NECRO SHOCK RADIO – Session 3.22

Hey, look! Another Session of Brutal Music Therapy goodness!

Featuring Cuts From:

Alice Cooper, Antestor, Armageddon Holocaust, Betrayal, The Crucified, The Deadlines, Doomsday Hymn, Empty Tomb, Horde, Immortal Souls, Lament, Living Sacrifice, Ultimatum, and Vengeance Rising…

::END TRANSMISSION::

NECRO SHOCK RADIO – Session 3.21

SESSION 3.21

YAR! Here there be more Brutal Music Therapy for ye! I’ve no idea why I’m talking like a pirate, maties!

Featuring cuts from:

Aggelos, Azbuk, Behold The Kingdom, Blood Thirsty, Crimson Moonlight, Dalit, Disciple, Diviner, Empty Tomb, Eulogium, The Lead, The Order Of Elijah, and Revulsed…

::END TRANSMISSION::

Movie Review: IDIOCRACY

20th Century Fox
2006
R

Welcome to AOL Time Warner Taco Bell US Government Long Distance. Please say the name of the person you wish to call.

Meet Joe Bowers. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. But when a government hibernation experiment goes awry, Bowers awakens in the year 2505 to find a society so dumbed-down by mass commercialism and mindless TV programming that he’s become the smartest guy on the planet. Now it’s up to an average Joe to get human evolution back on track!

Poe’s Law: an internet adage which states that, without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, parodies of extreme views will be mistaken by some readers or viewers for sincere expressions of the parodied views. Mostly, this is seen on the internet, when someone mistakes an Onion article for the real deal, and uses that as the basis for alarm and whatnot. It’s easily done, as the written word has virtually no way to convey the subtle nuances like voice inflection or body language to help indicate the proper “I’m being sarcastic” underpinnings. That’s why there are emoji’s and memes and stuff, so that no one on the interwebs will have to worry about “context” or “critical thinking” to make their brains hurt.

Which brings me to Mike Judge’s 2006 feature comedy, Idiocracy. I can’t remember if this one ever made it to the theater in Fremont, NE back when it was released; and I would have remembered if it did, as I worked at the Radio Shack that was in the same mall as the town’s movie multi-plex. To be fair, Idiocracy may have hit a bit too close to home to your standard Fremont dweller, so maybe it was a good thing that was never seen there.

Gads, the sarcasm is flowing a bit extra heavy from me today. I’d better get on with the review before I melt down.

Idiocracy is a brilliant satire. I wouldn’t go so far as say “genius”, but it’s definitely a brilliant piece of satire disguised as an absurdest comedy of sorts. It’s the kind of movie that makes you laugh at the absurdity of it all, but then, hours after the movie’s ended, the more you think about it, the more you come to find how the story and plot is beginning to resonate a bit more seriously, because you can totally see it happening one day. Maybe the movie just amplified and exaggerated the smaller things you come across and have to deal with every day in this real world of ours.

In the end, though, Idiocracy deserves inclusion in your movie library. You need to watch this at least once. Not because I think it’s an eye-opening documentary (it’s not)…that would be skirting close to the aforementioned Poe’s Law, there. Instead, think of Idiocracy as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World filtered through National Lampoon. The good National Lampoon.

NECRO SHOCK RADIO – Session 3.20

SESSION 3.20

Hey! It’s time for some more Brutal Music Therapy! Strap in and bite down hard!

Featuring Cuts From:

Abated Mass Of Flesh, Circle Of Dust, Coriolis, Dagon, Deliverance, Demon Hunter, Disaffection, Faithbomb, Frost Like Ashes, Impending Doom, Living Sacrifice, Necromance, One Bad Pig, Possession, and Rackets & Drapes…

::END TRANSMISSION::

Movie Review: BIG ASS SPIDER!

Epic Pictures
2013
PG-13

A giant alien spider escapes from a military lab and rampage the city of Los Angeles. When a massive military strike fails, it is up to a team of scientists and one clever exterminator to kill the creature before the city is destroyed.

