WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE THEY SELLING TO OUR CHILDREN???

And I'm Not Just Talking About A Doll That Shoots Flames Out Of Its' Butt

That's a real thing by the way - if you're REALLY good maybe I'll put it at the end of this entry...

Miss Mayhem here.

While Miss Murder convalesces, I asked her which movie she'd like to see reviewed next. I don't know how the conversation came up, but we got to talking about some of the stupidest scenes we've seen in horror movies. Actually, I should say mostly the stupidest scenes Miss Murder has seen, since she seen a lot more horror movies than I have. 

Funny though, for as new as I am with this movie review stuff, I still have seen a handful of them with so-called séance scenes and so was able to concur 100% with Miss Murder about how formulaic these scenes are, no matter which movie you're watching.

We took some notes down and put them together. Movie séance scenes are easy to predict and basically they happen this way: Two to six stupid teenagers (which usually means they're at least 25 or older) get together with some sort of spirit board as a joke or, sometimes, as a so-called serious way of finding out information they think they need to know.

It doesn't matter what they use. Miss Murder has said she's seen them use regular boards, sometimes scraps of paper, sometimes a glass instead of a planchette (the wooden thingy with a glass or plastic circle so you can see the letters/numbers), and in a couple of cases, they just plain scratched out the letters on the floor.

The idiot teenagers gather around the board giggling because, of course, this is just for fun. They all swear at each other and yell 'be serious dammit' as they place their hands on whatever device they happen to be using in the movie. Of course, no one actually believes that this is going to work. In fact, at least two or three of them will continue to repeat 'this is not going to work'. Massive, massive duh, as Miss Murder would say. 

Miss Murder remembers this commercial - 

there was another one too, even older, but she couldn't find it...

Point is, listen to the voices - the commercial is for kids.

The planchette, or whatever they're using, begins to move. Invariably, we hear them argue with each other 'you're moving it', 'no, you're moving it', 'no, you're moving it', ad nauseam. Finally, somebody asks their question. The planchette, or whatever, begins to move toward their answer because, in movies, Ouija boards always work.

The table goes flying in 3...2...

After getting several answers and giggling like idiots (because they're usually drunk too), they realize that the planchette or whatever is moving by itself. Of course, this signals the end of their so-called fun. Now they start to get scared. Invariably, they say stupid things like 'We shouldn't have done this man!' or something close to it, and all get up to get away from this horrible, horrible thing. 

But that's not good enough for today's horror moviemakers because they need to pound us over the head with their supernatural movie duh point because apparently they think their audience is too stupid to get it otherwise.

Made just for girls... tee hee...

So we get scenes like the board throwing itself off the table, or the planchette flying off across the room, or, in one case, where the board was not a board, but letters drawn onto a table, the whole table flying across the room. All scream and run like rabbits and we get more stupid special effects before the movie ends.

Not to say that there hasn't been some interesting, umm, variations. We have seen people use 'Simon Says' toys (green beeps for yes, red for no), and in one particularly hilarious case, some kind of World War I gas mask attached to a tube which in turn is attached to some sort of listening device. If you do not watch horror movies, know that we are NOT kidding. If you do watch horror movies, you know exactly which movie we're talking about.

Glows in the dark!

The movie Supernatural Activity (not to be confused with Paranormal Activity) spoofed this in their movie about different massively stupid horror movies. The main character offers to bring out his Ouija board to the immediate horror of the others who tell him no way. 

In an aside to the camera, he says always offer the Ouija, they never want the Ouija. When the others tell him that he needs to get rid of that 'demon board' he offers to set it on fire. This brings about another fit of panic from the others who tell him 'do not burn the Ouija'. In another aside to the camera, he says always offer to burn the Ouija, they never want to burn the Ouija. 

I love that movie (says Miss Murder) because it has more truth and more common sense in a movie that supposed to be a comedy spoof then most horror movies that are trying to be serious.

So. Miss Murder said I could go ahead and print this little conversation if I wanted to, as long as I do a little research about the Ouija board and how such a dangerous object (yes people, this is not a game) has become something that retailers have pointed towards small children. 

I did the research, the gist of which follows. If you're really good and read some of it, you can watch the video of a flame shooting out of a butt of a doll at the end.

No one really knows a specific date when this became popular, although spiritism, or the attempt to 'speak with the dead' is something as old as the Bible, which by the way, condemns it. Galations 5:19: "Now the works of the flesh are plainly seen, and they are sexual immorality, uncleanness, brazen conduct, idolatry, spiritism, hostility, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, dissensions, divisions, sects, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and things like these. I am forewarning you about these things, the same way I already warned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom."

But of course the practice has become widespread and even trivialized - after all, one recent version of the Ouija board 'game' sets the age of the users as "8 to 15". How did the board itself start? No one knows exactly, but a patent was applied for and granted at the beginning of the 1900's for the planchette, while the board itself has had a myriad of versions. 

