On “South Park,” Cartman learns that alien probes are no laughing matter — or are they?
By C. Michael Forsyth
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Those embarrassing alien probes you’ve heard so much about serve no legitimate scientific purpose whatsoever — and are conducted purely for kicks, a startling new university study reveals.
“Extraterrestrials first began visiting our planet in the late 1940s,” explains Robert S. Tangeman, PhD, lead author of the 68-page report. “Their technology is hundreds of years more advanced than anything we possess, as evidenced by their achievement of interstellar flight.
“Most likely, they learned everything there is to know about human anatomy within the first four months of their arrival. At the absolute latest, by 1951 their sophisticated scanners had mapped the entire human digestive tract from end to end.
“Therefore, our team has come to the inescapable conclusion that aliens perform these invasive alien probes for entertainment.”
Researchers from the five top universities that participated in the study interviewed 2,506 people who claimed to have been abducted between 1972 and 2010. Though many subjects were initially reluctant to discuss the nitty-gritty details of their alien examination ordeals, a disturbing pattern quickly emerged: Abductees heard strange sounds that sounded distinctly like laughter during the probes.
Mysterious alien probe, now housed at Area 51 museum and gift shop, was recovered from saucer wreck in the 1980s
A typical case is the account of subject Fred B., a husky 45-year-old truck driver from Abilene, Texas.
“When I woke up in this round white room, stark naked and strapped face down over a table, I was terrified,” he told the researchers. “The room was full of weird-looking scientific equipment and there were three little gray men with giant foreheads and black eyes moving around the room.
“I heard this loud humming sound and when I looked over my shoulder, I saw a strange, hose-like thing with a flashing light on the end swimming through the air toward me — making a beeline for my keister.
“I’d read enough supermarket tabloids to know what was coming next. I gritted my teeth and told myself, ‘Well, it’s for the sake of science, and maybe it’ll end up helping understanding and peace between our planet and their’s. So I’ll just have to grin and bear it.’ ”
But midway through the grueling 10-minute check, Fred got an unpleasant surprise.
“I heard this high-pitched tittering sound coming from behind me. At first I thought it was my imagination, but then I heard it again, louder — and all three of them were doing it. The SOBs were laughing hysterically at me!
“You can bet your life I was mad as hell. When they dropped me off near my truck, I thought they might zap my memory, like you hear about. But unfortunately, I remember every minute of that sickening experience.”
Highly respected writer Whitley Strieber gave a chilling true account of his alien-probe ordeal.
Few abductees were willing to discuss the humiliating exams until 1987, when highly respected writer Whitley Strieber detailed his shocking rectal probe by 4-foot-tall, insect-like aliens in his groundbreaking non-fiction book Communion. Since then, hundreds of men and women from around the world have come forward with their own harrowing tales of invasive probes of their most intimate areas.
“When we began our study, I was convinced that the ‘tittering’ sound must actually be some form of language,” said Tangeman. “But we have eyewitness accounts of aliens elbowing each other and literally laughing until they cried.
“There’s really no doubt that the aliens perform these probes because they think our reactions are funny.
“The only upside is that it means that extraterrestrials are much more like humans that we ever knew. They need entertainment and they have a sense of humor — even though that sense of humor is far less sophisticated than you might expect from such a highly evolved civilization.”
“YOU”RE GOING TO PUT WHAT, WHERE?” Milla Vovovich finds herself at the wrong end of an alien probe in “The Fourth Kind.”
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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C. Michael Forsyth’s novel Hour of the Beast is “gripping and fast-paced,” critics say.
Butch from the beloved "Little Rascals" knew how to keep other kids in line.
By C. Michael Forsyth
MOBILE, Ala. — Family values groups are hailing an innovative new program that teaches students how to bully sissies, tomboys and other social misfits more effectively.
Known as SNETP, or Social Norm Enforcement Training Program, the approach is “a much needed antidote” to the so-called tolerance classes all-too prevalent in American schools today, the experts say.
SNETP, which is quickly gaining widespread support nationwide, is the brainchild of respected values expert Dwayne Tuboll of Mobile.
“In many public schools today, our children are being taught that there’s ‘nothing wrong’ with being a homosexual or a lesbian, that it’s A-OK,” explains Tuboll, founder of the American Center for the Preservation of Judeo-Christian Values.
“Well, that’s not what the Bible says. We’re supposed to be helping kids conform to social norms, not teaching that ‘anything goes.’
“Back when you and I were kids, no one made a fuss about bullies. They certainly weren’t expelled en masse from schools under some ‘zero tolerance’ policy.
“I myself was a boy who liked arts and crafts and hated sports. But luckily there were bullies around to call me a ‘fairy’ until I got back in line. Yes, it hurt my feelings something awful at the time, but if it hadn’t been for those bullies I shudder to think about how I might have turned out.
“Unfortunately, in too many schools today, bullying is outlawed — just when we need old fashioned bullying most. Well, through SNETP, we’re bringing it back.”
Funded by private donations, the classes are held three days a week and instill invaluable bullying skills. Kids are taught to:
* Avoid offensive language. Budding bullies learn not to shout epithets like the F-word that might offend some adults, but instead use terms like ’pansy’ or ’butch.’
* Use violence only as a last resort. Kids are trained to use humiliation and teasing as weapons, rather than their fists.
* Dish out punishment with a smile. Drummed into bullies is the principle that God hates the sin, not the sinner. “If you steal an effeminate nerd’s glasses and hold it above your head, do it with a grin, not a scowl,” SNETP literature teaches children.
