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HEROIC lady werewolf was motivated by maternal instinct, experts believe — unlike the dangerous creature in this movie scene.
By C. Michael Forsyth
BANSKÁ ŠTIAVNICA, Hungary — A female werewolf is being hailed as a hero after saving two boys trapped in a mine!
Edvard Ferenc and Nikola Szavo, both age 10, were “within hours” of suffocating when the shaggy she-beast led rescuers to the site, local law enforcement authorities confirm.
“People may call this creature a monster, but my family will always be grateful to the wolf woman who saved my beloved little Nikola’s life,” tearful mom Mrs. Maria Szabo told TV reporters. “Whoever she is, I just want to say, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’”
The touching drama unfolded on Saturday, February 4, when the two fourth graders were exploring the abandoned silver mine at the foot of the Štiavnica Mountains. Ignoring a warning sign, they wandered down a tunnel and became trapped by a cave-in. Their parents reported the boys missing the next morning. But because the youngsters had claimed they were going fishing in a stream on the other side of town, searchers came nowhere near the old mine.
At about 11:20 p.m., Constable Iszak Hajdu, 46, was manning the front desk of the police station when what he describes as a “ferocious-looking beast walking upright on two legs” and covered head to toe in fur trotted in, foam drooling from its enormous fangs. Following procedure, he hurried to the gun cabinet and retrieved a rifle loaded with silver bullets. A law on the books since 1874 requires every Hungarian police station to maintain a firearm loaded with silver in case of just such an eventuality.
“As I raised the gun, I couldn’t help noticing that the beast had what appeared to be large, pendulous breasts,” he told reporters. “I hesitated to shoot a woman, even in animal form.
“She was whimpering and kept waving her paw as if she wanted me to follow her. I said, ‘What’s the matter, girl? Is someone in trouble?’ ”
Acting on gut instinct, the lawman warily followed the creature, flashlight in hand. It led him four miles through a winding wooded trail to the mountain. There, just feet from the mine entrance, he found a backpack belonging to one of the missing boys. Venturing inside, he saw signs of a recent collapse.
“I heard voices calling faintly from below, ‘Help!’ ” the constable recalled. “When I realized the werewolf had brought me here to save children trapped down in the mine, I was overcome with emotion. I turned to thank her, but she had scampered off into the woods.”
RELIEVED Hungarian rescue crew celebrates after pulling boys safely from mine.
A rescue operation was launched and just six and half hours later Nikola and Edvard were freed from a cavity 30 feet down.
“The boys were in a small air pocket barely five feet across,” revealed rescue coordinator Agoston Kulscar.“If we had found them a day later, they would definitely have suffocated.”
The identity of the werewolf remains unknown and attempts to follow its tracks were unsuccessful. A police investigation turned up several reports of sightings of a “mystery animal” in the vicinity.
Lycanthropy experts says such altruistic behavior on the part of a werewolf is rare, but not unheard of.
“The maternal instinct is one of the most powerful of all emotions and originates in the deepest and most primitive part of the brain,” explains Dr. Larry T. Welkerson, author of Werewolves, Shapeshifters and Theriomorphs. “For a woman to have concern for an endangered child, even when she is in wolf form, is not altogether surprising.”
FAMED TV pooch Lassie isn’t the only canine that helps people in trouble.
Speaking of werewolves, the author of this article has written a critically acclaimed horror novel. The Horror Fiction Review raves that Hour of the Beast is a “rip-snorting, action-packed sexy college romp.”
To check out Hour of the Beast and hear Chapter One read FREE click HERE!
If you enjoyed this article, check out C. Michael Forsyth’s collection of news satire, available on Kindle and in other eBook formats
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RULE No. 1: Never visit a remote cabin with no cell phone reception. Rule No. 2: Never go in the basement. Curt (Chris Hemsworth) and his pals commit horror no-nos.
By C. Michael Forsyth
Ever wonder why characters in horror movies choose the worst possible time and place to have sex? Why they descend into the pitch-black basement of a house that’s obviously haunted? Split up so they can be picked off one by one? All these questions and just about every other you’ve asked yourself while munching popcorn are answered in The Cabin in the Woods.
Produced and co-written by Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Cabin in the Woods is a tour de force that works as a horror film, workplace comedy and genre-demolishing satire. It’s Westworld meets Wrong Turn meets Evil Dead, to mention just three of the innumerable movies to which it plays loving homage and/or gleefully skewers.
In the movie, five young college students fitting neatly into recognizable types vacation in an isolated cabin where horrific events begin to unfold. Unbeknownst to them, everything is being orchestrated by a cadre of puppet masters in a vast underground complex. The staff includes managers, technicians, accountants, maintenance workers and even geeky interns. (I don’t consider all this a spoiler since it’s revealed within the first three minutes — if you didn’t already figure it out from the trailer).
MONSTERS, INC. Horror is all in a day's work for company guys and gal Richard Jenkins, Amy Acker & Bradley Whitford.
The film derives much of its humor from the high jinks of these Dilbert-type drones. At one point, the bored-out-of-their-skulls staffers organize a betting pool on what horror the hapless vacationers will face first. En route to the cabin, the students ignore the cryptic warnings of a creepy old gas station attendant. When the guy later calls in to report, the staff puts him on speaker phone and giggle as he continues to drone on ominously.
WHO watches the watchers? Holden (Jesse Williams) happens upon a one-way mirror as Dana AKA The Virgin (Kristen Connolly) strips.
The concept is thought-provoking. What we generally think of as stereotypes – the Virgin, the Whore, the Jock, the Brain, the Comic Relief — are elevated to archetypes. It’s the best deconstruction of the horror genre since Scream, on a level that would impress Bruno Bettleheim, the celebrated analyst of fairytales.
RULE No. 3: Never allow yourself to be trapped in a siege situation.
Some critics describe the movie as an allegory for the process of filmmaking itself. How can you argue? The staffers even call their mysterious boss “The Director.” Beneath that layer of meaning, there’s also a wry commentary about our surveillance society. Marty, the wisecracking pothead paranoiac and “The Fool” of the group, points out that “Society isn’t falling apart, it’s coming together.” As he puts it, the “cracks are filling in” as technology devours privacy and living off the grid becomes increasingly impossible.
DUMBED DOWN: Jules (Anna Hutchinson) shows poor judgement after going blonde.
Tropes of the horror genre are simultaneously observed and lampooned. Sexy pre-med student Jules (Anna Hutchison) has just dyed her hair blonde when the story begins and it’s later revealed that a chemical secretly placed in the dye makes Jules, AKA “The Whore” act stupid.
While not likely to make you quiver in fear, the movie meets the basic requirements of a horror film: Suspense, characters you root for, formidable dangers and enough gore to satisfy fans of traditional horror flicks.
POTHEAD Marty (Fran Kranz) wields an unlikely weapon.
