#just some spooky spiral content ok

[girlwholovesturtles]

Opening with Nikola immediately, I see. Why do this? Oh god.

"Needs to be near us." Breekon and Hope need the coffin near? That's interesting. Also worrying that the coffin is there at all.

Nikola makes me uncomfortable. I kinda love them... They've said "Can I call you Elias?" twice now. I'm not convinced they entirely know what's going on.

Did Jon just try to say "Fuck you?" I'm smiling way too much from this episode already.

Oh god, are they gonna- oh god, they are gonna skin him.

"Can I call you Elias?" Number three.

"Do you have a preferred brand of lotion." Oh my god. This should not be making me laugh so much.

Wait, is this the episode? It is! This where the animatic came from that got me into the show to begin with! Yes!

This one!

Jon, why do you sound more annoyed then you do afraid of this man saying he's gonna kill you? I guess when so many people are saying the exact same threat, it stops being scary after a while.

Okay, Michael or I suppose the Spiral is lies and deception. He has nothing to do with the Unknowing but he wants it to fail. Jon, fuck why he's here, ask what the Unknowing is. He doesn't want the Circus or the Archive to win?

Okay, I think I get it.

Theory before it's all said: Michael was Gertrude's assistant, he some how got taken by the Spiral, and the part of him that is still Michael resents the Archive he what happened to him. The Spiral doesn't want to be Michael anymore because it has made it's nature complicated but I suspect it can't get rid of him, for whatever reason. Okay, starting the video again.

Sure, Michael, give up a statement. I'm sure this will be very coherent and not at all filled with me going "WTF?!" constantly.

Michael Shelly... Oh, Michael here implying Gertrude is deceptive, that's interesting... what? She FEED him to the Spiral? Oh... Michael really cared about Gertrude and she used him for this.

"Is a thing evil when it simply obeys it's own nature?" That is an interesting question. A polar bear isn't evil just because it willing to hunt humans, it's just hungry. And near as I can tell, the Spiral and all these other entities, they also are just hungry in their own ways. So, maybe they aren't evil. Though that certainly doesn't make them good.

"He believed everything she told him..." Alright, me and Gertrude aren't friends anymore. But what is the Becoming, exactly?

"Okay." Jon is just giving up? I mean, I know he lives because there's like 200 episodes but...

What do you mean "It's loc-

Uh... is Michael dead? Oh, hi Helen... Yeah, I guess Michael is dead? If it could kill Michael whenever it wanted, why didn't it before? Or did it need someone to replace him? Which I guess it what Helen is for?

You're options are the door or being skinned, my guy. Make good choices.

Wait, is the Spiral cool? It's just... taking Jon home? That's pretty chill of it, given the Archive's history with it but alright.

Okay, hold up. It's entirely possibly I'm reading this all wrong but were these entities at some point just kinda vibing and Gertrude decided they all needed to be destroyed? Because that's what it sounds like to me. Like, I don't know what the Becoming is yet but it sounds like the Spiral was attempting to transition from being a thing that could never be into something that was and perhaps could even be defined. At it's very core, it sounds like these things simply wish to exist but they're so volatile that it's difficult to do so. Gertrude even wanted to destroy the Archive, the focal point of the Eye. Even though, as far as I can tell, it's only interest is to collect knowledge.

So did she just decide to go rogue and destroy all these monsters and that's why they're mobilizing like they are?

#the magnus archives #tma #live blogging #long post #episode 101

[scrollingvirtus]

not me drawing my oc... surely not.... 

#face #verse: tma #just some spooky spiral content ok

[aj-the-cat]

The Beginning - Where my love for WWE started

Now that im traveling back to 1997 in my journeys through the Network, how about a story time?

Ok, lets travel way back to when the Network first started. 2014. I think i was 8 or 9, i dont remember. Anyways, i woke up one Saturday morning and walked into the living room to find my dad on the TV. Not unusual, he was usually the first one up, with me not far behind cuz my mental alarm clock at the time didnt allow me to sleep in.

I clambered my tiny body beside him and watched what he was doing. He was scrolling through the WWE Network he just subscribed to. Then, he clicked on an episode in 1997 that had Stone Cold's bald head as the thumbnail. I watched in awe at this bald headed man spit in the face of a grumpy old dude and gesture to the croud. I later learned from my dad that this was Stone Cold Steve Austin and his rival Vince McMahon. I was a big goody two-shoes in school so watching this bald dude defy his boss was amazing.

