Carnival Fetish

Don't those sheep just look like they are going to eat your soul? This is one of the many reasons I love the carnival. Soul-eating were-sheep (I wish! In my wildest dreams!), giant pumpkins, sideshow attractions (as they were), and lots of disgusting food. Last night, the ex and I embarked on our annual journey to the wonder that is known as the Virginia State Fair. I've been to the State Fair every year for as long as I can remember. And while it's not as great as it used to be- I can actually remember a midway where there was a 10-in-1 with the freaks outside and a barker and the whole deal and last year there was an airbrush tattoo booth where I got 'Lil' Sexy' 'tattooed' on my neck and this year it wasn't there (boo!) and you can't win Motley Crue mirrors at the games booths any more-but we had a good time anyway. Here's some of my pics from the fair. I totally would have taken more but my camera decided to stop working because of an exhausted battery. Fie on the battery operated cam

era! Onward - the fair!

Okay, you know these are going to be some big ass pumpkins if they need to say it twice:

And they were! Here's me with the winner - I think he weighed in at like 1400 pounds or something:

This pumpkin is a motherfucker:

Here's some more lovely, lovely giant pumpkins:

And here's me again:

The monkey maze. Every year they retool this attraction. It's basically a house of mirrors or a house of plexiglass that kinda resembles mirrors a little bit. I think last year it was had a dinosaur theme. Still cool, nonetheless.

Tiki Town. This is another one they retool every year. It's been at the fair since I was a kid. It had a generic funhouse theme forever. I like Tiki Town.

We had to check out Hercules, the giant horse. We always take it upon ourselves to see all the 'sideshow' attractions. Just cause.

Here's me with Hercules. He's a clydesdale, I believe. Not that exciting, really. Still, he's pretty big, I'm pretty small but I have on five inch platform boots in this picture. If that gives you some perspective.

Next up is Black Jack, the giant steer. Here's his hideout:

And here he is:

The World's Smallest Woman attraction. Last year, she was this chick Bruce knows from the post office or something. He actually recognized her. They had a conversation regarding this. Random.

The Snake Girl attraction. Every year we go see the snake girl. Every year we are disappointed. Still. We also checked out the live snake attraction, which was AWESOME. The albino python was freakin' gorgeous.

And no fair would be complete without me completely gorging on fried deliciousness. Last night I ate shrimp on stick, a chocolate banana on a stick, sweet potato fries, a corn dog (yes, it was on a stick) and an deep-fried alien on a bun:

Fun was had, but no rides were ridden, because seriously, who wants to ride something that's held together by duct tape after eating an alien sandwich? Not this girl. There's a picture of me eating that chocolate banana on a stick (literally), but it's a little x-rated. Use your imagination, you guys are a bunch of perverts. I know you.

This House Possessed

Spooky vintage made for TV movie kick continues here at the Cavalcade. We've looked at evil little creepy dudes that want to drag sexually repressed ladies into chimneys. We've delved into paranormal detective drama with Leonard Nimoy, and we've watched a teen monumentally suck at life and become a delusional peeper. Now, we must turn our attention to a THIS HOUSE POSSESSED (1981), a made for television spook fest involving a nurse with a amnesiac past, a rock star (subject to opinion), and a, you guessed it, a possessed house.

The made for TV terror is an interesting animal. You figure the director has a very limited time frame to establish said terror, get you involved with the characters, and somehow evoke some sort of emotion all in less than an hour and a half. William Wiard, the director of this particular flick, does an excellent job in the first moments of THP, and throughout, as we'll come to see.

In the opening shots, we see the giant titular house, a modern marvel as it were, and two teens trying to sneak in for a little makeout time. "It be great to play house here," hunky Donnie muses. "It's pretty nice out here - private, too," his lovely blond girlfriend in shiny hot shorts replies. Yeah, it's private as hell, unless you count the numerous video cameras mounted all over the place. Unable to get inside, the house that is ;P, the couple gets down and dirty in the grass beside the house. The house don't like this one bit and sends a sentient garden hose to spray scalding hot water on our amorous couple. With some great camera work and a wire you can *hardly* see, the hose douses the fornicators and sends them running.