In the mid 1800's, spiritism became all the rage as a parlor game, usually led by a medium using a planchette with an opening for a pen, with which she (or he I guess) conducted what is called 'automatic writing' where she/he goes into a trance and what is written on the paper comes straight from the spirits - I guess.

The planchette has hundreds of variations, including the one with the hole in it to use with an ever-changing addition - the Ouija board. Following its commercial introduction by businessman Elijah Bond in 1890, the Ouija board was still regarded as a harmless parlor game unrelated to the occult until American Spiritualist Pearl Curran popularized its use as a divining tool during World War I.

This looks about right...

In February, 1891, the first few advertisements started appearing in papers: “Ouija, the Wonderful Talking Board,” boomed a Pittsburgh toy and novelty shop, describing a magical device that answered questions “about the past, present and future with marvelous accuracy” and promised “never-failing amusement and recreation for all the classes,” a link “between the known and unknown, the material and immaterial.” Another advertisement in a New York newspaper declared it “interesting and mysterious” and testified, “as Proven at Patent Office before it was allowed. Price, $1.50.”

What's funny (at least I thought so) was all these places I found information from made sure to tell people about the skepticism of those in the scientific communities - that they called the phenomenon a hoax related to the ideomotor response. I kept reading it as the 'idiotmeter response'. I like mine better. 

Not everyone thought it was so 'marvelous' - it was blamed for all sorts of atrocities and deviant behavior, and some pretty recently.

In West Richland, WA in 2007, there was a horrific double murder of a mother and her daughter. The killers were two teenage boys, one her own son, 15-year-old Don Schalchlin, the  other 16-year-old Joshua Tucker. Tucker's mother tried to claim that he had carried out the murders while possessed by the Devil who found him when he was using a Ouija board. The courts were not moved - he is currently serving nearly 41 years after pleading guilty. The son? He got a mere seven years, for trying to 'cover up' the crime. Nice.

The Mars Volta (an American rock band established in 2001 who broke up in 2012) wrote their album 'Bedlam in Goliath' based on their alleged experiences with a Ouija board. According to their story (written for them by a fiction author, Jeremy Robert Johnson), Omar Rodriguez Lopez (their guitar player) purchased one while traveling in Jerusalem. At first the board provided a story which became the theme for the album. 

Strange events allegedly related to this activity occurred during the recording of the album: the studio flooded, one of the album's main engineers had a nervous breakdown, equipment began to malfunction, tracks would disappear at random, and Cedric Bixler-Zavala's foot was injured. Following these bad experiences the band buried the Ouija board. 

On January 2, 2008, they released an online game called "Goliath: The Soothsayer". The album chronicles the band's purported experience with the "Soothsayer", (the Ouija board) and its transition from a source of fun on tour to a psycho-spiritual force that almost tore the band apart.

In London in 1994, convicted murderer Stephen Young was granted a retrial after it was learned that four of the jurors had conducted a Ouija board seance and had "contacted" the murdered man, who had named Young as his killer. Young was convicted for a second time at his retrial and jailed for life.

Those are three modern examples but there are many, many more. Point being, the board is NOT a toy, NOT a game, and definitely NOT for children. You wanna mess with that stuff, keep your kids out of it. Mainstream religions and some occultists have associated use of a Ouija board with the concept of demonic possession, and view the use of the board as a spiritual threat and have cautioned their followers not to use a Ouija board - but those with a modicum of reason should know that already.

Anywho, here's some history of the progression of this 'game': Elijah Bond and Charles Kennard had the idea to get the patent. An employee of Kennard, William Fuld, took over the talking board production and in 1901, he started production of his own boards under the name "Ouija". Kennard claimed he learned the name "Ouija" from using the board and that it was an ancient Egyptian word meaning "good luck." When Fuld took over production of the boards, he popularized the more widely accepted etymology, that the name came from a combination of the French and German words for "yes".

Product Description from the Manufacturer:

Whether you call it Wee-Gee or Wee-Ja, the Classic Ouija board spells fun.
Just ask it a question and wait to see what answer the Mystifying Oracle will
reveal to you. Includes a sturdy wood Ouija board featuring original graphics
and plastic message indicator. WARNING: Choking hazard for children under 3 yrs.
Product Description: Plastic game unit with Pop-O-Matic die roller, 16 Playing Pegs (4 Yellow, 4 Green, 4 Blue, 4 Red), and English and Spanish Instructions.
(WHOOPS! I think they got their games crossed - I don't see any pegs, do you?)

Miss Manners: Ohhhh, this is what they were talking about - 1980's 
Pop-O-Matic Trouble game. This was one of those board games
 my so-called male parental unit would throw against the wall in fury 
after playing for about ten minutes. Gee my childhood was fun...

