TIME KEEPS ON SLIPPIN' SLIPPIN' SLIPPIN'... INTO THE FUTURE...

The Evil Within/Mine Games (2013)

Currently streaming on Netflix, it will tell you the movie is called Mine Games but when you start to watch, the OTHER title they liked better (but didn't stick with I guess) comes up, The Evil Within. Which is also the title to a popular video game, a 1970 movie, and an episode of Blade: The Series. And they made up their own genre to keep your interest (it fails) - a 'time travel thriller'.

Not. Even. Close.

When it's really obvious drek I have to come up with a decent reason why I would want to subject myself to it. Then I look at the title of my blog (sigh). Plus the movie was shot in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington state, and some scenes were shot in the Ape Caves, and since I used to live near there and have actually been in the caves, it was enough.

Hmm, who appears in this movie... uh oh. I recognize a name. My fibro brain can't remember to take pills on time, when my doctor appointments are, or what I ate the day before, but I can remember names clear back to when I was <mumbles>. In this case, it's Briana Evigan.

Teen Beat had a strict no-shirt policy...

Nah, she wasn't from way back when, but her dad was. Anybody ever hear of Tiger Beat? Way back when it was the magazine that told us young'uns which guys we should be screaming over (it was pointed to girls - don't know what the boys were looking at, except maybe their dad's Playboys). It is still in print, as well as having a digital version. Woof. That's... dumb.

But I guess magazines that tell us what to think and who's good and who's not are still around, even for adults. When Spin (a music magazine) decided to stop printing in 2012, the smarties at the subscription service figured what I'd most like instead ('cause I wasn't getting my money back) was Esquire. Do you know what Esquire is? Clothes I cannot ever afford and cologne I would never allow in my house. That magazine reeks so badly I can tell when the hubby picks up a new issue in the mail. I'd like to stop those freaking things but... sigh. Oh, and it tells me what is sexy, like I don't know. Short answer: Everything and everyone except me. There. Whoops, one more thing. It's pretty much for men.

Oh yeah, Tiger Beat. Way back when I was <mumbles> I did have my crushes. One was for the actor of the stupidest program on television (and this was in competition with Dukes Of Hazzard and Hee Haw) called BJ And The Bear, with Greg Evigan. If you're a bit younger, you might recognize him from My Two Dads, a show in an age where having two dads married to each other was unacceptable but it was perfectly all right to co-parent a kid whose (dead) mom slept with both guys close enough together (I mean days together, not in the same bed - sheesh) that she doesn't know which one was the kid's dad. And there was no CSI or Maury Povich to cut that series short with a DNA test.

Uh, where was I? Ah. Briana Evigan. When BJ And The Bear started on TV, Greg Evigan was 25. Briana is now 27. Where's my shawl and cane? And why am I stalling with this movie? Because it was absolutely, totally, completely awful. I would recommend watching the first ten minutes or so 'cause they're driving through to the north side of the Gifford Pinchot forest and you'll see some wonderful scenery and Mt. Rainier as they go by. As soon as they hit the gas station, stop. You've seen enough.

I want to meet the sicko who thought this up...

Sigh, but that's not what I do. Seven people who aren't even remotely likable are vacationing in the kind of place that no one can afford ever. It is gorgeous. For 'texture' sort of like having corn in your poo-poo (the Playdoh kind) they decided to mix Australian and American actors for I-really-don't-give-a-damn reasons. And conveniently, within a short walking distance, is an abandoned mine (they don't call it a cave, that's too boring). Nobody's there although a friend was supposed to be there to meet them.

In the first shot we get a few scenes inside the cave. Uh, no. Have you ever been in a cave, I mean a REAL cave? For a freak-out, the guide there at the Ape Caves had us all turn off our flashlights. The darkness is so total you could swear you were seeing things move - and you weren't. 

Here we see dimly lit parts of this non-mine with a voice that repeats two sentences you're going to come to hate - 'This Is The First Time' and 'I Can Break The Cycle'. Oh and an irritating sound sort of like a rattlesnake but not. If you want to skip this movie, go into a dark room, say that about a hundred times, have a loved one come in and grab you aaaaand you're done.