Brawny Chris Hemsworth (Thor in The Avengers) delivers a winning performance as Curt, the brave Jock. Fran Kranz earns plenty of chuckles as Marty, the Fool. He fills the position Shaggy did in Scooby Doo and looks the part as well. But the real stars here are Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins as the world-weary managers of the operation. Whitford, best known for his role as White House Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman on TV’s The West Wing sends up his in-control, seen-it-all image with obvious relish. And Jenkins, looking like a worn-out NASA engineer, is even more droll and cynical than he was as the disembodied dad in HBO’s Six Feet Under.
The climax of the film is in keeping with its blend of humor and horror — way, way over the top, in a good way.
SPEAKING OF JOSS WHEDON…
HORROR and comedy were perfectly blended in Joss Whedon's TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
No one mixes comedy and horror better than Joss Whedon, as I’m learning right now as I watch TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time on Netflix. Somehow I managed to miss the series when it debuted in the late ’90s. I’m blown away by how good it is – one of the handful of TV series, along with Highlander, that is far superior to the film that inspired it.
The playfulness is pure joy. In the episode I saw last night, Xander believes Willow has turned into a vampire and thrusts a crucifix in her face. When she fails to recoil, he shakes it like a flashlight that might need its batteries jiggled.
WHEN Angel was good he was good and when he was bad, he was very, very bad.
But drama is equally well handled. The brilliant storytelling is displayed when Buffy loses her virginity to good-guy vampire Angel. Following convention, love might cure him of vampirism. Instead, in an inversion of Beauty and the Beast, he becomes evil, his soul ejected from his body. In the hands of a less talented writer, the next scene would be Angel bursting into Buffy’s room, fangs bared. Instead he simply acts like a jerk, humiliating her by showing her the night of passion meant nothing to him. Far more sadistic. And, since this is an experience many a young woman will recognize, it helps to ground the series in reality, keeping it a coming of age story as well as a butt-kicking action/adventure show. The more you watch Buffy, the worse
Twilight looks by comparison.
The intensely dramatic and horrific is always leavened by wit. In the episode in which fellow vampire slayer Kendra dies tragically she first gives Buffy her “lucky stake” — which she has nicknamed “Mr. Pointy.” In the same episode Buffy’s watcher Giles sheepishly admits that he’s been using the crystal orb that can restore Angel’s soul as a paperweight.
BOYFRIEND PROBLEMS weren't the only things Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) had to worry about.
I’m only midway through Season 3 and have already met so many wonderful characters, most memorably Spike, the cockney vampire with the Billy Idol hair and penchant for puppy love. By turns terrifying and laughable, James Marsters is absolutely magnetic in the role. (He won the poll of Sexiest Male Screen Vampire on this site by a landslide). Speaking recently to a publisher who uses Marsters for a lot of audio books, I was surprised to learn the star isn’t even English!
Spike (James Marsters) is the bloodsucking blond British punk you love to hate in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
I love how characters are allowed to evolve. A pitfall of many series is that characters remain exactly as originally written and are unaffected by the events that befall them. Most infamously Dana Scully in X Files, who is skeptical of werewolves even after battling vampires.
DROPPING his English reserve, Giles became a father figure to Buffy.
Buffy’s mentor Rupert Giles (Anthony Head) could have been a thankless role: a character like Bosley in
Charlie’s Angels who does little more than provide exposition then step out of the way to let the girls swing into action. Instead, he develops a tender father-daughter relationship with Buffy that is the backbone of the series. He’s allowed to have romances. And the shy British librarian is not above opening a jar of good old English whup ass to save Buffy’s bum from time to time.
ANY role in which you get to wear an eye patch ain't all bad. Nicholas Brendon as Xander.
In fact there are no thankless roles in Whedon’s world. Xander, initially merely a goofball, becomes an increasingly heroic figure, always willing to charge into battle though lacking any special powers. This “geek” eventually gets to kiss almost every girl on the show. Wesley Wyndham-Pryce (Alexis Denisof), who briefly assumes the role of Buffy’s watcher and is even stuffier than Giles, is insufferable. And rich-bitch Cordelia is intractably airheaded. Yet even they get a chance to evolve into heroes themselves in the Buffy spinoff Angel.
ANNOYING Wesley and Cordelia developed into interesting characters in the spin-off series Angel.
Though the show premiered nearly 15 years ago, it doesn’t seem dated – you barely notice that the teens don’t text. Some aspects of high school are universal. You will always have good girls, snobs, class clowns and nerds. As in Cabin in the Woods, there are some archetypes that just don’t die. Or sometimes die violently.
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth
C. Michael Forsyth, the author of this article, has written a critically acclaimed horror novel Hour of the Beast. Plans for a major motion picture are now in the works!
To check out Hour of the Beast visit Amazon.com or save $4 by clicking HERE. The Kindle version is just $7 and the eBook is a mere $5.
YOUNG OBAMA has law books behind him here, but a mug shot may show a police height chart instead, according to a leading critic.
By C. Michael Forsyth
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — An outspoken conservative multi-millionaire is offering a $10 million reward for President Barack Obama’s lost mug shot!
Harlan Prentbody, 74, says he put the enormous bounty on the decades-old arrest photo in the interest of the “public’s right to know.”
“There are a whole bunch of other items I’d like to get my hands on, but Obama’s missing mug shot is the Holy Grail,” the Colorado businessman told reporters. “It’s concrete proof that our so-called ‘commander in chief’ is not as squeaky clean as the mainstream media would have us believe.”
Rumors that such a photo might exist have been circulating on the Internet for years, he claims.
“The sad reality is the vast majority of black men in America have been arrested at one point in their lives. There’s no proof that isn’t true of Obama,” Prentbody points out. “So where’s the mug shot? Did it mysteriously ‘disappear’ from an FBI file drawer? Or did government goons march into some Chicago police station and force ‘Officer O’Reilly’ to hand it over at gunpoint?
“The American people have a right to see that photograph.”
Besides the presidential mug shot, here are a dozen other items the conspiracy theory-loving fat cat is willing to shell out big bucks for:
No. 1) Obama’s Kenyan Birth Certificate — $5 million. “Trying to prove Barack’s Hawaiian birth certificate is a forgery is getting us nowhere,” explained the businessman, who has devoted a third of his huge fortune to funding various right-wing causes. “Let’s try to solve this case by working from the other end.”
THIS is what Obama's boyhood neighbors REALLY looked like, according to Birthers.
No. 2) The original 666 Social Security Card — $2 million. According to the White House, the President’s social security number is 042-68-4425. But rumor has it the number on his original card was 042-66-6425 — including the digits 666, the number of the Beast. “The Social Security Administration claims it never assigns numbers including that sequence to anyone,” asserts Prentbody. “So the fact that it was somehow issued to Obama would be incontrovertible proof that he’s the Antichrist.”
