From A Whisper To A Scream

As I Recall -
Conrad is familiar with this as a song, by a Liverpool band.  Can't remember the name, from the early Eighties.  It'll come back to me by the end of today's blog, don't worry.
     It is also the title of a film, which is obviously - obviously! - a horror film.

No messing about with whispers here - straight into the screaming

     Narrated at beginning and end by Vincent Price, this is one of those four-in-one films, all set in the not very nice town of Oldfield.  The buzzwords on IMDB give you an idea of what it's about: "Tennessee bathtub neck-breaking cult film wraparound story".
     Okay, obligatory bad pun Intro over, let's get into the meat of the matter.  Or the tofu of the topic, for veggies.

Respect The Hyphen!
Conrad occasionally points out that the hyphen is not to be abused, confused, misused or held under running water. 
     "Why?"  I hear you call.  "Why is this, Conrad?  Do tell us!"
     Okay, if I illustrate my point by posting a picture of A Man-Eating Yorkie:

"Awwww! Isn't it cute!  Just look at it's widdle AAAAAHHH  DAMN!"

     I apologise for the smallness and cuteness of the ravening hound in question, but it's not easy to find photos of people being devoured by Yorkshire Terriers*.  Imagine such a photograph, please, before I give you A Man Eating Yorkie:

Hairy but not scary**

     You wouldn't pay good money for a press feature like that, would you?  After all, you could do it yourself.
     Remember!  Keep watching the skies - no, sorry, wrong film - keep respecting the hyphen!

Doctor Who Calendar 
Aaaand what's behind Door Number 7?  An Ood.   Here it*** is with it's friends: 

Ood - on the right

     As I recall, the Ood were a bit ambivalent: they were either 1) your unquestioning servants or 2) Trying to kill you.
     Also, they give the lie to Typhoo.  Remember their slogan?  "You only get an "OOO" with Typhoo".  Not now you don't.  You also get it with untrustworthy alien slaves, who are up to no gOod^.

Against The Day
Conrad has now reached Page 990 - only 94 left to go! The action has now jumped back across the Atlantic to Mexico and America, although not before Mr Pynchon ventures onto Corfu.
     I've mentioned before how he manages to describe England well, despite being a South Canadian, and he really nails the details of Corfu Town.  I know because I've been there, and he describes the promenade and the Venetian fort - and, most tellingly, the Corfiotes playing cricket.  This is taken to be perfectly natural by Corfiotes, despite it being an English sport.  Apparently it dates back to when the island was under British administration.

No!  Art Department, get it right!



Do I need to send Mister Hand around with a bamboo skewer?

There you go - cricketing Corfiotes

"Night At The Museum 3"
You see?  You see what you did?  You went and saw "Night At The Museum 2", didn't you?  You are responsible for it making a $27 million profit.  Yes, hang your head in shame!

Knight's Mausoleum.  Close enough

     Apparently, according to the tagline, Larry has "One last night to save the day".
     Quite frankly, Conrad hopes he fails utterly - the idea of a collection of inanimate objects coming to life and making whoopee gives one the shivers, does it not?
     No?  It's just me, then?

Here an aside. Insufficient for an individual post, but yesterday I hit 1,000 tweets on Twitter. I never bothered with it until I needed to publicise - excuse me - shamelessly publicise the blog.  But I do now.

Powers
This actually follows on from the above. Brian Bendis posts regularly on Twitter, comic book images usually but he also takes questions from the public.  He and Michael Oeming created the "Powers" comic book, of which Conrad has every copy.  Until I read Brian's "Words For Pictures" I didn't realise the cost implication of printing a comic in colour - you have to shift a lot more copies to make a profit.
     The first volume, or - as we^^ in the trade like to say, "trade paperback" - is entitled "Who Killed Retro Girl?" - Wonder Wifey saw the title and obviously - obviously! - asked the question "Well, who did kill Retro Girl?"

