HEALTH UPDATE: There Is No Update!

Uplifting card found in the lift of my doctor's surgery, part of Jim's Smile Project

Had my hospital appointment at the orthopaedic department of our nearby cottage hospital this week... and it was a bit of an anti-climax after all the hopes of a "breakthrough" that I had resting on it.

I have got a referral now to The Pain Clinic, possibility for an injection into my spine to alleviate the extreme discomfort, but still no definitive answers - or even really theories - as to why my legs have suddenly stopped working as they should.

Afterwards, I had an email from my GP asking me to book a non-urgent appointment with her, but when Rachel and I went to the surgery later in the week, the earliest face-to-face appointment wasn't until mid-October!

So, we settled for a telephone interview in the middle of September instead. I'll be honest, I have little faith in telephone appointments, especially when relating to a physical condition... but if that's the best we can get, then I'll take it.

It still annoys me that she sees this as a "non-urgent" case, when I've lost the correct use of my legs!

We were actually at the surgery for my regular INR (blood thickness) test, but - thankfully - that was still within its target range and I don't need to go back until late November. If it's been out of range then I'd have had to come back weekly until it settled down again and I dreaded the prospect of repeating the fandango of getting me - and a walking frame - in and out of the car and into and out of the surgery more than we had to. 

Beside my blood behaving itself, the best part of the visit was finding one of James Moy's positive messages on a card in the lift from the ground floor up to the surgery (see above). This is part of his nationwide Jim's Smile Project to bring a bit of light into our gloomy world. It couldn't have come at a better time: I certainly needed it this week.

Another thing we did this week was buy me a second walking frame - this one with wheels and a basket on. I'm still getting used to it, but it's certainly added some speed to my getting around.

Notification that my Pain Clinic referral is under review came in the post yesterday, with the depressing information that their decision could take until late October. Hopefully, though, it won't take that long.

So, I suppose, progress is being made... slowly.

But the depression and frustration of not being able to do simple tasks (like picking objects up and moving them around, having a shower etc) is increasing as I realise how much I took my legs for granted in the 'good old days'. And all this comes with great pain and discomfort that interferes with my attempts to divert myself from my new disability, so reading, writing, and even watching TV can become a chore at times.

I'd just like a medical professional to tell me what is causing this instability and what can be done to correct it.

As my best mate Paul pointed out when I was talking to him about all this nonsense, if they don't know what's causing the problem how do they know the injection will help?

I guess I was too excited about anything being done to ameliorate my condition that I forgot to ask.

My bad!

Real Life Monster Hunters Are More Hardcore Than Fiction (Monstrum)

How did Van Helsing go from academic in Dracula to action hero icon? This episode explores his evolution from Victorian scholar to monster-hunting legend, unpacking his role in the novel, pop culture legacy, and why he remains the ultimate supernatural slayer.

Superman (2025)

On his own initiative, Superman (David Corenswet) has sought to prevent a war between an allied nation of the United States and its neighbour, much to the annoyance of the American government and tech billionaire Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult).

A social media campaign is orchestrated to turn the American people against Superman, and even his girlfriend, Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) starts to question him.

Superman is not another origin story, rather throwing readers into the non-stop action in media res. However, Superman's backstory is explained episodically throughout the movie as it's a central theme of the story.

This brand, spanking new iteration of the Man of The Steel unapologetically blends the wholesome positivity of the Christopher Reeve era of Superman movies with both Silver Age comic book zaniness and modern sensibilities.

It's clear from the get-go that writer/director James Gunn loves comic book superheroes and has a deep knowledge of his chosen universe, presenting deep cuts - such as Superman's robots and flying dog, Krypto; Metamorpho The Element Man (Anthony Carrigan); bowl-haircut-sporting Green Lantern Guy Gardener (Nathan Fillion); Mr Terrific (Edi Gathegi); and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) - in a matter-of-fact way, rather than tongue-in-cheek.

Superman isn't embarrassed to be a comic book movie, rather it dives headlong into the superhero genre tropes with relish, emerging as one of the finest and most accurate adaptations of the beloved source material that we've yet seen on the big screen.

Gunn's film captures the brightness and optimism of the best, most truthful, Superman stories, yet still manages to weave in the character's inherent "look after the little guy" political nature that has been part of the Last Son of Krypton's makeup since he was created by a pair of Jewish immigrants in the 1930s as a rebuttal to the rise of Adolf Hitler.

Launching the new DC Comics cinematic universe, Gunn brings his A-game to his iteration of Superman, meaning I was hooked from start to finish, and came away totally smitten by this work of art.

However, something I kept to myself until I actually saw this film: I actually wasn't sure if Superman was going to work under the character's current cinematic stewardship.

While I adored Gunn's Guardians of The Galaxy trilogy for Marvel, for embracing the wackiness of comics, his other recent superhero-related shows, such as Peacemaker, Suicide Squad and Creature Commandos, have left me cold. These attempts to force "mature themes" (ie. swearing, crass humour and graphic violence) onto DC characters just doesn't work for me.

These are attitudes I'll embrace on more independent  "superhero" worlds, such as Invincible and The Boys, because they are their own thing and their "edginess" is there for a reason, but for me the 90-year-old beating heart of the DC comics universe isn't like that at all, it's purer, family-friendly and more aspirational.

And that's exactly what Superman is.

Cloverfield (2008)

My expectations were low going into Cloverfield. Could a monster movie shot entirely from the point-of-view of the people on the ground, on a handheld digital camera, really hold my interest for 85-minutes without giving me motion sickness from all the shaky camera work... and would it really be that good?

Well, for the first three-quarters of the film, it lived up to its hype.

The story kicks off at the leaving party for yuppie Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and unfolds, for about the first 10 or 15 minutes, like a soap opera episode as characters are sketched out and emotional sub-plots revealed amidst the banter and camaraderie.

Then suddenly the monster arrives in Manhattan and things start blowing up, people panic and mayhem ensues.

The combination of Drew Goddard's naturalistic script, Matt Reeves' fine direction and totally convincing performances from the cast of unknowns give Cloverfield an incredible verisimilitude that you really believe this is how ordinary people would behave if a monster attacked New York!

There are no scenes of military commanders spouting exposition or the President reacting to the emergency; we are given no explanations and only fleeting glimpses of the giant, mutant-Godzilla monster itself... we, the audience, only ever know as much as the man holding the camera.