* Concentrate on light-hearted pranks. Wedgies, stuffing misfits in lockers, swirlies (stuffing heads in toilets) chocolate swirlies, pantsing boys and pushing them in the girls’ locker room are among the techniques introduced in the program.
* Use the buddy system. Bullying doesn’t work if the target is a child’s physical match. Working in pairs or small teams is the best way to keep the odds from becoming too even.
* Go high tech. Social norm enforcement isn’t reserved for the hallway, the playground and school bus anymore. Today tools like email and text-messaging are now available for teasing.
* Recognize submission. “If a girl is engaging in gender-inappropriate behavior like trying to play football on the playground, a bully team may have to bring her down and shove her face in the mud to teach her she’s not as tough as a boy,” explained values guru Tuboll, author of the upcoming book, Pushing Back: How You Can Join the Fight To Save Our Culture. “When she breaks down in tears after five or ten minutes and says ‘Uncle,’ you let her up and that’s the end of it.”
SNETP programs are not yet available during school hours in public schools, which generally have anti-bullying policies. But they are gaining popularity in private institutions throughout the South, which are largely Christian schools. And, impressed with their success, many advocates are pushing to introduce them in public schools as well, nationwide, within the next three to five years.
“Right now, our training sessions have to be conducted in a kind of clandestine manner, in parents’ basements and garages, in church social halls and in fraternity lodges,” says a SNET coordinator in Columbia, South Carolina. “Hopefully, in the next couple of years, that will change.”
The important program is not without its critics. Gay rights organizations have been quick to attack SNETP.
“If these students were being taught to bully all their peers, it would be one thing. But SNETP clearly singles out gay and pre-gay kids,” said a spokesman for the Coalition of Gay and Lesbian Americans.
Tuboll denies this, pointing out that science geeks who try to shove Darwinism down the throats of their peers, children of leftists who preach socialism, and other misfits are also targeted for social norm enforcement.
Some educators fear that bullying can damage a victim’s self esteem and even lead to physical harm.
To that, Tuboll replies, “A child who experiences some teasing at school or maybe comes homes with a black eye or two, may shed a few tears. But if that saves them from a lifetime as a homosexual — or burning for all eternity in the fires of damnation — I’d say it’s well worth it.”
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth
C. Michael Forsyth's new novel is "gripping and fast-paced," critics say. "
TO HEAR CHAPTER ONE OF HOUR OF THE BEAST FREE, CLICK HERE.
"There ain't room on this planet for the two of us." Nineteenth Century townfolk are outgunned by aliens.
By C. Michael Forsyth
A long time ago, I read a science fiction story about a knight who sets out to take on a roaring dragon with two glowing eyes — only to be creamed when the thing turns out to be a train! Ever since reading this “time slip” tale, I’ve thought it would be neat to write a story about medieval knights versus space aliens. The appeal to me is that the odds would be stacked against the heroes even more so than in a typical invasion flick like “Battle: Los Angeles.”
In “High Plains Invaders,” the cowboy protagonists are not quite as badly outgunned, but the smart money certainly is on the E.T.s.
The plot in a nutshell: a small Old West town is besieged by a legion of space aliens bent on wolfing down every ounce of uranium on Earth. It’s up to a handful of townsfolk to round up the invaders and send them to Boot Hill.
This movie, which originally aired on the Syfy channel, is entertaining and well-constructed. The aliens — giant, scorpion-like critters — are scarier and more convincing than the usual CGI monsters. And James Marsters makes a good hero as Sam Phoenix, a train robber with a very, VERY strong honorable streak. (Macho and all-American, he’s unrecognizable here as the guy who played Spike, that bleached blond English bloodsucker in TV’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”).
That having been said, the film is quite pedestrian. Apart from the novel setting, it is a strictly-by-the-book monster flick. The workman-like script delivers the goods, but I wish the filmmakers had taken advantage of the somewhat goofy premise — cowboys versus aliens — and injected a bit more color and humor. It could have been as fun as “Tremors.”
If you’ve seen your share of monster movies, there are few surprises. In the beginning of the film, when you see a square-jawed prisoner behind the bars of jailhouse, awaiting hanging, you have no doubt that he will emerge as the hero. When you see a wimpy guy with glasses, you can tell he’ll be the brain who provides the solution to the crisis. It’s a foregone conclusion that the pompous sheriff will turn yellow. The people who die, die in the order you’d expect them to die, and you won’t have much trouble guessing who’ll survive. There is the siege, the giant mother ship, the heroic act of self-sacrifice at the end.
It is rare that I’ll single out the performance of an unknown actor in a modestly budgeted horror movie for a bad review. But Sanny Van Heteren is truly awful as Rose, a Calamity Jane type female bounty hunter. I mention it only because she’s on screen a lot and almost sinks the movie single-handedly. The only kind thing I can say is that on top of the phony acting, Miss Van Heteren is too pretty for the butch role.
One could question whether the lumbering, easily outwitted aliens would be capable of interstellar flight (or even inventing the wheel). But I figure that the creatures are merely the servants or pets of brainier aliens aboard the mothership.
The western blends well with other genres. There have been musical westerns like the old Gene Autry movies and “Get Your Wagon” (in which Clint Eastwood SINGS); comedy westerns like “Blazing Saddles”; even previous horror westerns like “Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula.” And the cowboys-versus-aliens theme will be revisited in the upcoming “Cowboys & Aliens.” Directed by Jon Favreau of “Swingers” fame, it promises to be less dead-serious than this one. Can’t wait to see it. But “High Plains Invaders” definitely earns its spurs.