The Fuld name would become synonymous with the Ouija board, as Fuld reinvented its history, claiming that he himself had invented it. The strange talk about the boards from Fuld's competitors flooded the market, and all these boards enjoyed a heyday from the 1920s through the 1960s. Fuld sued many companies over the "Ouija" name and concept right up until his death in 1927. In 1966, Fuld's estate sold the entire business to Parker Brothers, which was sold to Hasbro in 1991, and which continues to hold all trademarks and patents. About ten brands are sold today under various names. You might hear such names as 'spirit board', 'witch board', 'talking board', 'Volo board', or 'Igili board'.

Unfortunately, to this day Hasbro continues to market this freaking thing, mostly to children. And you wonder why your kid won't sleep without a night-light.

Sources: Smithsonian, Wikipedia, Google

And now, because you've been good: A review of the Fanny Flambeaux doll that is apparently part of the Smokin' Pussies gang. Not really surprising as you'll see in the video.

To be perfectly honest though - the doll turned out to be a fraud - manufactured by substances listed on the video page - but funny nonetheless!

❦❦❦ Miss Mayhem ❦ ❦ ❦

A TALE OF TWO PERTURBED PUBESCENTS THAT END IN PAINFUL PANDEMONIUM

Donnie Darko (2001)
Excision (2012)

Miss Mayhem here. While Miss Murder convalesces, she asked if I would pick a movie that looked interesting, watch it, and take her notes and combine them with my notes for a review. I picked her duo of movies that, although 11 years apart, are both about disturbed teenagers supposedly living in Virginia, although both movies were shot in California. They have other similarities too, but the first is a cult classic and the second was just plain bizarre.


I told her about my choice and she asked if I was sure about that, because these two movies are very, very strange and putting them together would be a project. Well, I've been taking it easy so far, and wanted a challenge. I asked her if she wanted this to be where we both put our opinions down, but she said just watch the movies, make your own notes, take my notes, and do whatever you feel. So here goes.







Donnie Darko (2001): Donnie Darko was made in 2001 but set in the year 1988 so we have lots of 80's music interspersed into the movie - I liked it, but others might find it irritating. It's about a teenager in an atypical type family who is trying to find himself, but events make that just about impossible.

This is a very, very strange movie and didn't do well when it first came out as these type of movies typically go, but now, as I said, it's a cult classic. Who doesn't remember Jake Gyllenhaal walking around with a six-foot bunny named Frank, as he tries to figure out what the hell is going on around him.



The first part of the movie is kind of off-putting, as they show his family life. His younger and older sisters (older played by his real sister Maggie) and he bicker at the table, using words that would have made me grounded for life. In the movie however, the parents just kind of giggle at it. That's just not right. Donnie has a problem. He sleepwalks, a lot. He has disturbing thoughts. He does disturbing things. They don't know why, he just does. 


One night a human sized bunny named Frank appears to him, telling him to follow him out into the streets. He tells Donnie the world is ending and gives him the exact date and time. Now this film was finished and released the month after 9/11 which might be part of the reason it didn't do so well at first. We all were a bit raw, and music, books and movies released after that date took on a new significance we didn't always like.

Donnie wakes up on a golf course, not having any freaking idea of how he got there. When he gets home, he discovers that moments after Frank had led him out of the house, an engine from a jet had fallen into their house, crushing his room. If he had been there asleep, he'd be dead. The FAA is trying to figure out where it came from, but there were no flights missing engines and so they're baffled.

I'm going to pause here and tell you about some of the outstanding people who appear in this movie, sometimes out of the blue, sometimes as ancillary characters. Besides Jake and his sister Maggie, we have Katharine Ross, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, and Noah Wyle. With such an outstanding cast, it is strange that the movie did not pick up the audience that they were expecting. However, now that time has gone by, it seems that this movie is being acknowledged as the original and smart piece of cinema that it is.



Back to the story. Donnie comes home to find his family relieved that he is alive. But Frank the bunny is not done with him yet. He now wants Donnie to flood the school. This causes certain ones of the school board to believe that the students need better motivational skills (?!?) and they hire this douche named Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze) whose main goal seems to be, not to help people, but to sell videos.

I'd like to mention that my partner put in her notes that it took her four different tries to get through this movie. Not because it was bad, but because it was so freaking confusing. Watching the movie, looking over her notes, the movie reviews, and the wiki, I think I figured out what the problem was. Now this is my opinion of course, so take it with a grain of salt. 


I believe this film was a genius piece of ideology that would have been a great book but they tried to explain and apply it to a movie script, but it just didn't translate well on the big screen. After all, this movie is taking the ideas of time travel, schizophrenia, precognition, and several other theories and trying to mash them together into one story. That's way way too much work.

Now, there is a book, The Donnie Darko Book, written by Richard Kelly, that kind of explores the film. It contains the screenplay, interviews, pages about the philosophy of time travel, and the photos and artwork it inspired. If you really want to understand the concepts, theories, and other related subjects about this movie, this might be the way to go. Otherwise, you may find yourself watching this movie, as we did, more than once just to get the gist of what's going on.