The important thing to remember about Rob and his pals as protagonists is that are nothing special - the monster isn't targeting them specifically and they play no role in the possible downfall of of the creature either - they are just the everyman-on-the-street... who happens to have a camcorder.

Sure, it's a YouTube version of The Blair Witch Project on a big budget, but, here the action is more visceral and less psychological, here you know there's really a big damn monster because its knocked the head off the Statue of Liberty and is stomping its way round the city... dropping off little skittering critters along the way!

Then, with about 20 minutes left, and coming on the heels of incredible sequences in the darkened subway tunnels under the city and in an emergency military hospital, the film goes all Hollywood blockbuster.

The protagonists find themselves scrambling around inside collapsing tower blocks and surviving helicopter crashes; the believability factor is stretched a bit too much and our total immersion in the story wavers.

Also, seeing the monster in daylight, as we do towards the climax, however, briefly, still shows it to be a big CGI creature that wouldn't have looked out of place in Men In Black.

As an experiment in making a different sort of monster movie, Cloverfield is a roaring success, a mix of thrills and chills that just went too far at the end, possibly - and ironically - giving the audience too much of what they were used to and not sticking to its original conceit.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Conan Digests

When we were readying ourselves to move house half-a-dozen years ago, I was shifting boxes in the 'office' part of my attic-gamesroom and 'discovered' a long concealed bookcase; squirrelled away in the corner, on which was my collection of eight, old Conan The Barbarian digests.

These were pocket-sized, British reprints (in black and white) from the early '80s, of Conan's original stint in the pages of Marvel Comics, each around 50-pages long.

These were my first exposure to both Conan The Barbarian and the works of Robert E Howard, I would have been about 14 or 15 when I picked these up.

I guess I was a comparative latecomer to the exploits of the mighty Cimmerian, having cut my sword-and-sorcery teeth - soon after being introduced to Dungeons & Dragons at the tail-end of the '70s - on Fritz Leiber's Nehwon tales with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Harry Turtledove's stories of Gerin The Fox, and then Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné, years before I encountered Conan The Barbarian.

In truth, I think, after the comic book digests, my first actual Robert E Howard book was a remaindered copy of The Gods Of Bal-Sagoth, an Ace Science-Fiction collection of non-Conan stories, that I purchased in a discount book store while out shopping with my parents.

Like pretty much everything at that time, my early interest in Howard's work - and Conan - was fuelled by my desire to make everything about my blossoming passion for roleplaying games, and particularly Dungeons & Dragons.

A passion they still serve today.

The Last Exorcism (2010)

The Last Exorcism comes tantalisingly close to being one of those rare, perfect horror movies, an intelligent blend of The Exorcist and The Blair Witch Project (two of the most unnerving, pure horror movies ever made, in my opinion), until it derails into silliness for the final sequence.

I can understand and see what the filmmakers were trying to do in these closing scenes because, in all honesty, up until that point, no matter how good the film was, it wasn't really saying anything new, but it was such a sudden lurch in focus that it didn't quite work.

The film - shot on hand-held camera as a documentary - follows the charismatic and charming Reverend Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), a former child minister grown into a performing preacher, disillusioned with the idea of exorcisms, who agrees to bring a film crew along on his last exorcism to expose the practice as fakery.

Rev. Marcus and the camera crew travel to an isolated farm in rural Louisiana, where widower Louis Sweetzer (Louis Herthum) believes his teenage daughter, Nell (Ashley Bell), is possessed by a demon and is slaughtering his cattle at night.

For the first half-hour of this comparatively short (83 minute) movie nothing out of the ordinary happens as we get to know Cotton, his family, his motivations and his beliefs and the groundwork is laid for future events. But after his 'phony' exorcism things start to get creepy and then escalate in wonderfully unpredictable ways as it becomes clear there is a real demon at work (one disappointment is that the scene on the cover of the DVD doesn't appear anywhere in the movie!)

In this era of Grand Guignol torture-porn it makes a refreshing change to see a horror film that uses intelligence, magician's misdirection and subtly to unnerve it audience. I was completely taken in by the fact that I couldn't guess what was going to happen next during the core of the movie and believed in the actors one hundred per cent.

All the performances are spot-on, but particularly powerful are Patrick Fabian as the 'con man' forced to re-examine his cynicism and Ashley Bell as the unnerving innocent victim, twisting her demon-wracked body in all sorts of contortions  (without the aid of special effects, I am led to believe).

Compared to, say, Cloverfield the shaking, hand-held camera isn't too intrusive and there are moments (mainly when Nell steals the camera in the night) that the film couldn't have worked any other way.

This isn't a film that relies on sudden shocks to get it scares - although there are a couple - rather it relies on suggestion and psychological manipulation, dropping hints along the way as to what's really going on, although the chances are you won't piece everything together until the credits are rolling.

For the most part, The Last Exorcism relies on subtle, edge-of-the-seat tension (in the style of The Exorcist and The Blair Witch Project, as I've already said, which is why it was a shame that the ending veered off into pseudo-Lovecraftian territory with a set-up that sadly reminded me of both Hot Fuzz and K-9 And Company: A Girl's Best Friend, neither of which exactly rank as the pinnacle of horror cinema.

Stylistically, the shaky-cam/faux documentary approach certainly carries the movie, adding an air of Truth that helped sell the discrete horror, but it also rather undermined the ending - not that we needed to see everything that was going on, but frankly it made the audience all the more aware of how ridiculous the scenario was and somehow managed to undo the carefully stitched verisimilitude that director Daniel Stamm had created.

It's as though the ending actually showed too much and was almost unnecessary, which is a massive shame because, although produced by Eli Roth (and it was his name used to, rather misleadingly, sell the film), The Last Exorcism is the total antithesis of the gore-splattered horror - in the vein of Saw and Hostel - one usually associates with Roth's work.

He Answers To Only One Name: Deathstalker!

In Deathstalker, the Kingdom of Abraxeon is under siege by the Dreadites, heralds of the long-dead sorcerer Nekromemnon. When Deathstalker recovers a cursed amulet from a corpse-strewn battlefield, he's marked by dark magick and hunted by monstrous assassins. To survive, he must break the curse and face the rising evil. Death is just the beginning… of great adventure!

Deathstalker is a reimagining of (or sequel to) the cult 1983 classic of the same name that became the poster child for blending sleaze and gore in low-budget "barbarian and babes" fantasy flicks (usually direct-to-video).