Cut to hunky singer complete with feathered blond mop and black satin shirt unbuttoned to the belt, Gary Staihorn (a rock star name if there ever was one!), on stage in a nightclub. Damn, he sings a fine ass song, one that will be stuck in your head for days. Check it:

Sensitive, you're not.

It's a joke, your sensitivity!

Sensitivity, that's HOT!

You never once showed it to me!

Sing it, Gary! But mid-croon, Gary collapses, suffering from exhaustion, and no doubt, emotion, from having just sung such a powerful song. Gary winds up in the hospital and, at the urging of his manager, Arthur (the venerable Slim Pickens) and a doctor with the worst bedside manner ever ("I'm in in for the money, man!" he tells Arthur), Gary must take sabbatical and focus on his health, as well as his hit music. He hires his hot-in-Valerie-Bertinelli-in-the-early-80's-way nurse, Shelia, to accompany him on said sabbatical and upon being discharged from the hospital, the two take off in no particular direction.

Meanwhile, the house, remember that possessed one, has been watching Gary in the hospital because apparently its TV is somehow linked to the hospital's close circuit security cameras. No doubt a powerful entity (there were some earlier establishing shots of the house's interior, the furniture draped in sheets, the place just crying out to be occupied, accompanied by some great eerie music, almost resulting in a Gothic feel - it's great stuff), the house draws Gary and Shelia right to it. Impressed from the get go, Gary immediately purchases the house and the two move right in.

The house was apparently designed by an architect who didn't want to have to do any housework or have any intruders and the whole place is controlled by a nerve center within, complete with television monitors, a state of the art security system, and controls for all the lights, locks, and AC and heating systems. You can tell right away there's something amiss here, in that the real estate agent is quick to get rid of the place, or maybe she's just impressed with how hunky Gary is, hard to tell.

Gary and Shelia settle in and are immediately very comfortable with each other. It's actually hard to gauge their relationship at first. Is she just being a caring nurse or does she have more feelings for Gary than she's letting on? She apparently has a very guarded past, alluded to earlier by her boss at the hospital, as well as in a conversation with Gary about where she comes from. On the other hand, Gary is pretty irresistible, with those close set eyes and tight black jeans.

At one point, Gary tries to get it on with Shelia, but she's having none of it ("It's too soon!" the lady doth protest - three words I don't think I've ever uttered ;P) and the house apparently isn't having it either, in that as soon as Gary gets that rapey look in his beady eyes, the alarms start sounding and the lights start flickering. Non-plussed, Gary's all like, "well, that ruined the mood." Nothing to ruin a rapey mood like a house possessed.

But whatever, who needs Shelia? Gary's a fucking Rock Star with capital letters and before long, his beautiful on-again off-again model bitch girlfriend, Tonya, shows up. Here's where shit starts getting good. Shelia's more than a little jealous, Tonya orders her around like a maid, and insists she won't be needing any sheets or towels because she won't be sleeping in the guest room anyway, IYKWIM. Tonya swishes around, swills champagne, takes advantage of Gary's painkillers, and then decides to take a shower. Like Shelia, the house don't care much for bitchy Tonya and showers her with blood. Cliched, yes, but there are GALLONS of blood pouring out of this shower and the door won't open and the poor model gets so scared she takes off running, once the shower frees her of course. It's a beautiful scene, blood everywhere and Tonya screaming for her life - blood coming out of the shower spray never looked so damn good.

So things take a turn for the predictable, but not in a bad way, and there seems to be some local legends surrounding the house. Shelia finds this out via the town librarian, who decides to dig up some more dirt about the place and bring it over to Shelia in the middle of the night (after Shelia has finally given in to Gary's wiles, IYKWIM). Well, this, of course doesn't sit well with the house, and as the little bespectacled librarian is driving through the gate, the gate crushes her car, with her inside, complete with explosion, you know, to burn up all the damning evidence against it. I want a house that can make cars explode!

