Some people…

I had the misfortune of witnessing the aftermath of a road traffic accident on my way to work this morning.

The first sign I had that something was wrong was the sight of a man dragging himself from the middle lane (of a three lane road) through to the inside lane, then collapsing on the grass verge at the side of the road. Had I been travelling faster, and had my concentration been so lacking that I hadn't spotted him, chances are I would have been driving the second car that hit him that day. How fortunate for both of us.

My immediate reaction was to turn my hazard lights on, park the car, and get out to see if everything was OK; I was aware that my car was blocking the inside lane, but I thought this was needed to keep more traffic away.

There were already three people at the side of the road: an older gentleman in a suit, a young girl, and a fashionably dressed guy who looked to be in his late twenties. The fashionable guy was on his mobile phone, trying to arrange an ambulance. The young girl and older gent were talking to the guy I'd seen collapse. At that point, I noticed the blood coming out of the guys ears.

A few moments later, another guy arrived. He said he worked at the Police HQ we were stood in front of. Thankfully, he had managed to contact Police control on his radio, and had told the ambulance exactly where we were. We stood, somewhat awkwardly for a few seconds, until the fashionable guy went to move his car from it's position blocking the outside lane. I guess he thought it was something he could usefully be doing.

After the fashionably guy had returned, a nurse came running up the pavement towards us. She started to have a look at the unfortunate chap on the ground, asking a few questions, and trying to be as helpful as she could without making things worse. Understandably, she couldn't move the guy, or do a great deal to help him.

A presence I’ve not felt since…

It looks like an old friend might be blogging now. Hopefully he'll be more active than he has been in the past, and I'm sure he'll have some interesting things to say.

Zombie Honeymoon

I love Zombie movies. Good zombie movies, bad zombie movies, and really bad zombie movies - I love them all equally. Well, some I love more equally than others, but you can't really love The Dead Hate the Living as much as Dawn of the Dead, can you?

I've just stumbled across Zombie Honeymoon. From the trailer, this looks to be much better than you'd think from the title. Consider me intrigued…

Oh, and the Land review is coming…

Tremont Blackman

Ashleigh has links to other file formats on his site.

The Legend of Mr Pastry

For some time now, legend (well, ::steve("Steve")::) has told of Mr Pastry.

Whilst none of us had actually seen Mr Pastry with our own eyes, we would hear tales of the wonderful things he could do using nothing more than a tea tray and his own vocal chords. After much searching, Steve has managed to track down the legend of Mr Pastry, or has he?

It turns out that Mr Pastry isn't actually Mr Pastry: He's Tremont Blackman. Thanks to this site we can now witness the joys that Mr Blackman is capable of. His is a particularly special talent, but I don't want to spoil anything for you. I urge you to either visit the link above (if you like filthy Real encoded video files) or go here to enjoy Mr Blackman in mp4 format.

It's got to be one of the most amusing things I've seen in a long, long time.

Wolf Creek

One of my intentions with this site was to try to post something about each of the gigs I go to, each of the cd's I buy, each of the books I read, and the more noteworthy games that I play. And, to post something about each of the films that I see. From my point of view this should be an interesting exercise; I should be able to look back and think "wow, yeah, I went to see him" or "I remember watching that". The weekend before last, I went to see Wolf Creek. Here's a little slice of something about it. The film tells the tale of two English girls (Liz and Cristy), one Australian guy (Ben), and their road trip across Australia in the cheapest car they can find. On the way they have a desire to see the large meteor crater known as "Wolf Creek", within which strange things have been said to happen. Everything is going according to plan; Liz and Ben are starting to fall for each other, the group are getting on well, and even a brief argument with some locals is resolved peacefully. Things start to take a turn for the worse when, bellies full of the site of the awesome landscape on offer at Wolf Creek, they return to their car only to find that it won't start… Enter Mick (John Jarret) - a handy local with a pick-up truck, and a friendly attitude. He can tow their car back to his camp, fix it up, and they can be on their way as soon as its done. Even better, he doesn't want anything for his trouble… The Guardian review of Wolf Creek described it in a way that I thought was really quite appropriate: "Ordeal Horror". I've never come across this phrase before, but it accurately describes the genre that this film and many before it (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Last House on the Left, Haute Tension etc) fall into. Whilst I wouldn't rate Wolf Creek as highly as Texas Chainsaw (and certainly not as highly as Haute Tension, the stand out horror film of the last few years), it's not without it's merits. It takes it's time, devoting a large chunk of the film to building up it's characters, rather than launching straight into the horror. The Australian scenery gives the film an awesome look, and doesn't betray it's low budget origins. The direction, for the most part, is slick and effective. Sadly, the same can't be said for the performances of the three leads - whilst they're adequate for the most part, there are times when the ad-libing is quite uncomfortable, and there are occasional moments of unconvincing terror. That said, John Jarret's performance is undoubtedly the highlight of the film. He pulls of everything that's asked of him with terrifying ease. Wolf Creek is a pretty nasty little film too: There are a few cringe inducing moments, in particular the "head on a stick" scene, and the general mood of the film is unpleasantly tense once it gets going with precious little respite until the end credits. All in all, Wolf Creek isn't a classic - it's been done before, and probably better than here. However, I'm not aware of an Australian equivalent, so it's setting alone makes it worth seeing. John Jarret's performance makes the film stand out too, raising it from a mediocre slasher film to something which holds it own quite nicely.