Yes, I watched this movie based on the name alone. Yes, I was expecting mindless cheesy sci-fi big monster B-Movie. Exactly how mindless and cheesy, I didn’t really know; I mean, there is that exclamation point, which usually is a hallmark of either a wacky comedy, or grindhouse exploitation. Given the cover art, I was leaning more towards “wacky comedy”.

Big Ass Spider! ended up being far more entertaining than it should have been. The movie’s title promises us a big ass spider, and boy howdy does it deliver the goods on that end. Somehow, seeing the constantly-growing alien spider that escaped from the military lab that spawned it rendered in all it’s CGI glory actually works to make this more fun than had they tried to make things with practical effects. Quite frankly, that rampage through the park made me all giddy, clapping in glee like a preschooler at a puppet show. Also, EXTERMINATOR WITH A BAZOOKA! ‘Nuff said.

On the Cheese-O-Meter level, Big Ass Spider! ranks quite a bit above your standard Asylum-made Sy Fy Channel flick, mainly due to the movie being in on the joke. If B-Movies like this aren’t your thing, then keep away from this. But, then again, if you didn’t get that from the title alone, it’s your own fault. However, if the idea of seeing a CG-rendered giant spider rampage through LA is your idea of a great time, grab your friends and whatever libations you may imbibe and have yourselves a ball.

NECRO SHOCK RADIO – Session 3.19

SESSION 3.19

Featuring cuts from:

Armageddon Holocaust, Believer, Chatterbox, Circle Of Dust, Deliverance, Demon Hunter, Ethereal Scourge, Impending Doom, LS Underground, Lament, One Bad Pig, Opprobrium, Vengeance Rising, and Zao…

Book Review: PROVEN GUILTY (The Dresden Files)

Jim Butcher
ROC
2007

There’s no love lost between Harry Dresden, the only wizardin the Chicago phone book, and the White Council of Wizards, who find him brash and undisciplined. But, war with the vampires has thinned their ranks, so the Council has drafted Harry as a Warden and assigned him to look into rumors of black magic in the Windy City. As Harry adjusts to his new role, another problem arrives in the form of the tattooed and pierced daughter of an old friend, all grown-up and already in trouble. Her boyfriend is the only suspect in what looks like a supernatural assault straight out of a horror film. Malevolent entities that feed on fear are loose in Chicago, but it’s all in a day’s work for a wizard, his faithful dog, and a talking skull named Bob…

Book number 8 in the Dresden Files series. It was released the year after the previous novel (as most of these were), but since I was loaned all fifteen (at the time), and had the chance to binge-read them (to my young readers: “Binge Reading” is like “Binge Watching”, only with these things called “books” instead of “television shows”), I have to keep in mind that the events here take place almost a year after Dead Beat. And last time, things were topped off with a freakin’ zombie T-Rex. What surprises does this one hold?

Things kick off with Harry Dresden–who is now a fully appointed Warden of the White Counsel of Wizards (irony)–attending the trial and execution of a sixteen-year-old boy for going over to the dark side of wizardry. He’s then tasked with fiding otu why the Summer and Winter courts of the Fae haven’t attacked the Red Court vampires, and also to check out a spike in black magic usage in Chicago. Harry then finds himself investigating strange attacks at a local horror movie convention, which turns out to be perpetrated by supernatural predators called phobophages, and when he manages to get them to turn on the person who summoned them, discovers that it was the oldest daughter of Michael Carpenter–Molly Carpenter, who is kidnapped into the Nevernever. Meanwhile, turns out the Winter Queen is acting rather od, which is making everyone on both sides of the Fae nervous, and so Harry has no choice but to storm the Winter stronghold to rescue Molly and try not to bring the entirety of the Winter Fae upon him. He succeeds in one part. Try and guess which one.

Well, now, this one was interesting. First of all, the whole “fears coming to life” thing happening at a horror convention…sure, why not? So far, this is the only book where them phobophages appear; the concept of the creatures is rather intriguing, and it seems was an original concept by Butcher for the purpose of this story. But man, this is something I’d like to explore a bit, maybe flesh out in a short story or something. Anyway, interesting development with Molly, and quite a bit of deeper development with Charity Carpenter beyond Strong Willed Mother Who Doesn’t Like Harry. And not only does it seem that the whole Warden gig is permanent, but there’s a grander conspiracy going on than meets the eye. Such is the nature of conspiracies, one would presume.