This Kickstarter-funded revival of the franchise is written and directed by Steven Kostanski, who gave us the delightful Psycho Goreman in 2020 and the magnificent Lovecraftian horror of The Void in 2016.

Vivarium (2019)

Given the weakness of the the most recent series of the Twilight Zone (I must confess I've only managed about half the episodes), I'm reticent to make the comparison, but Vivarium is a classic Twilight Zone-style story.

Young couple Gemma (Imogen Poots) and Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) are looking to buy a starter home and are taken by a strange estate agent, Martin (Jonathan Aris), to an out-of-town development of identical homes on identical streets.

Martin leaves while the couple are looking around Number Nine... and suddenly they discover there's no way out of the, otherwise unpopulated, estate.

Wherever they go, they end up back at Number Nine.

Then a parcel is left for them: containing a baby, with a note telling them to raise the child and they will be set free.

Time passes; bland, tasteless food is left for them and their rubbish is taken away by unseen hands.

The couple are trapped there for days, weeks, months, and the baby blossoms into a creepy young boy (Senan Jennings), with an oddly deep voice and a habit of screaming like a banshee if he doesn't get what he wants.

If the static clouds in the perfect sky don't give it away, the clue is in the title, as they say.

Segueing swiftly from a dream-like idyll to nightmare fuel, Vivarium follows Tom and Gemma's life as they try to figure out what is going on, while coping with the demands of a freakish cuckoo in their familial nest.

With all the hints that are dropped along the way, there is only really one explanation for the goings-on that makes sense, but the script takes the bold step - given that it is so clear to anyone versed in this kind of weird storytelling - of not actually spelling it out.

Which is probably quite frustrating for the casual viewer.

But, in all honesty, Vivarium isn't a film I could imagine many casual viewers opting for.

However, for those of us that love this style of obtuse, almost surreal, art house, paranormal mystery and psychological horror, it is magnificent.

Twisting the conceit of nightmarish, suburban conformity way past its logical ends, Vivarium is a British spin on '50s American sci-fi horror mixed in with an almost live-action Rick and Morty level of stark brutality about the unfolding events (I was reminded of one episode in particular from the first season, but I can say no more as it would give away a bit too much!)

The performances, across the board, are mightily impressive - as we would have expected from Poots and Eisenberg - with Senan Jennings' turn as the strange child being memorably unnerving and peculiar.

After a single viewing, I have to say I have already become rather a champion for this little gem, written by Garret Shanley who shares credit for the story with director Lorcan Finnegan.

I know Vivarium will only appeal to a small percentage of the movie-watching audience, but for me I was hanging on every clue that our protagonists acquired about their "captors", trying to piece together my own ideas of who was "on the other side of the glass".

Mama (2013)

A banker goes mental, kills his work colleagues and his wife, then kidnaps his two young daughters and drives away with them. Before he can get too far though his car skids off the road, down an embankment and crashes into woodland.

He leads the girls away from the wreck to an abandoned cottage where, five years later, the two girls are found by trackers employed by their uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from Game Of Thrones), an impoverished illustrator who lives with his hot rock chick girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain).

The sisters, Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse) are pretty much feral but the eldest - Victoria - tells psychiatrist Dr Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash) they were looked after by "Mama" who ran away from a "hospital for sad people" with her baby.

Because Lucas and Annabel can't afford to care for the children, Dreyfuss arranges - in return for continued access, so he can study the children - for them all to move into a large house owned by the hospital.

Soon after they move in though, Annabel begins to suspect that the girls might have brought someone - or something - back from the woods with them.

Mama is a well-made, very old school ghostly horror story carried by the wholly convincing performances of the central characters, some clever scares along the way and a plot surprisingly unburdened with unnecessary red herrings.

As well as praise for the actors, I have to give credit to director Andrés Muschietti, who co-wrote the script with Neil Cross and Barbara Muschietti, as he uses a fair degree of smarts and subtlety to weave the movie's creepy atmosphere - instead of simply relying on jump-scares (and even when they are used they are done well).

Mama, herself, (portrayed by both Javier Botet and Hannah Cheesman, aided by the vocal talents of Laura Guiteras and Melina Matthews) has a rounded backstory and convincing motivations for her jealous guardianship of Victoria and Lilly and it's this that drives the story.

Unfortunately, that's not to say Mama's perfect. There's a stand-out moment of rank stupidity that surely could have been addressed in a less clichéd way: Dr Dreyfuss goes back to the spooky cabin to follow some clues, but goes in the middle of the night. In the pitch dark. You just know that's not going to end well and is quite groan-worthy, especially given the generally high calibre of the screenplay.

There's also a rather clunky moment when Lucas is in hospital and Mama is coming to pay him a visit and a computer starts spelling out the word "Mama" over and over again. Once you discover Mama's backstory the idea of her having any concept of a computer or its operation seems totally incongruous.

But my biggest gripe, and it's an odd one, is on account of "Chekov's gun" - the dramatic principle that if you have a loaded gun on stage in act one it will eventually be used. For some reason, and I can't believe it was penny-pinching, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau plays not only Lucas but his brother Jeffrey (the guy who goes nuts at the start). It's never even stated that they are twins, just brothers.

I thought this might pay-off in some way relating Mama's interaction with Lucas back to her first encounter with Jeffrey in the pre-credit sequence. But no. Nothing. And I'll be honest it's slightly distracting.

I've seen a fair bit of criticism of the ending of the movie, but for me it worked and tied off the plot with a neat little bow. It's neither the entirely happy ending this style of storytelling often has nor the sudden, shocking reversal where everything unexpectedly goes to hell in a handbasket just when you thought everyone was safe.

Barring a couple of bumps along the road, Mama is a solid, intelligent, old fashioned ghost story with a downbeat ending.

Psycho Goreman (2020)

 A nameless, near-omnipotent force of evil is finally overthrown by the "forces of light" (aka The Planetary Alliance) and imprisoned on an out of the way world... which just happens to be Earth.

Playing in their suburban garden one night, two young siblings - borderline sociopath Mimi (Nita-Josee Hanna) and her put-upon brother Luke (Owen Myre) - unearth a glowing gemstone.

The next day they discover 'something' has dug its way out of their garden, and they track the creature to a nearby abandoned factory, where it's hiding out.