What's Shelia to do next but go to the local bag lady's house in search of answers? Not finding much, Shelia and Gary decide to get engaged (what happened to 'too soon!?!' - well, there's the TV time frame to consider) and decide to embark on a six week tour to Europe. You know Gary's probably really big in Germany. Gary calls up Slim to finalize the tour deal, and Slim, having taken a haunted mirror from the house to fix a crack in it, seeing his meal ticket back in the ball game, decides to have a celebratory scotch. The mirror having absorbed the vindictive personality of the house, kills Slim by breaking and firing glass all up in his face.

Let's recap. There's a been a shower full of blood, a librarian crushed by a gate, death by mirror, and coitus interruptus via security alarm, but only now do Gary and Shelia start to think something's not quite right. Oh, and I've forgotten to mention that the house keeps ethereally calling Shelia 'Margaret' and the bag lady I mentioned earlier also refers to Shelia by this name. So, it's no big surprise that Shelia's actually Margaret and the house was her ancestral home in the first years of her life which she has no recollection of whatsoever. I'm seriously not spoiling anything by telling you this, as it's pretty obvious.

I won't get into the particulars of the entire ending, but I will tell you the bag lady get boiled in the pool. And I will say I thoroughly enjoyed this little haunted house romp exponentially. It's got some great scenes, some awesome music, and I care more than a little a bit about what happens to Shelia. You know, in the beginning she's such a loner, she meets Gary, and he whisks her off to this amazing house. She's never really had a relationship before and now all of a sudden she's got a rocker boyfriend and a fabulous pad. Aside from the house being all sentient, she's basically got what I want. Although I don't think I would mind a self-aware house. As long as it cleaned the litter box for me, I wouldn't care if it boiled transients in the pool or blew up librarian's vehicles at the front gate.

This is good stuff and gets most everything right, even the cliched bits. The pacing might seem a little rushed, but that's likely just because of the TV time format. Everyone's believable and the house functions well as a character. And don't I remember a Simpson's Treehouse of Terror episode based on this?

Have Tattoo Idea - Will Travel

Everyone knows I'm a heavily tattooed crazy person who loves the horror movies. Well, I think I'm about to take it one step further and get my knuckles tattooed. I want something horror related, but of course, not something like 'true love' or 'love hate' or 'stay gold.' It's gotta be eight letters (since I'm not a natural born freak) and it has to be cool. Here's where you guys come in because I can't seem to think of anything! So hit it! What should be forever engraved onto my knuckle skin? My original idea involved a little hockey mask, a chainsaw, an axe, a sickle, and a machete, but what else?! Does that sound neat? I kinda wanted it to be more obscure than that. Like the kitties above, you gotta look out for me!

A Bell From Hell

I love when I finally come across something that's been recommended to me for no reason in particular, except for the fact that people who have seen it and know me think I might like it. Such is the case with A BELL FROM HELL; I've had numerous fellow perverts, say, hey, Jenn, you ever seen A BELL FROM HELL, to which I've said no, should I have? To which the reply is always a resounding, YES! No details, no description, no nothing, except, hey, that might suit you just fine. And boy, were you guys right. I love you guys. You guys always steer me in the right direction.

The film opens peculiarly enough, with John, a mental patient confined to a sanitarium, mixing up some latex plaster stuff to make a mask of his face - a detail we should all remember because it comes up a few times later on. After John's done with his mask, we come to find out his trial date is right around the corner and the institution, hoping he can maintain himself on the outside, has offered him probation. Upon giving him his summons and discharging him, John lights his summons for his upcoming court date on fire (how punk, John!) and takes off on a motorcycle into the countryside.

