THROWBACK THURSDAY: That Time We Were Featured In A Supermarket Tabloid

Photo by Antoni Shkraba

When Rachel and her colleagues at work were moving offices several years ago she brought home a selection of lost and forgotten "treasures" that had been unearthed.

Key among them was an old copy of trashy tabloid magazine Love It! which featured "our story". 

Cover dated July, 2007, this issue featured a semi-factual, rather sensational retelling of "Our Miracle Wedding", a truncated version of the story of my sudden, unexpected, aneurysm; the stroke I suffered on the operating table; my recovery; my marriage proposal; and our wedding.

This sterling example of high-quality journalism was tucked away on page 24 amongst the ridiculous 'true life' accounts of scandalous celebrity gossip, money-saving household tips, horoscopes, and sordid sex tales.

Basically what would now be termed "click-bait".

I wasn't sure about rereading the article (for the first time since I read it upon publication), in case it triggered unpleasant memories of my near-death experience.

But I needn't have worried, the overwrought retelling of Rachel's heroic handling of the whole situation, saving my life and placing me forever in her debt, actually brought on a smile of pride instead.

While it's rather insulting to dismiss the story of my brush with the Grim Reaper as a "speedy read" suitable for when you're waiting in the queue for a bus, it's an oddly concrete reminder of a time when things were moving so fast that no one thought about capturing the moment for posterity.

The paltry payment we earned from selling our story went towards 'spending money' for our trip to Disneyland Paris later that year.

I seem to recall that we would have got more if we'd been able to supply a picture of me in a hospital bed, all wired in to the machines that go 'beep', with tubes down my throat and up my nose... but camera phones just weren't as ubiquitous then as they are today... and, anyway, there's a degree of dignity and personal privacy involved.

And they weren't offering THAT much for a hospital shot.

The Borderlands (2013)

I am my own worst enemy. Despite frequently voicing my dislike of found footage films, I still picked up British horror flick The Borderlands because it featured an actor I'd heard of before (a rarity in most no-budget found footage films).

Gordon Kennedy (from Robin Hood and countless other British TV shows) is Deacon, a member of a team of investigators from the Vatican who investigate claims of miracles. In this case they are sent to an old, but recently reopened, church in the West Country where the young village priest, Father Crellick (Luke Neal) is making claims of supernatural activity.

Deacon has been saddled with non-religious technical assistant, Gray (Robin Hill), who starts off as the single most obnoxious and annoying character you could imagine, but by the end of the film transforms into an almost sympathetic character.

The film suffers from many of the usual faults of the found footage genre, with the most insulting being the belief that it doesn't need to explain what's happening because "that's just what was shown on the film".

Quite early on there's an implied animal cruelty sequence that nearly made me turn the film off in disgust - not that you see anything, but the sounds are revolting. I'm glad I stuck with it, especially as this barbaric act by the local hooligans turns out to be a red herring that the film could have done without.

But it does demonstrate the importance of audio in the story. Much of what follows is a lot less on-the-nose.

As Deacon's investigations progress, there are strong hints about a backstory to what is occurring and dark practices that have gone on at the site in the past, but the climax of the piece, while a visual thrill ride, doesn't tell us anywhere near enough to figure out what it is we are supposed to be seeing.

Sadly, this isn't the only weakness in The Borderlands. For example, there is no rational explanation for why - after a shocking suicide - Deacon returns to the church to further his investigations... in the middle of the night!

Then, when Deacon's mentor, Father Calvino (Patrick Godfrey), is flown in to assist our heroes,  they again, return to the church - which appears to have no working lights - as the sun is setting.

Ultimately, the found footage/shaky-cam gimmick is a hindrance to the story writer/director Elliot Goldner is trying to tell. I strongly believe that if this story had been shot as a straight horror movie it could have been another worthy addition to the canon of unnerving British rural horror.

But as it stands, the only real shocks come from a couple of cheap jump scares, which undermine the moments of actual tension and some of the subtler attempts to send chills down the spine of attentive audience members.

There's clearly a bigger story here than we are shown - particularly the influence that whatever is under the church is having on the nearby village - but it's only ever hinted at when it should have been brought to the forefront.

Bryan Fuller Reunites With Hannibal Himself For Dust Bunny, A Hitman vs Monsters Movie

Ten-year-old Aurora has a mysterious neighbour (Mads Mikkelsen) who kills real-life monsters. He’s a hit man for hire.

So, when Aurora needs help killing the monster she believes ate her entire family, she procures his services.

Suspecting that her parents may have fallen victim to assassins gunning for him, Aurora’s neighbour guiltily takes the job.

Now, to protect her, he’ll need to battle an onslaught of assassins―and accept that some monsters are real.

Annihilation (2018)

Three years ago, something alien crash landed in an isolated, swampy, region of southern America, creating an expanding field of energy known as The Shimmer.