The creature (played by Matthew Ninaber, with Stevn Vlahos providing the voice) is the "nameless evil", but the kids soon realise that it must obey Mimi's every command, because she holds the gem.

It reveals that its enemies refer to it as the Arch-Duke of Nightmares, but the kids decide to call it Psycho Goreman ('PG' for short) instead.

While the youngsters are having fun with their new 'toy' (for instance, one of their friends gets turned into a brain creature and a cop into a soulless, half-melted zombie... you know, crazy kid stuff), the forces that imprisoned PG on Earth become aware of his escape from captivity.

The Planetary Alliance sends Pandora The Templar (Kristen MacCulloch) to recapture the monster while he is still in a weakened state.

As this is all unfolding Psycho Goreman lives up to his nickname and enters Luke's dreamscape, trying to convince him to steal the gem from Mimi, but Luke sticks by his sister.

Until, she playfully orders PG to kill him one day!

You see, Mimi has become a living example of the old adage about "power corrupting", and while she started off with a mean streak, having PG at her beck and call has just made her worse.

Will the arrival of Pandora on Earth resolve the situation?

Written and directed by Steven Kostanski (who also made the brilliantly Lovecraftian horror The Void and the forthcoming Deathstalker reboot), PG: Psycho Goreman is truly bonkers, a gonzo, blood-spattered spin on the look of Power Rangers, interwoven with Japanese body horror, retro special effects, layered world-building, and a wicked sense of humour.

Even under Mimi's control, the invulnerable and superstrong Psycho Goreman has access to a broad arsenal of "dark magics" (such as transformation magic, telekinesis, paralysis etc) that ultimately means he is able to dole out whatever punishment he feels a target deserves.

Of course, if you fight honourably, you may well merit a "warrior's death"... which involves PG cannibalising your corpse in a most shocking manner.

With its tongue buried firmly in its cheek, PG: Psycho Goreman is most definitely not a film to be taken seriously, instead it feels as though Kostanki has thrown everything he loved from his childhood into a blender and splurged the results out onto the page.

Very much a comic book supervillain, there are shades of Thanos (and Darkseid) in Goreman's backstory, which makes his dominance by a young girl all the more humorous and rewarding.

He even has his own Paladins of Obsidian, a collective of unique villainous creatures, that he believes will come and save him.

The power dynamics of the PG universe are highly reminiscent of that employed by Michael Moorcock, with Psycho Goreman as the ultimate representation of chaos and Pandora as the definitive bastion of law.

Although the terms "good" and "evil" are bandied about, as is said at one point, the central battle is truly "evil versus an even worse evil".

Another geeky reference I grokked was the name of PG's homeworld, Gigax. Surely (even with the variant spelling) this is a reference to Gary?

And the anarchic and incomprehensible homemade game of 'Crazy Ball' that Mimi and Luke play all the time - and was always going to be a key element in the narrative - strongly reminded me of 'Calvinball'  from Calvin and Hobbes.

Coming in at just over an hour-and-half, PG: Psycho Goreman is like a well-made Troma Entertainment movie, a Full Moon Features film with a decent budget, or an unfettered student flick with a top-notch script.

Not so much subverting expectations as leaning into them, PG: Psycho Goreman is simultaneously reminiscent of so much trash cinema we've grown up loving, and yet wonderfully unique in its commitment to a solid story in a well-defined sci-fi universe.

What We Did On The Bank Holiday

Alice likes to 'ride in style' on my lap

The late August Bank Holiday weekend is traditionally the time when we visit "living history" shows, however our options were rather limited this year.

Given my current state of restricted mobility the Medieval Festival and Hever Castle were out because of the terrain.

However, fortuitously, a new company had stepped up to offer mobility scooter rental at Military Odyssey - so that's where we headed.

We hadn't been for a couple of years because of the lack of scooter hire (even when I could walk with my stick it was still too large an area for me to get round), so this was perfect timing.

Much calmer when she was indoors and away from the sounds of simulated warfare

There was plenty of wargame stuff at the show for me to coo over, as well as the usual displays of 'living history'.

Everyone we interacted with was really kind and considerate to us, given my disability, and also to Alice who did NOT like all the loud noises. She made herself very comfortable in several stalls where the traders showered her with attention, cuddles, and offers of water.

The further we got away from the cannons and muskets the more relaxed she became, but I blame myself - in my enthusiasm to visit the show - for forgetting how noisy it can be with just the kind of sounds that Alice doesn't respond well to.

Rachel and I agreed that if we go next year we'll probably leave Alice with Rachel's parents for the day.

It was terribly frustrating, though, for me that I was unable to get off the scooter this year and poke around the stalls - but that did mean we didn't return home with the usual selection of random books and minor militaria.

Leaning into my penchant for hats, I did weigh up the possibility of an American Civil War Union officer's kepi, a pith helmet, and a selection of baseball caps, but ultimately came to the conclusion that I could live without them.

In fact, the only thing we actually brought back was a bag of fudge, which didn't last long once it got through the front door. 

Rachel was nominated photographer this year and here's a small selection of the many great pictures she took:

Sheppey Models had some lovely games set up

The Spearfish Creek mining camp is always a favourite place to visit

The SCP Foundation: Declassified (Monstrum)

"Join us as we delve deep into the mysterious world of the SCP Foundation, uncovering the most enigmatic and anomalous objects ever contained."

Predator: Badlands Movie Gets Comic Book Prequel

In the one-shot, a young Yautja warrior is given a seemingly simple task by his father: retrieve a piece of technology from a derelict spaceship that crashed years ago. Inside, however, an ancient and deadly threat lies in wait.

This one-shot comic book prequel to the forthcoming movie, Predator: Badlands #1 - written by Ethan Sacks with Elvin Ching on art duty, and inks from Oren Junior - will be released by Marvel on November 12. The cover art is provided by Juan Ferreyra.

The movie's director, Dan Trachtenberg, will write a foreword to the book.

Chewing Over The Meat of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Fifty years after Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre shocked the world and forever changed the face of global cinema and popular culture, Chain Reactions charts the film’s profound impact and lasting influence.

Directed by Alexandre O. Philippe (Lynch/Oz, Memory: The Origin of Alien). Featuring Stephen King, Patton Oswalt, Karyn Kusama, Takashi Miike, and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. Only in theaters September 19.