Before arriving at his dead mother's decaying manse (we'll get to all that in a minute), he takes a brief sojourn through the woods, where he runs into a bearded hermit who he knew from childhood and the hermit's deaf mute daughter. The hermit, an ominous fellow tells John, 'the owl hooted three times when your parents secretly copulated to conceive you. I thought you were far away. Why have you come back? I told you as a child you would be unlucky. Fate has dealt you the cards.'

John replies, equally as ominously, 'But I'll play them.' At this point only a few minutes in, while curious enough, we don't know why John has been confined to a mental institution or what his situation is in general. On the part of the filmmakers, this is a brilliant choice. There's so much suspense building, one of this movie's wonderful, brilliant charms, it almost smacks of Hitchcock, but once again, more on that in uno momento.

So John's more than a bit unsettling at this point, and he arrives at his mother's old home, the place having fallen into disrepair. He mopes about and then, not one to sit about idly obviously, takes a job in a slaughterhouse. Now, long time readers know my aversion towards animal cruelty in a movie. I CANNOT deal. And these slaughterhouse scenes had to be watched through my clenched fingers. It was bad enough I had to hear the cows screaming as John learns how to butcher them, while watching this half-edly through my hand. John dutifully goes about his work, clocking them on the head with knives and chopping off their legs with ease. He quits after a few days, however, and much to my relief, I thought I was going to have to sit through more than one slaughterhouse scene and thankfully I didn't, stating, 'I've learned enough.' Eww, creepy, John, you and your deadpan self.

After the slaughterhouse, John runs into his old girlfriend, who tells him she married a rich older dude who builds stuff in town and is apparently pretty well connected. Never to be ruffled, John's all like, that's cool, and, as the movie progresses, it's really difficult to tell how John feels about anything. But again, more on that in a second. Let get the plot out of the way, calm down.

So John goes to meet up with his old Aunt Marta and her three daughters, and it's here we learn why John was locked up for the last three years. Seems he couldn't keep his rapey paws off of one of his cousins and she was the one that had him committed. But wait, there's more! John's mommy was apparently pretty wealthy and as long as John, her sole heir, stays insane, Aunt Marta can collect all the dough. Soooo, are we to think John's not really crazy and Marta set her daughter as some sort of bait to tempt John? Or is John really a psychopath and needs to be locked up? This is one of the brilliant unreconciled issues in this movie that just makes it so easy to drool over. Yeah, John's obviously disturbed, but how much so? What's Marta really playing at? Anyway....

So, not only is John more than a little creepy, he's also a great practical jokester. He manages to convince his old flame's new hubby that his cousins all perish in a fishing accident, in one of the most well-timed, perfectly paced ghost stories I've ever head, and Marta does only that much more to perpetuate it. At times, you think Marta and John might be in on the sadistic joke together; the film is so brilliantly constructed and well told, it leaves you reeling.

He also manages to get the same man to take out his penis to help him pee, and always the master of disguise, manages to convince his old GF that's he's ripping out his own eyes. Which in turn, causes her to faint, and then he pretends to rape her. How do you pretend to rape someone? Well, track this movie down and watch it for yourself.

So there's lots more suspense building and creepiness and great atmosphere (think old dark decrepit homes and lots of fog), and lots of conversations about the sexy times (but alas, no actual sexy times). Here's one of my favorites between John and the ex, while they're feeding chickens no less:

J:Aren't you happy?

GF: Happy?

J: How often do you need to have sex?

GF: What?

J: You haven't had sex with your husband in three weeks.

If you're asking how John knows this, you can go ahead and add pervert and voyeur to his resume of slaughterhouse worker, mental patient, and special effects master. Seems he rigged up a microphone in the chica's bedroom so he could get info into her love life. It happens.

I won't ruin the ending for you, because it is just one of those endings that you won't be able to stop thinking about for days, I'm serious. Even now, like two days later, I'm thinking about all the underlying yuckiness and atmosphere and everything going on here. It's at times subtle, at other times overt, and all the time, it's just wonderful.

