Category Reviews

Stronger. You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid! :pistolwhip:

Last night, a group of Scientists of the Future ventured away from their home laboratories and went out to see the ‘Live For Everyone Not On PST’ Rifftrax of the worst movie ever made, Plan 9 From Outer Space. This fine movie stars the unintelligible Tor Johnson, Vampira (who doesn’t speak a word the entire film), and dead Bela Lugosi…undead, undead, undead. No, really. All of the footage of the real Bela Lugosi was shot without any script in mind, and Plan 9 was written to accommodate all the footage they’d shot of Bela in the graveyard in his Dracula costume. When Ed Wood wanted ‘Bela’ to interact with anyone else in the movie, he dressed up his wife’s chiropractor in a cape and made him cover his face with his arm whenever his front side was visible to the camera.

Although it was filmed in black and white, last night the movie was shown colorized, much like the Ted Turner versions of classic films. Now, I will fully admit to owning Plan 9 and watching it more than any one person should EVER view it, but in color it was a completely different animal. In order to incorporate the footage that had already been shot of Bela Lugosi and the stock footage, the movie jumps from night to day to night to day, and in color, those leaps are made much more glaringly obvious. Not that it was subtle in the first place. The police will come screaming down the dirt road to the cemetary in bright sunshine, and when they park the car in the Cemetary of Eternal Darkness, it’s pitch black. One of the female characters was attacked by ‘Bela’ in her home, so she ran outside to the pitch black cemetary. There, she encountered Vampira, screamed, ran out to the road where it was now twilight, and passed out. Bela then swishes his cape at her menacingly in a bright fall afternoon and stalks away, which cuts to the woman being rescued by a cornfed man, ass first, at twilight again. It’s a horrendous bit of genius.

Also particularly awesome is the general who commands his stock footage army of the Korean war from in front of a wrinkly sheet. It’s VERY convincing. And by very, I mean, ‘not at all’.

The RiffTrax crew did a great job, Jonathan Coulton was awesome (as usual), and all in all it was much more fun than a visit to Fort Worth (sorry, Fort Worth).

My friend, you have seen this incident, based on sworn testimony. Can you prove that it didn’t happen? Perhaps, on your way home, someone will pass you in the dark, and you will never know it… for they will be from outer space.

Ranger Brad, I’m a scientist. I don’t believe in anything.

I love trolling the mega-clearance shelves at Half-Price Books, because I never know what manner of awesomeness or ridiculousness I’ll run into for a dollar.

This time, I struck gold with ‘Vampires: The Occult Truth’ by Konstantinos, which purports that vampires are not only real, but there are several different types and you need to be familiar with all of them in order to protect yourself. As early on as page two, the book has such laugh-until-you-cry statements as “I consider those who are interested in the occult to be the scientists of the future.” Not just scientists. Scientists of the future.

Later on in the book, he reveals a number of letters he’s gotten from ‘mortal blood drinkers of the present day’ also known as big giant freakshows.

I would like to tell you of my vampiric lifestyle. You may print this letter under the condition that you do not reveal my true identity in your book. Where I live, word travels quickly and I would most probably be ridiculed and forced out of town. For that reason, you can call me the Vampire Jeremy.

Why do I consider myself to be a vampire–a predator? I kill animals and drink their blood, that’s why. Don’t confuse me with the types of so-called vampires that you hear about today. They do not impress me. They do not hunt their prey, but only stick hypodermic needles into themselves to trade blood. They are not hunters.

To obtain my sustenance I mainly kill mammals, but I will also drink the cold blood of reptiles. I suppose that my drinking from lower creatures than humans makes me a little like the character ‘Renfield’ from the novel Dracula. But I am not insane.

I wait for immortality and drink of the lower creatures until a noble undead will one day take me as his or her own. I wait and believe that night will come, and have prepared for it.

There are letters from vampires who talk about getting badly sunburned while playing minigolf. There are letters from vampires who try to contact immortal vampires through ouija boards. There are letters from single-mom vampires. Some claim to possess spooooooky powers. They nearly all insist they are not crazy like all of those OTHER nutcases who think they’re vampires.

Here’s an excerpt from another pricelessly funny letter:

I will tell you one more thing: Do not fool yourselves, dear friends. You do not make a discovery here with me or any others of my species. We are as old as time itself. The books and films are simply what they are. Most do not even scrape the surface of the contents of our being. So do not try to understand. That would be like lifting eternal veils of a faceless bride.

I can pretty well claim that this is one of the best things I’ve ever spent a dollar on. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go print some new business cards. Mellzah Dildarian, Scientist Of The Future has a nice ring to it.