Back to the movie. Things start getting weirder and weirder for Donnie. Not only does Frank constantly appear to him now, but he is seeing things he shouldn't be seeing, and doing things he shouldn't be doing, mostly at the insistence of Frank. There's even a scene where Jake, his sister, and Frank, are watching The Evil Dead. So what's wrong with that? 



Well, other than the fact that they're the only ones in the theater, Jake's sister falls asleep. If you've seen the original The Evil Dead even once, you know that there's something really, really wrong with the fact that his sister is asleep. And why is she even there? She can't see Frank. We're not gonna find the answer to that, the movie just raises more questions.

Donnie starts to think about time travel. Apparently Frank has put the idea into his head. He asks his science teacher (Noah Wyle) who gives him a book on the subject, written by a seemingly senile old lady who lives in his town. Donnie is desperately trying to reconcile what the hell is going on with his life and why he is seeing things others can't see (like Frank), and doing things he knows he shouldn't be doing. His next act is to set fire to the home of the douche motivational speaker Jim (Swayze), and while the firemen are putting out the fire, they find a ton of child pornography. Jim is subsequently arrested. So it seems, at least at first, that Donnie is doing the town a lot of good. He's not doing himself any good, however. He's starting to freak the hell out.

While Donnie's parents are gone on a plane trip to L.A (where this movie was actually filmed), he does the typical teenage thing and throws a party. This is a Halloween party, which means everyone is in costume. At this time, Donnie, knowing that only hours are left before the end of the world, seeks out a woman named Roberta Sparrow, who apparently had written a book on time travel. On the way, however, Donnie's girlfriend, Elizabeth, is hit by a car and killed. The driver of the car is her ex-boyfriend Frank, dressed in the same rabbit costume. Donnie, who for some reason is carrying around his father's gun, shoots him.



Things are beginning to whirl around him as his life spirals out of control. There is a strange storm brewing, which Donnie associates with the world ending. The plane carrying his parents and sister, suddenly shakes and begins to crash. Donnie realizes now that somehow all these events - seeing things he's not supposed to see and doing things he's not supposed to do - is some kind of time warp, if you will, and that things are actually all related to that fateful night his bedroom was destroyed.

He confronts Frank, pulls off his mask, and sees Elizabeth's ex-boyfriend, blood on his face from the gunshot. Now Donnie knows what he needs to do to make things right. Now, I'm not going to tell you that I understand this because I had no freaking idea what point they were trying to make, but this is how it went. 

A vortex is seen in the storm above. One of the engines from the plane that Donnie's parents are on comes apart, and it plunges into this vortex. The past 28 days that this movie supposedly covers begins to run in reverse. No, I do not know why. However, everything reverts back to the night that the jet engine crashed into Donnie's room. This time, Donnie is in his room and is therefore killed.

People that had seen and talked to him during those 28 days are confused and dazed, but they honestly do not remember Donnie at all. And that's where our story ends. Seriously. That's the end.





Excision (2012): I must confess I got ten minutes into this movie, stopped it, and called Miss Murder. "Umm, do I have the right movie to go in this two-fer review? This is really..."

She said, "I thought it was interesting that eleven years apart they made movies about disturbed teenagers that live surreal lives and both were supposed to be from Virginia but both films were made in California. Now this one isn't a cult classic but it does have quite a cast and the subject matter..."




I kind of tuned her out. She won't mind me saying that, she knows she sometimes rambles, especially when she doesn't feel well. Where Donnie Darko was a troubled boy who kept seeing strange visions, this is about a girl named Pauline (well played by AnnaLynne McCord) with an obvious personality disorder who is, umm, in love with blood. Lots and lots of blood. No she's not like a vampire or anything, she just likes blood. Like Donnie Darko, Excision has a surprisingly good cast. Among those are Malcolm McDowell (a personal favorite of mine), Marlee Matlin, Traci Lords, John Waters, and other familiar faces.

This film just might gain cult status, it premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and has done fairly well so far. Despite the seemingly barbarous subject matter, this film is similar to Donnie Darko in that it revolves around the life of a disturbed adolescent with twisted consequences.

I'm not going to go into this movie at great length, not because it was so bloody, but simply because it was kind of a one-joke movie (no, I'm not saying that it was funny, just that after the initial shock the rest of the movie was almost unnecessary). Pauline has a younger sister named Grace, who she adores, which is strange for someone who really doesn't care about anybody at all. Grace has cystic fibrosis and Pauline dreams of the day when she can become a doctor and help her sister out.

In the meantime, however, she is completely obsessed with blood. She has vivid dreams about the stuff which is sexually exciting to her. In this very twisted film, we get to see Pauline kind of slide into a deeper well of psychosis and we also see her fascination with blood and guts increase to the point where she is now cutting apart animals.

This movie does not end well. That would be pretty much impossible. Although she loves her sister, that love does not help Grace in the slightest. Imagining herself to be trained well enough as a doctor to help her sister, she drugs Grace, shaves her head, and proceeds to do a lung transplant in the garage, using the lungs of a healthy girl she has kidnapped and tied up. The movie ends, thankfully, as the mother walks into the garage and sees what Pauline has done and screams. Pauline looks at her mother, looks at her sister, and begins to cry.