As the kids make a pit stop for gas and munchies we find out that Lyla (Briana Evigan) has a boyfriend Michael WHO'S ON ANTI-PSYCHOTIC MEDICATION OH MY GOD EVERYBODY RUN!!!! Thanks a lot Hollywood for making mental illness even more of a stigma than regular people already do. Besides, if he can have a treated illness and graduate college, I think he can survive a weekend in the country, right? At least in real life. Here... meh.

We see a sign for today's newspaper blaring that PEOPLE WERE FOUND MURDERED IN AN RV!!! All I could think was it must be a real bitch having to paint a sign every day for the newspaper headline that no one reads 'cause everybody just reads their freaking iPads anyway. Oh and just for the final piss off - that's not what it says according to the wiki, so how many versions of a bad movie CAN you make anyway?

Or they would read their iPads if they weren't in the 1% of the nation where there is no cell reception much less wifi. This is actually legit - I know someone who lives in the Gifford Pinchot and no, there's no cell phone reception in many spots. Maybe that's why these college graduates have absolutely no incentive as to call someone when a person tries to flag them down and the swerving makes their van quit working (I guess) so they have to walk the rest of the way to their billion dollar all-hardwood cabin/resort. Do I sound a little resentful to you? Oh well.

OH MY GOD MICHAEL LEFT HIS MEDS IN THE CAR AND WON'T GET THEM UNTIL MORNING - THEY MIGHT AS WELL SLIT THEIR WRISTS NOW!!! Sigh. I really hate that they have a movie about a guy who managed to get through years of college without killing anybody but can't go on vacation without having a babysitter every second.

Oh, and if it seems I've giving you more scenic shots than shots of the 'action' that's 'cause there wasn't much 'action' and believe me, you'll thank me for not having to look at them freaking out about... stuff.

Walking along the street they see the Northern Lights (the movie kind of implies that this plus Michael being a psycho killer in sheep's clothing being the cause of what is coming) and one of them says the Northern Lights shouldn't be seen that far south. Ahem.

Crown Point (aka Vista House) in the beautiful Columbia 
River Gorge in Oregon (Gary Randall Photography)

The Northern Lights are called that because they're in the Northern hemisphere, not on top of the world idiot. We've seen them here in Oregon, and other states have as well. <rolls eyes> How long did you guys go to college again?

Umm, yeah...

After Michael is left outside to feed gas into the generator (no electricity), he comes in with a very strange expression that everyone ignores. He has blood on his face but says he tripped over a gas can. Yeah, gas cans bleed, didn't you know? Anywho, he goes to bed early (because us mentally ill people do NOT like to party) and we have the obligatory get-blitzed-on-every-kind-of-alcohol-we-can-find-without-puking-all-over-the-cabin scene. Michael has nightmares. Yaaaaawn...

Hmm? I haven't even started the movie yet? Okay here we go:

The next morning - they go in the mine they 'just' discovered. It has old dynamite in it. Umm, no. It also is dusky but easy to see everything with small lamps. Umm, no. Rose (who conveniently is a medium) feels someone grab her leg. It causes a wound only she can see. Forever after during the movie she sees her friends as dead and rotting. What a fun girl.

In the cave they find a picture of The Ouroboros, an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. It often symbolizes something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things such as the phoenix which operate in cycles that begin anew as soon as they end. It can also mean the thin premise of a never-ending movie to eat up time and money and suck the hard earned cash out of your pockets. <rim shot>

Two guys find three guys dead, two of them are themselves. Confused? Too bad, it doesn't get better. That's why I was babbling about other stuff. All through the movie we hear this strange rattling like snakes but don't know what it is.

The friends who invited them never show up - they are the couple found dead in the RV according to the convenient sign at the gas station. Problem with that - they weren't dead yet, they were killed later... you know what? Skip it.

Michael is trapped by his 'friends' for fun and sees on the wall 'This is the first time'. Repeat that about a hundred times.

Let's break it down, shall we? For unknown reasons ('cause it's cheaper that way) there's repeating sequences of the same dumb college graduates coming every day and starting this movie. Each group is oblivious of the other. So somehow the cycle has to be broken. Pleaaaaase.