TERRIFYING, SEXY: C. Michael Forsyth's novel Hour of the Beast."
TO HEAR CHAPTER ONE OF HOUR OF THE BEAST FREE, CLICK HERE.
GEROMINO! Building a vast, interplanetary empire will take some military muscle, as foreseen in this early comic book
By C. Michael Forsyth
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Good news! NASA scientists have uncovered evidence that there are scores of inhabitable planets within rocket-ship distance — and Earthmen may soon be able to build a vast galactic empire!
“Astronomers have cracked the Milky Way like a piñata, and planets are pouring out so fast they don’t know what to do with them all,” the prestigious New York Times announced triumphantly.
“Scientists operating NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler satellite reported that they had identified 1,235 possible planets orbiting other stars, tripling the number of known planets.”
Best of all, many of these “exoplanets” are believed to be what are dubbed Type M planets in Star Trek lingo — planets capable of sustaining human life!
“Fifty four of the exoplanets are in so-called habitable zones of stars, where temperatures should be moderate enough for liquid water,” the Times reports.
The discovery by Kepler, which was launched in 2009, opens the door to colonization of other planets, most likely led by the only superpower in the world with the necessary money and technical know-how — the United States.
“It boggles the mind,” Kepler’s team leader William Bourick of the Ames Research Center in Northern California told the paper excitedly.
NEW WORLDS TO CONQUER! Our galaxy is packed with planets, as shown in this NASA artist's conception.
Plans are already being drawn up by NASA for colonies on the closest of the planets. Though some planets may require domed colonies because they lack the proper atmosphere, others may have all the oxygen we need, in addition to drinkable water, fertile land and valuable natural resources.
“For the first time in human history we have a pool of rocky, habitable planets.” declared top MIT expert Sara Seager.
The sheer number of planets — all ripe for the picking — has astounded scientists, who once doubted there were any other Earth-like planets in the galaxy, or perhaps only a small handful.
“This is sending me back to the drawing board,” flabbergasted Kepler astronomer Jack Lissauer told the science mag Nature.
One top Yale astronomer strongly agreed, telling a Times reporter that the game-changing discovery “blows the lid off everything we thought we knew about expolanets”
Experts say this will go down as one of the key turning points in human history, right up there with our ape-like ancestors’ descent from the trees.
Geoffrey W. Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley declared that what he called the “extraordinary planet windfall” is a “moment that will be written in textbooks.”
If the stunning New York Times report is accurate — and given the paper’s solid reputation there’s no reason to believe it’s not — it means that contact with intelligent life on nearby worlds is almost inevitable.
A few scientists — including famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking — have expressed concern that our alien neighbors may soon invade Earth and have warned that we cease and desist beaming “Hi, here we are“ radio messages into space.
But the vast majority of experts contend that its far more likely that WE will be the conquerors and in a relatively short time will have dozens of colonies — perhaps as new U.S. states — under our belt.
That’s because most life forms on other planets are likely to be pre-industrial, agrarian folks who’ve barely developed muskets — if they’ve even invented the bow and arrow. They’ll be no match for an armada of American-made spaceships armed to the teeth with smart bombs, laser-guided missiles and tactical nukes, Defense Department planners by and large agree.
There’s a small possibility that the U.S. may instead establish peaceful relationship with the locals, with a strict no-interfering-with-the-natives rule like the inviolable (and routinely broken) “Prime Directive” in Star Trek. However, given America’s track record, that’s highly doubtful.
“Within the next 40 years or so you’ll be reading about indigenous E.T.s being rounded up and removed to special ‘protective’ areas on their planets,” predicted a Harvard historian. “If you don’t believe me, go ask a Mohican.”
E.T. and his buddies won’t have a prayer when confronted by the superior firepower of America’s brave soldier-astronauts, depicted here in the movie “Starship Troopers.”
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth
TERRIFYING, SEXY: C. Michael Forsyth's horror novel Hour of the Beast.
To hear Chapter One of Hour of the Beast FREE click HERE.
Long before Boris Karloff appeared in "The Mummy," Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote of a tragic, immortal Egyptian obsessed with an ancient love.
By C. Michael Forsyth
Every reader knows of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Fewer are aware that he also invented Professor Challenger, whose visit to a plateau frozen in prehistory in The Lost World was a forerunner to Jurassic Park.
But hardly anyone knows that Doyle also wrote many horror stories and was a brilliant master of the genre. A collection of these can be found in TheHorror of the Heights & Other Strange Tales. And what a delightful treat these tales are!
I suppose one shouldn’t be surprised that the father of literature’s most enduring character would bring considerable creativity to bear. But it’s remarkable how Doyle invented many of the staples of supernatural fiction.
His story “The Great Keinplatz Experiment,” anticipates the many body-swapping movies Hollywood has churned out, like “Freaky Friday,” “18 Again,” “Prelude to a Kiss,” and Rob Schneider’s hilarious “The Hot Chick.”
AHEAD OF HIS TIME: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle could frighten readers as well as baffle them with mysteries,
His “Lot. 249” introduces the shambling, homicidal mummy that would decades later send chills up the spines of movie goers in The Mummy. Another story, “The Ring of Thoth,” precedes “The Mummy” ’s theme of an immortal Egyptian driven by love spanning the centuries.
