What A Horrorshow!

This Word Might Be Familiar If You've Read "A Clockwork Orange"

Which I have, of course - obviously! - because it's part of the invented 'Nadsat' language that Anthony Burgess created, as a Romanised version of Cyrillic and Ruffian.  The original Ruffian is pronounced "Khorosho", which is close enough to 'Horrorshow' to not make much difference.  Art!

     Take it from me, the film is a whole lot more entertaining than the novel, because Stan The Man had a way with scripts and storyboarding.  I recall an anecdote related by the avuncular and jolly R. Lee Ermey, about a car journey he took with Stan.  Art!

Real life.  Not cinema.

     Stan was driving, and simultaneously discussing with Lee the landscape outside the car, and how he'd be shooting and lighting and editing it, at which point he drove the car into a ditch alongside the road.  Highway safety, children: keep your eyes on the road.  Shaken not stirred, both got out, which is when Stan continued about how he'd be shooting and lighting and editing.  The car crash mattered not one iota to him.

      ANYWAY what I wanted to do in this Intro is get back to the subject matter of "Chernobyl Diaries", because if I've had to endure it, then you can shoulder some of the pain, too.  Art!

     Please forgive the desaturated image, this is all filmed at night with very little contrast or relief.  Here you see the survivors getting hold of a map, which might then benefit themselves yet not us the audience.  There will be a lot of shots that follow which might as well be in a black and white film, because - well, it's a low budget horror film, what else can you expect?  Art!

     The group stumbles across Natalie, whom had been in the upturned van.  Do they bother to debrief her?  Ask questions?  Fill in the gaps?  Of course they don't, because they're all idiots.  Art!

     Apologies for the execrable quality here, this is the best I could do at short notice and with the lighting as low as it was.  Here you see Natalie, at starboard, and A Mysterious Intruder at port.  This goes past so quickly it was only on the third viewing that I noticed AMI.  Art!

     The Mysterious Intruder has apparently second-guessed where the survivors will travel to and when, and is lying in wait.  Telepathy and telekinesis are real!

     Okay, settle down now.  Art!

     Allow me to elucidate with a better picture.  Art!

     What is this apparition?  Who knows!  For by the time they hesitatingly approach it, Natalie has vanished, and so has the Small Infant Apparition.  Which has never appeared in the film so far, nor does it ever again.  One might almost say "It's In The Script" as an explanation.  What are the chances that A Mysterious Intruder might get up those stairs, SILENTLY abduct Natalie and get away without being seen or heard?  About 0.001%, hence this Small Infant Apparition.  Art!

     This is where Michael, the Australian who ended up with a gun, gets scragged.  The other trio are trying to close the door, so Mike, in true horror film fashion, doesn't get inside to pull the door closed.  No, he remains outside, pushing it, thus being at the mercy of the marauding hordes that have killed Uri and Chris and Natalie.  Ooops.  Art!

    Talking of Uri, I think this is supposed to be him, except it's upside down and in poor contrast, so who knows?  He also appears to be a whole lot more intact than we were led to believe, given the exceedingly long blood trails that led to his Geiger counter and gun.  Again, no explanation about how his body ends up here, bar that refrain I maintain - Telepathy and Telekinesis.  I'm pretty certain it wasn't Chris, or his brother would be having a significant emotional event.  Once again, do not expect logic or common sense in a horror film, because it would be over within ten minutes were it to reflect reality.  Art!

     

James Blish as Captain Blish.

     Conrad cannot find a quote but is certain that he knows Ol' Blishy stated that a horror film would be over inside ten minutes IF THE CHARACTERS BEHAVED NORMALLY.  Which sounds true, even if it isn't.

     

Garbledegook

Pronounced the same as the novel.  Conrad recently held forth about speaking nonsense, and as a consequence mentioned Sir Stanley Unwin.  Art!

     Sorry, 'Sir Stanley Unwin' brings up unrelated nonsense about a person who established a publishing house.

     So!  Stan The Man - er - that is, Stan The Garblededook* Man - had, as his schtick, the ability to pronounce what sounded like scientific jargon but which was actually utter nonsense.  Don't knock it, this is how people earned an honest crust in the days before teh Interwebz, and if you doubt it just look up 'ventril

      ANYWAY he managed to parlay this Scientimodovalk successfully into a Gerry Anderson show.  Art!

    Behold "The Secret Service", which had live action alongside puppetry, waaay before "UFO".  It detailed the exploits of Father Unwin, who worked for B.I.S.H.O.P. - "British Intelligence Services Headquarters Operation Priest" and whom could be relied upon to spout convincing gibberish on cue.  There were a couple of novels based on this series, and Conrad - as you may have guessed - had one of them.  

     Gibberish.  It has fans.

A Matter Of Money

I beg your pardon!  What I originally wanted to post about was how two film genres are reliably able to make a profit, which is to say 1)  Pornography and 2) Horror.  The first because there are almost no overheads, and the second because whilst there might be overheads, they don't amount to much.  Certainly not compared to the income.  Art!

     They have probably gimmicked the mask, which used to be one of William Shatner - see Item Two above lest ye doubt honest Conrad.  What was the outlay for "Halloween"?

     $325,000.

     What did it make back at the box office, globally?

     $70,000,000.

     This is why horror films continue to be made.  If you have a problem with that, go take it up with John Carpenter.  And Jamie L. Curtis**.

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is getting to go a-endangering, without the support or otherwise of Ace.

     This story was repeated at the next township, Birmingham, and at the next, New Hampton.  Given that the number of refugees moving on had declined successively at each town, the Doctor knew he couldn’t be far from discovering Alex.

     Which they did in Lancashire Landing.     Rather, he discovered them:  they had landed in a quiet street composed of the usual glass-panelled houses, astride a beaten earth track.  A few casual travellers gawped at the strange appearance of a blue police box in their quiet coastal fishing village.  No sooner had both Terry and the Doctor departed and locked the timeship doors than a freckled youth with tousled red hair came racing down the road to meet them.

     ‘I heard you!’ he yelled, skidding to a stop seconds before slamming into them.

     ‘Very good,’ said the Doctor, drily amused.  ‘Listen, you two.  Arc One is coming to land, in the desert north of New Eucla.  Thre they’ll be pretty much stranded in the outback without transport.’

     Alex’s jaw hung open when he realised that the sphere was being de-orbited.

     ‘Coming in to land!  From orbit?’ he gasped.  Terry suddenly realised that this feat must be more difficult than the Doctor let on.  He’d implied that it would be successful, not that it was almost impossible.

   Pretty sure those littoral communities actually exist in the here and now.

Once Again If Only We Had A T.A.R.D.I.S.

Yes yes yes, we are best mates with the Doctor, it's just he's always absent when you need him the most.  Art!

     Ah, if only we had the ability to see two weeks into the future.

     Come back to BOOJUM! on 14th June.  Then you will be able to see Donald Judas Trump mimicking Stanley Unwin.

*  Pronounced as in the novel.

**  Whom is not as hot as in 1978, but still above room temperature