The Right Tool For The Job; Hammer Or Saw???

I feel sorry for the modern generation. They are missing out on something special, and it's all thanks to the SAW films. That overly convoluted gore filled multi-sequeled beast with its surgically correct gore and twisting narrative, that seemingly introduces new character's in each film that we are supposed to accept as hiving been a part of the narrative from the start despite there obvious absence in earlier episodes.

The SAW films are generally classed as being horror, or an off shoot of horror described as goreno or torture porn. To be honest i would just call them torture because boy are they boring. There's no real suspense just spectacle. These films exist to just push the boundary of taste and the make up artists art, and hats off to the effects team they have successfully managed to pull off what i am imagining are some of the most realistic effects in regards to damage to the human body that i have ever seen in a film. Not being a doctor or surgeon I'm guessing at this but I'm sure most laymen would say the same thing. the problem is i know everyone is going to die, there's no suspense by now we know that each character placed in the ingenious killing machine will die, it will be messy and it will be photo realistic, all we've got to do as an audience is sit back and watch the meat fly.

And for me that's where the modern generation is missing out. its a mixture of technology and relaxation of censorship that have allowed what i regard as the death of the true horror film to take place! i know these are strong words but now all people seem to be interested with when it comes to a horror film is, how bloody is it and how many deaths there are. It's a sad state of affairs.

Now i for one am against censorship i always have been, i believe that an adult human being can decide for himself what they can and cannot see. we are capable of making our own decisions. however the softening of censorship has led to a breed of film makers who are lazy, they look at the old masterpieces of the past and think that they are about blood and gore, they take new technology and create films that are little more than explosions in a butchers shop. This all started in the eighties with the advent of the home video, where cheap horror films with little or no story would be made, films that were no more than killings and tits. Admittedly amidst these films there are rare gems. Master strokes like 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' (yeah i know 70s) Surprisingly low on gore; in fact there's practically none, instead this film is about atmosphere, it creates an air of tension and unease through the use camera work, sound, and crazy set design. As well as the actors performances. This film is pure horror. However I'm sure if you were to show it to a member of the modern generation they would just say 'i prefer the remake its got more blood in it' completely missing the point. My appreciation of what i would call a horror film i believe comes from my childhood.


Now don't get me wrong I'm not against blood and gore, but i feel it is being used in the wrong way now, if you fill a film with blood and guts it's no longer shocking or exciting its just there. It's the Babara Windsor's boob effect. As a young Male i appreciated the moment in 'Carry on Camping' and 'Carry On Dick' where Barbara Windsor's boobs make a brief screen appearance, the fact that it is just a fleeting glimpse made it better. I would have been downright bored of her milk pillows if she spent the film flashing them at every inopportune moment, what would be the point. SAW has that problem each SAW film starts off with someone getting butchered, there's no build up to anything, it's just a case of "here you go have some blood and suffering straight away, don't worry to much there will be more on the way in a moment after we've gotten a bit of the boring laughable plot development out of the way. Please bare with us thank you for you re time".

when i was growing up we had the video nasties list (Texas Chainsaw Massacre was on this) and an overly militant BBFC striving to do their very best to stop the degradation of modern society through film violence, censoring films left right and centre; essentially ruining them, and leaving most of us little choice but to watch the films that they deemed acceptable for us to watch, this ultimately led me into the arms of Hammer.
The hammer films had suffered in their time being classified as X but they were left alone no scenes were cut, which was what was important to me.

The Hammer films still had Gore and they still used it for spectacle but what was more important was the way that they used it. They used it for the shock moment. Here you would have thirty minuets of nothing then all of a sudden Frankensteins monster was shot in the face, his eye exploding in lurid red blood, giving me a thrill and a shock at the same time. instead in SAW our shock is how increasingly nasty the traps are. I spent many a happy night as a youth watching Hammer films in the early hours of the morning broadcast on BBC2 as a part of some horror season. Marveling at the stories and the suspense enhanced by the presence of the odd flourish of bloody violence. Dracula's fangs dripping are a more effective tool of fear than a man having his arms and legs sequentially broken by a large metal contraption.

But forget Hammer for now what about Halloween, a pure masterpiece, lots of killings, but almost no blood. Instead the violence of the acts is where the horror is. The relentlessness of Micheal Myers, the fact that he just appears anywhere. That's a more modern horror and more pure than a SAW film. We lost our way somewhere and i think that the modern generation will never know what a true horror film is, because when you present them with one they'll merely turn around and say "not much blood is there"?

Its sad : (

Braaaaiiiiinnnssss

Once more I find myself pretty much bored and frustrated with my life, which I'm led to believe in this modern world is not such an unusual thing. However I wonder if my remedy for this is in line with most peoples.

