Movie review: Bad Meat (2011)

Bad Meat (2011)

Okay, so this film has some bad reviews, but it was on the Horror Channel so I thought I would give it a try. The best known stars are probably Dave Franco (Now You See Me 2013) and Mark Pellegrino, best known for t.v. roles such as Lucifer in Supernatural and Dr. Jedekiah Price in The Tomorrow People.

The basic premise is that six teens get sent to a camp that can only be described as the summer camp from Hell. The staff have a variety of charming traits such as dominatrix sex (between staff), spying on the three girls as they get changed and a love for Hitler.

Almost upon arrival one rebellious teen, Tyler, whose crime seems to have been nothing more than inciting a protest against animal dissection at school is locked in a small wooden box outside. Given he is claustrophobic, this doesn't go down particularly well. The following day sees copious amounts of physical work and six exhausted teens who receive the reward of a teeny tiny dinner and Tyler returned to the box where he spend most of the rest of the movie.

The next morning none of the staff appear to wake the teens and Rose, a girl with a taste for fire finds that, contrary to the groups' first thought, the staff are still on the grounds. Now, however, they have developed a taste for flesh and six tasty teenage treats are roaming the grounds. Three of the teens manage to make it to temporary safety inside the building, thanks to the up-to-now silent Billy, who has spent his time cutting up one of the dead camp dogs in a bid to satisfy his curiosity why it died.

Much of the rest of the film consists of a cross between a zombie movie and a summer camp slasher movie. There are several moments of dark humour and sexual innuendo as the teens attempt to escape the flesh-hungry staff. It isn't the most predictable of movies and the ending is kind of, I don't know, sudden and a little annoying. Is it worth watching? I can't say that I would watch it again.

Horror, movies and Waxwork

Several years back I studied a Film & Television History module as part of my history degree which changed the way that I view and understand the medium. My husband, who is my full-time carer, attended the tutorials with me and admits that he also has a tendency to watch a little more closely than he did prior to the course. We watch the way that directors have set up shots, the camera angles, the influence of the censors and changes in technology. It is fascinating to watch the influence of different eras and societies on the screen, particularly when you compare a remake with the original and see how and why it has altered. That said, I am not particularly keen on reviews and blogs that waffle on endlessly about camera angles and so on. It has a tendency to sound pretentious and rather boring.
 

My favourite genre is horror, not those films that tend to torture or rip people into pieces, but those that have a psychological tilt or are a commentary on society, such as George Romero's '...of the Dead' movies. Since the Horror Channel  has arrived on freeview, I have watched movies that I have loved for years and some that I just did not know existed. One of those is Waxwork (1988, A.Hickox), shown yesterday (and probably repeated several times); my initial assumption was that it was going to be similar in nature to Michael Crichton's Westworld (1973) where people enter a new entertainment playground, only to have something tragic happen and a number of their friends pass away. I was pretty much spot on with that.

 

In this deliberately cheesy 80s horror-comedy a group of teens are invited to view a not-quite-ready-to-open waxworks exhibition in their home town, after dark.  The mysterious owner is insistent that there should be no more than six teenagers attend the after-hours event. Even though they are uncomfortable and slightly creeped out by the caretaker who invites them, the two girls and two male friends agree to go. Naturally enough - given the genre - two are lost in quick succession, yet the other two somehow manage to miss exactly how their friends are lost. Thus begins a search and a fight against both time and evil. I have to admit that although I started watching the film with the expectation of waxworks coming alive, there was a nice little twist to the concept as victims were catapulted through time and space. It turned out to be an entertaining and interesting little film, that I would watch again and still enjoy.

Competitions and prizes

This weekend I received £350 worth of holiday vouchers for Cumbria Cottages through the post. These were among the latest in a number of wins I have had since I began entering competitions again, in mid-December. The wins have ranged in size from a box of After Eight mints to two large boxes of Fisher Price toys.

Because many competitions and giveaways have more than one prize, it sometimes happens that I have won a prize that is of no use to me. It is my intention to sell those prizes because, like most of us at the moment, I need the money. In addition to the wide variety of auction sites and more traditional selling methods such as newspapers, there are also a number of comper forums that offer swaps or sales of unwanted prizes. So far, I haven't investigated too much, but plan to in the next few weeks.



Spode cups and saucers

Anyone who knows me will take just one look at the beautiful Spode cup and saucer set below, with placemats and coasters and snigger to themselves. I have an appreciation for the design, the skill and beauty of the objects, but I would say that they are very feminine objects. Although, yes, I am female, I am not sure you could call me particularly feminine. I also don't have the room to begin collecting anything else - my husband tells me I already have far too many books in the place. I don't believe that there can be such a thing as too many books, personally.





essence make-up

Car products

3 Channel helicopter

New hair anyone?

Being disabled and largely bed-bound can get boring; in fact I have to say that I would have hated to have been in this position pre-internet. Although many people do complain about the time that is spent online instead of spending time outdoors, for people like me it is a connection to the world around us. The internet allows me - and all my disabled friends - the ability to interact with the rest of the world as well as being able to keep up with what is happening in the lives of friends that we are unable to visit because of our health issues.