The bodies are piling up, mainly because it's the same people and Michael is the instigator but we don't get to know why all we know is HE HAS SCHIZOPHRENIA AND SO MUST DIE!!! That's what people think about mental illness, right? You got somebody with one among you, you back away.

So they are circling around themselves trying to figure out how not to die and failing. Over and over. The only one to see past, present and future seems to be Rose, so she's poisoned by... someone (most likely Michael). And dies.

How did it start? Don't ask. The first Michael tells the next Michael to take his meds in the blister pack and throw it on a campfire. That's what the hissing/rattling noise through the whole movie. How? Don't ask. Why did the others hear the rattling when they were nowhere near the fire? Don't ask. Where did the FIRST Michael come from? Don't ask. 

A wounded Lyla limps all night long down the road. How? Don't ask. She manages to get to the gas station JUST as another Lyla is waking up and talking to Michael. The wounded Lyla slams on the van window. Is there going to be a sequel? DON'T ASK.

                        

NICE PEOPLE SHARE SOME OF THEIR SIT-UP-IN-BED GASPING AND/OR SCREAMING NIGHTMARES PART ONE

Thank You To All Who Wrote So Fast!

I decided on the Reddit site to post a request. Does Anyone Actually Have One Of Those Dreams Where You Sit Up Gasping Or Screaming? Mostly the reason is that I have vivid dreams, and often lucid dreams, but even though I remember all my dreams (usually), the only one that has ever frightened me had nothing to do with horror. 

I had dreamed that I was looking in my living room (impossible to do from my bedroom I might add) and saw children climbing through my window. I was yelling at them and trying to run towards them but couldn't (Sleep paralysis is a wonderful thing, right?), but nothing else scares me and I've NEVER woke in a sweat, much less gasping for air or screaming. 

I promised to print their stories as is and give them the credit. To my surprise, this is the response I've received in just the last 24 hours and I thank each and every one of them for their stories:

I had one of those dreams the other night, but it was stupid. I was in the shower and the water was hitting my face, but no matter which way I turned, the water was spraying right into my face, so I couldn't get away from it and I couldn't breathe, because the water would go in my mouth if I opened it or up my nose if I inhaled. I woke up gasping, having, apparently, been holding my breath while asleep. Or just not being able to breathe, since I was wheezing and needed to use my asthma inhaler.

Another time, sleeping in school, I had a dream that the neighborhood was flooded and I was swimming in it and I went under, but when I tried to come back up, the surface of the water wouldn't break and I was going to drown. When I woke up, I sat straight up suddenly while sucking in air and scared the shit out of my friend sitting next to me. He then claimed my dreams dripped LSD.

And The Mannequin Dream! That one is too long to type out. Short version: Dreamed I accidentally killed a woman in a store, but no one knew it was me that did it, got locked in the same store overnight. Weeks later, she tried to get revenge by possessing a mannequin. I woke up as she was grabbing my leg as I tried to get away. Sat up terrified to find my big ol' kitty lying on my legs and kneading me.

I could go on for awhile. This has happened to me a lot, as well as a lot of sleep paralysis dreams and other, very detailed, nightmares that woke me up feeling other weird effects and doing other weird things besides sitting up, gasping or screaming. Ugh. Probably the worst was a dream I had that my dog got hurt and was bleeding out in my arms in the driveway. I woke up crying and running from my bed, still feeling the blood all over me. I wasn't convinced the dream was done and everything was fine until I made it outside and was hugging my perfectly okay, if very confused beagle, but he was still appreciative of the love. - LivingDeadPunk

You, my friend, have a very active, imaginative mind and I'm sure that you could probably write a much better horror movie than most I've seen in the past few years.

I did once. Maybe, six years ago I had a zombie apocalypse-type dream. Details for a lot of it are vague, as is typical with dreams, but I recall being with some scientists who were working on a cure or vaccine, some sort of serum derived from the blood of the afflicted. The facility we were in was overrun, and it was down to a scientist and myself barricading ourselves into a tiny soundproof room (like a library study room). 