That is quite the question

     Conrad stumped.  I couldn't remember, which is one reason I was re-reading the book.
     I did come across one lovely little sequence that I'd missed first and second time round.  Walker and Pilgrim are walking back to the 55th Precinct police station, which is besieged by the press.  Walker flicks a coin to the vendor of a newspaper stand, picks up a paper, uses it to shield his face from the cameras - and in a separate strip from the reporters point of view you see him screening his face - then bins the paper once inside.  It's a splendid subtle touch.  Bravo Brian and Mike!

No more "Powers" pictures, go buy it if you want to know more.
Instead, here's a man defending himself with a sword^^^.

* Dave Kerry will insist these pictures don't exist, and if they do then those being eaten probably deserved it, and were even Lancastrians.
** Your viewpoint may differ.
*** Conrad not entirely sure on Ood gender so "it" will have to do.
^ Sorry, couldn't resist.
^^ Mister Hand would like to point out that this "we" exists only in Conrad's mind and nowhere else remotely connected with reality.
^^^Fish.

Doctor Who: The Rubbish Monsters

Ah, Yes, There Are Some
Let us look at BOOJUM!'s most recent post about Doctor Who.  I was concentrating on the lesser-known monsters whilst avoiding the rather - er - more rubbish ones, and keeping clear of the better-known-if-not famous ones.

What Goes Around -
 - comes around. A truism, yes, but nonetheless quite applicable.  Quite what a costume designer or a props person imagines as being UTTERLY TERRIFYING often end up as being of a mild frissonance to us watchers, if not actually laughable.  I give you the Atlanteans:

Special effects courtesy Spaghetti Hoops

    Actually I think these were the good guys, so you can come out from behind the cushion whilst still retaining your mocking attitude.

The Slyther
Ah, what lengths an author will go to create a monster discernible from all others, eh?  The length in this case being exactly 0.6657 millimetres long.
     This little rascal featured briefly in "Dalek Invasion of Earth", as the Dalek commandant's pet, whom he gave full run of the prison camps after dark.  The terrifying Slyther would attack on sight and kill remorselessly.
     Our heroes beat it to death with a couple of rocks, however, so either they got lucky or the camp residents lacked knowledge of the simplest weapon known to man.

Or - they died laughing

Paradise Towers
Conrad has to diverge from the contemporary attitude expressed about the Bertie-Bassett looky-likey monster in this series.  Here we have the villain:

Villain on the LEFT, thank you!

     I don't know how Cadbury didn't sue.  They didn't, and so we end up with a monster that all and sundry deem to be rubbish.
     Well excuse me!  I happen to feel that the inanimate becoming animate is extremely scary.  Not only that, this is a collation of confectionery* come to life - MURDEROUS life, if it comes to that.  What you might feel affection for when it arrives in a small plastic bag becomes akin to something out of H P Lovecraft when it walks on two legs and talks.

The Sea Devils
These characters are distant cousins of the Silurians, so one can expect a certain degree of reptilian hideousness about them.  What one does not expect is a cast of monsters descended from two wildly divergent species.  Behold:

The Parrot-Pig!

     It really does seem to combine both.  Thus it lacks dramatic tension.  Next!

Comedian Being Dramatic
As any critic can tell you, from conflict comes drama, as does also Peter Kay trying to prove the old adage that, inside every clown is a Hamlet except in this case it's more like a 3-inch cigar than a tragic protagonist.

Apparently no make-up was required.

     I believe this episode was the lowest rated since 1908 and the invention of the moving picture.

Out, Vile Jelly!
I Know we are used to seeing the Daleks clad in carborundum armour, mobile pepperpots that they are - but what happens when they go naturist?  There is an allusion to this in one of the Peter Davisons series, but we can view this essential matter a whole iteration earlier.  Behold the Doctor beating off an attack of chicken batter!

Terrifying!  Okay, scary.  Okay, an actor delivering The Method