And I really don't have anything more to say about that.



❦❦❦ Miss Mayhem ❦ ❦ ❦

LEGEND OF A MIND - TIMOTHY LEARY MAY BE DEAD BUT HIS THEORIES ARE COMING BACK TO LIFE

The Last Official 'I Hate Being Sick' Blog Entry

'Timothy Leary's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
Timothy Leary's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
He'll fly his astral plane,
Takes you trips around the bay,
Brings you back the same day,
Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary.

He'll take you up, he'll bring you down,
He'll plant your feet back firmly on the ground.
He flies so high, he swoops so low,
He knows exactly which way he's gonna go.
Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary.'

(Moody Blues, 1968)

Miss Murder here. First I want to thank Miss Mayhem for her excellent work in taking both of our notes on the movie Lord of Illusions and giving a kick-ass review. I knew she could do it, I just don't think she knew it yet. And yes, I still plan to keep up this blog to the best of my ability.

I have spoken more times about my a physical condition than any human being would want to hear about when they come here expecting to read about horror movies being made fun of, and other witticisms that I can think of for your reading pleasure. And since the number of readers far exceed anything I could have ever hoped for, I really don't want to start losing them by a what some might see as a constant whine about a physical condition that obviously I can do nothing about.

Therefore, I have decided to start a second blog. Now I know there are probably thousands upon thousands of blogs about certain illnesses and how people deal with them day by day. However, in order to keep this just for stupid horror movies that deserve to be made fun of, I've decided to go ahead and do it whether I have one reader, five readers, or, hopefully, a lot more than that.

Of course, I'm not starting this blog today. I haven't even been able to watch a movie, much less keep notes on a movie. Oh, I have a lot of movies that I have reviewed, but they sit on my recorder and even with this wonderful dictation software by Dragon that I cannot praise enough for saving my poor hands, I still can't seem to keep up and keep my blog going as I want to. 

That is why I have Miss Mayhem. She is a young lady with very good ideas, she's just a bit afraid of the idea of those ideas being seen by others. I can understand that. I still am amazed that I have not been called on the carpet, so to speak, and ripped to pieces by somebody who has hated one of my reviews. I know I have the readership in which that could happen, but it has not. I am trying to reassure her that if she helps me with my reviews under her moniker, it is very unlikely that a personal attack will ever come directly to her.

So. This will be the last, 'Oh, I feel so bad. I hurt so bad, everything is so awful!' type of blog entry, that will be found elsewhere now. I'm sure many of you are probably relieved about that. I know if I was looking for a blog on horror movie reviews, and the reviewer complained about his or her aches, pains, whatever, I'd be running to find another reviewer.

I live in the United States, which means I should have at least decent insurance. We have a steady income, we live simply, and if we had any big expenses, it would be for the medication required just to keep both of us moving. Yes, we are middle aged (oh how I hate those words with a passion), so some type of medication will probably always be there for us. However, while my spouse's medication is thankfully reasonable, mine is in the stratosphere. 

We live in the United States. Unfortunately, today that means that not only do we not have decent insurance, we do not have ANY insurance. Obamacare? We can't freaking afford that. Don't be deceived by what you read. This is expensive shit. Not only is it expensive, but it has many, many omissions of types of illnesses, which makes it nearly worthless to someone such as myself. At the present time, it is cheaper for us to accept the penalty that is to be levied on those who do not get with the program than to accept the program itself.

So. As I said, we have income, we live simply, we have few outstanding bills. Our major expense? Medication. Mostly for me. I don't mind saying what ails me, I'm not ashamed of it in the least. It is a combination of things that are genetic, has a lot to do with the way I was raised, and the rest is just plain being an imperfect human on the planet Earth. 

Among other things, of which there are many, I suffer from anxiety disorder, bipolar type II, ankylosing spondylitis (I can't freaking believe that Dragon knew what that was and spelled it perfectly) which is a degenerative bone disorder, fibromyalgia, and an assortment of other goodies guaranteed to keep me miserable from the time I wake up 'til the time I finally fall asleep.

This means a lots of medication is necessary just for me to exist, never mind function as a human being. Without insurance, the amounts of medication I need is an impossibility. Since those amounts are not available to me, neither is fully functioning the way I would like. I am not normal. I'm not even freaking close to normal. I'm like an invalid in a normal looking body. Which causes me no end of trouble. 

People look at me (I'm rarely out of the house, but once in a while I have to go to perform some task) and tell me helpful things like, 'you look better' (better than what exactly?), 'you look happy' (who are they freaking looking at when they say that anyway?), or, the ever popular 'you don't look sick'. I will spare you the four letter words that go through my mind and almost escape my lips when I hear that one.

No insurance means a minimum amount of medication available through programs that are called different things, but basically it means you get a very small amount of generic medications and the limits are nowhere near what I was prescribed when I had insurance. No medication, no normal life, lots and lots of grief from those who don't understand. It's a wonderful, wonderful world.