Hobo With A Shotgun (2011)

If Camp Blood and Shark Exorcist set a new low in crapness that I will endure on DVD, then Hobo With A Shotgun has become the new benchmark by which all future OTT, Grand Guignol, splatterfests will be judged.

Inspired by a fake trailer from the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse double-bill of Death Proof and Planet Terror, Hobo With A Shotgun  is the charming tale of an ageing vagrant (Rutger Hauer), pushed over the edge by the violence and lawlessness run amok in Hope City, who turns vigilante - with aid of a pawn shop pump-action, 20-gauge shotgun - and delivers "justice one shell at a time".

In a Taxi Driver-esque development, he saves - then teams up - with a young prostitute, Abby (Molly Dunsworth), to take on the city's out-of-control crimelord The Drake (Brian Downey) and his two Tom Cruise-inspired sons Slick (Gregory Smith) and Rip (Nick Bateman).

This is Robocop meets Braindead (Dead Alive for Americans) with all the slick, sick, black humour and ridiculously over-the-top gore you would expect from such a pedigree.

Not for the feint-hearted, closed-minded or humourless, Hobo With A Shotgun is in a class of its own for tongue-in-cheek shocks and taboo-bending casual violence (Torching a packed school bus? A human piñata?) but it's also a straight-up revenge story with a mix of great, quotable, dialogue balanced with deliberately campy dialogue and a brilliant central performance from a grizzled Rutger Hauer.

Hobo is pretty much review-proof. It wears its grindhouse credentials with pride and the chances are you're going into this with a good idea of what kind of entertainment you can expect.

And if any sensitive, serious, cineastes should stray into a screening of a film called Hobo With A Shotgun they're going to get what they deserve.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Sic Itur Ad Astra

The Star Trek: Voyager episode One Small Step features a discussion of childhood dreams and ambitions.

Whenever I watch this, it strikes a particular chord with me as, at about the age that Chakotay decided he wanted to be a palaeontologist and Seven Of Nine was dreaming of becoming a ballerina, the only thing I wanted to be was an astronaut.

It wasn't even Star Trek (The Original Series) or other sci-fi shows of that era (early '70s) that drove this dream but simply the fact that I was growing up in age when men were still walking on the Moon and the "space race" was a vibrant and exciting part of everyday life.

Sadly, I also remember when how that dream got mothballed.

I was reading an article in an annual (either Star Trek or Doctor Who, and I'm leaning towards the latter) about the reality of space travel and I came across a paragraph that pointed out that if your craft re-entered the atmosphere at the wrong angle you'd burn up (I already had a childhood phobia about fire from being freaked out by The Amazing Mr Blunden as a six-year-old) and so that was it. Dream shattered. Astronaut ambitions shelved.

I wonder how different my life would be if, at that impressionable age, I hadn't read that article in an old annual and had instead pursued my space-travelling dreams through later life, studied the sciences at school (heck, any studying would have been an improvement), gone off to university at 18, taken a job in the aerospace industry or become a scientist or a pilot...

Talking of old annuals, as we were, another "freaky" story revolved around a pair that I picked up at a summer fête at the old Pembury Hospital (I think one might have been a Victor annual, but I can't remember the other, it might even have been a Doctor Who one).

One of favourite annuals as a kid
- but nothing to do with these anecdotes

What I do recall is that the two annuals were from different years and I didn't look inside them until I got home - only to discover that these two, otherwise unconnected books, both contained exactly the same illustrated article about UFOs! My little kid mind was officially blown!

The Pembury Hospital fêtes were fixture of the Knight's social calendar as, in their day, the events were always able to attract "big name stars" to open them.

One year we had Rod Hull & Emu (I'm only slightly ashamed to admit that I stroked Emu) and another time there were a couple of genuine Daleks for people to inspect (before my time, even William Hartnell, dressed as The First Doctor, opened the fête one year).

In later years, once I was a local journalist, the hospital fête gave me my first opportunity to interview Louise Jameson (The Fourth Doctor's companion, Leela).

She was thinking of moving to the area and so ended up grilling me on what I thought about Tunbridge Wells.

Either later that year or the next she moved to Rusthall, on the outskirts of Tunbridge Wells.  I like to think I played some small part in that decision.

Jakob's Wife (2021)

Jakob's Wife was a pet project of the iconic Barbara Crampton, who had apparently spent years trying to bring the script by Kathy Charles, Mark Steensland, and director Travis Stevens to life.

She is quoted on IMDB as saying:

"I read it and I was immediately captivated. I hooked up with Bob Portal at Alliance Media Partners and it took many years for us to develop the project and put it together."

In the film, Crampton plays Anne Fedder, the dutiful but downtrodden wife of a boorish, small town minister, Pastor Jakob Fedder (Larry Fessenden).

The film wastes no time in getting to the meat of its storyline when an attractive girl, Amelia Humphries (Nyisha Bell), disappears on her way home from an evening church service.

Then Anne has the chance to meet up with an old flame, Tom Low (Robert Rusler), who is back in town to help with the restoration of a historic gin mill.

The couple rendezvous at the rundown, out-of-town, property but just as it looks like their old romance is about to be rekindled, they are attacked by supernatural forces.

Tom is killed off swiftly, but Anne returns home later... a changed woman.

Bonnie Aarons as The Master

She has fallen under the spell of an enigmatic, asexual, vampire lord - of the old school, Nosferatu-style - known only as The Master (Bonnie Aarons, who also played the titular role in The Nun).

Once Jakob realises what's going on in his town, he is at first naturally horrified, but then his desire to exterminate the vampire threat (which he readily accepts as real) is tempered by a determination to save his wife, somehow.

The story pivots and lurches thematically and tonally, but it is Barbara Crampton's powerful central performance around which everything revolves and that holds this strange 98-minute affair together.

I think it's supposed to be a dark comedy, but this really isn't clear from the get-go.

There's a definite Fright Night vibe - and even a touch of Buffy The Vampire Slayer - to Jakob's Wife, but it has an odd habit of allowing characters to flip from 'good guys' to 'bad guys' at a moment's notice.

Jakob, for instance, isn't a particularly likeable person to begin with, and yet there are times when he's suddenly - slightly uncomfortably - thrust into the role of 'hero'.

In all honesty, the majority of the audience isn't ever going to care for him... even if, at the eleventh hour, he realises what a great catch his wife is.