The story “The Horror of the Heights,” is about an airplane menaced by a monster that dwells in the clouds. It would be echoed in the classic 1963 “Twilight Zone” episode in which William Shatner, recovering from a nervous breakdown, is the only passenger aboard a plane to see a mysterious creature tampering with the engine.
As a writer, I’m often frustrated at how often I’ll come up with what I believe to be an original idea for a supernatural story, only to discover that “The Twilight Zone” got there first. Well, again and again, Conan Doyle beats Rod Serling to the punch.
"STEWARDESS!" William Shatner discovers a new reason to take the bus in the classic Twilight Zone episode "Terror at 20,000 feet."
The most truly fascinating thing about these stories is that each includes a clearly outlined mechanism for the supernatural occurrence, lending the tales unusual realism.
Remember, Conan Doyle was an ardent believer in the occult. He vouched for mediums and ascribed to their pseudoscientific cosmology (ectoplasm, astral planes and the like). He believed in telepathy, psychometry, clairvoyance — and even fairies, championing those dubious “fairy photographs” as legitimate.
In most modern horror novels and movies, the supernatural element requires total suspension of disbelief. We are simply supposed to accept that there are vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies or whatever, with the why and how left unanswered.
In occult-expert Conan Doyle’s stories there is always a logical explanation for the supernatural events, no matter how fantastic. For example, in the body-switching story, the spooky fun starts when a professor and his assistant, sitting side by side, simultaneously attempt out-of-body projection.
And in “Horror of the Heights,” the denizens of the upper atmosphere are life forms that one might reasonably believe could inhabit the sky — unlike the lumbering, Abominable Snowman-like “gremlin” of “The Twilight Zone” episode.
IT'S A WRAP! The 1932 movie "The Mummy" has a precursor in one of Conan Doyle's stories.
Beyond that, the twisty, sometimes grimly humorous stories deliver the requisite scares. There were none that I didn’t like. My favorite was “The Parasite,” in which a hypnotist’s parlor exhibition at a cocktail party leads to harrowing consequences for the subject. This tale features a storyline you definitely WON’T recognize from Hollywood movies. And it builds up to a nail-biting climax even Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t foresee.
Horror reaches new heights in collection of scary tales by the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth
If you only read ONE werewolf novel this week, make it Hour of the Beast by C. Michael Forsyth.
Nazi monster Adolf Hitler butchered millions in World War II.
By C. Michael Forsyth
A Minneapolis couple is appealing a judge’s decision that bars them from naming their newborn baby Adolf Hitler.
Judge Anthony J. Karwaski imposed the injunction on October 2, ruling that it would be “cruel and irresponsible” to burden a child with the name of the Nazi madman, because the youngster is likely to be mercilessly teased.
Since the story came to light, the parents have been bombarded with hate mail, branding them as antisemites, Nazi scum and skinheads. But the tot’s father, a tax attorney, insists that the government shouldn’t stick its nose into private family business and that strangers should “mind their own beeswax.”
“This stuff about antisemitism is just plain crazy,” declares Noah Hitler, 38. “We’re Jewish ourselves, for Heaven’s sake. When your last name is Hitler, you’re going to take some ribbing. We figure you might as well go whole hog and be Adolf, so you can at least have some fun with it.
“Sure, we could name our son ‘Felix,’ like my mother-in-law wants us to do. But does anyone really think a kid named Felix Hitler won’t get teased in school?”
Noah’s family hails from the Corinthian province of Austria, where Hitler is a fairly common name. His grandfather Kurt, who barely escaped from Auschwitz with his life, refused to change his last name when he emigrated to America, because they’d been a prominent family in the town for many generations.
“When I got my law degree and was sending out resumes, I thought about changing my name,” admits Noah. “But Grandpa sat me down and said, ‘Hitler is a proud name — no matter how much a certain idiot tried to ruin it.’ ”
The family believes that the teasing risk is being blown out of proportion.
Silent film legend Charlie Chaplin, seen here in “The Great Dictator,” is often confused with Adolf Hitler by high schoolers, educators say.
“Little kids don’t know who Hitler is, and most American teens today don’t either,” points out mom Rachel Hitler, 29, a high-school English teacher.
“I recently showed five of my seniors a picture of Hitler and asked them who it was. One had no idea, three identified him as Charlie Chaplin and another said Buster Keaton!”
A higher court is not expected to rule in the case until June. Until then, the baby is officially listed as Child 268 in documents. The father is confident that in the end, parental rights will trump other concerns and the boy will grow up Adolf Hitler.
“Yeah, he’ll probably get some good-natured kidding from buddies at the workplace. He’ll definitely have to develop a thick skin,” says Noah. “But the name will be a great conversation starter at house parties.
“And I wouldn’t be surprised if it helps him pick up girls when he’s a young man. Imagine introducing yourself to a couple of cuties at a bar. They say, ‘Naw, I don’t believe it.’ You show them your driver’s license and they’re totally blown away and call over all their pretty friends.”
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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If you only read ONE werewolf novel this month, make it Hour of the Beast by C. Michael Forsyth.
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Amanda Seyfried as Red Riding Hood takes an ill-advised stroll in the woods.
By C. Michael Forsyth
Red Riding Hood is exactly what it should be: a grownup retelling of one of our most memorable fairytales, with a horror spin. It has interpersonal conflict, a complex storyline, romance — but it also stays true to the elements that made the tale so compelling to us as children. There is the underlying theme of sexual awakening, the symbolism of the red cape, the opposition of good and evil. Even the talking wolf, the walk through the woods to grandmother’s house and the line, “What big eyes you have,” are worked in.