So when this different blog gets set up and running I'll let you know the title here and hopefully you won't see anymore complaining (at least not here) and more movies - God knows I have a ton to do and a ton more to watch... The following is just some info on alternative type medicines that are being tried. I'm all for trying to find something that works - except that when they DO find something and it USED to be cheap (like marijuana for instance), if it's used for MEDICAL purposes, all of a sudden it's pricier than gold. Okay, slight exaggeration - but not much.

From The Atlantic: New research in psychedelics such as psilocybin, the main ingredient in 'magic mushrooms,' aims for therapeutic uses, such as treatments for anxiety, headaches or quitting smoking.

(Since this is a mile long, I'll paraphrase): One young man (21) who was diagnosed, fought and has won against Hodgkin's Lymphoma did well because he had a lot of good doctors and positive thinking (which does help). But once the cancer was gone, he started having major problems - the fear of becoming sick again was overwhelming to him. Ironic that he was able to fight against a life-ending adversary, but the idea of that adversary re-appearing was ruining his life.

“When I first met him, he had calluses all over his neck,” explained research manager Gabrielle Agin-Liebes. “He would constantly feel his lymph nodes as a habit, to see if they had grown. Even as he was talking to you, his hand would be up there feeling his neck. Ironically, that would make the lymph nodes swell up even more.”

“He had one of the highest ratings on the anxiety scale that we had seen: 21 out of 30,” Gabrielle continued. “To qualify for the study you only need an eight. The day after his first dosing session, he dropped to zero, and for seven months he’s stayed there. Zero anxiety.”

Psilocybin, found naturally in more than 200 species of mushrooms, has a long history of use by humans. Called “flesh of the gods” by the Aztecs, the mushrooms were widely consumed in religious ceremonies by pre-contact indigenous cultures throughout the Americas. Cave paintings in Spain and Algeria suggest ritualized ingestion dating back as far as 9,000 years. Brutally suppressed by Christian authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, indigenous psilocybin use was nearly eradicated until the late 1950’s when Western psychiatry rediscovered it.

In the years after World War II, hallucinogen-aided therapy was a rapidly growing field. Conditions as diverse as alcoholism, drug addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety were treated. In the quarter century that followed, 40,000 patients were given psilocybin and other hallucinogens such as DMT, LSD, and mescaline. More than 1000 research papers were produced. The results were very promising, though as the NYU study’s principal investigator Dr. Stephen Ross explained, much of the research lacked proper oversight. 

“They didn’t understand set and setting in the beginning. Patients would be injected with LSD, put in restraints, and somebody would come back hours later. They were put in very drab clinical environments. Then you had people like Timothy Leary and his group over at Harvard who were using the drugs themselves, using them with famous people, and recklessly promoting psychedelics within American culture.”

The research made a slow comeback starting in the mid-90’s, but the stigma remains. “The only thing I learned about psychedelics in psychiatry training is that they were toxic,” Dr. Ross explained. “We were told that they cause psychosis. I’d also heard the old urban legends: that they cause chromosomal damage, and that if you take seven hits of LSD you go insane. But, I knew nothing about their history in psychology and in mental health, which had been considerable.”

The soft-spoken psychiatrist first came to NYU under a fellowship to do research on drug addiction. In his search for novel treatments for intractable conditions, Ross stumbled upon a decades-old study in which LSD had been used to successfully cure alcoholism. “I was shocked,” he admitted. “As a Schedule I drug, I assumed that LSD must be very addictive. But that simply wasn’t true. It does not behave like an addictive drug by any measure. I was even more shocked to find out that Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, got sober from a psychedelics-induced mystical experience. He was so impressed that he actually wanted to introduce it into the bylaws of AA.”

As for the toxicity Dr. Ross had been warned about in medical school, “There are simply no known long-term toxic effects from taking serotonergic hallucinogens,” he explained. “From a medical perspective, psilocybin is a remarkably safe compound.”

The Drug Enforcement Agency takes a different view. As a condition of Dr. Ross’s Schedule I license, the compound is stored in a restricted area inside a two ton safe. “It’s the only drug in the safe,” Dr. Ross elaborated, “and Monday through Friday, we take the drug out once a day and weigh it. Three people have to sign off on it.” That security is a stark reminder that distribution of psilocybin without a DEA license is a federal crime carrying penalties of up to 20 years in prison for a first offense.

The intense scrutiny has produced a rigorous methodology. The NYU team screens every applicant for personal and family mental illness, health conditions, and substance abuse history. “We’ve had to be perfect,” Dr. Ross concluded. Additionally, each patient participates in months of intensive psychotherapy before and after treatment. “They undergo an extensive review of their life,” Dr. Ross explained. “The goal is to try to construct a new narrative around cancer.”