No. 3) President Obama’s personal Koran — $1 million. “Every president since George Washington has kept a holy book in his night table to consult in a time of great crisis,” according to the controversial businessman. “Obama is no different, except that everyone suspects he takes his spiritual marching orders from the Koran. The book with his name in the ‘property of’ blank, in his own handwriting, is rock-solid proof he’s a Muslim.”
THE KORAN (also spelled Quran) is the holy book of Islam.
No. 4) The Communist Party membership card — $500,000. “Is he now, or has he ever been a member of the Communist Party? No one knows for sure,” says Prentbody. “But an authentic 1983 Communist Party membership card with a photo of ‘Barry,’ afro and all, will prove that the guy really is a Marxist.”
No. 5) Obama’s blonde girlfriend photo — $250,000. “Elitist liberals think of Obama as ‘safe’ because he has this Cosby-type family and his black wife Michelle,” argues the tycoon. “But you can be darned sure in college an ‘uppity’ guy like that used his rap to get into the drawers of at least one all all-American cheerleader he could show off like a trophy to all his homeboys. A picture of Mr. Perfect arm and arm with ‘Brittany’ will expose their golden boy for the phony he is, once and for all.”
UPPITY? A damning picture like this one from the movie "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" could torpedo Obama's image.
No. 6) Surrender letter to Iran – $100,000. “Everyone’s heard the rumors that Obama sent a signed letter of surrender to Tehran giving up in the war before it’s even fought,” says Prentbody. “If our hippie peacenik president is guilty of ‘premature capitulation,’ we need to find out.”
No. 7) The Sarah Palin Voodoo Doll — $80,000. When then Alaska Governor Sarah Palin first emerged on the national stage in 2008, she was hailed as a political superstar who would breathe new life into John McCain’s faltering political campaign. “Within days things started going wrong, she couldn’t seem to think straight and has been ridiculed for mistakes again and again ever since,” the industrialist points out. “Voodoo originates in Africa. Coincidence?”
WELL-PLACED pins in the head of a voodoo doll could easily make the victim talk like a blithering idiot.
No. 8) Osama Bin Laden’s Presidential Pardon — $50,000. The fact that Osama’s death photo was never released has led some to suggest that his death was faked by the White House, with the terror chief’s full cooperation. “Part of the deal could be that Bin Laden is pardoned for his murders in exchange for lying low,” says the business leader.
OSAMA is dead as a doornail -- or is he?
No. 9) Masai Warrior Lion Teeth Necklace – $25,000. The Masai are a tribe of African warriors who live in Kenya, where members of the Birther movement claim President Obama was really born. “The initiation ritual of every Masai boy is to kill a lion with his bare hands,” according to the political crusader. “You bring me Obama’s lion teeth necklace and I’ll show you proof positive that he was not only born in darkest Africa, he was raised in his homeland until at least the age of 13.”
LION FANG necklace could prove Obama's incredible courage -- and that his presidency is illegal.
No. 10) Obama’s “Get Out of Jail Free” Card — $10,000. Constitutional experts are divided as to whether a president can pardon himself – but President Obama could be planning to put the theory to the test. “Smart as the guy thinks he is, Barack Hussein Obama is going to get into a scandal, just like so many presidents before him,” Prentbody claims. “The difference is only he is arrogant enough to try this. He may have already typed up this pardon ‘for any crimes I may commit’, signed and dated it and tucked it away for a rainy day.
“When we impeach him, he can whip out this card and say, ‘Screw you, Mr. Charlie.’ The cocky son of a gun obviously thinks he’s too good to serve his time behind bars with the ‘brothers’ who didn’t go to Harvard. ”
TINY slip of paper could keep Obama from being impeached and sent to jail.
No. 11) The missing mix tape — $5,000. Back in the ’80s, every true soul brother created a mix tape of music to play on his boom box or groove to as his car “bounced along through the hood,” according to the multi-millionaire. “Americans have a right to know what’s on that tape. Is it obscenity-laced gansta rap about killing cops? Or, who knows, maybe it will turn out Obama loved Burt Bacharach tunes? That would certainly take some of the glamour away from this man who’s supposed to be the first ‘black’ president, wouldn’t it? Maybe Obama really isn’t black enough after all.”
FAMED Gangsta rapper Ice Cube put fear into white America.
No. 12) The Prom Video – $1,000. “Lost footage of Obama at his senior dance could speak volumes about who this man truly is,” says Prentbody. “Do we catch him going completely ghetto and freak-dancing with every girl with ‘back,’ regardless of race? Or will the video show that he has no rhythm at all, that the man now sitting in the Oval Office literally has no soul?”
LAME dance moves, like these executed by TV's beloved Steve Urkel could prove Obama is truly not black enough to be president.
Prentbody is quick to point out that forgery is a crime and he doesn’t want to be inundated with a mountain of poorly Photoshopped documents and pictures.
“That would be playing right into the hands of Obama and his cronies,” he said. “It would give the media an excuse to call patriots like us a bunch of rightwing kooks or something.”
C. Michael Forsyth
C. Michael Forsyth, the author of this article, has written a critically acclaimed horror novel Hour of the Beast. Plans for a major motion picture are now in the works!
To check out Hour of the Beast visit Amazon.com or save $4 by clicking HERE. The Kindle version is just $7 and the eBook is a mere $5.
INDEPENDENT "Nailbiter" succeeds where big-budget Hollywood flicks fail.
By C. Michael Forsyth
“Nailbiter” is an independent horror film that puts most big-budget Hollywood fare to shame – and will have you biting your nails in suspense.
I won’t give away more than the bare bones of the plot. It is that rare movie that actually surprises you along the way, in an age when if you’ve seen the trailer for a flick you typically know everything that will happen. Even the exact nature of the menace will likely throw you for a loop. As for the title, let’s just say that biting and nails definitely come into play.
“Nailbiter” begins with a mother driving with her three daughters to pick up the father, a soldier returning from a war zone, from the airport. They are beset by a monster tornado and forced to run from their car and take refuge in the cellar of an old farmhouse. We know they’re in trouble when the homeowner nails the cellar door shut, trapping them inside. But their problems are just beginning. Oh man, are they just beginning.
The movie works because the filmmakers simply follow some basic storytelling rules that, unfortunately, many Hollywood horror films break.
TRAPPED: Mom Janet (Erin McGrane) comforts her terrified daughters.
No. 1, create characters you care about and put them in jeopardy. In so many movies, you have no empathy for the characters. You don’t care who lives and who dies and the only payoff is correctly guessing the order in which they die and taking satisfaction in how bizarre that death is. (See S. Night Shyamalan’s “Devil.”) Here, plenty of time is devoted to establishing the character of mom Janet (Erin McGrane) a recovering alcoholic struggling to finally do right by her family, and her relationship with each of her very different kids. When a character dies, it’s a shock to the system that moves you to the brink of tears. How often do you see THAT in any horror movie?
