV series: The Two faces of Evil. Yes, I even rate it above the masterful Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The directing is superb, the angles, the close-ups and the cleverly understated acting of everyone else but the wife, amplifying her helplessness, frustration and involvement in this terrifying predicament.

Of course that big haired, fat faced kid sorta reminded me of me at the time, so I stayed well away from farms and hay lofts. But you have to agree its a truly chilling moment when she looks up and sees her real child, dead and purple on the other side of the barn...
Its been fantastic sharing my horror moments with you and I hope youve enjoyed it too. Im not quite Mark Gatiss but, I could beat him up in a fight, and thats what counts.
Tune in to my next blog to discover the games me and my wife play... errr... computer games that is.
Big D out.

All aboard for the Horror Express!

2010-10-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

This, again, is an early and disturbing memory for me. I watched tonnes of horror as a kid and even bought those horror cards with that dangerously hard bubblegum in the packet… Shit, what an Earth happened to those?

I had Horror Film compendiums, lexicons, encylopedias, both sets of the Horror Top Trumps, various grisly masks and costumes. Damn! I even went to the Queens Jubilee street party dressed as a ghost. I loved to scare and I loved to be scared. But all the horror I had soaked up as a kid started to desensitise me. The next horror film scared me just a little less than the last. But some, like the one I am about to show you, terrified me like no other before and for months gave me recurring nightmares, which I suppose is the highest accolade one could ever give a horror movie.

Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee were the stars, and I remember feeling safe knowing this. They were my friends, from previous adventures in horror. They wouldn’t terrify me. Would they? Cushing had a safe, avuncular air about him and Lee was just the epitome of suave sophistication and cucumber coolness.

The story had everything: Afore mentioned Cushing and Lee, a two million year old monster in a crate, a mad Rasputinesque monk, a trans-siberian train journey, zombie cossaks and Telly Savalas.

One thing I had overlooked, indeed one thing that would have meant little to me at the time. It had a Spanish director. Get ready for bloody gore and eye fixations. Its true! Those bloody Latin horror directors. What is it with them and eyes? Splinters through eyes, shards of glass through eyes, fingers poking out eyes, red eyes, white eyes, bleeding eyes…

Despite the gore, despite Telly Savalas, it was a fantastic film. Ill even go as far as to say it still is a fantastic horror film. It’s full of silly propositions and premises and even a bit of rubber physics, but it is a horror film after all. But time has not dulled its impact. And yes, I should never have watched it at just 9 years old.

Every night at bedtime, after being tucked in, my mum would turn out the light and leave the room... Normal kids would perhaps smile a dreamy smile and close their eyes.

I would gasp in mute terror and slowly and silently scan the room for a pair of red eyes in the darkness. Oh how I miss my childhood. To believe in monsters!

Just a brief nod to nostalgia sage Hurk. Here are the opening credits to Armchair Thriller. No one to step in front of the shadow now is there? Mwuhahahahaha!

Please tune in to my next blog for the last shocking moment in my Halloween countdown.

Big D out.

Rivers of blood.

2010-10-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

Greetings Earthlings,

BLOOD! Yup its come down to one of horrors lowest denominators.

Gore and viscera although not essential to good horror are jolly good fun if done right. It is indeed a trademark of most of the Italian horror maestros, and the so called video nasties of the 80s achieved cult status simply because they were so gorey.

This is contrary to some of horror’s absolute classics having a conspicuous absence of blood. I remember being shocked when I revisited Carpenter’s Halloween as to how little blood is actually in the film.

Halloween nostalgia moment number 3 is really a double bill. This is only because I couldn’t decide what one to show you, and then simply thought: Bollocks! Ill show em both. But they are, in my opinion, both examples of blood being used to terrifying effect.

The first clip takes me back to a time when doing PE in my underwear and singing hymns in assembly was commonplace. Take yourself back to 1980, plonk yourself on the sofa next to mum on a Saturday evening, and marvel at the 80s high fashion and kitch décor.

The second one is a great clip from a not so great film. But watch this scene and tell me you didn’t wince once… go on, I dare you…

I was quite a nosebleedy kid and had a lot of operations on my sinuses and adenoids at a young age. I remember an alarmingly protracted nose bleed at my nan's one sunday afternoon in front of the fire. I think this scene really brings back that awful sense of panic I felt when my nose bleed just wouldnt stop and all the grown ups were running around making a fuss.What adds to that unsettling panic is the woefully inadequate wisps of crumpled tissue his wife keeps giving him to stem the cascade of blood gushing out of his nose. The little fetish doll is also a nice little touch of extra horror into the bargain. The film, alas is Children of the Corn 2 and is a load of old pants of the highest order.

The first clip was of course The House that Bled to Death from Hammer Horror’s TV series. Even the revelation by the parents at the end, that the whole thing was a hoax did not make that scene any less terrifying in that half an hour of hindsight. The scene is simply unforgettable at any age, let alone when you are an 8 year old kid as I was.