Crucially, each participant is shown the two medications they will have access to on demand throughout their trip. One is Valium, used to reduce anxiety, and the other is Zyprexa, an almost instantaneous antidote to the psychedelic. In a testament to the thorough mental preparation the study provides, the medications have never been requested by any of the patients. The psilocybin itself is presented in pill-form inside a ceramic chalice.

Says the patient mentioned at the beginning of the article, "At the hospital they gave me Xanax for anxiety,” he said. “Xanax doesn’t get rid of your anxiety. Xanax tells you not to feel it for awhile until it stops working and you take the next pill. The beauty of psilocybin is: it’s not medication. You’re not taking it and it solves your problem. You take it and you solve your problem yourself.”

Miss Murder can see the price of the 'non-medication' rising exponentially, don't you?

And speaking about the 'cost' of 'non-medication':

UP: Denver - Two months after the U.S. government tried to smooth the way for sellers of legalized marijuana to get banking services, many pot entrepreneurs still can't open a basic checking account. The Treasury Department and Justice Department in February issued guidance that was meant to reassure banks that they wouldn't run afoul of federal law—under which marijuana remains illegal—by working with pot businesses in states that have legalized the drug. But lenders have taken little comfort in the guidelines, saying they don't go far enough to guarantee that banks won't face legal repercussions, and add burdensome new requirements that they screen customers for marijuana ties.

Pot stores increasingly find themselves in situations other businesses couldn't fathom, such as hiring armed escorts to help deliver sales taxes to government offices in wads of cash. "What I find most frustrating is that I pay an enormous amount of taxes and licensing and other fees," said Morgan Carr, co-owner of the Wellspring Collective pot shop in Denver. Mr. Carr said he recently lost his bank account for the seventh time because the bank he was using became uncomfortable with his cash deposits. This month, Mr. Carr hired a private security firm to haul his cash to a vault in a discreet location because he still can't get a bank to take his business. "The money I am using to pay those taxes is the exact same money that I can't even deposit into my own account," he added.

With most banking options still closed, Colorado store owners are scrambling for new ways to secure their cash. One Denver-area company operated by military and law-enforcement veterans, Blue Line Protection Group, now specializes in shipping cash from pot stores to several vaults around Colorado by armored trucks. The company also transports marijuana.

Miss Murder sees that THIS natural medication's cost is going to skyrocket just because of these 'extra' costs to provide what was supposed to be an alternative to expensive medications.

And that's all Miss Murder will be saying about health problems and the non-solutions offered by this Country. Thanks for hanging in there. The new blog will be announced if and when I get it off the ground...

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AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE FROM MY FAVORITE AUTHOR THAT BEGS THE QUESTION - HOW IN THE WORLD CAN A MOVIE BE SO GOOD WHEN IT IS OH SO BAD?

Lord Of Illusions (1995)

Hi, I'm Miss Mayhem. Miss Murder is giving me a chance to do a movie review on a favorite that she says she's seen 'lots of times' and has her notes all ready for a review. She asked if I would watch the movie and then kind of take the notes and put this review together. Please bear with me, I'm trying to see the humor in horror. MST3K is helping, but I'm still learning.

When I saw it, I was actually surprised that, besides being a 'horror' movie, it actually had a good story to it. Trouble was, the story wasn't very developed as far as I could see. Yes, I know the movie comes from a short story so the fact that it was 109 minutes long was kind of impressive and stupid at the same time. And it starred Scott Bakula. I kind of remember him being in one of the Star Trek series although I don't think I ever watched that show.

For a horror movie, I think that Bakula's depiction of D'Amour was pretty neat and I wished they had made the movie just about him. He plays it like a detective-type movie but there's the supernatural part that means his cases usually involve possessions or other spooky stuff. His body is covered in tattoos and I wanted to know why but they didn't say much about his character at all. Here is how Miss Murder starts her review:



Wow, I didn't realize this was made THAT long ago. This is derived from a short story by one of my favorite horror writers, Clive Barker, taken from Books Of Blood, called The Last Illusion. The main characters are played by Scott Bakula, who is Harry D'Amour who we get the hint is an old hand at handling all things weird and/or demonic; Kevin O'Connor as Philip Swann, who promotes himself as an illusionist but is actually something much, much more; and one of my favorites, Famke Janssen, as his wife Dorothea.

I got my copies of the Books Of Blood waaaay back when they were first published in the 80's and I read them so many times they were pretty messed up. I was glad when they combined the six books into two, I needed new copies. In there you'll see where the following movies came from:

• The Book Of Blood (First movie I ever saw that was made from the foreward and postscript of a book and not one of the stories)
• Candyman (from the story The Forbidden)
• The Midnight Meat Train
• Dread
• Tales From The Darkside's episode 'The Yattering and Jack' from the story of the same name
• Quicksilver Highway (from the story The Body Politic)
• Rawhead Rex