And I wasn't totally sold by his transition from "thoughts and prayers solve everything" to "killing in the name of love".

Conversely, Anne switches from murderous monster to "hero" and back again several times in the tale.

Director Travis Stevens was certainly very lucky to have an actor as brilliant as Barbara Crampton as the power engine behind his movie, because it could have possibly spun totally out of control without her presence.

Jakob's Wife is a buffet, a potential melange of different tastes that may, or may not, appeal depending on your personal preferences and tolerances.

And So Begins The End of My Hero Academia

The final season of top-notch superhero anime My Hero Academia begins on October 4 in Japan.

Flight Of The Living Dead (2007)

Ever get one of those "that was my idea" moments; when you see some film with a clever twist that you'd dreamed up years ago and never done anything about?

Well, I had one when I first came across adverts for this little beauty.

Flight Of The Living Dead: the title alone tells you pretty much what you can expect from this wonderful piece of trash cinema.

Just when you thought every aspect of the zombie genre had been milked dry; and wannabe writers like my good self were scratching around fruitlessly to come up with different take on this popular subject.

If you think about it, really, Flight Of The Living Dead is an obvious conceit, and it's hard to believe no one had tried it before... a zombie outbreak on a passenger plane at 30,000ft.

It's the ultimate "spam in a cabin", to quote legendary drive-in film critic Joe Bob Briggs.

The acting may be pretty awful and the script not much better, but once the carnage begins all the half-baked 'character stuff' is forgotten (along with logic - as guns are fired left, right and centre within the aircraft) and the bloodshed takes over. And let's be honest, that's what we watch zombie films for, isn't it?

And once the chewing, dismemberment and shooting kicks off, Flight becomes a great little horror flick. Unfortunately it takes over half an hour to get to the good stuff, but the wait is worth it!

The plane is loaded with a typical Hollywood passenger list of potential inflight snacks: a group of renegade scientists with a suspicious cargo, a cop and handcuffed wisecracking convict, a nun, a professional sportsman and his disgruntled wife, the feuding teen couples and, best cliche of all, an aged pilot making that one last flight before retirement (guess who doesn't make it out alive?).

It swings violently from classic moments (watch for the laugh-out-loud umbrella sequence) to silly (the ridiculous crash landing stands out in particular), but really it doesn't matter; it's zombies on a [melon-flipping] plane! What were you really expecting?

Good Boy Pits Brave Dog Against Demonic Forces

A loyal dog moves to a rural family home with his owner Todd, only to discover supernatural forces lurking in the shadows. As dark entities threaten his human companion, the brave pup must fight to protect the one he loves most.

This could be the one that breaks me. Humans under threat in horror movies are par for the course and often deserve whatever they have coming for them, but making a dog your protagonist against supernatural antagonists is a major challenge to my blood pressure!

The Tuesday Knights May Be On An Extended Hiatus, But The Gaming Wheels Are Still Turning

Today is the 17th anniversary of the first gathering of our gaming group, The Tuesday Knights.

However, we are currently on an extended hiatus - for various reasons we haven't gamed since May and now, of course, I'm rather entangled in a medical "mystery" as science tries to figure out why my legs aren't working properly!

I've thus pulled the plug on my supers' game, as Pete has stepped up with a new system he has invested in, to continue his long-running time travel/alternate reality campaign, which has so far bounced from GURPS Atomic Horror to Hollow Earth Expedition.

Next up will be Outgunned, which I'm very excited about as it's a game I was seriously considering picking up when it was launched through some crowdfunding programme or another. It's "cinematic action" vibe really appeals to me, so I'm looking forward to playing this.

I think we might still be playing in the same Indiana Jones-inspired inter-war setting in which our HEX game was set, presumably using the Outgunned Adventure supplement, although, to be honest, I wouldn't mind our characters sliding into contemporary bodies for a bit of John Wick/James Bond action.

In the meantime, I've superficially been kicking around some alternate systems for me to try out on the gang once I'm feeling better and Pete takes his next break from his long-running game (currently 32 sessions over 36 months).

Top contenders for further investigation on my behalf are:

GO FER YER GUN! But rather than a straight Western, I'd be looking to "Dark Tower it up" by easily blending some magic and monsters into the mix. This would be very easy to do with the simple d20 rules of Go Fer Yer Gun! 

ALIEN RPG (EVOLVED): I haven't read enough of the original edition to really get my head round the system, but there's a new edition out later this year (I didn't back the Kickstarter) and I really love the setting.

STAR TREK ADVENTURES (2nd Edition): I've never really grokked the 2d20 system that Modiphius uses to power most of its RPGs, but I know a lot of online buddies talk of playing in ongoing, long-running campaigns with this game. And who doesn't love Star Trek, right? I have the starter set for the new edition, just need to get round to reading the books.

PLANET OF THE APES: Another setting I adore. I can't help imagining the team as crashed astronauts on a post-apocalyptic Earth being pursued by trumpet-blowing gorillas.

The rules are variation on the old West End Games d6 system, which many, many people speak highly of although I've never played it. I didn't back the Planet of The Apes Kickstarter in the end, but the rule books are due out early next year.

BEYOND THE VEIL: While my previous possibilities are essentially variations on a theme, just with different settings, Beyond The Veil is nothing like any of those.

It's a roleplaying game about ghost-hunters in contemporary times. Not superheroes or trained astronauts, but members of the public - both believers and non-believers - brought together to scientifically investigate claims of the supernatural. It's The X-Files, Uncanny podcast and Stephen King horror, mingled with UFOs, cryptids and ghost stories, as read about through the pages of The Fortean Times.

Beyond The Veil is due to hit Kickstarter in a couple of months, but I already have the introductory Prologue booklet, which I'm halfway through reading.

Teaser For This Week's Alien: Earth

As well as a taste of what's to come (see above), here's a clip from last week's Alien: Earth along with a "how did they do it" look behind the scenes.

Freaky (2020)

The whole Freaky Friday/body swap concept is a tried-and-tested formula for light-hearted romps about mistaken identity and learning to "walk a mile in someone else's shoes", but slasher-comedy Freaky takes this to a whole new level by throwing a serial killer into the mix.

Millie Kessler (Kathryn Newton) is a sweet high school kid who, late one terrifying evening while waiting for a lift home from a football match, discovers that the urban myth of the Blissfield Butcher is all too real.