As the afflicted started breaking the door down, the scientist turned to me and said, "I'm sorry," and tried to shoot himself, but he was torn to shreds through the gap before he could. As they continued to widen the gap to enter the room, I grabbed the gun, put it in my mouth, and pulled the trigger. There was an incredibly loud bang and everything went black momentarily, and I awoke sitting up and gasping, just like in the movies. - SaraFist

Now if I shot myself in my dream THAT might just do it - yikes!

Remember this guy?

Yes. In my dream a massive spider was coming towards me and I sat up gasping. I must have woke up with such a jolt that my eyes/brain didn't quite adjust as quickly as my body for a couple of seconds so I could still see the spider in the room. I jumped out of bed screaming and ran to the light switch. Freaked my other half out!

Also, whenever I watch a Nightmare I always have a scary Freddy dream. - Deadite_bride

Perhaps this dreamer should stay away from movies like Big Ass Spider! and Arachnophobia... and me. Heh, heh. No but really - I'd be keeping a can of Raid near my bed...

I have nightmares all the time and this happened to me pretty regularly for a long time. It's been a while and I'm pretty sure it was at least partly sleep apnea responsible for the wake up taking a deep breath part. - thegreatbrah

Night terrors doesn't have to be limited to the very young. And sleep apnea is more common than people think (my hubby has it, for instance). Mix the two together and you've got a nasty recipe for some horrific nightmares...

Back years ago, when I was still living with my dad, I had one. In it I was lying down in my room watching TV and all of a sudden, a black splotch started to grow out of one of the top corners in the room and the way it moved, I would describe it as black static. 

It started growing and getting bigger and then another splotch appeared and started growing in the other corner. I was lying there watching as they both grew in size and start devouring the whole room until only my bed and me were left. Then it started overtaking the bed, moving from the foot towards the head. 

Once it reached my chest I realized it was billions of baby spiders that were crawling and trying to get to my face. That's when I shot straight up and screamed and realized it was just a dream. Cold sweats and everything, man. Haven't had a nightmare like that again and pray I never do. F*** spiders. - ISavesDays

THAT would have made one hell of a Twilight Zone episode - or Tales From The Darkside... in either case, freaking scary!

Only once! A few months back I was in a really bad car accident. About a week or so into my recovery I had a nightmare in which my friends (who were in the car with me) had died in the accident and came to my bedroom to blame me. 

Their appearances showed the injuries that killed them, so it was disturbing. At the end of the dream they simply started screaming, causing me to scream, and I woke up screaming and booted upright within seconds. As upsetting as that is, both my friends and I are fine now, in reality. :) - Wilibine

You think doctors would warn their patients about this particular side effect of painkillers such as morphine and other painkillers. One study showed that those given medication had significant side effects. In the first 12 weeks, out of 47 patients, 42% of them experienced dreams or hallucinations. Those given medication over an extended period of time showed that out of 57 patients, 49% of them experienced dreams or hallucinations. Glad to see a happy ending to such a frightening experience though...

I use a CPAP for my apnea so I do this at least twice a week. It's funny because if I'm choking in real life I start choking in my dreams too. Pretty freaky but I got used to it. - gborder79

Oof, that doesn't sound like something anyone should have to get used to. Funny that a lot of these have to do with either apnea, pain medication, or both. Interesting. I wonder if the same might apply to lucid dreaming...

I have several times. I believe them mostly due to side effects of drugs like vicodin or other pain meds from when I broke my arm. I would have very vivid scary dreams and wake up drenched in sweat out of breath and frightened. 

Sorry, I love this picture...

Also I have found that if I sleep on my back I am way more likely to have nightmares. But the kind where you feel like you're pinned down and can't yell or talk or anything. 

Sometimes I sleep like that on purpose just for the dreams. They are intense and sometimes I wake up violently. I have also witnessed a former roomate sit straight up and be like baaically yelling. He was a sleep talker anyway, but when he had nightmares it'd be worse. - zmanbunke

Again there seems to be a pattern - apnea, pain medications, and sleeping on your back. I was always told as a kid not to sleep on your back 'cause it caused nightmares but never told why. Now I'd like to do some research and see if there's anything to it. As for talking in your sleep, that can be kind of fun.

