The Hounds of Tindalos

Does anyone here have a favorite stories about these critters? I have just been reading a little about them. They sound familiar, but I can't remember where I might have read about them. It is possible I just read a sory that quickly mentioned them.... anyway, the idea of them is kind of interesting. They are mysterious, incomprehensible creatures from beyond time and space, and they are "attracted by time travel." When someone travels through time, they are alerted somehow, and they will track the time traveller down and fuck him up, bigtime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hounds_of_Tindalos


They were conceived by this guy, Frank Belknap Long. He sound spretty interesting too. Hmm, this says the Hounds of Tindalos are in a Metallica song, and in some novel by Brian Lumley. OK, I should be able to figure out where I have heard of them from this... here, in case anyone is interested, check this out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Belknap_Long#Influence_on_popular_culture

Any re-watches planned for the october challenge?

I might actually going to re-watch more than doing first time views. Not that I'm running out of options but somehow I want to find a good balance and not have a lot of disappointments.

There is stuff like the Entity, Demon Seed, Humanoids from the Deep. Those are the flicks I'm looking forward to revisit.

On the other hand there is movies I want to give another shot even though they weren't exactly a success last time. 2 in particular, classics and popular movies.

The Thing (1982): even though a movie totally devoid of female input isn't exactly a nice propspect, given it ended up as number 1 on the top 300 horror I hosted on the Dutch movie board I surely need to see what I might have missed the first time.


Suspiria (1977): I'm not sure what to expect but it was kind slow when I saw it the first time. Sure there is some gory parts but nothing I had not seen in some earlier movies (yup HG Lewis) . Maybe I could try the technique let's just not pay too much attention to plot and characters enjoy the kills and visuals. It worked fine when revisiting Bava's Blood and Black Lace or a bay of Blood.

The Orphanage: Well I'm not quite sure if I am going to revisit it. I remember when I saw it with Del Toro's name attached to it to find something fantasy like. But Del Toro was just the producer to lure people (guilty as charged) and it proved to be some haunted house, mystery type of movie. More of a drama not much of a horror.

Pet Sematary Documentary

I just found this. I have not watched it yet, but it looks pretty good.

The Mamas and the Papas

I almost posted this in the Horror section under John Carpenter's Vampires, for reasons that will become clear momentarily. But, whatever, it makes more sense to post it here.

If you look at the picture of the band in the bathtub here, on their album cover...



I would just like to note that there is a pretty good chance that Denny Doherty, the guy who is sitting near the rear of the tub, the third one in from the left.... is... wait for it... sporting mahogany. That's right. A little mahogany, a little ebony. Maybe even teak. Sorrysorrysorrysorry, I had to say it.

I only say this because I was reading the Wikipedia article about the band, and it says Denny and Michelle Phillips (the babe who is all the way to the right, and basically sitting on Denny Doherty's lap) actually went out clandestinely, or had some kind of illicit relationship, in the year that this picture would have been taken (1965). Here, look at the first paragraph in the section titled 1966: The Mamas and the Papas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mamas_and_the_Papas


By the way, last summer I made up a version of California Dreaming that was renamed Manitoba Dreaming. Its supposed to be about climate change, which I personally do not think is a political topic at all, it's just science. Anyway, here are the lyrics, if anyone wants a little chuckle. It's supposed to match up pretty exactly with the song, including the choruses and everything.

Manitoba Dreamin'
By The Mamas and the Papas and the Mounties
All the leaves are gone... (chorus: All the leaves are gonnnne...)
Storms blew them away... (Storms blew them awaaayyyyy...)
I've been for a walk... (I've been for a waaaalk...)
On a summer's day... (On a summer's daaayyyy...)
I'd be nice and cool... (I'd be nice and coooool......)
If I was in CA... {abbreviation for Canada, just pronounce it C.A.} (If I was in C.Aaaaa......)
Manitoba dreamin'... (Manitoba dreaminnnn....)
On such a summer's daaayyyy...
Stopped in to a church...
I passed along the way...
Well I got down on my knees... (Got down on my kneeees...)
And I began to pray... (I began to praaayyy...)
You know the AC's !?$%&#@ing broke... (AC's !?$%&#@ing broke...)
Some mofo's gonna pay... (Mofo's gonna paaaayyyy...)
Manitoba dreamin'... (Manitoba dreaminnnn...)
On such a summer's daaaayyyyyy...
Flute solo. Take it Clarence!
All the leaves are gone... (All the leaves are gonnnnne...)
Storms blew them away... (Storms blew them awaaayyy...)
I've been for a walk... (I've been for a waaaalk...)
On a summer's day... (On a summer's daaaayyy...)
If I had no mortgage... (If I had no mortgaaaage...)
I could leave today... (I could leave todaaayyyy...)
Manitoba dreamin'... (Manitoba dreaminnnn...)
On such a summer's daaaayyyyyy...
Manitoba dreamin'...
On such a summer's daaaayyyyyy...
Manitoba dreamin'...
On such a summer's daaaayyyyyy...

Movies that make you cry!

So I know a lot of us are completely, or mostly soulless, but I want to hear the movies that make you cry.

So what usually gets me is animals. The first thing I remember crying to was Air Bud. When he had to go back to his original owner, and the heartbreak was obvious in both the dog and child.

Other than that specific movie, animal deaths are the ones that make me cry. But there are some movies, that I cry at the feel of it. Not so much the people dying, but the reaction of the people around them.

Well thanks for reading my stoned thoughts, but seriously, I wanna hear movies that will give you a good cry. Come on guys, don't be shy!

Upcoming Feature: Newsletter

This here is a feature I've never really thought about until now, but I'll be implementing it within the end of this month for reasons we all can agree upon: The October Challenge.