No. 2, keep raising the stakes. The stakes here get very high, very quick. These aren’t some generic teenage camp counselors/monster fodder. They are children and we know the mother has to save ALL of them. Generally a tough task in a horror flick. And the situation keeps getting progressively more dire as the terrifying depth and breadth of the threat emerges.
No. 3, introduce a new type of menace. Serial killers, yawn. Zombies, ho-hum. We’ve seen scores of vampires and at this point, they’re no big deal. We sit down with our popcorn knowing all their strengths and all their weaknesses – stake through the heart, garlic, holy water, sunlight, crucifixes. (Heck, those blood-slurpers sure are easy to put down, aren’t they?) Scary as an old shoe. The menace in “Nailbiter” is novel.
No. 4, convincing special effects. I caught the picture at the Mad Monster Party horror convention in Charlotte, and when I read that the low-budget movie included a tornado, my first thought was that cheesiness would set in early on. But producer/director Patrick Rea had the smarts to allocate enough of the budget to effects to make them believable.
SOMETHING bad is coming, daughter Alice (Emily Boresow) realizes.
In addition, this is the only horror movie I’ve ever seen that left me WANTING to see a sequel. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really do a jig when I hear that a “Nightmare on Elm Street Part 13” is coming out. If the villain has already been defeated many times by teenage girls that puts a damper on his ability to scare you. It’s like a school bully trying to intimidate you after you’ve seen his butt whupped on the playground by a series of nerds. “Nailbiter” ends in such a way that actually demands a sequel.
Put it this way: It’s payback time.
Unlike this bloodsucking babe in the movie "Van Helsing," real-life vampires can't fly.
SPEAKING OF TERROR…
I was interviewed by Real Vampire News about real-life vampires, humans who truly do drink human blood. Read about my experiences interviewing these people as a reporter for Weekly World News, and what I’ve learned about this bizarre subculture by clicking
http://www.realvampirenews.com/2012/04/chatting-without-vampires-part-1/
… ALSO, BRACE YOURSELF FOR THE WEEK FROM HELL.
The Week From Hell is upon us – eight disaster-prone days during which, if history is any indication, a major tragedy is likely to take place. Here are just a few of the past tragedies that have befallen the world between April 12 and April 20:
April 12: U.S. Civil War begins
April 13: Apollo 13 disaster
April 14: Lincoln Shot
April 15: Titanic Sinks
April 16: Virginia Tech Massacre
April 17: Russian troops slaughter goldfield workers
April 18: San Francisco Earthquake
April 19: Oklahoma City Bombing, Bay of Pigs, Waco tragedy.
April 20: Columbine High School Massacre
A NIGHT TO REMEMBER: Titanic tragedy just one of hundreds of disasters to take place during Week From Hell
And here, drawn mostly from Wikipedia, is the full list:
APRIL 12
• 1861 – The U.S. Civil War begins when Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.
• 1864 –The Fort Pillow massacre: Confederate forces murder most of the African American soldiers who surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.
• 1945 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office.
• 1968 – Nerve gas accident at Skull Valley, Utah.
• 1970 – Soviet submarine K-8, carrying four nuclear torpedoes, sinks in the Bay of Biscay four days after a fire on board.
• 2002 – A female suicide bomber blows herself up at the entrance to Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market, killing 7 and wounding 104.
• 2007 – A suicide bomber penetrates the Green Zone and detonates in a cafeteria inside the parliament building, killing Iraqi MP Mohammed Awad and wounding more than 20 other people.
• 2010 – A train derails near Merano, Italy, after running into a landslide, causing nine deaths and injuring 28 people.
APRIL 13
• 1945 – German troops butcher more than 1,000 political and military prisoners in Gardelegen, Germany.
• 1948 – The Hadassah medical convoy massacre: In an ambush, 79 Jewish doctors, nurses and medical students from Hadassah Hospital and a British soldier are slaughtered by Arabs in Sheikh Jarra near Jerusalem.
• 1953 – CIA director Allen Dulles launches the sinister mind-control program MKULTRA.
• 1970 – An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 explodes while en route to the Moon, stranding the crew in space.
• 1975 – Bus massacre in Lebanon: Attack by the Phalangist resistance kills 26 militia members of the P.F.L. of Palestine, marking the start of the 15-year Lebanese Civil War.
• 1992 – The Great Chicago Flood: Damaged wall of a utility tunnel beneath the Chicago River opens into a breach that floods basements with an estimated 250 million gallons of water.
APRIL 14
* 1846 – The Donner Party expedition sets out from Springfield, Illinois for California. After being trapped by heavy snow, nearly half of the 87 pioneers die, many eaten by their starving companions.
* 1865 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth.
• 1909 – Adana Massacre is launched by Turkey’s Ottoman Empire against Armenian civilians. Between 15,000–30,000 people are killed.
• 1944 – A massive explosion in India’s Bombay harbor kills 800.
• 1986 – President Ronald Reagan orders major bombing raids against Libya, killing 60 people.
• 1986 – Massive 2.2 pound hailstones fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92. These are the heaviest hailstones ever recorded.
• 1988 – The USS Samuel B. Roberts strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf
• 1994 – In northern Iraq, two U.S. Air Force fighters mistakenly shoot down two U.S. Army helicopters, killing 26 people.
• 1999 – NATO mistakenly bombs a convoy of ethnic Albanian refugees. Yugoslav officials say 75 people are killed.
• 1999 – A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing $2.3 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history.
• 2010 – Nearly 2,700 are killed in a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in Yushu, Qinghai, China.
APRIL 15
• 1715 – The Pocotaligo Massacre triggers the start of the Yamasee War in colonial South Carolina. In the first year of the war, the Yamasee Indians lose about a quarter of their population, either killed or enslaved.
• 1912 – The RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., two and a half hours after hitting an iceberg. 1,517 people are killed.
* 1927 Great Mississippi Flood, one of the most destructive deluges in American history, claims 246 lives and inflicts $400 million in damage.
• 1941 – In the Belfast Blitz, the German Luftwaffe bombs Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing 1,000 people.
• 1969 – North Korea shoots down a United States Navy aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 on board.
• 1970 – During the Cambodian Civil War, massacres of the Vietnamese minority results in 800 bodies flowing down the Mekong River into South Vietnam.
• 1979 – A disastrous 7.1 earthquake occurs on Montenegro coast.
• 1989 – British soccer fans crush together at Liverpool’s Hillsborough Stadium in the FA Cup Semi Final, causing 96 deaths.
• 1989 – The Tiananmen Square showdown begins in the People’s Republic of China. Thousands are massacred by Communist troops.
• 2002 – Air China Flight CA129 crashes into a hillside during heavy rain and fog near Busan, South Korea, killing 128.
APRIL 16
• 73 A.D. – Roman legions crush the Jewish revolt at Masada after months of seige. Hundreds of Israelites commit suicide rather than be taken as slaves.