John couldn't be better in his role and Aunt Marta is equally as talented. Even the sexy cousins are interesting in their own right and the backdrops are just superb. There's enough pedophilia, depravity, repressed sexual tension (and that which is not so repressed as well), and Bava-esque camera shots and colors to make me a very happy Jenn. I would even go as far as to say Jodorowsky was inspired by this; and at the very same measure, perhaps even Eli Roth. And as for the titular bell, just like the pretend rape, you have to see it - I just don't want to ruin it for you.

Good perverted stuff, ya'll. And anything with a line like this out of nowhere, you know is incredible. 'Dearest darling, do you know what you are, my dearest darling. A stupid cunt, who doesn't know how to use it.' I say that very same line to my cousins all the time. John's a man after my own heart, truly.

Saturday

Saturday night, pumpkin muffins, Saturday night. What a fucking day it was - I hate people. I really need a new job. Really so I can get my hands and my neck tattooed more than anything else, but seriously, sometimes I really hate bringing people food and dealing with their bullshit.

So, in the last few days I've been bored at work and suffering from insomnia so I came up with a stupid list of random loves.

1. I love it in a movie when someone shoots all the bullets out of their gun and then chucks the gun at the person(s) they are so inept they can't hit. I know this definitely happens in MITCHELL and it's basically a trope of the 70's. You don't often see it today - although I don't really watch modern movies, so maybe I wouldn't know.

2. I have never seen APOCALYPSE NOW. Never once. But I woke up this morning with quotes in my head from this, a movie that I have never seen - and decided I love cultural osmosis.

3. I love in a movie, usually a holiday themed horror, when someone says, 'Merry fucking Christmas' or 'Happy fucking Valentines Day'. 'Fuck you, Arbor Day.' Damn you to hell, Flag Day!' I love shit like this. You know lines like these are only uttered when some shit has hit the fan and a lot of people have gotten the bejesus stabbed out of the

m. These lines are particularly uttered by cops and/or detectives.

4. John Saxon is the shit! I don't know if he's ever utter a line like the ones described in number 3, but if he did and it was brought to my attention, I think I would have to stop living right now.

5. Rubber suit monsters are awesome and I don't just mean Gozilla. Have you people seen the end of GHOULIES II? If you haven't, you need to. There's a giant rubber suit Ghoulie monster and he's gonna get you. He might get you tomorrow, but he's gonna get you.

6. I always enjoy a good subtle homage or tribute to a Universal classic. Or not so subtle. Seriously, the only thing that really saved BRIDE OF CHUCKY for me was when Jennifer Tilly's in the bathtub and the TV falls in there and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN is on. That's good stuff.

I don't know what else. The buzz is seriously kicking in and I have places to be. Well, not really, but I'd like to think that I do. And no drunky post is complete without a picture, so here's Robert Deniro with her morning brew. She likes to get the coffee ready for when I get up. And yes, I have a female cat named Robert Deniro.

Baffled!

Tell me this doesn't sound like GOLD - Leonard Nimoy stars as international race-car driving playboy with unhinged psychic abilities who subsequently becomes embroiled with a Satanic cult. Over the course of said embroilment, he manages to be involved in a high speed car chase involving a super seventies black van, engage in a psychic staredown with a young daughter of a famous actress who is also involved in the aformentioned Satanic cult, the daughter, not the actress, and beat down an old lady, who really isn't an old lady, but the former BFF of the actress' late husband, who both were members of, you guessed it, the Satanic cult. And there's plenty of slo-mo running AND screaming. Nice.

Now, I love a Scooby Doo ending (almost as much as I love the he woke up and it was all a dream ending) and the thought of Spock in a fistacuffs with a meemaw. The mere thought of this makes me dizzy- and I'm glad to say that BAFFLED! delivers this action in spades. But you have wade through a freakin' hour and thirty six minutes of stupid. But let me back up.