Sorry the Carrie scene didn’t make it, but a bucket of pigs blood on a telekinetic psycho just doesn’t compare to a pipe that spews blood over infants at a birthday party or a nose bleed in a church that kills you as the concerned parishioners look on.

Tune in to my next blog when its all aboard for horror in my fourth moment of Halloween nostalgia.
Big D out.

Return of the dry heavies.

2010-10-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

Greetings Earthlings,
My second installment, although not chronological to my horror experiences, caught me at a rather delicate moment during my youthful days of drug indulgence and hence the memory is still difficult to shake.
Funnily enough it still remains one of the only Horror films I have never revisited. The memory has never been exorcised.... oh and it is one of the shittest films ever commited to celluloid. (Yeah, yeah they stopped using celluloid... blah blah)
The year is 1985 and anything goes... or rather went. Return of the Living Dead was of course a work of genius... No, no, thats not those crazy drugs talking, it can be enjoyed even now. Its no less than the horror film that spawned the now ubiquitous zombie catchphrase 'BRAINS...' A tongue-in-cheek romp, with almost indestructible, highly mobile, talking... yes, talking, zombies. I know, I know, it sounds absolutely shit. But if you havent seen it please give yourself a treat.

1988 saw a shakey sequel, Return of the Living Dead II which was... fun, having seen the first one.
Then of course we hit the 90's... The decade that taste forgot. Ill set the scene:
Our small, merry band excitedly rented the video, we got totally stoned, we ate a bargain bucket of KFC and settled down in a dark room to watch Return of the Living Dead III...

Throughout the film she adds to her 'look', screwing rusty springs into her skin and pushing septic thumb tacks through her face. I have spared you what I consider the most pointlessly graphic and nipple piercing scenes. Needless to say it wasnt what we expected. Now please, before I continue give me credit. I can handle gore. I can watch emergency room documentaries while eating spaghetti bolognaise with meatballs, but it was the sheer pointlessness of it. A young, beautiful girl slowly and sensually mutilating herself, graphically as the camera fades gently in and out of scene like some soft porn movie. Now I think self harm was invented in the 90s as well, and I was an angst teenager up to the age of about 25, so coupled with the weed and the KFC this scene caught me just right. Luckily I wasnt the first to fold. Darren, who, credit to him is among the most stoic of Horror viewers a friend could ever wish for, pardoned himself for a series of violent wretches in the garden. Of course vomitting can be a lot like laughing. When one starts...
Thankfully I escaped with but a few bouts of the dry heavies, but you'll be glad to know that come the conclusion of our communal garden foray we reconvened back in the darkly lit room to bravely finish the pile of crap that is Return of the Living Dead III never to speak of the moment ever again.
Please tune in to my next blog for nostalgic Halloween moment 3 when things start to get a little bit bloody...
Big D out.

Nun shall pass!

2010-10-17T08:48:00.000-07:00

Greetings Earthlings,
As the advent of Halloween rushes towards us like an over enthusiastic trick-or-treater, what better place to start my blog than with one of Big D's heaped dollops of retro horror. I say retro, as in common parlance it seems to mean something from quite a long time ago... but not that long ago... so, quite...but not.
Good. Im glad you're following me.
Five moments out of time Id like to share with you on the run up to Halloween. Five moments that shocked me at the time and left an indelible blot on my psyche. I can look back and laugh at them now, but the laugh stills sounds a little shaky and has a tinge of the uneasy.
Let me first take you back to 1978. A time, for me at least, of lost innocence never to be regained. My brother had not even began to twinkle in my dads eye, and beige Ford Cortinas were all the rage. I still like watching shows from that period for the nostalgia of the era and the seemingly empty London streets that now throng with every manner of life 7 days a week. Aah! My dear London lost...
It was 6 days before my sixth birthday and a series called Armchair Thriller aired an episode called 'Quiet as a nun'. It was before the traditional 'watershed', the 9pm demarkation point of family veiwing and adult themed TV, so I happily sat in front of the TV blissfully unaware of the horror which was about to assail me.

Okay. The spooky church. The trap door. The rocking chair... AND A FACELESS FUCKING NUN!
It was the fact that the show ended so suddenly after showing this stark and terrifying image, that amplified my own terror. I never saw the next episode, and so my boyhood years were haunted with fantasies of what a faceless nun would do to someone if ever it caught them.
I never watched the Sound of Music in quite the same way, and could never be alone in the same room with my nan's rocking chair again. At the age of 5 it could quite possibly be the moment that broke my horror hymen. But you've gotta love it. It is the very essence of horror and truly the stuff of nightmares.
Please tune in to my next blog for nostaligc Halloween moment 2 when my delicate sensibilties are churned and offended by a truly terrible film.

Big D out.