JusWondering… Is This Movie Really Gonna Scare The S#!t Out Of Me?!

I’ve mentioned it before (here and here), and I’ll mention it again – I have a very short list of serious fears.  Irrational?  That list would go on forever.

  1. Ghosts
  2. Candiru (look ’em up)
  3. Commitment
  4. Aliens

I’m really beginning to rethink that order because there’s a certain type of aliens that might be the worst.  But I’ll get to that in a second.  Here’s the preview for what I might find the scariest movie ever made!  Oh yeah… it’s called Dark Skies:

I can’t find the newest preview (nor do I really want to try that hard), but in that one, it seems that this film is about BEK’s.  That’s short for Black Eyed Kids.  Oh, I wish I could make a joke about the Black Eyed Peas right now, believe me.

You can click here for a Google image search of them for your own, but an image search alone won’t do it justice.  Howzabout a couple of stories from the ol’ TripleDoubleU to unsettle you in…

These strange Black Eyed Children, who can appear or vanish at a moment’s notice, seem to be between the ages of 8 and 16. Their skin is pale or pasty colored, described by some as looking plastic or artificial, and their mannerisms are odd. Witnesses describe their clothing as odd and drab – blue jeans and a hoodie or very old-fashioned, handmade clothing. Bizarre electrical phenomena occurs when they are around, such as a garage door inexplicably opening.

  • When a man in Dallas arrived home, he saw a boy at his door who repeated “I think it’s food time. You should invite me inside.” The man’s protective pit bull came running toward the front door, but as it got closer to the boy, it whimpered and ran away, hiding under the bed for days afterward.
  • A man named Paul was home alone when someone knocked on this door. He opened it and saw two kids about 10 years old standing on his steps with their heads down. They said, “Hey, we just thought we’d stop in for a bit.” The kids insisted they be let into the house. Thinking they had the wrong house, Paul stepped forward to get a better look and made eye contact. Their eyes were solid black, including the sclera.

Jason Offutt, another researcher into the Black Eyed Children phenomenon, gives this account:

  • Around 10:45 on a warm night, as 18-year-old Carris Holdsworth approached her apartment in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, she saw two teenagers in hoodies and jeans standing in her yard with their backs to her. As she attempted to slip away unseen, she fumbled in her purse for pepper spray. At that very moment, the boys turned to face her and, as if reading her mind, one said, “No need for that, we just want to borrow your phone, miss.” When she caught a glimpse of their pitch black eyes, not a trace of white or a pupil, she panicked and raced to her apartment, locking the door behind her. The boys following close behind, knocked on her door. She ignored it. After a second knock, fearing for her safety she phoned a friend to come over. When the friend arrived, the boys ran away.

(via)

There are plenty more stories out there.  I simply can’t bear anymore.

(More Than) A Handful Of… The Last Creative Aliens Of The Silver Screen

Has Cowboys & Aliens let you down?
Did Battle: Los Angeles and Skyline give you déjà who cares?
Still feeling blue after Green Lantern?
In Thor, the Norse gods are aliens, right?
Did you find Super 8 not so super great?
Did Transformers transform your apathy into a car?
What about Paul?  Did anyone see Paul?

So why am I asking about these films, you may be, um, asking?  They are the latest science fiction fare that brought aliens to the big screen.  And all of them suck.

Did the original Star Wars trilogy, Alien, and E.T. use up all the imagination when it comes to inventing extra extraterrestrials?  We’re talking not since 1983 here, folks!  Well, 1983 brought us Ewoks.  Some people don’t like Ewoks.

Here is (More Than) A Handful Of The Last Creative Aliens Of The Silver Screen (perhaps I’ll do a TV and video game one later)… and I’m not talkin’ ’bout ones that take human form, like Olivia Wilde in Cowboys & Aliens (oops – SPOILER!):

Okay, it’s a plant.  And it’s based on a musical based on a film from 1960.  But don’t try to convince me that watermelon-with-lipstick’s deep voice was expected.

This one’s not too long after the rush of 80’s dreaminess.  But then again, they are basically small flying saucers.  Still, no one tried it before or since (until the inevitable CGI remake).

It took the concept of “all-things-penis” from H.R. Giger’s Alien designs, and ran with “all-things-vagina… and dreadlocks.”

Once again, not too far out there thinking on the surface, but in the end, still brilliant.  Shoot their noses!

Now we’re getting somewhere – mushroom aliens.  These creatures are memorable because of their surprise.  At first they look cute, but when you get closer, they get all see above picture.

Ladies and gents – our first set of alien nipples captured on celluloid!

I shouldn’t have included them because they originated as characters on trading cards in 1962, and because they’re CGI, but I couldn’t include Kang and Kodos since they weren’t in The Simpsons Movie, so here’s my entry for aliens whose heads are in glass helmets.

Another one you could argue that I shouldn’t include, but she was new for the movie, whereas the Borg (which are awesome), were not.  And that’s why the Queen gets a shout out.

Definitely the best alien of the new bunch from a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.  He’s one of the few that benefited from being CGI.  Plus, he was a part of one the best sequences in the prequel trilogy (IMHO).  Was he only cool because he walked on his hands, and used his feet to do everything?  Shut up.

I couldn’t have ended on a better alien.  Probably my favorite alien since E.T.  Or at least since the one with the nipples.

Coinkydink Or Coinkydonk? Or Lack Of Creative Talent?

This show looks like garbage, me thinks.  It starts this fall on CBS, which in this case literally means C-B-S:

To me, The Defenders looks like Boston Legal Lite, minus the charm, creativity, excellent writing, and sublime casting.  I’ll always have a soft spot for Jerry O’Connell for being in Stand By Me, My Secret Identity, and Rebecca Romijn, and I’ll even give props to Jim Belushi for The Principal, but I could probably live without ever seeing either one of them in anything ever again.

May this show slip away quickly like my money at a craps table.

Now onto other items lacking in creativity…

I thought The Oatmeal made a funny observation about the similarities between James Cameron’s Avatar and his Aliens:

(click image for full comparison)

(BONUS! Did Chistopher Nolan’s Inception rip off Scrooge McDuck?)