A couple episodes later, i get introduced to the Deadman himself. The Undertaker. He was in the middle of a feud with a personality inspiring Shawn Michaels. At first i was intimidated, because who wouldnt at this 7 ft tall, goth man who could control the lights and had a spooky voice. This little child was in AWE at this man. I really believed that he was a zombie walking on this Earth. With every chokeslam, tombstone, and disinterested look i fell more in love with this new thing called the WWE.

It wasnt until i got my first computer that i took my spiral downward into the land of the Superstars. I discovered YouTube and watched every segment, promo, match and theme i could with those i loved at the time. I danced to Shawn Michaels' theme, i had a little RC car named Grave Digger with a sticky note with Undertakers symbol on it, i tried to defy my parents because of Austin (i got a helluva ass whoopin). WWE changed my life.

It wasnt until i watched Ministry Taker that everything took off. I thought black was cool and wanted to change my room color from Bubblegum Pink to inky black. I grew out of girly stereotypes and morphed into having a Tomboy personality along with my unexpected nature. I legit wanted to be a superstar until a couple gears ago when i realized that i couldnt do it because i hate pain, i could not take bumps and my sister spoiled that everything had a script. And that animals i loved more than anything.

I didnt really care that she spoiled it (although i cried for an hour). I still liked it for what it was. It wasnt until i was talking so much about it that my parents banned me from watching it until they said. This started a point in my life where i became too obsessed with the internet and learned things that i shouldnt have at an early age. I discovered YouTubers and went into a point in my life i'd rather forget.

Moving on, my parents eventually forgot about the ban and i started trickling in moments that i found on YouTube as well as watching content from my favorite YouTubers. I discovered Undertaker had a brother, he became the American Badass, and i gained some favorite matches.

From that point until now, there was a period where i stopped watching altogether, but it came calling back. So i basically owe it all to my dad cuz he got me into wrestling. Im not gonna go into my preferences, you can see that on my dash, but the Attitude Era shaped who i was and what i liked. Even though i was supposed to be watching stuff from 2005 and onward, i like watching from 1997 to 2003. I would call it a "comfort zone", but i do want to step out of it and watch the Hybrid Deadman and newer superstars of 2004 and onward. I just prefer the era of Stone Cold and the American Badass.

But heres an image for you: Imagine little AJ in a Cinderella chair, surrounded by stuffed animals with two right at her arms, black marker in her face and a blanket as cloak impersonating Ministry Taker.

#wwe

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Annabelle Comes Home

I’ve never actually taken notes during a scary movie. Oh sure, I see a lot of horror movies. But not many scary movies, and I’m gonna be real with you, pretty much anything in the Conjuring universe scares the hell out of me. All of those movies are literally the most terrifying experiences I’ve ever had in theaters (except for The Nun, although the figure of the Nun herself.....yeah, that’s a HARD NO from me). I was unsure if I would be able to sustain the tension and atmosphere of a truly scary movie while trying to write in my little whale-printed spiral notebook in the dark, just praying that characters turn on a goddamn flashlight or something so there’d be enough light for me to write things like “this dumb asshole” or “trust no bitch.” So was the vibe totally ruined, or was I able to maintain maximum spookiness? Well...

I’m pleased to report the spookiness factor stayed at a solid 7.5 to 8 throughout in spite of my note-taking. There’s not a TON in here that we haven’t seen in other entries of the Conjuring-verse, but with likable characters and a strong “the walls are closing in” vibe, you could do far worse this Halloween season. The basic story is that Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) have taken custody of Head Bitch in Charge, Annabelle the murderous demon doll, to place her in their room of cursed, haunted, and otherwise don’t-fuck-with-us objects. When they have to leave for the weekend, their daughter Judy (McKenna Grace) is left with her babysitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) and Mary Ellen’s friend, Daniela (Katie Sarife). Daniela is SUPER into the occult stuff that the Warrens have spent their careers dealing with and breaks into their don’t-fuck-with-us room, and you know what she does? She fucks with everything AND she lets Annabelle out of her case to party. And party she does, by inviting all her spirit and demon friends to come out to play and turn the Warrens’ house into a death trap. 