• 1945 – About 7,000 civilians and wounded soldiers perish when the German refugee ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine torpedo, marking one of the worst tragedies in maritime history.
• 1947 – Texas City Disaster: An explosion on board a freighter in port causes the city of Texas City, Texas, to catch fire, killing almost 600.
• 1990 – “Doctor Death” Jack Kevorkian carries out his first assisted suicide.
• 1992 – The Katina P. runs aground off of Maputo, Mozambique and 60,000 tons of crude oil spill into the ocean.
• 2007 – Virginia Tech massacre: The deadliest spree killing in modern American history. Seung-Hui Cho kills 32 and injures 23 before committing suicide.
APRIL 17
• 1912 – Russian troops open fire on striking goldfield workers in northeast Siberia, killing at least 150.
• 1941 – Germany conquers Yugoslavia.
• 1975: Khmer Rouge forces take over Cambodia. About 1.7 million people are slaughtered by this tyrannical regime, most dumped in the infamous mass graves known as The Killing Fields.
• 2006 – Sami Hammad, a Palestinian suicide bomber, detonates an explosive device in Tel Aviv, killing 11 people and injuring 70.
APRIL 18
• 1897 – The Greco-Turkish War is declared between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. About 8,000 die in the brief but bloody conflict also known as The 30 Day War.
• 1902 – Quetzaltenango, the second largest city of Guatemala, is destroyed by an earthquake, killing about 900 people.
• 1906 – San Francisco earthquake destroys much of city. Death toll of 700 is often cited but experts believe as many as 2,800 may have perished in quake and resulting fires.
• 1983 – A suicide bomber destroys the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people.
• 1996 – In Lebanon, at least 106 civilian refugees are killed when Israel Defense Forces shell the UN compound at Quana.
• 2007 – A series of bombings wreak havoc in Baghdad, killing 198 and injuring 251.
APRIL 19
• 1943 – German troops crush the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. An estimated 13,000 Jews are killed, about half of those burned alive or killed by smoke inhalation. Of the 50,000 survivors, most are shipped to extermination camps.
• 1943 – Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time, introducing the drug that will destroy thousands of minds.
• 1961 – The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ends in a fiasco for the U.S., in which most of the 1,500 C.I.A.-trained invaders are captured or killed.
• 1989 – A gun turret explodes aboard the USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors.
• 1993 – The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die, including 20 children and two pregnant women.
• 1993 – South Dakota governor George Mickelson and seven others are killed when their plane crashes in Iowa.
• 1995 – Oklahoma City bombing: Timothy McVeigh blows up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168.
• 1997 – The Red River Flood of 1997 overwhelms region from North Dakota to Minnesota, inflicting $3.5 billion in damage.
APRIL 20
• 1792 – France declares war on Austria, the beginning of French Revolutionary Wars in which tens of thousands die.
• 1889 – Nazi madman Adolf Hitler is born. He launches World War 2 in which over 60 million people are killed.
• 1999 – Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold fatally shoot 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide in Jefferson County, Colorado.
• 2010 – The Deepwater Horizon oil well explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing twelve workers and causing an oil spill that lasts six months.
… AND, ON A BRIGHTER NOTE…
C. Michael Forsyth, the author of this article, has written a critically acclaimed horror novel Hour of the Beast, soon to be a major motion picture.
To check out Hour of the Beast visit Amazon.com or save $4 by clicking HERE. The Kindle version is just $7 and the eBook is a mere $5.
HOLY BOOKSHELF of Nazareth is nearly 2,000 years old, experts say.
By C. Michael Forsyth
CANTERBURY, England — Missing for 800 years, a bookshelf built by Jesus Christ in His father’s carpentry shop has resurfaced in an elderly English woman’s home!
The Holy Bookshelf of Nazareth has been authenticated by a leading expert, who used radiocarbon dating to confirm that it was built approximately 2,000 years ago.
“The cedar from which the shelves are made is genetically identical to trees in a grove less than half a mile outside the ancient town of Nazareth,” says Dr. Lionel Getting. “Hebrew lettering engraved on a small plaque on the back indicates that it was made by ‘Joseph and Sons,’ believed to be the name of the shop owned by Our Lord’s earthly father.
“There is no doubt in my mind that this is indeed the genuine article.”
JESUS was a competent carpenter.
The bookshelf is considered one of the most sacred pieces of furniture in Christendom, second only to the Holy End Tables of Antioch, which are said to be hewn from the cross on which Jesus was crucified, and which are now housed in the Vatican.
According to legend, the bookcase was spirited out of the Holy Land after Crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1204 A.D. It resurfaced last December in the basement of Mrs. Helen Goldbolt of Canterbury, who was using it to store jars of preserves and odds and ends.
“It had been in our family for many generations,” she told a newspaper. “I had no idea it might be valuable until a plumber working in the basement saw it and suggested I have it appraised.”
The appraiser immediately recognized the object’s antiquity and contacted Dr. Getting, a university expert who was struck by its resemblance to medieval drawings of the shelves. Thrilled, he promptly launched an investigation.
“When I realized what it was, I was dumbstruck,” Dr. Getting remembers.
Despite its incredible age, the bookshelf is in extraordinary condition, having miraculously survived through the eons when most wooden furniture made at the time has long since fallen apart. What’s more, it appears to have strange paranormal properties. Mrs. Goldbolt claims that food placed on the shelves never decays.
“Once I accidentally left a carton of milk on the top shelf,” the 78-year-old widow recalls. “Three months later it wasn’t spoiled.”
Profane objects don’t fare as well.
“The bookshelf was in my son’s bedroom when he was in his teens and he stored his collection of girlie magazines on the bottom shelf,” Mrs. Goldbolt says. “One day they burst into flames. They were reduced to ashes, but the shelves weren’t even singed.”
AT AN EARLY AGE, Jesus learned the trade of carpentry from His earthly father Joseph.
The nails used in the shelves’ construction match those employed by Hebrew carpenters in the 1st Century A.D. and recovered from archaeological digs. However, astonishingly, there is no sign of rust.
How the bookshelf survived two millennia is especially baffling because there is nothing out of the ordinary in how it is put together.
“Though by no means shoddily constructed, the Holy Bookshelf was made with no frills. For example only the minimal possible number of nails were used to adhere the vertical back cleats,” the expert notes. “This is entirely consistent with the Bible, which suggests that while Jesus was a smashing success as the Savior of mankind, He was a mediocre carpenter. Unlike His younger brother James, He had little interest in following His earthly father’s footsteps in the family business.
“As we now know, He had bigger fish to fry.”
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth
If you enjoyed this mind-bending story by C. Michael Forsyth, check out his collection of bizarre news, available on Kindle and in other eBook formats.
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MORE FROM THE AUTHOR OF THIS STORY …
The tables turn on an identity thief in the latest thriller by C. Michael Forsyth. To check it out, click HERE.