My hubby frequently has whole conversations in his sleep and sometimes he sings. I can't make out what he's singing, but sometime I might record it to see if I can figure it out.

I had a dream about zombies that was so scary I woke up shaking and couldn't stop for several minutes :O - lyssavirus

Ah, zombies. Monsters for some reason never frighten me in dreams, in a lot of cases they make me laugh. I would never laugh at another's fears though - sometimes there's an underlying reason for that fear and it is totally valid.

Yes but they are about me being back in high school - beige4ever

Hey, that's a valid nightmare believe me. When I dream of high school, I'm always a kid again (the only good part) and trying desperately to get the attention and affection of a boy I had a crush on - never happens. That's the nightmare.

I am very pleased with the speed of the responses I have gotten and when more come in, if the people are willing I will print them here. It's both interesting and comforting to know that all of us have so much in common, whether we enjoy horror or not. Thank you to all those who allowed me to share their nightmares here - it was much appreciated.


                        

THE TWO SENTENCE HORROR STORY - A NEAT IDEA CATCHING ON WITH THOSE SHORT OF ATTENTION SPAN BUT LONG ON LOVE OF SCARES - ANYBODY CARE TO SEND ANY? NO CRITICISM, NO JUDGING, JUST SOME GOOD, ORIGINAL SPINE CREEPERS. IF YOU CAN'T THINK OF ANY BUT HAVE READ ONE, I'LL TAKE IT - JUST MAKE SURE TO PUT WHERE IT CAME FROM

Reddit Made Me Do It

I've been seeing these lists on different horror sites and usually they come from Reddit. Now I don't know Reddit from shinola but that's 'cause of my age, not because it isn't a neat place to express yourself. If you are as old as I am, Reddit basically is a place where you can ask for material (such as these two sentence horror stories), or ask a serious question and get answers from people all over the world (those who get Reddit anyway).

So after reading some (and there are some really freaky ones out there) I noticed that some were, uh, copies of copies of copies. I'm not dissing that, writing is hard, and when you find a gem you tend to want to share it.


But Reddit has some pretty nasty people out there - on the page I visited (I had a two sentence gem of my own) most of the current page was filled with complaints of people accusing others of plagarizing or of having their own entries, uh, is it downvoted? because others wanted their own entries to move to the top of the list (the lists can be sorted a number of ways, apparently 'popular' is the the most, well, popular). 

So I put mine on there and also a request for anyone who had one they'd like to share on my blog (getting their proper credits of course) or, as I requested a while back, a time when they've had a nightmare that actually made them bolt upright in bed gasping and/or screaming.

We'll see what happens.

Huh? Oh yes, mine was:

'My creep of a father liked to scare us saying when he was a kid he woke one night to find his grandmother at the foot of his bed although she died before he was born and he'd never seen a picture of her. I never told him how pissed she looked standing behind him every time he told that story.'

True story, too. Well... half of it is.



                        

HOPE I DIE BEFORE I GET OLD






The Taking aka The Taking Of Deborah Logan (2014) 

Yeah, yeah, I know it's way too late for me (and even later for The Who) but I'm not too old to remember how I felt when I was a young whippersnapper like you. I was never going to be 21, then I was never going to be 30, then 35... and so on. I was going to party like it was 1999 because surely there wasn't going to be any years past that, right? But age is a bitch and so am I. The endless whining I do about the many ways my body and mind are conspiring against me should give you an idea of how old I feel. But it's inevitable, and so is disease.

I don't usually do this, but this found-footage movie actually has a few nuggets in it that, although the story is predictable and my Horror Movie Worksheet (patent pending) was mostly filled about 20 minutes in, there's still some interesting twists and a freaking sweet scene toward the end. Thus I'm suggesting if you want to check this out, it is currently streaming on Netflix (Who has it marked as a 2015 film so hey, you'll be time travelling too!) so to avoid spoilers, you know what to do.