Some thoughts:

I love how much Ed and Lorraine love each other. They’re so normal and happy and ground everything in their real affection for each other, and with every movie, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson sell that connection more and more. 

That low level sound when Annabelle is outside of the glass makes me want to weep and then die. That’s some fucking excellent sound design there, and it is effective.

Here’s my question - if this visiting friend is clearly kind of the worst and also SUPER OBVIOUS about wanting to snoop around, whose fault is it really if you leave her alone in the house? I don’t care if she promised to stay in the kitchen, TRUST NO BITCH.

Question: how did Ed and/or Lorraine construct that entire glass shelf so quickly? What was the turnaround here, like a day? It seems like Ed is a pretty handy fellow, but I would think that if I were attempting to contain a source of pure unadulterated evil, I would want to really do a thorough measure-twice-cut-once kinda job.

It’s so easy to become furious at Daniela (Katie Sarife) because she is being the dumbest asshole and touching ALL OF THE CURSED THINGS - which, sidebar, if she believed in this shit enough to try to reach out to the spirit of her dad, why does she not believe in it enough to think that everything in the cursed room is y’know, CURSED?? end sidebar - but I can’t stay mad at her. One, she’s just a kid, and two, she’s in so much pain and just misses her dad. I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing at 16. Ok, but I wouldn’t have just gone around touching all the objects willy-nilly. Maybe a little, but...she really went for broke, man. As the movie goes on and more and more demon creatures try to murder them, it just becomes so clear that no one has ever fucked up this badly.

McKenna Grace is probably my favorite working child actress, which may be why she’s in like, everything right now. She’s just so soulful, and conveys a real depth of emotion in everything she does. She does a FANTASTIC job as Judy Warren, who frankly, has done nothing wrong in her life, ever, and did nothing to deserve all this bullshit.

OK but would someone get some goddamn WD-40 in this creaky ass house. This is the most 1970s house I’ve ever seen, it can’t have been built more than 10 years ago, why are all your hinges so creaky that they can be heard from miles away? 

One problem with being the 7th entry in a horror movie universe is that we’re seeing a lot of the same tricks used in previous films. Obviously haunted house movies only have so many guns in their arsenal, but it is a disappointment to see the exact same slow walk around with a scary figure (The Bride here, The Nun in The Conjuring 2) that we’ve seen play out exactly this way in a previous franchise entry. In fact, I noticed a LOT of other nods and similar bits to a number of horror movies (The Grudge, The Conjuring, Paranormal Activity) which is an interesting parallel given the events of the movie and all the various evil entities we see coming alive in the house, but that was the one that felt particularly egregious.

The few moments of comic relief (the pizza guy, and Bob) are WELCOME distractions, and well executed.

Nice close-up shot of a Raggedy Ann doll (the real-life Annabelle is a Raggedy Ann doll).

As for the evil entities we see, there’s a mixture of truly unnerving and just ho-hum. There’s one demon in particular that I’m thinking of who is VERY scary at first, but then in shown somewhere else for way too long and becomes noticeably less scary. 

The whole situation with the Ferry Man was just A Lot. When the coins started hitting the ground, Sleepy Gay pointed out that there were no good options here - the absolute best case scenario is that there’s a dude in your house throwing coins, and that’s not a situation you want to find yourself in.

Did I Cry? No, there was no crying. However, Sleepy Gay and I both screamed out loud at a VERY high volume.

Overall, this is pretty solid and certainly in the top ranks of the non-Conjuring movies in the franchise. There’s a little something for everyone in terms of types of scares, and if you like the creeping dread and building atmosphere of these types of haunted house movies, you’ll like this one too. 

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

#119in2019 #annabelle comes home #annabelle comes home review #the conjuring universe #ed and lorraine warren #Vera Farmiga #patrick wilson #mckenna grace #katie sarife #madison iseman #movie reviews #film reviews #horror review

[geekpellets]