Red, White, & Dead

zombie On Friday, I met up with poetrix618 and amazoni to apply varying levels of gore to our faces for the record-breaking zombie gathering. Both Anne and Tonya made special shirts to wear–Anne’s said “I digeat geeks”, and Tonya’s was a play on the Subway ‘eat fresh’ ads: 6768_99530448939_504738939_2156330_6768098_n 6768_99530453939_504738939_2156331_5589014_n   Me? I decided I’d just go for disgusting makeup. We had a bit of fun staggering around Anne’s neighborhood, flinging blood on ourselves and on the ground near the mailbox, which is an appropriate location for any massacre, frankly. After this, we all loaded into Tonya’s car, realized we’d need to stop to buy some water, scared the crap out of some people in a Bartell’s, got on the highway in the wrong direction, and then finally started making our way to Fremont. As we got into the city, I rolled down my window and proceeded to groan at every person, car, and bicyclist we passed, and did not get ONE REACTION. NOT ONE. Maybe zombies ARE played out. 6768_99530498939_504738939_2156339_4567793_n We waited in line to register to count toward the Guinness total for about an hour, behind the most annoying child on earth and his equally annoying mother. The kid was way into the moaning thing, but it was more of the “mooooooooooooom I’m sooooooooooooooo thirsty” interspersed with loud shouty moans and his mom was dressed up like some sort of goth pirate, which, as of the last time I checked, was not the theme. This, combined with the heat, combined with the blinding sunshine and lack of glasses hence lack of focusing ability, helped reveal my true, unpleasantly dictatorial nature. I pantomimed kicking the child in the back of the head. I loudly dropped F-bombs. I noticed that Anne’s shirt was too clean and demanded she lay on the ground and do a dirt angel. NOW. NOW!! What choice did she have but to comply? 6768_99530508939_504738939_2156340_7930687_n After we finally got registered, we were given nametags. For the rest of the day, I was to be known as Moses, or at least my right boob was to be known as Moses, anyway. I, for my part, perhaps derived a bit too much pleasure from shouting “LET MY ZOMBIES GO!”. Repeatedly. 6768_99530528939_504738939_2156344_3386072_n Next, we had our photo taken by the fine folks at NightZero, and though they have not yet processed our photos, I will post it when they do. To repay them, I did my very best to try to knock down their set. As it turns out, I shouldn’t probably hang my body weight off of anything. Who knew? *edit*Oh hey, six months later, I am finally adding in the NightZero picture! 4225430017_c5a614ba00_o   6768_99530548939_504738939_2156346_6754928_n Now, this might be my true, unpleasant nature revealing itself again, but these girls? I HATE THEM. This is a zombie walk, not yet another opportunity for you to try to look sexy. Ohhhhhh loook, I’m a faerieieiey wandering amongst the zombies and I bet they all think I look so totally delicious that maybe by the end of the day they’ll make me a faerieieiey zombaiey  but if not then I still look, like, so totally cute because I need validation and whoa I just went off on a tangent there.  WE ARE NOT ATTEMPTING FOR THE WORLD RECORD IN FAIRIES, LADIES. Muttering loudly, I made my way over to the parking lot across the street to wait for the next wave of zombie walking. 6768_99530523939_504738939_2156343_1027595_n  6768_99530538939_504738939_2156345_7323580_n   6768_99530568939_504738939_2156350_46496_n 6768_99530573939_504738939_2156351_678284_n 6768_99530578939_504738939_2156352_8145832_n 6768_99530583939_504738939_2156353_6770302_n Look, ma, I’m gross!   6768_99530598939_504738939_2156356_7969742_n 6768_99530613939_504738939_2156359_5015847_n 6768_99530628939_504738939_2156361_6362122_n 6768_99530633939_504738939_2156362_4236112_n 6768_99530643939_504738939_2156363_6178836_n     We started the walk, and the poor sap driving this car picked the wrong time to be law-abiding and stop at the red. His car got swarmed, zombies were reaching in through his windows, crawling up his hood, and getting blood everywhere.   The zombies were all about general mayhem. We reached through patio gates at patrons trying to peacefully eat meals. Fake blood was smeared all over the window of the business having the ‘White Sale’. My favorite tactic was pressing my face up against the window until someone inside noticed me. At every intersection when we swarmed into the street, cars would get mobbed. In one, there was an unfortunate girl in the back seat who was clearly terrified, getting down onto the floor, covering her eyes, willing everyone to go away.     Anne, Tonya and I ended up getting separated and met at our previously agreed-upon ‘Zombie Lost & Found’. We were there when they started up another round of zombie walking, and this time I focused on photographing the hordes.   6768_99530653939_504738939_2156364_1963939_n 6768_99530658939_504738939_2156365_6461309_n 6768_99530678939_504738939_2156369_7868842_n 6768_99530683939_504738939_2156370_1520329_n 6768_99530688939_504738939_2156371_6742444_n 6768_99530703939_504738939_2156374_1728249_n 6768_99530713939_504738939_2156376_6870595_n 6768_99530728939_504738939_2156379_5447568_n 6768_99530753939_504738939_2156382_460458_n 6768_99530763939_504738939_2156384_646440_n 6768_99530768939_504738939_2156385_8228041_n 6768_99530773939_504738939_2156386_6239335_n 6768_99530778939_504738939_2156387_2433981_n 6768_99530788939_504738939_2156389_1962271_n This guy’s costume was completely awesome. He had a pole attached to his back, which dangled a brain in front of him, which not only motivated him to keep moving, but also caused zombies to swarm him. 6768_99530798939_504738939_2156391_3638787_n 6768_99530803939_504738939_2156392_5354010_n 6768_99530793939_504738939_2156390_5555246_n The King might be an undead zombie, but it’s all good. So am I. Here, you can see me surreptitiously trying to lick him. After this, we all decided we were pretty people-d out, and didn’t want to stick around for Shawn of the Dead. We ended up going to Pegasus in full makeup to have dinner–the language barrier was perhaps a bit too much for the waitress, who decided she did not want to spend a single second longer with us than she absolutely had to. I discovered that it’s difficult to eat when you’ve got a bunch of latex around your mouth. And then…things got silly. 6768_99530808939_504738939_2156393_2836985_n I know you must all want to make out with me now. Not all at once, please.