Okay, I admit it. Now and then I take a walk on the normal side and check out Cuteoverload.com. It’s not something I’m proud of, but sometimes a ridiculously cute little bunny or kitty can put a smile on my face. I was in the middle of giving into this need when I was rewarded with something that’s a little more my style. I’ve made no secret of my love for all things Hitchcock, so when I came across this Peep remake of The Birds I was a very happy Scary Jane. I love the imagination of people. I personally hate peeps. I think they taste disgusting, but they sure make for some cool dioramas. This one was done by Jill Goebel of Alexandria, VA and was a semifinalist in the fourth annual Washington Post Peeps Diorama Contest.
Found the coolest Cuckoo Clock ever! If you loved Stanley Kubrick”s The Shining, you will love this Shining Cuckoo Clock. If you are actually more of a fan of the later TV version, then you won’t like this and should probably hang your head in shame and go away. Every hour Jack breaks through the door and says, “Here’s Johnny” followed by Wendy’s scream. Who wouldn’t want to wake up to that sound every hour during the night? I think I’d get tired of that after a while, but as an alarm clock it would be totally cool. This clock was designed by Chris Dimino. Unfortunately there was just one made, so not much chance of getting my hands on one.
Filexd under:
News/Articles,
TV/Movies — Tags:
awards,
Halloween,
horror,
monsters,
movies,
oscars,
review,
vampires,
video,
werewolf,
witches,
zombies — jane @ 12:48 pm
I finally got around to watching the rest of the Oscars. I was out that night and only caught the big awards at the end. I had heard that there was finally a tribute to horror movies and I was anxious to see it. Now that I have seen it I have some complaints. First off why were Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart presenting this? I mean, really, are they today’s only answer to modern horror movies? I liked the movies, but they are pretty tame in the horror department. Why not have the queen of scream, Jamie Leigh Curtis or Mr. Nightmare himself Robert Englund? Heck, why not Bruce Campbell? I know they wanted to pull in the viewers by getting the Twilight kids, but use them for something else. There were much better choices for this presentation. My other big beef with this was the opening statement that the Oscars had not honored a horror movie since The Exorcist, 37 years ago. Really? What about the numerous awards that have been given out since to horror movies for visual effects, sound, makeup, costumes etc. Do these not count? Tell that to the winners. So, if these don’t count, what about all of the awards given to Silence of the Lambs? Best actor, actress, picture, director, screenplay were all awarded to that which is much more than what was awarded to The Exorcist. They only received awards for sound and screenplay. I guess you could argue that Silence of the Lambs was not a full on horror film, but the Academy included it in the montage, so that argument goes out the window. Putting all of that aside, I was thrilled to see the Academy giving horror movies their due. You can’t deny that the general public loves horror movies and it was about time that they paid homage to that.
As usual a trip over to the Hot Topic website rewards me with a cool new find. They have a Bloody Hands Water Bottle that is just too cool. Got me thinking though. Why bother buying one for $7.99 when you can make your own? How many of us have been left with bloody hands after a night of fun? Why not find one of your own water bottles you probably have lying around and wipe those bloody hands on it. Let it dry and ta da! You have your very own Bloody Water Bottle personalized just for you. Every time you take a sip you’ll be reminded of that fun and crazy night. If you find yourself with bloody hands often, why not make some for your family and friends for Christmas? Just don’t bother making me one because I have plenty of my own.
Finally got to see Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant last night. We had meant to see it when it came out, but with a small child in the house it can sometimes be hard to get away. It didn’t help that the movie pretty much disappeared after just a couple of weeks. I had read the bad reviews, but I didn’t care. It looked like the perfect movie for me. I went into it with very low expectations and was very pleasantly surprised. I really enjoyed it and the more I think about it I like it even more. I think this movie definitely suffered from much to long of a title. Movies with really long titles don’t usually do as well at the movies. With some exceptions I’m sure. The movie was based on the first book of a series, which I have not read. I plan to now. I liked the feel of the movie right away. It had a sense of humor, but still delivered some scary scenes and even a rather brutal scene. The town that the movie was set in was obviously supposed to be very vanilla and I like the fact that everyone wore pastel colors all of the time. Very “I shop at JCrew” kind of look. I just think they should have played that up a little more because I’m not sure it came across enough. Lots of great stars, too. It was also refreshing to see vampires portrayed in a more ugly way instead of all brooding and sparkly. Not all vampires are handsome. You can tell that they meant this to be the first of many, but unfortunately it did not do well, so I’m thinking it’s not in the cards. Too bad. It’s a world that transferred really well to film. Scary Hubby and I always tend to like the movies/TV shows that no one else does. I’m looking forward to exploring it more in the books, though.