The night before the brutal deaths of four obnoxious teens had been attributed to this legendary 'mythical' figure in the town of Blissfield, but then he (Vince Vaughn) attacks Millie, and stabs her with an ancient knife - La Dola - that has come into his possession.

This ancient Aztec sacrificial blade has the magical power to swap the souls of the attacker and victim when a person is stabbed with it.

The next day, The Butcher wakes up as a teenage girl, and Millie wakes up in a squat, wearing the face of the most wanted man in Blissfield.

The Butcher adapts to his new form much faster than Millie, immediately realising it's the perfect disguise with which to continue his murder spree.

Meanwhile, Millie has to convince her friends that it's really her in this middle-aged man's body... and avoid being arrested on numerous homicide charges.

Millie and her friends learn that unless they can stab The Butcher again within 24 hours, with the same magical blade, the soul transference will be permanent.

And so the race against time begins. 

Directed by Christopher Landon, who brought us the two Happy Death Day time loop movies, from a script he co-wrote with Michael Kennedy, Freaky is a broad horror-comedy (Vince Vaughn playing a teenage girl in a man's body is brilliant).

But while there is a degree of gore - unsurprisingly - in this slasher flick, the most disturbing elements come from the threats of sexual violence delivered by stereotypical jocks when they think they have the "weak and feeble" Millie backed into a corner.

This is one of those slasher films where you find yourself, while never, of course, siding with the Blissfield Butcher, at least feeling satisfied with some of his victim choices.

The 102-minute film also does a fantastic job when it comes to pacing, to the extent that when you first believe the story is over, you suddenly realise there's 10 or 15 minutes of the film still to run... and there are more shocks to come!

Freaky is neither high art nor trash cinema, skating comfortably down the middle as a teen friendly horror flick that nails its colours to the mast from the get-go, trading largely in stereotypes to keep the action moving.

Ultimately it's a jaunty game of cat-and-mouse between two compelling leads (Millie morphs into a cross between Reese Witherspoon's Elle Woods and Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy Summers) that entertains and repulses when it needs to.

HEALTH UPDATE: Baby Steps!

Once again, I am learning how to walk. I did it as an infant, I did it after my stroke 20 years ago, and now - for currently unknown reasons - I am having to do it again.

My MRI last month showed that I had a slipped disc, but the analysis of that was that it didn't explain the loss of strength in my legs and my sudden inability to walk.

While I await next week's appointment at the orthopaedics department, I've been testing the limits of my strength and stability by first walking and down the stairs (using the extra handrail that Rachel's dad installed) - instead of dragging myself up and down on my arse - and am now trying to walk (short distances) from either end of the staircase.

As long as there's something for me to hold on to you with one hand - or even touch with my fingertips - I'm able to make it to rooms off the first floor landing or, on the groundfloor, into the lounge.

I even made it to the backdoor one day this week - essentially walking the length of the house.

The other positive thing I did was finish the two books I was reading: Stephen King's Carrie and "Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?", an in-depth, graphic novel biography of Ed Gein, the inspiration for Norman Bates, Leatherface et al. 

I'd read a huge chunk of Carrie while I was waiting around in hospital for my tests in mid-July, but then hadn't picked it up since, due to a combination of physical discomfort and depression. 

But I was determined to finish it this week, as my "TBR" pile continues to grow into a mountain.

To celebrate this achievement, Rachel - not a fan of the horror genre at all - heroically agreed to watch the classic, original Carrie as our Saturday evening film.

However, I couldn't find my blu-ray disc of the movie (as I'm currently unable to fully search my double-stacked library of films), so we watched Psycho instead - which Rachel had already seen.

Hopefully, I'll be able to unearth Carrie by next weekend.

Now that I've cleared the mental blockage in my reading, I've got several books lined up to read next, starting with the incredibly weird-sounding Crypt of The Moon Spider, by Nathan Ballingrud, that was recommended on McNulty's Book Corral.

After that should come James Herbert's The Rats, The Tourist's Guide to Haunted Wellman by my Facebook friend Charles R Rutledge and the late James A Moore, and Stephen King's The Shining.

I haven't read The Rats since prep school in the '70s, where the book was a big hit among my young peers and caused a furore amongst the school authorities who banned us from reading it - thus making it more enticing. I couldn't find an affordable copy of the edition I read back then, but did find the 50th anniversary edition... which made me feel old.

The idea is build up a head of steam with my rekindled reading drive to give me the mental momentum to tackle The Shining.

If all goes to plan, I suspect that tome could keep my stroke-addled brain occupied for the rest of 2025 (at the very least).

I thought if I was going to give one of King's doorstop books a go, it might as well be the one whose story I'm most excited to read.

I only really know The Shining from Kubrick's 1980 movie (and Mike Flanagan's powerful 2019 sequel, Doctor Sleep), but am well aware that King didn't like Kubrick's take and much of the source material was ignored or rewritten.

So, I felt I owed to myself to discover the "real" story of The Overlook Hotel.

Conan the Barbarian: Kingdoms and Stories

Dive deep into the savage world of Conan with a full breakdown of the kingdoms, cultures, and lands where his greatest adventures took place!

From The Frost-Giant’s Daughter and Queen of the Black Coast to The Tower of the Elephant, Red Nails, and The Hour of the Dragon — we cover every iconic tale by Robert E. Howard.

Venture across the Hyborian Age, from the brooding hills of Cimmeria to the golden spires of Aquilonia, the haunted jungles of Kush, and the sun-scorched sands of Stygia. Where did Conan face his most brutal foes? Which land tested the Cimmerian’s steel the most? Find out here — your Hyborian journey begins now.

Courtesy of Heroic Signatures

One Piece Sets Sail For Season Two on Netflix Next Year

A new dawn is approaching. The Grand Line is no place for the faint of heart. Brace yourselves, One Piece Into The Grand Line sets sail in 2026! And it looks like Season Three production is kicking off...

In The Earth (2021)

Why, oh why, do I keep doing this to myself? After the pretentious nonsense of 2013's A Field In England, I thought I was done with the oeuvre of auteur Ben Wheatley... but then I saw that he had made a new rural horror film that the trailers managed to make look quite intriguing.

While the world is consumed by the latest pandemic, scientist and city boy Martin Lowery (Game of Thrones' Joel Fry) and park ranger Alma (Ellora Torchia) head into a quarantined area of forest outside of Bristol to deliver equipment to researcher Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), who has set up camp deep in the woods.