Usually movies (unless they're Catholic possession movies of course) try to inform you that most who act possessed may have a type of mental illness. This movie takes a bit of a different direction. In this case, it's Alzheimer's. Here's the official short synopsis: Mia Medina (Michelle Ang) has finally found the perfect subject for her PhD thesis film on Alzheimer’s Disease. For the next several months, cameras will record the everyday life of mother Deborah Logan (Jill Larson, who would get a bloody Academy Award for her performance if the stupid voters didn't ignore horror films) and her daughter Sarah (Anne Ramsay). 

But as the days progress, strange things begin to happen around Deborah that are not consistent with any findings about Alzheimer’s. It becomes apparent that there’s something besides Alzheimer’s that has taken control of Deborah’s life. It’s an evil that is far worse than the debilitating disease with which she was first diagnosed.

Alzheimer patients really ARE possessed, they just don't remember it <rim shot>. That was the hubby's so don't throw popcorn at me, please. 

Just from the brief synopsis I bet you could write most of the movie down too. And you'd be right - up to a point. This movie, vastly superior to much-hyped movies like The Devil Inside seems to try harder to make a good story instead of just a bunch of camera shots bouncing around to give you a headache and try to make a couple of scares.

Sarah has allowed a team from Roanoke University (a real place in Virginia) to document the decline of her mother who lives in Exuma, VA (a fake town - the film was actually made in North Carolina) who had been diagnosed with Stage One Alzheimer's. There's Mia and two men for her crew. Sarah has allowed this because the bills are piling up and the University has promised money to the family if they allow the cameras in their house.

The movie starts by saying that this film includes a partly edited medical documentary, outtakes, and surveillance footage from the scenes of the crime. Starts 10/12/13.

They meet with daughter and mother, who is resistant although she had agreed - we then get a summary of the disease and the posit that it destroys whole families and not just the person.

Our first inkling that something is up when one of the guys shooting 'B' roll footage catches Deborah playing with snakes. During the inevitable camera setup montage Deborah become agitated and slams doors - but he can't find where she went. At night one camera shows her in the kitchen - one second she's standing on the floor, the next second on a counter, no break in time signature.

She freaks out over a missing garden tool - after attacking the men and running around the house they find her upstairs, clawing at her own throat and drawing blood. Examination at the hospital shows that she is now in stage two and is degrading fast.

This is more than enough for one of the guys, who's Catholic. He hangs a cross on the window in his room, only to turn and see Deborah staring at him - and the window flies open, the cross disappearing. She talks to herself in the mirror and stares out the window at night in an empty, dark room, convinced someone is trying to get in. They mic Deborah and try to interview her and there's another freakout and another visit to the hospital. She now has a red, scaly infection all over her back. During a hospital test, she rips the skin off of her own arm.

But this movie tried a bit harder than the typical is-this-woman-suffering-from-illness-or-is-she-possessed kind of movie. There's a mystery involved too which her daughter and the documentary crew soon find out is pretty horrific.


When Deborah was a young mother, her husband died unexpectedly. To support her and her child, she ran a professional switchboard in her home to take messages for people for a fee. Don't laugh, we had one in my home town too... I SAID QUIT LAUGHING! Back to the present - one night she leaves her bed and they find her naked trying to work a number on the board - and it's ringing very loudly. They figure this must have something to do with her behavior. This comes up because she kept logs of every call for every client - but one is missing. 

Trying to calm her down, she instead growls and pants like a dog and is totally out of it. This time the doctor has to come to the house (who does that?). They figure out that what she's been repeating over and over is something about a 'fifth' in French. She doesn't speak French.

The number she keeps trying, 337 belongs to a pediatrician named Desjardins, who killed four young teenagers, ate part of the bodies, carved snakes in their foreheads, and had venom injected in their blood. He was never found.

Another documentary (on him this time) says he did this because he was performing a  Monacan blood ritual for a simple reason - he was dying. But he needed five victims and never got the fifth - so he's dead right? Nobody knows. When they ask Deborah about this, she mumbles that he was murdered - then proceeds to throw up dirt while they scramble for yet another ambulance.

Movie rendition - I  couldn't find a source...