As I have stated before I am not as crazy about the Twilight series as everyone else seems to be. I mean the books were decent and so far the movies have been fun. I am just not the biggest fan of some of the changes that Stephenie Meyer made to vampire lore. Anyway, I did come across this Vampire Instructions T-Shirt that made me giggle a little and thought I’d pass it on. I wish it wasn’t so Twilight-ish and more general, but it’s still funny. I would assume this t-shirt is meant for the non-vampire person in the relationship (Bella, Buffy, Sookie et al). Obviously some of them need a little more instruction for their newly acquired vampire than others. Maybe if the Cullens had given Bella this t-shirt for her birthday instead she wouldn’t have cut her finger and started that whole mess.
In my quest to catch up on some of the scary movies released the last few years I saw The Eye from 2008 today. Yet another remake of an Asian film. Aren’t they all lately? I’ve been selling books for years and it constantly amazes me that Hollywood insists on remaking perfectly good films instead of mining more of the wealth of books out there. I have not seen the original of this movie called Gin gwai, but from what I can understand it’s much better than the remake. Very predictable. It’s about a blind girl who gets a cornea transplant and starts to realize that she can see dead people. Very similar to a movie from 1994 called Blink, which was much better in my opinion. It was good for some jumpy scares in the beginning, but otherwise I would not highly recommend it. Maybe a way to pass an afternoon, I guess. I’ve seen better remakes for sure, but all in all I wish they’d stop doing it. Most of the time they are not very successful anyway, so why bother.
Since it was cold and snowy here over the weekend Scary Hubby and I decided to see some of the movies that we hadn’t seen in the theater. We are huge movie fans in this house, but with a 7 year old you end up not seeing a lot of the scarier ones until they are released on DVD/satellite. This time we saw “The Uninvited“, “The Haunting of Molly somebody or other” and “Lady in White“. I realize the last one is from 1988, but I had never seen it for some reason. All of these were scary, but not particularly bloody, which I like. More mystery than horror, I would almost say. Anyway, I’ll start with “Lady in White“. It was okay, but quite cheesy. It honestly felt more like a made for TV movie. The acting was decent and the story was interesting, but the music and special effects, even for 1988, were not good. I’m still rather confused as to why they called it “Lady in White” when she was hardly in the movie. I guess it’s a scary title. Doesn’t every town have some legend about a lady or woman in white? On to “The Haunting of Molly…“. Not worth it to look it up to get the correct name. It’s about a girl that’s about to turn 18 and finds out about her devilish future. The movie had me interested in the beginning, but I soon realized where this was going and that there was no way out for her. It was okay, but predictable in my opinion. Glad I didn’t spend the money to see it. Finally, there’s “The Uninvited“. This was definitely the better of the three. We were prepared for it not to be good, though. I’d heard that it was a remake of a Korean movie called “A Tale of Two Sisters” and that it did not live up to that movie’s supposed brilliance. Since we had not seen that movie though, we had nothing to base the story on and just went with it. We both enjoyed it very much! It started out as pretty run of the mill and I have to confess I was playing on my laptop in the beginning with only one eye on the movie. It wasn’t long before the movie had my full attention. It ended up being one of those movies that you go back and re-watch a few scenes to put it all together. I also noticed that we have continued to discuss it even though we saw it back on Saturday night. That’s always a good sign for me. A lot of the reviews mentioned big holes in the story, but if you pay attention that really is not the case. It was, by no means, the best thriller I had ever seen, but it was definitely worth watching. Basically it’s about a girl that tried to commit suicide after her ill mother was killed in a fire and now comes back to live with her family and her Father’s new fiance, who was also her Mother’s nurse. Give it a chance, if you really pay attention you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
This week’s T-Shirt Tuesday is the I Live Under Your Bed t-shirt. I don’t know about you, but what’s living under my bed is a lot scarier than that guy! It reminds me of Cat’s Eye which was a movie that had three scary stories and they were all linked together by this cat. In “The General”, which I think was the third story, there is a little girl played by Drew Barrymore that is being terrorized by this tiny horrible troll that lives in her room. Technically it does not live under her bed if I remember correctly, but it does spend a good amount of time under there. Anyway, he’s quite scary and the cat saves Drew Barrymore from him. It was scary when I was young and when I think about a monster under my bed that troll is the one I think of.
Filexd under:
Accessories,
Art,
Decor,
Nature,
Outdoors,
TV/Movies,
Weird Stuff — Tags:
Art,
bees,
garden,
horror,
movies — jane @ 6:23 pm
I know I mostly cover scary things on this blog, but once in a while I come across something gross that’s worth talking about. Actually this is just beyond creepy and gives me the heebie jeebies. Artist Aganetha Dyck works with honeybees to create sculptural objects that end up coated and filled with precisely formed honeycomb structures. This just gives me the complete creeps. It reminds me of those old horror movies from the ’70s that were about killer bees taking over the world. Killer Bees, The Bees, The Swarm etc. I just remember in one of those movies somebody being found dead covered in honeycomb. That scared the crap out of me as a child and gave me nightmares for weeks. I really see no reason anyone would ever want to put this art on display, but maybe that’s just me. I swear I was just looking at the pictures again and my gag reflex kicked in. ICK!
Follow Jane on Twitter
Follow Jane on Facebook