While the government has been able to keep this classified so far, every expedition sent inside to investigate has failed to return.

That is, until special forces operative Kane (Oscar Isaac), the husband of biologist Lena (Natalie Portman), suddenly appears back at their house.

He is unable to tell her anything about where he has been, and quickly falls ill.

As they are being rushed to hospital, the government swoops in and Lena and her dying husband are taken to the Southern Reach, a top secret scientific outpost monitoring the growth of The Shimmer.

In an effort to help save her husband - and understand what happened to him - Lena agrees to accompany a new team venturing into the strange phenomenon.

As they enter, they quickly begin to grasp the extent of the mutative effects of the alien field, not just on the landscape and wildlife, but on themselves.

Released on Netflix today, Annihilation deserves a place amongst the rarefied Lovecraftian horrors of In The Mouth Of Madness, Event Horizon, The Thing et al that encapsulate the style and feel of HP Lovecraft's work without actually being based directly on anything he wrote.

That said, in part, it feels like an updated spin on the Lovecraft classic Colour Out Of Space, with a side order of 2001: A Space Odyssey for flavouring.

Written and directed by Alex Garland - adapted from the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's critically-acclaimed Southern Reach Trilogy - Annihilation initially unfolds beautifully, dazzling with its blend of disorientating sci-fi and atmospheric horror.

From the get-go, it's obvious that this is not a horror film for everyone, it's a slow burn, not relying on jump scares, but rather on the audience imagining themselves in that predicament, as everything they think is true begins to unravel.

However, where the film disappoints is its climactic "kill it with fire" resolution to the unearthly situation, rather than anything more cerebral as one might have hoped after the build-up.

Although blurred - and missing - time is a factor within The Shimmer, towards the climax of Annihilation it's clear that the story has a pacing issue.

While it may not have been able to attract the big name stars, I came away from this eagerly-anticipated film thinking that it would have worked better as, say, a six-part mini-series.

That way we could have been drawn in to, and experienced, the strange goings-on of The Shimmer on a deeper level.

So, while I say it deserves to be counted amongst those other legendary Lovecraftian horror movies, Annihilation is sadly the 'also ran' of the group.

It feels as though Garland couldn't decide whether to go full gonzo - as the set-up deserves - or play it safe with a more commercial horror flick, and in the end settled on something that was a bit of both and a lot of neither.

Gein But Not Forgotten - The Return of The Original Psycho

You know the iconic horror films his twisted legacy inspired, but you may not know his name… yet. This October, Ryan Murphy’s Monster anthology series returns with its third - and darkest - season yet. Monster: The Ed Gein Story arrives on Netflix October 3.

In the frozen fields of 1950s rural Wisconsin, a friendly, mild-mannered recluse named Eddie Gein lived quietly on a decaying farm – hiding a house of horrors so gruesome it would redefine the American nightmare. Driven by isolation, psychosis, and an all-consuming obsession with his mother, Gein’s perverse crimes birthed a new kind of monster that would haunt Hollywood for decades.

From Psycho to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to The Silence of the Lambs, Gein’s macabre legacy gave birth to fictional monsters born in his image and ignited a cultural obsession with the criminally deviant. Ed Gein didn’t just influence a genre — he became the blueprint for modern horror.

YellowBrickRoad (2010)

"One morning in New England, 1940, the entire population of Friar, New Hampshire - 572 people - walked together up a winding mountain trail and into the wilderness. They left behind their clothes, their money, all of their essentials. Even their dogs were abandoned, tied to posts and left to starve.

"No-one knows why. A search party dispatched by the U.S. Army eventually discovered the remains of nearly 300 of Friar's evacuees. Many had frozen to death. Others were cruelly and mysteriously slaughtered. The bodies of the remaining citizens are still unaccounted for.

"Over the years, a quiet cover-up operation managed to weave the story of Friar into the stuff of legends and backwoods fairy tales. The town has slowly repopulated, but the vast wilderness is mostly untracked, with the northern-most stretches off limits to local hunters and loggers.

"In 2008, the coordinates for the "YELLOWBRICKROAD" trail head were declassified. The first official expedition into a dark and twisted wilderness will attempt to solve the mystery of the lost citizens of Friar...and reach the end of the trail."

- plot summary from IMDB.

YellowBrickRoad, from the writing/directing team of Andy Mitton and Jess Holland, is frustratingly close to genius.

The powerful set-up (detailed above) had me hooked from the outset with its Lovecraftian overtones and engaging mystery, and this certainly isn't a movie that spoonfeeds answers to its audience.

I love a good mental challenge as much as the next person and films that don't necessarily spell out everything that's going on, but YellowBrickRoad suffers because - in a similar way to Lost - it is ultimately too obscure and obtuse.