Okay, a brief break from the action. There is a Monacan Tribe in Va. The Monacan tribe is one of several Native American tribes recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The Monacan Tribe has not been recognized as an Indian tribe by the federal government. They are located primarily in Amherst County, Virginia near Lynchburg, Virginia.

I did a fair bit of digging and found no data on either blood or snake rituals pertaining to this tribe. This includes their official website as well as wiki and a couple of, uh, unsavory places. The only blood rituals I could find were: The blood rituals in Shi’ite Muslim festival of Ashura; The Aztecs blood offering to the Sun God; And the practice of some in India where the people donate blood as a way to remember politicians who have died. Now how about snakes?


In America some of the Native American tribes give reverence to the rattlesnake as grandfather and king of snakes who is able to give fair winds or cause tempest. Among the Hopi of Arizona the serpent figures largely in one of the dances. The rattlesnake was worshipped in the Natchez temple of the sun and the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl was a feathered serpent-god. In many MesoAmerican cultures, the serpent was regarded as a portal between two worlds. That's... about it for Native Americans.

Back to our poor Deborah. To further piss off whatever they've pissed off, they put a camera in her hospital room and declare she has split personality disorder. Her neighbor Harris, who's been very clingy, has to be dragged out of her room.

That night while the crew argue about what to do, Harris shows up with a shotgun and starts shooting up their cars. When the cops show up, he either is or just acts drunk. That's enough for the Catholic boy - he bails.

Back at the hospital Deborah wanders out of bed, goes to the pediatric wing, grabs a girl and takes her to an abandoned part of the hospital. Okay, they're supposed to be in Exuma, pop. 0 because there IS no Exuma - except in the Bahamas, a street in NC (where this was actually filmed) and MO. Cripes. But they're still presenting it as a super small town and THEY have an abandoned hospital, at least in part? Geez.

They find her and the kid staring at a wall, take the kid and strap the Deborah down (which they should have done in the first place). Deborah is now in full 'possession' mode with screaming, drooling, etc.

Now we're at day 60? Really? They're still filming. Now Harris sneaks into her room and lets her loose. They obviously have had some sort of relationship. She asks him to kill her which horrifies him. He grabs a pillow, and puts it over her face. The whole room shakes, the camera fuzzes (of course) and the TV comes off the wall and smashes Harris in the head. Cute. But he's still alive and tells Sarah that Deborah killed Dejardins with the spade she kept freaking out over 'cause Sarah was supposed to be the fifth victim. He helped bury the SOB alive.


The 'expert' on rituals says that fire is cleansing so off they all go into the woods at night and start to dig but they only find that freaking spade. In horror they realize that Deborah dug the body up first and has hidden it in the house. This house has almost more attics than rooms, I swear. They see a man-shaped wet spot in the ceiling and go up into it.

They find a sack and look in it - yup, there's a body. When they go to burn it, the sack is suddenly filled with snakes. They try to burn it anyway... As it starts to burn the camera frizzes again and a blast shoves them across the room, putting out the fire.

Meanwhile Deborah breaks out of her restraints and leaves the hospital with the same girl (there for cancer) she took the first time, ripping out a security guard's neck with her teeth to get free. So now everybody's going to Monacan Mountain, where the dead guy (now Deborah) is supposedly going to complete the ritual to live forever. Two police officers drive them up as far as they can get.

They catch up to them as the child keeps chanting over and over "Don't hurt him. He's a nice man. He's going to wash me in the river." Deborah says nothing - until they try to cuff her. Then she spits venom on them all and the camera fuzzes again. One cop's face is burned and he has to be taken back down the mountain while the others go after the crazed woman and sick child. 

They find a building up there - it's now down to Sara, Mia, and the female cop. The cop is quickly killed. As the two woman search in the caves, we go to night vision for our final showdown. They follow the sound of the little girl's screams.

Eat your freaking heart out Freddy Kruger!
Oh, if you can't tell, this is Deborah
consuming the little girl whole...

And we get the following: Fight, light, scream, dark, blood, fight, look, gun, dark, scream, fuzz, light, crying, fight, and then THE COOLEST SICKEST SCENE I HAVE WITNESSED ALL YEAR!!! I don't care if this was a prosthetic or CGI, it was just sooo freaking sweet!