The high production values — sumptuous period costumes and sets — completely immerse us in a medieval world, and yet the swooping, swerving camera lends the film modern-day immediacy — as well as a perpetual feeling of unease.
In its creation of an olden-days town surrounded by menace, the atmospheric film is reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village.” But here, the story is NOT torpedoed by awful plot turns.
Red Riding Hood is Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), a pretty young woman in love with a poor woodcutter. Her parents disapprove of him and the lovebirds are about to run off together when the body of her sister is discovered, killed by a werewolf. The village men vow to track down the beast and they quickly do — they think.
Then arrives Reverend Solomon, a werewolf-hunter extraordinaire who is a mixture of Cotton Mather and Robert E. Howard’s witch-hunting Puritan man of action, Solomon Kane. Rev. Solomon (Gary Oldman) warns the townsfolk that the creature they’ve just killed is an ordinary wolf, and that the real werewolf does not dwell in a mountain cave, as they believe — but is instead one of them. A paranoiac “Who Goes There?” type nightmare ensues, as Valerie struggles to figure out which of those around her is the murderous monster — while avoiding a horrible fate as its prime target.
Is the Big Bad Wolf her dark, brooding, black-clad boyfriend? The strangely feral village idiot? The handsome young blacksmith who seems so gentle and fearful? Or even her own extremely creepy grandmother (played with magnificently, and gleefully, by Julie Christie)?
To make matters worse, the town’s “savior” Rev. Solomon emerges as an Ahab-like lunatic who doesn’t care who he has to imprison, torture, put to the sword or use as human bait to take down the lycanthrope.
The mystery angle in this kind of story is always hard to pull off. After all, the screenwriter has to come up with a solution today’s savvy movie audience wouldn’t easily guess and yet at the same time, makes perfect sense. The very satisfying ending of this film fulfills both goals.
I appreciate the filmmaker’s choice to eschew blood and guts for genuine suspense and chills. I’m not one of those horror geeks who gets off on seeing people’s bodies being destroyed in steadily more sickening and bloody ways. (Apologies if that’s you — don’t mean to alienate half my readers.) However, I think director Catherine Hardwicke went a bit too far in keeping gore out of the picture. When the first couple of corpses are discovered, they are so bloodless and undamaged that it looks like footage from a dress rehearsal. I mean, they’re supposed to have been killed by a wolf — pardon me, a giant, rampaging werewolf — and it was hard to believe they were even in a bar fight!
My other minor quibble is that the villagers initially ignore Rev. Solomon’s warning that the werewolf is one of them — and instead hold a big victory party celebrating the slaying of the wolf . This provides the movie-makers with a great opportunity to show a chaotic and unnerving medieval festival, complete with weird masks and Bacchanalian dancing. But come on. First of all, shouldn’t it be OBVIOUS that the human who turns into a wolf lives in the isolated village? And don’t these ignorant peasants respect the opinion of this famed champion werewolf-hunter? In most period movies — and, I believe, actual history too — medieval folk have a low threshold for turning on their neighbors and accusing them of supernatural evil.
After writing this review, I checked Rotten Tomatoes and I was surprised that critics gave it a ranking of only 11 percent. Well, I’m sticking to my guns. You’ll have fun watching this movie, as did most audience members, who gave it a ranking six times higher.
Curiously enough, a few hours after I saw “Red Riding Hood,” I watched on DVD “The Brothers Grimm,” which also incorporateselements of fairytales. Not as effective a film, with its anything-can-happen approach to the supernatural. But it certainly made for an interesting double bill. Kind of like last weekend when I saw “Con Air” and “The Expendables” back to back — and my testosterone level shot through the roof!
Copyright C. Michael Forsyth
"Who, me a wolf?" In classic fairytale, Little Red Riding Hood is a bit slow to realize her "grandmother" is not what she seems.
Like to be scared? Read C. Michael Forsyth's Hour of the Beast.
By C. Michael Forsyth
To hear Chapter One of the acclaimed Hour of the Beast FREE click HERE.
"Hey, what are you kids doing out here in the woods?" is a question best not asked of these undead urchins.
By C. Michael Forsyth
“Wicked Little Things,” now out on DVD, is a scary movie with a wickedly clever premise.
In 1913, the heartless owner of the Carlton Mine in Addytown, Pa. uses poor children for exploration, until the exploited kids are buried alive in an explosion. Now, nearly a century later, the restless undead tykes roam the woods, taking their bloody vengeance upon the living.
The main character is recently widowed Karen Tunny (Lori Heuring), who moves with her daughters Sarah and Emma into her late husband’s boyhood home near the mine. It isn’t long before 16-year-old Sarah (Scout Taylor-Compton) returns home with tales of pick axe-wielding zombie children who kill anyone foolish enough to venture into the woods at night. And 9-year-old Emma begins to hang out with a mysterious “imaginary friend” who just wants to play.
The movie has enough thrills to justify a respectable three pick axes up rating. In one highly memorable sequence, in which little Emma is led by children’s laughter to the mouth of the abandoned mine, the suspense is almost unbearable.
Excellent performances. Chloe Moretz, who more recently dazzled us as a vampire nymphet in “Let Me in,” is compelling as sweet, angelic Emma. A pleasant surprise is the great English actor Ben Cross of “Chariots of Fire” fame as creepy neighbor Aaron Hanks — the most convincing portrayal of a hillbilly by a British Islander since Liam Neeson’s impressive turn as Patrick Swayze’s shotgun-toting cousin in “Next of Kin” (1989).