Mexico Barbaro

An anthology of Mexican horror. Most of these shorts do have something amateurish about them, be it directing, cinematography, low budgets, or acting, but most of them have something they do really well too, resulting in interesting, engaging, and entertaining bits of horror. Tzompantli A man interviews a drug dealer about ritualistic killings. This is the first short, and it’s among the worst in this anthology. It actually isn’t bad, but the pacing is really poor. It feels like it’s over before it starts and the quick pay off isn’t worth all the build up. It’s the most meh of the shorts to me. The pacing brings it down, and there’s nothing else to lift it back up. Jaral de Berrios " Two criminals take refuge in the ruins of Hacienda del Jaral de Berrios in San Felipe” I stole that description from wiki. This one is interesting because it involves a bit of Mexican urban legend. Even after watching this short I still don’t know much about what I was really seeing, but that’s ok. It definitely makes me want to explore it further. This short is about cinematography. This director has it in spades. It was a really enjoyable short to look at. It’s imagery was really effective. Drena A young woman smokes some weed she found from a corpse and is told by a thing that if she doesn’t drain the blood from her sisters vagina the thing will come back and suck the soul from her anus. Yup. So this short suffers from an obvious budget restriction. It’s uses natural lighting resulting in something that looks more like a home movie. I think it works for this short though, because the spooky shit looks effectively spooky. It’s an interesting juxtaposition. This short is also effectively suspenseful, and I like the way it plays with silence.

La cosa más preciada A woman gets raped by a troll. There’s more to it than that, but not much, and that’s what it builds up to. It has a nice pseudo-grindhouse look, done via filter, but it does work given how Troma-esque a lot of it is. The acting seems fine, if not a little exaggerated. It’s like this. Rape is scary. Rape is a problem, so naturally rape pops up in horror every now and then. I’ve seen ghost rape, monster rape, tree rape, demon rape, rape rape, all kinds of rape. That’s not the problem. The problem is treating the subject with the seriousness that it demands. This short does not. While this woman is getting raped by a troll, there are two other trolls dancing around in the background. It cuts in and out to the two background trolls doing different stuff. In one scene, a troll is looking at its wrist as if looking at the clock and saying, “wow, the homie sure can rape for a long ass time.” It really feels like the rape is played for laughs, and that not only tanks this short, but it really effects the whole film. There’s a lot to like in this anthology, but now I have to remember, “oh, there’s that one short that thinks rape is funny.” That’s just a downer, man. Lo que importa es lo de adentro A little girl fears a bum looking man on the streets, but because she is special needs and her mother treats her with no amount of respect, no one takes her fears seriously. This is another short that was just ok. Good acting all around actually, pretty good gore effects too, for the most part. Yet, this is another short that simply felt mediocre. Maybe because it felt like it was shocking just to be shocking, and stuff like that doesn’t really build suspense or tension well. Maybe both the mother and the homeless man were just too exaggerated to really bring me into this one.

Muñecas This one had potential. It’s a black and white short about a woman escaping a mysterious man and the cat and mouse game between them. Most of this was pretty strong. The woman wasn’t afraid to fight back, which made the short more engaging. The probably is the short thinks it is way smarter than it actually is. The plot twist isn’t really much of a plot twist. What the captor is/was doing wasn’t really explained (at least I couldn’t make sense of it). At the end it just lingers on a location for far too long and places a really shitty really generic horror score the whole time. It really soured what was initially a good experience. Siete veces siete A man kidnaps a body and begins to perform a strange ritual in the middle of nowhere. I really liked this one. It might be my favorite of them. This is another short with great cinematography, it also has good effects, good lighting, good acting, and a good twist. It’s a really strong short at a point where the anthology was heading towards a downward spiral. Día de los Muertos Strippers work a club on the day of the dead, and club goers realize that it is the wrong day to be a fucking douche. This one was alright. It was filmed well, and it was mostly well acted. I do feel like it is unbalanced. The short feels like it’s more about the pole dancing than anything else. They linger on it too long. The build up before hand was good, and the pay off (while quick) was good too because of the pre-club build up. There’s just a large amount of time given between those two parts that’s all about pole dancing. Overall, I liked the film. I like the content packed into it. It feels authentic. These are the things that scare Mexico. Cartels, sexual misconduct, dark rituals, angry spirits, suppressed feelings of jealousy and resentment, and that moment you just might snap because of them. These are reoccurring things in the anthology, this is what lies in the darkest corners of Mexico. It’s a fascinating and mostly entertaining watch, BUT it’s not a must watch or must own product for me because troll rape. SO, this is another instance of “if it sounds like something you wanna watch definitely give it a watch.” Otherwise, you can skip this one.

#Mexico Barbaro