She could fit two Big Macs in that thing...

But the ending has to be drawn out a bit more so Sarah pleads with Deborah, then shoots her (That's kind of contradictory, isn't it?), and tries desperately to get the kid away from her. As the mother's head continues to do... IMPOSSIBLE things, Sarah manages to drug her enough to subdue her and all is well... the girl is saved, the mother not deemed to be fit for trial (two deaths, several wounding/poisonings, kidnapping) and is obviously not going to live much longer anyway.

It's okay, she's a ginger so she
didn't have a soul anyway... <rim shot>

Our movie ends at the happy birthday of the girl with cancer, who miraculously has made a complete recovery against all odds. When asked by a news reporter (because the whole world came to a halt and absolutely nothing else was happening that day) what she planned to do with her life she slyly says, "It's a secret." She then looks at the camera. Okay, so it's a flawed ending, 'cause there still wasn't a fifth (unless they're counting Deborah but she's not dead yet and she wasn't sacrificed like the other girls) but hey, they tried.



                        

HERE'S YOUR SIGN - HOW TRYING TO BE FUNNY IS HARDER THAN IT SEEMS (WHICH IS WHY I FAIL A LOT) AND HOW I'D LIKE TO USE HUMOR FOR SOMETHING THAT BUGS THE CRAP OUT OF ME

How Are You?

I don't know any other three words that can be put together that makes me flinch and recoil in disgust as much as these three, whether the person who says it is being sincere, nice, or just a pain in the ass.

You know I like to try to keep things funny. That's why I try (even if there's a lot of failing) to put humor into the horror movie reviews I do. Once upon a time, way, way back when I was a functioning human being, I actually experienced performing as a stand up comic - a couple of times. No, I didn't perform in clubs or travel or anything - this happened at gatherings of people who knew me. It was terrifying and exhilarating.

This may have worked better...

The responses were, uh, okay. I would say about 65 to 70 percent of my jokes were successful, so that's not bad. I'm sure some parents flinched when I showed the kids how you could make safe pop rockets out of tampons. Oh well.

My point is, I appreciate humor - even if horror movies is my chosen genre. I still have it despite losing a lot of other abilities due to my declining health. And that brings me, finally, to my subject. People who you may see once a day, once a week, a month, or maybe a couple of times a year who always start their conversation the same:


Hi, how are you?

Do they really want to know? You know they don't. It is just a thing to fling at someone while you're passing them by. If you try to answer, you can practically feel their consciousness leave their body and travel on, waiting for you to shut up. So what should one do?


There's a comedian I really admire - his name is Bill Engvall. If you're not familiar with him, he's a very nice guy, his humor runs to everyday situations and his family. One thing he is famous for is a bit where people will say the dumbest things to which he says, "Here's your sign." He's not being mean, it's a funny thing - he's even targeted himself. Here's an example:

Watching him is a kick - and he's clean and fun. But thinking about having a 'sign' for these types of situations made me think - what about a sign for those dealing with endless insincere 'How are you?' questions every time we try to get by? I have honestly considered ordering business cards with a pre-printed answer - not mean, but something pointed but at the same time funny.


But sometimes you feel one way, sometimes another, sometimes it's everything so... that's a lot of cards. So I thought another option might be a piece of paper with all situations, feelings, symptions, etc. listed on it, and one can just check a box by which is current for that day. Or several boxes. Or all of 'em. But make it funny.

Most people are sincere when they ask how you are - others do it to be polite. But I can guarantee that 95% or even more of those people don't really expect you to tell them. The answer almost always is:

"I'm okay, how are you?"
"I'm fine."

And you separate and don't speak any more after that.

So how does one who suffers multiple problems deal with insincere questions and still maintain their humor? Make up some kind of statement then say 'Here's your sign'? Or 'here's your card', 'here's your checklist'? I dunno if the point would be made. Again, even if I tried to use humor, you know there are gonna be those that get offended, even if they really didn't want to know how you were.

I'm gonna have to think about this one.