So Tom (Spock) is driving his racing car in a race (go figure) and he suddenly gets a psychic vision of an old manor house, a little girl descending a staircase, and a woman screaming. It's an intense vision, and being that Tom's not used to these sorts of things, he crashes his race car. Then he does what most of us would likely do in the same situation - he goes on national television and blabs about how he's a crazy psychic person.

This interview attracts the attention of a lovely English bird, Michelle, who is also a rare books dealer and specialist in occult sciences, natch. She rings Tom up and manages to convince him in several short minutes to accompany her back to England so they can find the source of his vision and possibly help the screaming woman. You can tell Tom can really care less; Michelle is a looker and a half, and so you know that's why he agrees to fly to a foreign country and go on a caper with this woman.

That being said, I would love to be part of a couple that goes on capers together. I'd wear sexy mod outfits and drive the getaway vintage jaguar, because my man and I, we wouldn't be going on any helping people capers like Tom and Michelle. Oh no, we'd be going on dangerous adventure capers to steal rare jewels. I guess I wouldn't mind being psychic, too. It would aid in the capering, no doubt.

So back to boring old Tom and Michelle. Geez, I'm so bored already. They get to England and go to this manor house from Tom's vision. How they found it, I don't remember. Michelle had a brochure or something for it. Who knows. It's unimportant. The proprietress, Mrs. Faraday, is one of those old bitches you just know has something to hide. She's got that written all over her. But, and this is one of my problems with this movie, is that Tom and Michelle are not idiots, Michelle especially what with her esoteric knowledge of history and the occult, but they act like idiots. Most of the rest of this is them walking around speculating on who does what and why and where and walking into cellars with lit matches and getting stuck in elevator shafts. And REALLY, who cares? Why do they care?

If I had psychic visions, I would keep that shit to myself and use it for EEEVIL. I certainly wouldn't travel to England because my mind's eye saw a woman screaming and I felt the need to help her. Are you kidding me, BAFFLED!? So yeah, Tom and Michelle get stuck in places and open secret doors and try to expose everyone else in the house as poisoners or cult people or something and there's the actress and her daughter, who I mentioned earlier, as well as an Italian butcher, two drug-dealing newlyweds, and a butler named Hopkins.

If I had a butler, I would name him Cinnamon. Just so I could say things like, Cinnamon, please to answer the door. And I'll have my tea in the solarium today at precisely four. That is all for now, thank you, Cinnamon.

I mentioned the ending - which was AWESOME- so basically what you do is this - find a copy of BAFFLED! and just skip right to the ending, watch that a few times, LOL as if your heart depended on it, I did, and then go back to watching internet porn. There, I saved you a BAFFLING hour and a half. Yeah, you waited for it and I went there. But seriously, this thing was boring AND confusing. All the slow motion running set to super sexy swinging sounds doesn't even save this. And Leonard Nimoy was creeping me the fuck out - smiling and leering at Michelle and attempting innuendo. Do. Not. Want.

So, in theory and on paper, this sounds stunning. In real life, not so much. In fact, it took me two days and three hangovers (something about that math isn't right, but whatever) to watch it. But my made-for-tv seventies movies kick continues.

Inside the Dream Factory

It's Friday night, slags. I love you. I'm done with the grind for the night and am gonna drink up this wine and give you a glimpse into my dream factory. And by dream factory, I totally don't mean what you think I mean. I never do, do I? You are used to this. Here's where I conceive all my greatest ideas - flanked by cats at my dining room table, wine and phone handy.

Also, I was meaning to tell ya'll, I recently woke up in a bathtub full of ice, with a note pinned to my clothes that my kidneys had been removed and I should contact a medical professional immediately. That'll teach me to get fucked up in Mexico again. And those damn chupacabras! They're everywhere. Here's the photo evidence to prove it. The whole kidney thing, not the chupacabras, that is.

So you see why this sojourn into this bottle of pino noir is so well deserved. Working, goat sucking beasts, and missing internal organs. You'd be hard pressed yourself to not want to do the same.