While it is certainly a film that will stay with you as you try to ponder what fate befell the inhabitants of Friar - and the contemporary expedition  - I don't believe there are actually enough clues to adequately fill in the gaps.

As the the research team - which includes Smallville's Cassidy Freeman and her brother Clark Freeman (they also executive produced the movie) - get further up the trail, and into the mountains, they hear spectral 1940s music from ahead of them, which gets louder as they head north.

The sounds come and go as the journey progresses, but it appears to be having strange effects on some of the group, including memory loss, increased tension and confusion.

The unnerving suggestion that fixed points, directions and co-ordinates change depending on which way you are heading is the genuine stuff of nightmares.

The cinematography and audio effects are superb, although the editing and direction is occasionally jumpy (this, however, may be a deliberate ploy to heighten the hallucinogenic effects of the trail), that if nothing else makes this a gorgeous horror film to experience (I can only imagine how awesome some sequences - such as the auditory assault on the senses - would have been in a cinema).

We can easily pick up on the effects the music - and possibly even the environment - is having on the walkers, as well as clues such as the co-ordinates of the trailhead, the worn copy of the Wizard Of Oz in the town's picture house, the fact that people in the 1940s sought escape in the cinema etc., which kind of tie-in with the bizarre, rather leftfield ending, but there isn't enough indication of either the 'how' or 'why' to put together our own theories of what is going on.

I think I picked up on all the other Wizard Of Oz references - the scarecrow scene is particularly horrific and well done, but I wish there had been more moments like that (did I miss the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man?).

Not that I necessarily wanted more gore. Great horror can unsettle you by mere suggestion alone (cf. The Haunting) and YellowBrickRoad does do a lot of creepy stuff with its sound effects and surreal disorientation but I think the film was simply too big, too ambitious, for its makers and got away from them in the end.

Stylistically, and thematically, YellowBrickRoad reminded me of two of my favourite horrors - The Blair Witch Project (although thankfully this isn't another 'found footage' movie) and In The Mouth Of Madness - and for the majority its 96 minute run I was convinced that YellowBrickRoad would be joining these two in the ranks of my personal greats.

Then it doesn't so much as fall apart at the end (as I can see where the story was trying to go, with the brief flash of the ghostly images etc) as simply come to a hurried conclusion.

During the build-up I found myself so engrossed in the on-screen developments that I didn't want the film to end and when it did, it did it in a most unsatisfactory, and slightly messed-up, way.

We were left with too many unanswered questions and not even a general suggestion as to where we might find answers.

Yet, for all its faults I can certainly see myself revisiting YellowBrickRoad, just to see if I missed any clues along the way, even though I'm totally convinced I'm never going to get all the answers I'm looking for.

Part of the frustration with this film is that, if you let it, it can really get under your skin. Like it or not, you are not going to forget your journey on the YellowBrickRoad in a hurry.

Encoiled In The Sorcerous Schemes of Set, The Serpent God

Conan of Cimmeria has encountered Stygian sorcery and snake-sent creatures many times in his grand adventures, but he has never faced the true unspeakable power of Set… until NOW.

The serpent god’s influence coils around the Hyborian Age and every other age linked to it. Three stunning supernatural stories will weave together to answer a chilling question of past and present – What is Set’s grand plan for humanity and, now that it’s begun, can it be stopped?

Written by Jim Zub, with art by Ivan Gil and colours from Joao Canola, Conan the Barbarian: Scourge of the Serpent #1 slithers into stores on September 24.

PROJECT 60: Bringing The Word of Grud To The Wild West

Latest batch of miniatures to send off for painting

Although my body may disagree, I am still pushing ahead with the Dead Man's Hand side of my PROJECT 60 and have managed to pull together a small package of miniatures to send off to my brilliant painter, Matt of Glenbrook Games Painting Service.

This time round, we're looking at the fanatical religious faction known as The Family and a collection of heroes, who can work with any faction able to afford them: A Fistful of Clints.

Released to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Great Escape Games, each miniature is a different Clint Eastwood character from his rich Western history:

"Five lone riders. A mercenary with a wary eye. A preacher who brings judgment. A rebel who won’t back down. A killer pulled from peace. A lawman with a rope around his past. Each miniature captures a different face of [a] frontier legend, grizzled, righteous, and deadly."

This is - currently - pretty much it for my Wild West miniatures, bar a few waifs and strays, but as I've already 'warned' Matt, I'm also returning to an earlier theme: Warlord Games' Judge Dredd miniatures skirmish system.

Having produced a lovely - but limited - range, Warlord pulled the plug on its 2000AD games line (which included Slaine, Strontium Dog and The ABC Warriors), much like they did with their Doctor Who line. I guess licensed miniatures aren't great money-spinners, which is a great pity for those of us who like them.

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!

On September 8, 1966, Gene Roddenberry introduced [American] audiences to a world that championed diversity, inclusion, acceptance, and hope.