More often than not I find my mind wandering to a better world; a world where the dead have risen from the grave to snack on the living ala George Romero. I have been pretty much in love with the zombie genre ever since i was fifteen when I bought the first Resident evil on the PlayStation. Having garnered a fair amount of obsessive love for this game, in an incredibly short amount of time I was lucky enough to see what would become my favourite film a week later courtesy of BBC2. The film was 'Dawn of the dead'. Ive pretty much never looked back. My obsessive DVD collection is proof of this, its just a shame that Romero is the only one that seems to get it right!

But I think this love has warped my mind because ever since then I've found myself with the same fantasy, and 'Dead Rising' on the xbox has just made matters worse!

Seriously sit down for a moment and think about it! how much easier would life be if your biggest worry was your neighbours beating down your door to munch on your face! Yes there would be no law, no order, and each day would be a struggle for survival, but there would also be no taxes, hell there would be no money. How many of your worries come down to money, or pointless shit that you want but don't really need. That Gucci handbag, or pair of Nike's; wouldn't be important. what you'd need would be purely utilitarian. A good pair of boots and a 12 gauge pump action Mosberg.

More importantly you would never have to go to work again. you wouldn't spend your precious life sitting in that cubicle all day in fear of a boss who you know is several levels below you on the intelligence scale. You'd never need to spend another morning explaining to 9 different line managers why you didn't fill out the TS report. Or manning that till station; smiling at the vacuous masses, pretending your happy to serve them while they treat you like dirt. Spending youre days wishing you could do something better, planning a way to have an adventure or improve yourself in some way. Instead you'll be surviving fighting, getting fit getting healthy, you'd have a reason to live.


I know I'm not thinking about the downsides to this your family and friends will more than likely be killed only to rise to try and kill and eat you, that's gonna mess you up I'll agree. especially when your only option will be to fill aunt Flo's face with lead or die screaming, but you'd soon get over it if you really wanted to survive.

I sometimes find myself wondering what weapons would I use, and where would I hold up if I had to? I have actually learnt where there are two shooting clubs in close proximity to me just in case, so I'll know where to get a fire arm if I need one. a good tip for you all, zoo's will generally have SPAS Shotguns on site with slugs, just in case an elephant or rhino goes ape shit.

I often find myself looking at railings while walking down the road assessing whether they would make good pikes to hold of the dead at bay; excellent for use in fortifying a building. And sometimes I view household objects with purposes they where not intended for, I think dead rising has something to do with that. I often wonder if some of those combinations would actually work?

So next time your sitting in that cubicle, thinking about how much you like to go to India to find yourself, spare a moment to think about what you would do if the dead could walk I think you'll find it a more rewarding fantasy because lets be serious, there's as much chance of that happening as there is of you actually going to India. but you can never be to careful so I'm off to duct tape a blender to a broom i gotta keep myself prepared!

It Burns So Good

I find myself obsessed with Wasabi I don’t seem to be able to get enough of the stuff. I’m not pretentious or anything but I decided to try one of those sushi packs they sell in your local supermarket, instead of opting for the usual ploughman’s sandwich. I wasn’t overly fussed with the main part of the meal, but that little green sachet that came packed with the fish shaped bottle of soy sauce, proved itself to contain something truly amazing. Delicious mouth burning Wasabi.

This obsession has proved to be sufficient enough for me to trawl through the net to find a good cheap source of the fiery substance. In the end I found myself on: www.japancentre.com/. An amazing website on which I ended up spending a lot more than I intended. My original plan was to make myself all the way to the check out with just a tube of wasabi. However this didn’t happen and I soon found my basket full of noodles, snack foods and sake : )

Wasabi is amazing stuff i think my love of it will stay for at least a while. Its burn is more like mustard than chili effecting the nose not the mouth, a plus to this is that the burn can be washed away with water unlike chili which is oil based. Wasabi is tastiest when you mix it with Soy Sauce and create Wasabi-joyu a salty spicy taste sensation. I just have to find something to eat it with now : (

Udon Noodles

Shrimp peanut thingies (apparently really popular bar food)

Wasabi Paste

Wasabi Peas (also popular bar food, i hate pea's but could Wasabi be so great that it can make pea's nice?)

Noodle Cup (Basicly Japanese pot noodle)

Muddy fields are supposed to be fun!

So once again I found myself at reading festival albeit only for the one day this year, and by the end I couldn’t help but feel the shadow of old father time chasing me down. I’ll be honest I was finding it hard to be excited about going this year, and this was soon enforced when I decided to check on the line up, only to discover that it was dominated by shit.