Once every two to three months, if I am well enough to tolerate a trip out for a couple of hours, I go the hairdressers. I am lucky enough to go to a fantastic hairdressers called The Hair Gallery, Wordsley where both Sue and Wendy are not only good stylists, but also give fantastic advice when it comes to style and colour. Admittedly, my taste in colour is possibly a little brighter than usual, but what the heck, I think I have earned the right to look however I want to. So - this is me (please excuse the dodgy make-up attempt, I am in need of new supplies and less shaky hands).

 

No matter how ill you are, you need something in life that connects you to normality. For me it is my trips to the hairdressers. I know that any trip outside is going to cost me a few days recovery time, but some things are worth it. I will happily take three days for a couple of hours of feeling like a normal person.



Big Ass Space Spiders and crazy scientists

Can anyone come up with an explanation as to why someone who has arachnophobia insists on watching movies with killer spiders in? While I laugh at the movies, which are more often than not deliberately comical, I still end up waking up in the night thinking that I can feel spiders crawling over me. I can feel their nasty little legs crawling over my body, but of course when I turn the light on and have a look - ready to have a full-blown panic attack - there is nothing there.

As I type this I am torturing myself by watching the delightfully amusing Big Ass Spider! (Mendez, 2013). The movie follows the day of pest exterminator Alex Mathis (Greg Grunberg, Heroes) who, because he is far to nice, often gets paid in fruit cake rather than cash. His first customer panics when she sees a Brown Recluse spider on his shirt, tries to hit with a shoe causing it to bite him. His day goes south from that point after a corpse containing a nasty surprise is mistakenly sent to the hospital where he is being treated.

The big ass spider created by the military scientists grows at a phenomenal, rate as it is pursued through New York by both the military and Alex. The film is, alternately, amusing and gross. I don't care whether a melting face is done with stop-motion or CGI, it is still gross to watch. Still, the film is entertaining overall and well worth watching during those times when you just want to veg out and not have to think too hard for a little while. I won't tell you whether Alex ends his day alive, dead, getting the girl or going home alone. Watch it and find out!

As for me, well I can almost guarantee that there will fog-filled streets where spiders the size of houses lurk, unseen and deadly, awaiting me in my dreams when I finally fall asleep. Why on earth do you think I am still wide-awake at 3:45a.m?

Maybe I should change my name...

Maybe I should change my name to Insomnia Woman, with my super-power being able to avoid sleep and still appear the same as I usually do. I swear my eyeballs feel like they are about to fall out of my sockets and dribble down my face leaving a slimy trail of blood behind. Don't I paint a wonderful image first thing on a Sunday morning?

I have spent the night watching made-for-t.v. movies and now fully understand why they were t.v. rather than box office. The hero of the current movie is a larger man who has just shown a good size butt-crack as he miraculously escapes the runaway train by climbing onto a helicopter. I think that the writers of this particular movie have aimed to include just about every cliché imaginable. So far we have had the misbehaving son clashing with the new step-mother after the mother has passed away, the runaway train itself, the step-mom's secret pregnancy, the college football hero who fucked up on national t.v. going through his rebuilding-of-character moment, the engineer falling off the train (drama moment!). Then we had the dad saving the day by persuading the company not to derail the train in order to prevent it plowing into the hospital. I think I am actually worn out with clichés.

Well, my mp3 player is now fully charged so I am going to attempt a little sleep; assuming that damn pigeon shuts up, that is. I wonder if pigeons understand the threat of a crossbow bolt in their feathery arse...

Novel review: Naked in Death by J. D. Robb (Nora Roberts)

I sometimes have a tendency to resist reading a series of books, or watching a series on television purely because people insist on telling me how good it is, not once or twice, but every single time I talk to them. It is childish of me, I know, but the more people try to push something on me, the more I resist.

That is how it was with J.D. Robb's 'In Death' novels, featuring the emotionally damaged homicide detective, Eve Dallas. J.D. Robb is, as most people who have read her novels know, one of Nora Roberts pseudonyms. I finally - and reluctantly - picked up the first novel in the series, Naked In Death, and sat down to read it. Several hours later I closed the book and put it down only because lack of sleep was starting to make the words swim around on the page.

Set in 2058 the novel follows heroine Eve Dallas on an investigation in the homicide of a wealthy licensed companion - prostitution being both legal and well controlled - who happens to also be the daughter of a conservative Senator. The world Eve inhabits is near enough to our own that it requires little in the way of imagination. True, menial tasks such as cooking and cleaning are often handed over to drones and other technological advances, but the less savoury aspects of life such as poverty, violence and drug addiction seem to exist in greater numbers than ever. As one of Eve's contemporaries points out, basic human nature cannot be altered, even with the advanced and common use of genetic controls in the mid twenty-first century. With the world's population larger than ever, items that we take for granted in our own lives, such as real coffee or meat, are available in large quantities only to the super-rich in this futuristic world.

During the course of the investigation Eve finds that not only is she falling in love with the billionaire suspect, Roarke, her investigation is being closely monitored, perhaps even interfered with, by her superiors in the police as well as the deceased's grandfather. The bad-tempered yet caring detective is well-written and I will admit that there were times that my heart was in my mouth during this gritty novel. Roberts strikes a balance between detail and pace that is rare; the world she builds is so well-written that it is easy to imagine yourself there watching as Eve fights her way through the case to its conclusion.

I can admit that I wish I had read the novel sooner. Roberts writing is a delight to read; a futuristic crime-thriller with enough violence, police intrigue and romance to appeal to a wide range of readers.