The movie has two big problems, however, and they’re related. Horror films work best when the filmmakers create characters we care about and then put them in jeopardy.
We care about innocent, vulnerable Emma, which is why the scene mentioned above works so well. However, it soon turns out that both Hanks and the Tunny family are relatives of the zombie children, who recognize the blood of their kin and leave them unharmed. The zombie kids really DO just want to play with Emma and she’s actually off screen for the most critical scenes of the movie!
It is also revealed that the curse will be lifted when the ghostly children kill the last remaining descendent of the mine owner. That happens to be William Carlton (Martin McDowell), an arrogant, greedy, ruthless tycoon who is kicking people off their land to build a ski resort near the mine. The trouble is that you WANT this selfish, cowardly weasel to be killed. If he were sympathetic, the film’s climax — with the pick axe pixies closing in on him, Hanks and the Tunnys — would be truly terrifying.
Check out a movie with this cursed-bloodline theme that worked really well: “The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake.” In that 1959 oldie-but-goodie, the hero’s ancestor led a massacre of South American villagers. Vengeful supernatural headhunters have claimed the noggins of the male heirs in each generation ever since. And our hero is next in line for the head-shrinking treatment!
My other beef with the film is that the undead tots don’t only kill people, they eat them! Given their origins, one would expect these revenants to be more of the wraith-like variety, rather than flesh and blood monsters that require sustenance. (Especially since, presumably, the youngsters’ physical bodies were trapped under tons of rock.)
Just because they’re zombies do they HAVE to eat human flesh? Someday, I’d like a filmmaker to REALLY reinvent the zombie genre. (Sorry, “28 Days Later” fans, but making ’em run fast instead of shuffle isn’t reinventing). I mean create a new mythology, the way George Romero did with “Night of the Living Dead” in 1968.
Hey, if no one else steps up to the plate, I might just have to do it myself, by jiminy, as my old Weekly World News colleague Ed Anger would say.
GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN! Rev. Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) tries to expell a demon from Nell (Ashley Bell) in "The Last Exorcism."
By C. Michael Forsyth
I was gearing up to see the recent DVD release “The Last Exorcism” when “The Rite” arrived in theaters. So I decided to review them together. But I had never seen the “Exorcist,” I’m embarassed to admit, having been too young when the R-rated film debuted in 1973. Obviously one couldn’t adequately judge the two newer movies without comparing them to the granddaddy of demon-busting flicks. So I ended up seeing THREE exorcism movies back-to-back in a week. It was enough to, well, make your head spin.
“The Last Exorcism” is one of the best horror movies I’ve seen in months. It borrows from “The Blair Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity” the conceit that the nightmarish events of the film are accidentally caught on camera, in this case, the camera of a pair of documentary filmmakers. The device explains away corner-cutting tactics such as shaky hand-held camera movements, minimal coverage and an absence of recognizable actors. (The movie was made for $1.8 million, a paltry sum by Hollywood standards). This “found footage” sub-genre is certainly at high risk for becoming an annoying cliché, and I doubt filmmakers are going to be able to return to the well many more times. But here the gimmick seems perfectly suited to the subject matter.
The focus of the documentary is Reverend Cotton Marcus, a slick, smooth-talking evangelical preacher who comes from a long line of clergymen — and exorcists. Now convinced that exorcisms are a bunch of hokum, he invites the filmmakers to accompany him on a final exorcism, planning to debunk the practice on camera. When he and the crew reach the remote farm where a distraught man is convinced his teenage daughter Nell is possessed, they get far more than they bargained for.
The documentary style works especially well in establishing Cotton’s character without the typical Hollywood exposition. The first 10 minutes of the film, in which the Baton Rouge preacher’s home life, philosophy and ministry are explored, could easily be mistaken for a real documentary. Traditional elements of priest and hero stories — the loss of belief, even the “one last mission” theme — are slipped in smoothly without us even noticing. An interesting choice of the screenwriter was to make Cotton a protestant, rather than the familiar Catholic priest. Evangelicals have indeed jumped on the exorcism bandwagon in recent years, so this adds an element of realism.
The naturalism helps to root the story and the characters firmly in the real world, before the supernatural element is introduced — something I always like in horror flicks. The naturalistic style also distinguishes the movie from “The Exorcist” and other predecessors, lending it a surprisingly fresh feel.
Key to the film’s success is Patrick Fabian’s performance as Cotton. His believability is what makes the film believable. And the believability is what makes it horrifying. I like that Cotton is portrayed as a brave, decent and intelligent man. It’s rare that an evangelical preacher is depicted as anything but a bigoted, hypocritical buffoon. Frankly, I appreciate it anytime a minister gets to be the hero. My own father was an Episcopal priest (the ones who can marry) and one of my happiest movie memories was when he took me to see the “Poseidon Adventure,” starring Gene Hackman as a virile, two-fisted preacher.
My only minor beef: the producer/soundwoman and cameraman are off screen for most of the movie, so that when they become endangered, we’re not invested enough to worry about their fates. The movie’s ending is far more satisfying than either “Blair Witch Project” or “Paranormal Events,” which were both rather anticlimactic.
Don't worry, Father Lecter is here to protect you.
“The Rite” is a very different movie, a big-budget star vehicle shot on location in Rome. It’s about a young Catholic seminarian who is sent to Vatican City to learn the ancient rite of exorcism at a special new Papal academy. Initially skeptical, he’s soon singing a different tune when he assists veteran exorcist Father Lucas, played by Anthony Hopkins, in a knock-down, drag-out battle with a demon who’s possessed a pregnant teen. The events are “inspired by a true story,” which is a Hollywood producer’s way of saying “total bullshit.”