ON THE HOUR OF THE BEAST FRONT…
ANOTHER satisfied customer. Hour of the Beast sold like hotcakes at the Mad Monster Party.
Had a great time as a vendor hawking my horror novel Hour of the Beast at the Mad Monster Party convention in Charlotte, N.C. the weekend of March 23rd. I scared the pants off guest Traci Lords, the famed former porn princess. Oops, bad choice of words. What I mean is that when she took a gander at the werewolf hand in a jar I keep as a prop on my table, she leapt back in horror and almost shrieked. BTW, she looks fantastic – you’d swear she was 25.
NAKED FEAR: Former under age porn star Traci Lords has appeared in dozens of mainstream films including “Not of this Earth” and “Blade.”
I saw two awesome screenings. One was the pilot for a TV show called “Ghost Trek.” A hilarious faux reality show, it’s like “Reno 911” with ghost hunters. The other is an indie film titled “Nail Biter.” One of the best horror films I’ve seen in years, putting most big studio fare to shame. Look for my review in my next post.
A highlight was getting to meet one of my favorite actors of all time, the great Chris Sarandon – a star who was a better vampire than Christopher Lee and a better Jesus than Max von Sydow! If you only know Sarandon from the original “Fright Night” you know how charismatic he is – managing to be sexier in the role of bloodsucker Jerry Dandridge than hunk Colin Farrell was in the remake. But check him out in other roles, from Al Pacino’s transsexual mate in “Dog Day Afternoon” to a macho cop in “Child’s Play” – and you’ll have a sense of his range. His acting choices are fascinating. There’s a scene in “The Day Christ Died” when Jesus is slapped, illustrating the turn the other cheek lesson. Chris, as Jesus, slowly turns the other cheek – AFTER he looks like he wants to slug the other guy. A Jesus who’s truly human and for once, a Jesus who’s actually interesting.
C. Michael Forsyth with screen legend Chris Sarandon. When my kids see “Fright Night” I can reassure them “Hey, look, he’s not scary, he’s a friend of Dad.” If that doesn’t work, I’ll tell them, “Look how much bigger Dad is than the vampire. Don’t you think he could kick his butt?”
C. Michael Forsyth, the author of this article, has written a critically acclaimed horror novel Hour of the Beast, soon to be a major motion picture.
To check out Hour of the Beast visit Amazon.com or save $4 by clicking HERE. The Kindle version is just $7 and the eBook is a mere $5.
REAL TIME TERROR: Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen) plays cat and mouse with a mysterious menace in an isolated lake house.
By C. Michael Forsyth
“The Silent House” is the most harrowing horror movie I’ve seen in years, suspenseful and technically brilliant with an extraordinary lead performance and a disturbing finale.
The story unfolds in real-time — 88 minutes — and the film appears to be a single uninterrupted shot. (Some edits are snuck in, but they’re invisible to the untrained eye).
Unlike “The Blair Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity,” the conceits of which allowed for roughshod camerawork, this movie needed a director with technical skill. No one without a great deal of cinematic prowess would even attempt something this bold – since it would only take one screw-up along the way to ruin the long take.
Co-directors Chris Kentis and wife Laura Lau fill the bill. They are best known for “Open Water” (2004) about a couple stranded in shark-infested waters. That was another movie made on a low budget with a tiny cast but with major technical challenges. (Every film student is taught to avoid shooting on water).
Filming "Open Water" also presented challenges for the cast and crew.
It’s a testament to their meticulously thought-out choreography that had the single-shot gimmick in “The Silent House” not been highly publicized, most movie goers wouldn’t consciously notice it. The camera always seems to be in just the right place. Yet the technique produces a powerful effect: unrelieved tension from the first frame to the last.
In the movie, a young woman named Sarah, her father and uncle Peter are fixing up their secluded summer house to sell it. Soon after her uncle stomps out in a huff, Sarah becomes separated from her dad and she finds herself trapped in the house — stalked by someone or something. The danger swiftly escalates, as does Sarah’s terror.
The movie is a remake of the Uruguayan film “La Casa Muda,” which in turn is “inspired by a true story” that took place in the 1940s – in other words, the whole thing is made up.
"Next time, let's hire a contractor." Uncle Peter (Eric Sheffer Steven) Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen) and dad John (Adam Frese) find that mold is the least thing wrong in their old summer home.
The filmmakers build tension from the very opening scene and never quit. You don’t feel Sarah is safe for a single minute and you don’t feel you can trust anyone. Is Uncle Peter staring at Sarah’s top a bit too long when he tells her how “grown up” she looks? What about this mysterious former boyfriend who, as her father John learns by checking her Facebook page, wants to come back into her life? Isn’t there something “off” about the young neighbor who drops by claiming to have been Sarah’s childhood playmate – yet whom Sarah can’t seem to remember? Even dear old dad has a creepy streak. Why is he snooping on her FB page in the first place?
And of course, what about the unseen squatters who may or may not have taken up residence in the boarded-up home?
The movie benefits from a compelling performance by Elizabeth Olsen, the non-anorexic kid sister of the Olsen twins, as Sarah. Projecting fear so intense that she can sometimes scarcely breathe or bite back screams, she invites us to share her terror.
COLLEGE professor Jimmy Stewart begins to suspect two of his former students have committed murder in Alfred Hitchcock's classic "Rope."
This isn’t the first movie that takes place in real time. In “High Noon” the suspense of the countdown to the gunfight is enhanced by the fact that the passage of time on the ticking clock on screen matches the one in the movie theater. Nor is this the first use of the single-take technique. Alfred Hitchcock pioneered it famously in “Rope” in 1948. But in “Rope, the gimmick didn’t add much to the story telling – you merely appreciated the difficulty and applauded Hitch for pulling off the tour de force. The legendary director himself later dismissed the movie as an “experiment that didn’t work out.”
Here, that unblinking camera delivers a heightened sense of realism and bonds us intimately with Sarah as it follows her every move.
The New York Times ran a story on the making of the film that throws light on the intense preparation involved. For weeks prior to filming, the directors roamed the house plotting and rehearsing the camera moves and action.
“Laura would play the part of Sarah,” Kentis told the paper, “and I’d follow her with the camera and record. We would work out all the choreography and the possibilities before we brought the crew on.”
The planning paid off. But success with the immensely long take is only one aspect of the brilliant cinematography on display in the film. The small Canon 5D chosen for filming allows for creative manipulation of focus – sometimes characters or things become unnervingly blurry.
“It’s that camera’s shallow depth of field and the lenses we used that helped us tell the story,” Mr. Kentis explained. “You could use it to draw the audience’s attention to something within the frame or you could use it to reflect a character’s state of mind.”
The murky lighting that permeates the house adds to the ominous mood – rooms filled with little more than old mattresses somehow appear nightmarish. Sarah briefly makes it outside and the scene in which she runs for her life is so hyperkinetic, the effect is impressionistic. As simple an image as the shadow of a man standing behind a sheet of plastic is unsettling in the adept hands of the cinematographer Igor Martinovic.