Miss Mayhem again. I liked this movie but since we complain about stuff, if I had anything bad to say about this movie, it's that nothing at all is explained. We don't know who Nix is, why he has powers, why he has a cult in the middle of a desert, why Swann is the only other one with powers, why Nix wants to sacrifice a young girl, why does Swann have this magic helmet that will defeat Nix and where did he get it, why blood is necessary to seal it onto his head... this could fill the page I guess. It's kind of like Barker just says 'Look, this is my story, don't ask any questions just watch it, okay?' And we're supposed to nod and just accept everything. I'm probably being too harsh but I had so many questions, and there's only this short story to read that doesn't explain anything either. Back to Miss Murder:

We start in 1982 in the middle of nowhere where a nasty man named Nix is leader of a strange cult in a house out in the middle of nowhere for no good reason. Nix uses magic to keep his followers - REAL magic. He wants more power and so has kidnapped a young girl for a sacrifice. Not all followers were mindless though - they try to stop Nix and save the girl. The group consists of four people -  Swann, Pimm, Quaid, and Desiderio.

During the fight, a strange looking guy named Butterfield escapes - he's got that 'one eye brown, one eye blue' thing called Heterochromia which actually is a more common than you think. Although the two actors who played the young and older Butterfield didn't actually have it (contact lenses work great that way), some other famous people that actually have different colored eyes are Mila Kunis (one brown, one green), Virginia Madsen (one green, one brown), Jane Seymour (one brown, one green), and Tim McIlrath's (Rise Against) eyes are blue and brown.



Anywho, Swann has some sort of 'magic helmet' he plans to use against Nix to imprison him and, of course, save the girl. This 'helmet' actually screws right into Nix's head and does not allow him to see or hear. He appears to be dead, and they bury him where he'll never be found. Why don't they just burn him up or something? Main problem with this movie - it raises a ton of questions but only answers a couple of pounds of them (get it?).

We skip ahead more than a decade and meet Harry D'Amour (Scott Bakula) who lives in L.A. and is very schooled in occults. His body is a map of tattoos. This movie doesn't spend nearly enough time with this character, and neither does Barker's books - his first major appearance isn't until the book Everville published in 1994. I'd love it if he'd just do books about this character - although I guess he does appear in the Hellraiser comic books (haven't seen those).

Harry also gets the strange cases which involves possession and other weird stuff. He is investigating an insurance fraud case when he comes upon a fortune teller named Quaid who, moments before he got there, had been attacked and dies from multiple stab wounds. The attacker goes after Harry and despite Harry tricking him into plunging out the window onto the cement below, the body is gone by the time the police get there. Quaid manages to warn Harry that 'The Puritan' is coming right before he dies. Uh huh.



Miss Mayhem again. You probably realize by now that conveniently ALL the people who were involved with saving the kid from Nix are in L.A. so they can be found and killed one by one (although one commits suicide to save them the trouble). Way way too convenient. Swann and the girl he rescued, who he is now married to (Famke Jannsen) live there too of course - Swann being rich from being an 'illusionist' although we know by now that he is the real thing.




But this whole movie is one big coincidence and convenience - D'Amour happens to be in L.A. and Dorothea seems to have no trouble finding him to 'hire' him to protect her husband. Swann is almost immediately killed by a new 'trick' he's put together. Nice job D'Amour. After the funeral he does the natural thing: Immediately climbs into bed with Dorothea. Eww. Back to Miss Murder:



If I outlined everything in this movie this review would go on forever so let's sum up a little bit: Swann faked his death (of course), his, uh, manager I guess, knew where Nix was buried (why exactly?) and is made to go with Butterfield to dig him up and get the helmet off (how exactly?) so that Nix can defeat Swann.

Nix comes out of the 'hole' looking like bad bacon wrapped in rags. You'd think his followers would at least have chipped in for some fresh robes or something. D'Amour finds info about Nix and so knows that both he and Swann are the 'real thing' and so conveniently finds Swann right away - because the idiot attends his own burial. MASSIVE DUH. I hate complaining about a movie made by an author I really like but this movie was so ridiculous you couldn't stay in the story - I kept throwing my hands in the air, saying things like "What?" and, "Oh, of COURSE he did," every five minutes or so. It was a terrific story mangled worse than Kubrick mangled The Shining.

So finally we get the big battle scene between Nix and Swann with Dorothea's life hanging in the balance. Hmm? Where's D'Amour? Basically sitting on his hands, 'cause they gave him absolutely nothing to do. Geez. Hmm? The ending? Quick, pointless and unsatisfying. There's no way Nix could have gotten strong enough to battle Swann, who's been growing in power for years, and having Dorothea help by shooting Nix (AGAIN, since she did the same thing as a kid) was incredibly stupid, and D'Amour looked completely worthless 'cause, well, he was.

Swann gets killed, Nix is sealed in the earth (maybe) and D'Amour and Dorothea walk out into the desert. And that's the incredibly stupid ending to what should have been an awesome story. That's what happens when you try to force a 109 minute movie out of a short story. It's really hard. Just ask Stephen King.

❦❦❦ Miss Mayhem ❦ ❦ ❦

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