During their second night of camping on the long journey through difficult terrain, Alma and Martin are attacked in their sleep, their radio is destroyed, and their shoes are stolen.

The following day Martin cuts his foot badly while continuing on barefoot, but they soon run into an apparent homeless man, Zach (The League of Gentleman's Reece Shearsmith) who takes them to his camp.

Very quickly it becomes clear that Zach is up to no good, and is actually trying to make contact with a woodland entity - Parnag Fegg - through symbolism and sacrifice.

Eventually, our protagonists escape his clutches and stumble into Wendle's encampment, only to realise that the scientist is as barmy as Zach.

While, he was using ritual, she using science, but heavily influenced by an old, occult tome that mentions the nearby standing stone around which all this weirdness seems to revolve.

As with A Field in England, In The Earth is largely a pompous, po-faced, mess of style over substance, but peppered with moments of pseudo torture porn and squirm-inducing injury detail, almost entirely inflicted on Martin.

For some reason, this film is allowed to run for 107 minutes, and, boy, does it feel it. When Wheatley isn't bombarding our senses with strobe lighting or flickering subliminal images (which I wouldn't object to if I felt they had some meaning), he's allowing his antagonists to monologue incessantly. 

I guess the writer-director believes he has an ear for dialogue, but more often than not it comes across as peculiarly mannered and stilted, akin to a poor student film.

Echoing 2018's Annihilation, the underlying story of In The Earth suggests that nature is 'fighting back' against mankind (and is possibly responsible for creating the unspecified plague affecting the globe... but I might be giving the plot too much credit there).

Both Zach and Olivia are taking different paths to opening a dialogue with an anthropomorphic avatar of nature, the mycrrhizal mat, a network connecting all the plant life in the area, to, essentially, negotiate a peace treaty.

And this core idea is interesting and worthy of investigation, but In The Earth doesn't do it justice.

I'm of an age where I don't need everything explained in a horror movie to get that its conceit is frightening, as long as there is the suggestion of an intelligent design behind it all.

However, Wheatley's "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach actually undermines the uneasiness of the scenario.

There was a moment, in the final act, when Olivia was fine tuning her son et lumière communication devices, that I thought this drivel was about to be salvaged by some Quatermass-level fringe science, but sadly the plot opted to devolve into a psychedelic, early Pink Floyd music video (but without the great tunes).

What should have been terrifying was simply annoying.

Clearly Wheatley has enough fans that he can continue to gain funding for these arthouse horror projects, but I definitely don't count myself among their number.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Education, Education, Education

It should come as a surprise to no one that I wasn't a great student at school, always being way more interested in my own "stuff" (that was, primarily, escapist movies and TV shows, comics, roleplaying games... and, of course, girls).

That's why the Calvin & Hobbes cartoon above (recently stumbled across on Facebook) struck a chord with me as it particularly reminded me of my English A-Level exam, back in 1985.

I was supposed to be writing essays on Charles Dickens's Great Expectations… only I hadn’t read Great Expectations and so, instead, wrote about the works of HP Lovecraft which I was much more conversant with.

I think I'd read, maybe, the first two or three chapters of Great Expectations, got bored and distracted, and picked up a Cliffs Notes on the book (or some study aid like that), scanning that instead, just before my exam.

As my old school chum Nick pointed out though I still passed (I got an E, which I'm pretty sure was lowest pass rank). He suggested that the examiners were "followers of Cthulhu".

Part of my problem with school was simply that I found subjects I really should have been interested in, such as English Language and English Literature, were taught in such a dry, rote manner. We were told that Dickens and Shakespeare were great and we should worship at their feet, but it was never explained why.

Thus, I found the books and plays we were forced to study to be dull and, largely, uninspiring (although the Dungeons & Dragons player in me loved Milton's Paradise Lost, but I don't recall that being part of my A-Level exam).

I was also a bit of a sucker for the works of The Metaphysical Poets, but, again, I don't remember these being part of the final exam.

It seems to have boiled down to anything that I studied for exams left no lasting impression at the time, while literary works I was allowed to explore "for fun" had a much deeper effect on me in those formative times.

It would be many years after school before I actually came to appreciate the works of Shakespeare and Dickens on my own terms (for instance, I now try to read/listen to A Christmas Carol every December).

By the time I went to university, having been in the workforce for a decade, my attitude to education had turned round completely.

I feel that I thrived much better in the university environment... possibly because, on my scriptwriting course, much of my years of accumulated geeky knowledge stood me in good stead. 

It also helped that coming from a very deadline-orientated career (ie journalism) I was easily able to prioritise my assignments and ensure they were done on time, allowing myself the maximum amount of time for fun and enjoyment.

My well-thumbed Penguin book of The Metaphysical Poets.
Guess I really should see if my old school wants it back after 40 years?

PROJECT 60: Population Explosion In Town With No Name

My "second wave" of miniatures - for use with the Dead Man's Hand skirmish system - have returned from Matt the painter and, as usual, look fantastic. 

He painted up a Plains Indian warband (pictured above) and a miscellany of gunfighters (including Rooster Cogburn, Butch and Sundance, a woman in a tin bath [for the saloon] and a trio of random shootists).

Most of these are 'official' Great Escape Games figures, with a few off-book, scale-appropriate, acquisitions for good measure.

That means, currently, I have one other faction (the religious zealots of The Family) and a dozen or so civilians waiting in the gamesroom in the 'to be painted" queue.

However, my current 'medical science baffling' physical disability means I am unable to actually get into the narrow and deep gamesroom and sort out a "third wave" to send off to Matt. 

This has brought my progress on this project to a temporary halt, as I don't want to build up a huge backlog of Wild West characters gathering dust, especially as my mind is always wandering across a variety of other genres for roleplaying games (which I'll talk about more in the future).

So, unless, Great Escape Games releases a set of Dead Man's Hand miniatures that I "must have immediately", I think I'll be cooling my jets until I'm physically able to resume sorting and processing my purchases.

Until I'm a bit better, this also means these latest expertly painted miniatures have taken up residence within the games table (in our dining area) - rather than where they should be, in the inaccessible gamesroom. 

Honestly, once science has found a cure for my current condition, I'm going to be spending months sorting out all the stuff I've recently acquired - or rethought - and getting everything where it ought to be.