In one highly inventive sequence, the lights go out and the only illumination is the periodic flash of a Polaroid camera Sarah uses as a makeshift flashlight. Needless to say, what she sees in those flashes isn’t very reassuring.
Sound is used just as effectively as image — mysterious footsteps; rattling in walls; the thump of a body hitting a floor. What’s happening off screen, what Sarah can’t see in this house of horror, is more terrifying than what she can see. And let’s not forget the art direction. The mundane yet somehow not-quite-right junk piled up in the rooms of the maze-like old home make it as scary as any amusement park haunted house.
The Academy is stingy about doling out Oscars to horror movies (“Silence of the Lambs” and just 13 others have earned awards) but “The Silent House” deserves consideration in more than one category.
Now, I’m not saying the picture is perfect. About halfway in, you’ll groan when you see what appears to be The Classic Bone-Headed Move. You know, when characters put themselves in danger when they have a clear chance to escape? A few minutes later, you’ll think the KILLER is making The Classic Villain Bone-Headed Move (not finishing off the victim). Relax, there’s an explanation.
The resolution of the movie is one that fans of the genre will not exactly find fresh. Without spoiling the ending, let’s just say you’ve seen it before. In this case, it does fit the story and wraps things up in an emotionally satisfying (though stomach-turning) way. My complaint is not so much that it’s become a cliché as that it always leaves me as a viewer feeling betrayed. And because of the unique manner in which the story is filmed, the sin is even more egregious. Frankly, I’d have been happier if the police just showed up out of nowhere to save the day.
What the heck am I talking about? Well, you’ll have to see the movie – and I recommend that you do.
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth
C. Michael Forsyth, the author of this article, has written a critically acclaimed horror novel. The Horror Fiction Review raves that Hour of the Beast is a "rip-snorting, action-packed sexy college romp."
To check out Hour of the Beast visit Amazon.com or save $4 by clicking HERE. The Kindle version is just $7 and the eBook is a mere $5.
TOP OF THE MORNING TO YOU! This isn't the kind of little person well known actor meant.
C. Michael Forsyth
LONDON – Just moments after Irish actor Dennis O’Cullen thanked “all the little people” at an awards ceremony, he was hustled off the stage by men in white coats and whisked away to a loony bin!
Now, after spending four months in the Peaceful Gardens Sanitarium, the 67-year-old star is suing both his manager and two doctors for having him involuntarily committed.
“Obviously, I was talking about the peons who work behind the scenes, like the makeup girl and the fellow who points the spotlight, as anyone but those dolts would realize,” he told a London paper.
“I haven’t believed in leprechauns since I was 15. And as anyone who has set foot in my native Ireland can tell you, we call them ‘wee folk’ not ‘little people.’ ”
Although not well known to audiences in America, where he’s made only four films, O’Cullen is a respected stage actor in Britain, where he was once hailed as the “Irish Olivier.”
ACCLAIMED actor Dennis O'Cullen first appeared as "King Lear" in this 1996 PBS presentation, but last year's Best Actor trophy was his first major award for the role.
The incident occurred at the prestigious Christopher Marlowe Awards, after O’Cullen was handed a Best Actor statuette for his starring role in King Lear.
“O’Cullen was aglow because he’d been nominated many times before and hadn’t won,” said a reporter who was covering the star-studded show. “About 30 seconds into his acceptance speech he made the “little people” remark and he was suddenly gang-tackled by four burly men in hospital uniforms. He appeared to be quite taken aback.”
The Shakespearean actor’s manager Edwin “Reggie” Baronsett has apologized profusely for the misunderstanding. However, he insists that having two doctors and several staffers from the mental health facility on hand seemed prudent under the circumstances.
“Let’s not forget that just three years ago at another awards ceremony, Mr. O’Cullen became unhinged after losing for a fifth year in a row to Kenneth Branagh. He went after the presenter Dame Judy Dench with a wooden sword — all the while limping like Richard III,” he points out. “We simply wanted to spare my client another embarrassing spectacle like that.”
O’Cullen has refused to accept the apology.
“Receiving that award should have been the crowning moment of my career,” he declares. “Instead I was made a national laughingstock and was deprived of four months of liberty.”
BELIEF in leprechauns, shown in this scene from the Disney classic "Darby O'Gill and the Little People," still remains strong in Ireland today.
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth
C. Michael Forsyth, the author of this article, has written a critically acclaimed horror novel. The Horror Fiction Review raves that Hour of the Beast is a "rip-snorting, action-packed sexy college romp."
To check out Hour of the Beast visit Amazon.com or save $4 by clicking HERE. The Kindle version is just $7 and the eBook is a mere $5.
BIG-BELLIED BLOWHARD Rush Limbaugh recently put his foot in his mouth.
By C. Michael Forsyth
Broadcasting heavyweight Rush Limbaugh unleashed a firestorm of controversy when he used the word “slut” on his radio show. Now a linguist has come forward with a list of alternative phrases for such offensive terms.
“In the last few decades, the level of discourse regarding women has become increasingly coarse,” observes Harlan Mistow of Cambridge, Mass. “A female who would once have been branded a shrew is now openly called the B word or even the C word. A ‘hussy’ is now a ‘skank.’
“By employing less judgmental language and in some cases drawing upon phrases from the past, we can avoid terms that are unnecessarily pejorative.”
The list will be very helpful to Rush and other public speakers, Mistow says.
Here, from the expert, are 13 common male terms for women and the better alternatives:
SLUT = SEXUALLY LIBERATED WOMAN
COCKTEASER = FLIRT
GOLD DIGGER = MATERIAL GIRL
BITCH = TAKE CHARGE TYPE
BULL DYKE = LADY WHO PREFERS THE COMPANY OF WOMEN
BIMBO = INGENUE
DOG = ALTERNATE-UNIVERSE HOTTIE
FAT PIG = CUDDLY CHICK
OLD MAID = ROMANTIC WHO’S STILL LOOKING FOR MR. RIGHT
FREAK = ADVENTUROUS TYPE
OLD BAG = VERY EXPERIENCED PERSON
STUCK UP C- -T = PRINCESS TYPE
SKANK = LADY WHO’S GENEROUS IN SHARING HER COMPANY
SEXUALLY LIBERATED WOMAN: Famed porn queen Jenna Jameson
MATERIAL GIRL: Anna Nicole Smith tied the knot with a multi-millionaire.
PREFERS the company of women: funnygal Rosie O'Donnell
C. Michael Forsyth, the author of this article, has written a critically acclaimed horror novel. The Horror Fiction Review raves that Hour of the Beast is a "rip-snorting, action-packed sexy college romp."
To check out Hour of the Beast visit Amazon.com or save $4 by clicking HERE. The Kindle version is just $7 and the eBook is a mere $5.