MAJOR SPOILER ALERT, MAJOR SPOILER ALERT, MAJOR SPOILER ALERT
The big twist here is that Anthony Hopkins’ character himself becomes possessed, and the young priest-in-training then must battle an implacable demonic foe to save his mentor’s soul. The movie would be more interesting if we didn’t know this turn of events was coming. But the plot twist has been revealed in many reviews and news articles, so the cat is kind of out of the bag.
In an interview, Hopkins described this as his greatest movie role and I can see why. Imagine the acting challenge: He has to be first good, then the embodiment of evil, then evil with the good part of him trying to get out. Knowing Hopkins’ work, this performance would either be Oscar-worthy or an embarrassing slab of hammy overacting. As it turns out, Hopkins knocks it out of the ball park. In a sense, this is a role he was born to play. Some reviewers have charged him with chewing the scenery, but they don’t know what they’re talking about. It’s just an easy thing to say, I suppose. Yes, at points he’s rather animated but the guy is POSSESSED for Pete’s sake! More often, his performance is eerily understated. I’d just about lost faith in Hopkins, after his phoned-in performance in “The Wolfman.” Now he’s back in fine form.
The weak link of the film is the young seminarian Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue). Hollywood formula demands that our hero be as poorly armed as possible when facing the enemy. So, it’s not surprising that, as with Father Karras in “The Exorcist,” the priest-in-training is experiencing a crisis of faith. To have an exorcist movie where the hero priest has the full power of God on his side would be like equipping Bruce Willis with a nuclear bomb in the next “Die Hard” movie. However, “The Rite” goes way overboard in this department. Not only is Michael not a priest yet (unlike in the “true“ story), he’s a borderline atheist — so much so, it takes a real leap of faith, so to speak, to believe that he went to seminary to begin with.
Yes, the movie’s structure demands that the protagonist be spiritually outgunned when he goes toe-to-toe with the demon — and that he does it alone. But this is engineered in a very clumsy manner. My friend Sean sometimes complains about what he calls the “why don’t theys” in films. You know, like “Why don’t they just go to the police?” This movie is marred by a fairly egregious why don’t they. Michael, who is not even an ordained priest, mind you — goes up against a demon powerful enough to possess the Vatican’s top exorcist alone, because he can’t get in touch with the exorcism school’s main lecturer. He’s not only in Vatican City, but actually at the Vatican’s special exorcism academy! Couldn’t he round up some lesser exorcists or at least priests (hey, even a couple of nuns or altar boys) before confronting Satan?
Well, maybe I’m just being silly. That’s like asking why movie cops never wait for backup before taking on an army of hoodlums.
ASS BACKWARD? I saw two newer possession movies before watching "The Exorcist," made in 1973.
So, seeing the exorcism movies in reverse chronological order, I saved “The Exorcist” for last. There’s not much call for me to “review” this 1973 classic, which garnered 10 Academy Award nominations, and is widely judged one of the scariest movies of all time. And that’s lucky for me, because its impossible for me to fairly evaluate it.
So many of the critical scenes I was already familiar with through pop culture: the spinning head, the projectile vomiting, the horrific makeup. So much of it I’ve already seen imitated or even parodied. (A possessed Laraine Newman leading an aerobics-style “exorcising” class, complete with 180-degree head turns, on Saturday Night Live; the late, great Leslie Nielson trying to save Linda Blair from a second round of demonic invasion as a bumbling exorcist in “Repossessed.”)
I can only imagine how audiences back in the ’70s must have responded when Linda Blair as the possessed girl Regan masturbates with a crucifix until she bleeds, shoves her mother’s face in her bloody crotch, then just seconds later spins her head fully around. Bear in mind, at the time this movie came out, most people (like the mom in the film) had never heard of exorcism; it was the dirty little secret of the Catholic Church.
Of course the pea-soup puke looks a bit silly now. But still very shocking to me today are those streams of vile obscenities, spewing from a 12-year-old girl’s mouth.
Some aspects of the film don’t hold up very well. The pacing seems slow by today’s standards. The special effects, surprisingly, are still quite effective. And what holds up best of all is the acting. The performance by Linda Blair is really quite extraordinary and must have been difficult for such a young person. Jason Miller, making his film debut as the tormented, conflicted Father Karras, was intense and believable. Most impressive of all is Max von Sydow as the elder exorcist Father Merrin. He has such presence that although he is absent until nearly the end of the movie, he instantly takes command of the screen when he appears for the final confrontation. Considering how aged and worn he appears in the film, I was surprised to see him alive and well as a creepy old psychiatrist in last year’s “Shutter Island.” Now he’s 82 but he was only 44 when he starred as the “old” priest in “The Exorcist,” making his performance even more remarkable.
Three exorcism flicks. Each very different, each entertaining in its own right. I must say, however, that as scary as the demon-possessed folks in these movies were, none could hold a candle to my own daughter this afternoon. Just try to take a splinter out of the finger of a thrashing, screaming, panicked 8 year old girl and you’ll see what I mean!
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO IN THE WOODS: Read C. Michael Forsyth's terrifying novel Hour of the Beast.
Click HERE to check out the mind-numbingly scary Hour of the Beast.
FROZEN: is mysterious wreck found under Antarctic ice Noah’s Ark?