Finding the line up to be less than I expected is fine and there’s no problem with that, I’ve felt that way on previous years; however that was not the problem. The problem was that I didn’t know a lot of the new bands that’s were playing! This is not a good feeling, especially when I’ve gone on previous years and been the one to go and see all the bands that none of my friends had ever heard of. Instead I found myself confronted by my younger friend, talking about the bands she’d seen while I’d been wandering around the arena aimlessly waiting for Weezer and Blink 182. Not only had she seen bands she liked, she also stated that there were a few clashes so she’d missed some bands; but that wasn’t a problem as she was going to see the band later in the year. Now you think that’s bad I then of all crazy things found myself saying ‘aren’t you cold wearing that’…WTF!!! Yes I was concerned about her well being but seriously, when I think about it I feel like I was just criticising and basically being a bore.

These truly are bad times.

But then I thought maybe not. When I looked at the acts she went to see they were on the dance tent! I’ve never liked dance music, with the exception of Crystal castles I would happily see the demise of the genre and all of it niches. So I was safe on that account. Then I recalled standing by the main stage to see a huge crowd gathering for Limp Bizkit a crowd consisting of people of all ages but mainly those younger than me. Limp Bizkit just for the record lick balls I’ve never liked them and never will, they were bad in 1999, now their bad and outdated.

Later a huge crowd gathered for Paramour, who criminally were given billing above Weezer, but that’s ok because they went on to prove how inappropriate this was by going on to suck at a spectacular level offering a by the numbers almost forgettable performance. If you saw Weezer that day you’ll know what a memorable performance looks like, thanks to the efforts of rivers. Who came on stage looking like Lewis Tully from Ghostbusters and proceeded to put on the best show I’ve seen in a long time. With genuinely great songs, classics even, which to be fair Paramour haven’t been around long enough to have.

So what was the problem with reading this year? I’ve decided it’s not because of my age because upon closer inspection of my cd’s or more importantly my itunes library, I have lots of new music, as well as some classics. Also a great deal of my younger friends like the same music as me and they listen to the older stuff. The crowd for limp Bizkit proves this. I think that in the end it comes down to the fact that the Sunday at reading just wasn’t a very good day.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that all new music is bad, there are lots of new bands that I like. It just so happened that they weren’t at reading this year. So basically I think the point of all this was that the reading line up sucked this year, at least I’ve convinced myself of this and im sticking to it.

The Tale of William Kogut

Ladies and Gentlemen please take into consideration the tale of William kogut. A man who shows us what true determination in the face of adversity looks like. Where most normal people would have given up and accepted fates cruel machinations, he chose to rally against it and triumphed (in a fashion).

In the year 1930 William Kogut found himself a guest of the oldest prison in the state of California; San Quentin. Waiting to be executed for the throat-slash murder of Mayme Guthrie, The landlady of a possibly disreputable rooming house in Oroville California. I say possibly disreputable because rumour has it that it also doubled as a gaming house, as well as being what we British refer to as a knocking shop.

As Kogut sat in his cell, it dawned upon him that he should be the one to carry out his sentence, as it had been his decision to carry out the crime in the first place. Stating in his suicide note ‘don’t blame my death on anyone because I fixed everything myself’. Now this was not as easy a task as you would think. As he found himself in a situation in which the required apparatus to orchestrate his self termination were not overly available to him. The guards at san Quentin being particularly zealous in their duties, especially in disposing of contraband. This did not deter him however, and in a moment of pure inventive genius William Kogut set out to end his life.

It seems that one of the items that were not considered to be contraband were playing cards, plain old boring playing cards. Now it just so happened that one of the ingredients used in a variety of dye’s at the time, particularly the red dye used in playing cards was Nitrocellulose. Mr Kogut collected several packs of pasteboard cards and proceeded to rip the red suites into pieces. He removed one of the hollow legs from his bunk and placed the torn cards inside. He then poured water into the tube and sealed the end with a piece of broom handle. Having done this Mr Kogut placed the tube or as it should now be called pipe bomb upon a small paraffin heater, and then placed his head upon the pipe.

Now Nitrocellulose is an interesting and quite unstable substance. It decomposes quite easily and in the process of doing so releases Nitric acid, this nitric acid in turn helps to speed up the decomposition of Nitrocellulose, creating a self catalysing reaction. Another interesting property of Nitrocellulose is that it is flammable and when mixed with water it creates an explosive mixture. All this sealed in an air tight container, and placed upon a steady heat source soon helped the contents to reach critical mass, exploding and thus killing William Kogut who had taken to using the device as a pillow.

William Kogut died on the 20th of October 1930, his suicide note read in full. Do not blame my death on anyone because I fixed everything myself. I never give up so long as I’m living and have a chance, but this is the end.

No one can accuse him of not telling the truth; he decided to take his own life in an institution where such an activity is made as hard as possible for an individual to carry out, and he found possibly the most creative and surprising way to achieve his goal he definitely proved that he never gives up as long as he’s living.