The gist of it is this: At the end of every month, me or a mod will submit a newsletter that will target all valid users who subscribe to the newsletter (and have NOT been active in say a week's time) and it will email them with a tally of their unread notifications, followed by a memo of any notable upcoming events (challenges).

I'm a bit too drunk at the moment to finalize this, but I'll be sending the emails before the end of the month to try to lure our lost TE users back for (as tommix says) the most wonderful time of the year.



The newsletters will note the duration of a user's absence, the tally of their unread notifications, the message of upcoming events, and a link to unsubscribe to the newsletter.



There are a few downsides to this. Emails sent through my webhost are slow and might bog down the server, especially for 100+ users (I plan to default all valid users' newsletter subscriptions to ACTIVE for this initial event, and log all of the unsubscribing users so I can cry about them later). I've had issues with sending automated emails before, especially since TE is considered PURE TRASH and will likely end up in the spam folder, but it's worth a shot, right?

I aim to be transparent with my fellow trash fiends, so lend me your thoughts on this or any of my endeavors so we can get a good turnout for this year's TE October Challenge.


I really fucking LOVE this challenge, and the shallow turnouts always break my heart, so this shit better help, or else I'll drink myself to death. And if we get a good turnout... I'll still probably drink a lot.

Apology (1986)

Anyone remember this made-for-cable slasher film? I haven't seen it for a long time (once around the time it was made and then again in very poor quality on YouTube quite a few years ago) but thought it was above average. I don't think I ever saw it mentioned on the old horror board or here. It's strengths were the somewhat weird premise (performance artist opens up a telephone service where people can call in and admit to committing various sins, and inevitably a serial killer of gay men calls and confesses each time he kills), a fairly good cast (including Peter Weller and the screen debut of Chris Noth), and Billy Ray Weeks being pretty creepy as the killer. The special effects, especially the bizarre art project that looked like something out of Dune or Stargate, were fairly good too. Lead actress Lesley Ann Warren is badly lit and even more badly dressed, but I still like this movie enough to be wishing for a Blu-ray release. To my knowledge it's only ever been released on VHS and is hard to find.

Disturbing Adam Sandler story

I would have said that that was not even possible, but this is a genuinely freaky, disturbing story about something that Adam Sandler claims actually happened to him. Yeesh.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1243955/trivia

The Room - Lost Vampire Subplot

Maybe Johnny is vampire. We'll see...

Apparently, this was a real subplot that was dabbled with in the 500-page pre-film novelization of the movie, but here's a bit from some random site I saw:
https://www.factfiend.com/room-almost-flying-vampire-car/

---

Specifically after bemoaning to a producer that a scene depicting a confrontation with a drug dealer wasn't dramatic enough, Wiseau asked if it would be possible to use CGI to have the climax of the confrontation be his character's car flying off into the sky. The stunned producer simply asked Wiseau "but why though?" to which he responded "maybe Johnny is a vampire".

As you've probably gathered given everything else we've said about him today, Wiseau never saw fit to explain to anyone on set why owning a flying car would suggest that his character was a vampire and had to be talked out of including the scene by Sestero. Wiseau eventually relented, though not before suggesting that they spice up the scene by having one of the actors fire an actual real handgun into the sky. When it was pointed out to Wiseau that this was all kinds of illegal he relented and instead gave the actor an airsoft replica pistol and told him to use it to scare the shit out of the other actor in the scene as he mugged for the camera.

Total Recall

So I went to this place called "Rekall" to get some good ol' fake memories about a fictional adventure, and I tend to forget how great this movie is.

Arnold tried to make this movie for about ten years before putting it in the hands of Paul Verhoeven, relatively fresh off of his last sci-fi epic RoboCop. It's a match made in heaven. Trivia states that Arnold was an option to play RoboCop, but due to his sheer size, that wouldn't have been the best mash-up. Total Recall is a better fit for him as a regular guy named Douglas Quaid who has a good life. His wife is hot and he's got walls made out of TVs in his home, but that's not enough. He dreams about Mars. A lot. So much so that he needs to fake a vacation there, but he'll also be faking a vacation from himself. Or is he?

This movie has a lot of cool things going for it. It's set in 2084 with space travel, Mars colonies, mutants, psychics, sluts, and in a typical Verhoeven fashion, it's violent as hell. I love the bystander on the escalator being used as a human shield and getting shot like fifty times.

The sci-fi aspects are among my favorite of any science fiction movie. The look of Mars is great, the weird futuristic tech and robotics are always fun to watch, and the outdated practicality is fun to ponder about. Like the cars for example. They're very bulky and square, and this is supposed to be future-tech? Kind of the opposite direction if you ask me. And when he opens the briefcase to get instructions about removing the bug in his head, that laptop-esque device is huge. And so is the bug in his nose. Stuff will be so much smaller in 2084.

I watched an interview with Arnold on a restrospect of his career, and when he gets to Total Recall, he mentions how it was remade and deemed it stupid. Arnold doesn't bullshit, but when he does, it's very funny. I watched this movie with commentary once, and when the Tristar horse logo rolls in the credits, Arnold blatantly claims that it's him. I died laughing when I heard that.

It's a great fuckin' movie. There are noticable goofs at time, but like old Dean Lerner says, "If you're looking at the wires... you're a freak." Some of those goofs add to the charm in an era where people didn't give as much of a fuck.


Specific goofs I'm referring to: when he takes off the fat lady's robotic head, the mechanisms go deep into the center of the piece. Cut to... Arnold's head fills out the head unit almost entirely. The mechanism would be going through his head, but it doesn't.

The next big goof is when the men surround Quaid's holograph and shoot through it, the bullets don't pass through it to kill any of them. What gives?


And on a final note, Kuato on the guy's chest always reminded me of melted Chucky from Child's Play 2.