By C. Michael Forsyth
McMURDO BASE, Antarctica — Scientists say they have discovered what appears to be Noah’s Ark deep in an Antarctic ice shelf, with all hands still aboard along with two of every animal — all frozen stiff!
The remarkable discovery was made on February 8th by the Swedish research vessel Aventyr. The scientists were studying the effects of global warming, when the ice-shelf collapsed, exposing about a third of the ancient craft.
“This is far, far, beyond merely mind-blowing — it‘s the most baffling Bible mystery of all time,” declares biblical archaeologist David H. Tootenhaur. “It turns everything we thought we knew about the Holy Bible upside down!”
The scientists who made the amazing find are cautious about identifying the enormous, ice-enshrouded vessel as Noah’s Ark, saying it would be premature to do so without further investigation.
“We can only say that the ship is made of cedar, known in antiquity as ‘gopher wood,’ just as described in the Bible,” says lead researcher Dr. Alrik Olofson.
“It measures 450 feet long, the equivelent of the ancient unit 300 cubits; it is 75 feet or 50 cubits wide, and it has three stories that give it the height of 45 feet, or 30 cubits. These are precisely the specifications God cited when He commanded Noah to build the Ark, according to the Book of Genesis.
“Aboard we’ve found two representatives of virtually every species that now exists, as well as the remains of five pre-Bronze age humans.”
The ship was found in the Wendell Sea, when a mile-long section of the Larson C ice shelf collapsed. The discovery seems to fly in the face of known history, since the entire human race is believed to be descended from survivors of the Flood aboard Noah’s Ark.
Even the world’s top Bible scholars confess that they are befuddled, and news reports have fueled much wild speculation. Some armchair Bible “experts” claim the whole thing must be an elaborate hoax cooked up by Satanists bent on attacking Christianity. New Agers point to Babylonian legends of a small band of people who survived the Flood by means of a giant “holy umbrella” — and whom, they argue, could be the real ancestors of modern humans.
Some church leaders fear that unless the riddle is solved — and quickly — it could lead to religious conflict and social unrest.
“We are pleading with our congregations to remain calm,” says Florida clergyman Rev. Alexander P. Wentbooth. “Christians must have faith that this is all part of God’s plan.”
Fearing widespread upheaval, many governments have suppressed news of the discovery. Even in the U.S., quite a few preachers stubbornly refuse to discuss the ship with their flocks.
Noah’s ark saved all life on Earth — at least on OUR universe — as shown in this painting by Aurelio Luini
HAS WORLD”S SMARTEST MAN SOLVED MYSTERY?
Theoretical physicist Dr. Jeremy Blinkley, generally acknowleged to be the world’s most brilliant mind and sometimes referred to as “the thinking man’s Stephen Hawking,” believes he may have an explanation for the bizarre discovery.
“Most physicists today believe in the multiverse theory — the concept that alongside our universe are many other parallel universes, lying near ours in dimensions beyond the three that we perceive,” he explained. “It’s widely believed that small portholes may open up from time to time, through which objects may pass from one world to another.
“It’s possible that in a parallel universe Noah built his Ark to escape the flood, but he, his crew and his cargo of animals failed to survive the journey. And the wreckage of his vessel drifted from a sea in that universe into our own.
“Needless to say, in that Noah’s home universe the human race is extinct, along with all other species on Earth.”
As way out as it sounds, the explanation dovetails perfectly with Christian belief.
“The great Christian thinker C.S. Lewis — hardly a heathen — explored the idea of parallel universes in his book The Magician’s Nephew,” notes Christian physicist Arnold Hipperman. “It was the logical underpinning to his famous alternate world Narnia.”
Although no radiocarbon dating has yet been conducted, based on the surrounding ice, experts say the ship must be at least 100,000 years old. Preserved by the cold, the human remains are remarkably intact. The robed, white-bearded captain was found with his hands still frozen to the steering wheel.
“It’s obvious that he tried heroically to save the ship, before it was overcome by some unknown calamity,” notes Dr. Olofson.
The animal carcasses are entirely made up of newborns, including a baby kangaroo, known as a joey, no bigger than a honey bee. Crates of eggs were found in the lowest deck, rather than live birds and reptiles. This, at least, solves one Bible mystery that has long puzzled scholars — how Noah managed to squeeze all those creatures into one boat.
While the discovery has been unsettling to many believers, Hipperman says that if the multiverse theory is right, that’s reason to rejoice.
“It means that the act of Creation is even more miraculous than we were taught in Sunday school,” he observes. “God did not only create our universe, he simultaneously made countless others.”
If you enjoyed this whimsical tale by fiction writer C. Michael Forsyth, check out his graphic novel NIGHT CAGE, about vampires taking over a women’s prison.
If you enjoyed this mind-blowing tale, check out C. Michael Forsyth’s collection of bizarre news, available on Kindle and in other eBook formats.
If you found this story by fiction writer C. Michael Forsyth entertaining, you might enjoy his novels…
The creator of Sherlock Holmes and the world’s greatest magician probe a paranormal mystery in new thriller.
The tables turn on an identity thief in the latest thriller by C. Michael Forsyth. To check it out, click HERE.
In Hour of the Beast, a young bride is raped by a werewolf on her wedding night. When her sons grow up and head to college, things REALLY get out of hand.
C. Michael Forsyth is the author of "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle & Harry Houdini in The Adventure of the Spook House,""The Blood of Titans," "Hour of the Beast" and "The Identity Thief." He is a Yale graduate and former senior writer for The Weekly World News
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