LORD Donald Trump will be legally entitled to attend White House affairs.
By C. Michael Forsyth
WASHINGTON — Move over, Prince Charles. America will soon have an aristocracy of its very own!
Congress is poised to pass the American Achievement Recognition Act, which will allow successful U.S. citizens to purchase ranks such as lord, lady, duke and earl!
“If the bill passes, a wealthy citizen like Bill Gates or Donald Trump could pay $1 billion to become a lord,” explained a Capitol Hill source familiar with the pending legislation.
“Entertainers who truly wish to be known as ‘Hollywood royalty’ now can. Angelina Jolie or Kim Kardashian would have the opportunity to shell out $100 million for the privilege of being called duchess.”
The act could raise an estimated $500 billion a year, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and would help to swiftly erase the national debt. The bill, now making its way through committee, enjoys support from both sides of the aisle.
“The Dems like it because it raises revenue primarily from the richest 1 percent,” revealed the Washington insider. “We conservatives like it because it’s an alternative to new taxes and it rewards achievement, allowing successful Americans to distinguish themselves from the crowd.”
DUCHESS Kim Kardashian will be even more glamorous with an aristocratic title.
Although details of the legislation are still being hammered out, an early draft suggested the following price guide:
Lord = $ 1 billion
Duke = $ 100 million
Marquess = $10 million
Earl = $5 million
Viscount = $1million
Baron = $500,000
Knight =$100,000
BARONESS Paris Hilton, seen here in one of her mug shots, would face a jury of her noble peers next time she's in trouble.
The new law, if carefully worded, can avoid any violation of Article 1, Section 9, of the Constitution, according to legal scholars.
Though the titles are largely honorific, certain perks will come along with each rank. Lords will automatically be granted invitations to important White House ceremonies and parties for foreign dignitaries. Since the U.S. Constitution already mandates that a person can only be judged by a jury of his peers, a noble will have the right to a jury made up of people of equal rank.
“This will be helpful to folks like Paris Hilton, who tend to find themselves in legal hot water from time to time,” the source explains. “Other successful individuals are likely to be more sympathetic.”
Newspapers and other media will be legally required to refer to aristocrats by their titles. Failure to abide by the law will be punished by a stiff fine.
“If a news station errs, it could be penalized by as much as $100,000 by the FCC,” said a high-ranking congressional aide who helped draft the legislation.
WE ARE NOT AMUSED: Prince Charles and other British royals will not be happy to hear that America has its own aristocracy.
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth
The author of this article has written a spine-tingling new book. C. Michael Forsyth's new horror novel Hour of the Beast is "very diificult to put down," a Reader Favorites reviewer declares.
You can check out Hour of the Beast by visiting Amazon.com, or save $4 by clicking HERE. The Kindle edition is just $7 and an Ebook is a measly $5!
THE FROZEN DEAD: Nazi zombies — I hate those guys.
By C. Michael Forsyth
Nazis are scary and evil. Zombies are scary and evil. Nazi zombies are twice as scary and evil, right? Not necessarily, as the movie “Dead Snow” demonstrates.
The Norwegian zombie flick is about a group of young medical students who take a fun holiday break in a mountain cabin – unaware that the snow-covered peaks are infested with the reanimated corpses of German troops who froze to death there during World War II. It isn’t long before the murderous Nazi zombies blitzkrieg the campers, who must fight for their lives.
The movie isn’t particularly frightening. Turns out that Nazis don’t become any worse by virtue of being walking corpses – they’ve already maxed out. And zombies aren’t any more evil because they’re Nazis. Regardless of their politics, zombies pretty much all do the same thing: Kill, disembowel and eat people.
The filmmakers had an opportunity to come up with a neat mythology explaining the German soldiers’ return from the dead. We know the Nazis were devotees of the occult. Or perhaps a Gypsy cast a curse on the mass-murdering troops. But no explanation is offered.
JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS: Nazi stormtrooper takes no prisoners.
Story logic is thrown out the window: The cabin has been in the family of one of the women for decades, yet she has no clue there’s anything dangerous about the area. In fact, she elects to get to the cabin by cross-country skiing instead of joining the rest of the gang in cars. The campers are warned about the Nazi menace by a creepy old geezer who stops by the cabin – yet he camps out in the middle of snow at night, only to become zombie fodder. The Nazis are drawn to their missing gold (an interesting, if not entirely original angle). Yet the attacks begin before the campers discover the gold. The zombie colonel (yes, the goose-stepping undead stormtroopers are still just following orders) commands hundreds of his men to rise from their snowy graves at once. But inexplicably, he waits till the end of the flick to do this, after dozens of the zombies have been picked off one by one.
The most original thing about the film is the setting, that forbidding snow-enshrouded wilderness. The landscape allows for set pieces I’ve never seen in a horror movie before. That scene when the undead horde suddenly rises from the snow on the orders of their mottled leader is especially effective. And you have to give the movie makers credit for braving the 15-degree weather, dangerous crevasses and foot-deep snow of the Scandinavian mountains to bring us the film.
ZEIG HEIL! Colonel Herzog is even more evil dead than he was alive.
The director Tommy Wirkola said in an interview with Cinema Junkie that he was imitating the style of Sam Raimi, creator of the slapstick-filled “Evil Dead” movies. The movie, he explained, was basically a chance to show Nazi zombies being killed in as many gory, over-the-top and humorous ways as possible.
“We tried to do Sam Raimi but in a new way and we just wanted a really fun, fun film. That’s it,” he explained. “We really didn’t bother too much about the rules.”
Sure, okay. I grew up on “Hogan’s Heroes”. I know how hilarious those bumbling Nazis can be.
Certainly there are some funny moments: After one of the campers is bitten on the arm, he hacks it offf with a chainsaw (a tribute to Bruce Campbell in “The Evil Dead”). As he stands there grinning triumphantly, a zombie emerges from the snow and bites his “wedding tackle.” He and his companion trade dismayed “Oh, oh, what now?” looks.
The difference is “The Evil Dead” trilogy truly worked as both comedy and horror. The stories unfolded logically and you truly rooted for Bruce Campbell’s character Ash to survive. In “Dead Snow” the supernatural story simply doesn’t come together and you’re not particularly invested in the characters.
So, while there is some gory fun here, I’m afraid I can only give “Dead Snow” a two out of five swastika rating.
MORE FROM THE AUTHOR OF THIS STORY …
Through January 31 only “The Identity Thief” is FREE on Kindle! (Usually $5.99)
The tables turn on an identity thief in the latest thriller by C. Michael Forsyth. To check it out, click HERE.
The author of this review has written a critically acclaimed horror novel. The Horror Fiction Review raves that Hour of the Beast is a “rip-snorting, action-packed sexy college romp.”
You can check out Hour of the Beast at Amazon.com, or save $4 by by clicking HERE. The eBook is a measly $5!
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