So, overall, the series continues to be an intriguing one, willing to take some risks with the ongoing development of the overarching mythos and characters, while trying something new with old concepts. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that this is not a series that you can just jump on in the middle, but at least there’s an effort to explain a bit some of the back story stuff. Still, highly recommended, this is.

NECRO SHOCK RADIO – Session 3.18

The Randomizer has been turned on, and thus it’s time for another Session of the Brutal Music Therapy you didn’t know you craved!

featuring cuts from:

All Is Vanity, Antestor, Arjanco, Armageddon Holocaust, Barnabas, Boarders, Children Of Light, Cryptic Embrace, Eternal Mystery, Heart Of Darkness, Heaven’s Rage, Horrific Majesty, Nomad Son, Resurrection Band, Jeff Scheetz, and Soul Embraced…

::END TRANSMISSION::

Songs That Suck: “RUDE” (Magic!)

Having forsaken all of Top 40 radio for nearly 25 years now, most of my exposure of pop music comes from having to put up with it as background music at supermarkets or whatever’s piped into restaurants and the overhead at my place of employment. Due to the mostly homogeneous nature of the music, I can usually tune it all out. So, it takes a special type of suckage to pry its way past all the mental safeguards I have in place and annoy me on my outing in the real world. “Rude” by some band named Magic! is one of those songs.

First of all, that band name. It’s not just the laziest sounding name, but by adding the exclamation point at the end, it seems that someone came up with that in Junior High, and suggested it when it came time to form the band, and no one could think of anything better for whatever reason and went with it.

Second, after some research on the band itself (translation: 10 minute Google search), it looks like Magic! is a “Canadian reggae fusion” band…which roughly translates to “White guys playing lame reggae”. Well, okay, granted the head of the band is from Palestinian decent…but he was born in Canada, so he’s an honorary Caucasian. I’m old enough to remember the first time this kind of things was foisted upon our collective pop sensibilities: back in the 1980s, by this British band named UB40. They, too, were a bunch of white guys affecting a fake Jamaican accent, with two songs that you couldn’t get away from–“Red Red Wine” and a cover of Elvis Presley’s “I Can’t Help Falling In Love (With You)”. Genuine reggae is one of my least favorite styles of music (running neck-and-neck with ska, but still preferable over hip-hop country and dubstep); I’d rather have that over this homogenized style of fake reggae.

Third, oh sweet mother of Elvis, that song. It’s basically a whiny guy who asks the father of his girl for her hand in marriage, is told no, and then fires back with a passive-aggressive catchphrase from one of the Tanner girls from the original run of Full House. Which is followed by the proclamation that he’s “gonna marry her anyway.” Yeah, that’s gonna work out, there, you douchenozzle.

“Rude” manages to hit the trifecta of suckage. This is one Canadian import I can do without.

::END TRANSMISSION::

Book Review: CARRIE

Stephen King
Doubleday
1974

Carrie knew she should not use the terrifying power she possessed… But one night at her senior prom, Carrie was scorned and humiliated just one time too many, and in a fit of uncontrollable fury she turned her clandestine game into a weapon of horror and destruction…

The first published novel by Stephen King, Carrie was one of the King books I read while a Freshman in High School. Mind you, saying it like that makes it sound like I read the thing straight through; I assure you, tender blog peruser, that–like any other book I was reading outside of those assigned to me by my High School taskmasters–my reading habits at the time consisted of Begin Reading Book>Get Through A Couple Of Chapters>Get Bored And Distracted By Something Shiny>Forget Book Until Weeks/Months Later>Lather, Rinse, Repeat As Needed. I did manage to finish the book my Freshman year, though the start/stop times were pretty frequent. Fortunately, the relatively brief length of the novel helped in that regard.

In modern horror literature, Carrie is very much a classic of the genre. However, even now as I revisited it as a more seasoned reader, Carrie still seems a bit stilted and cardboard than dynamically scary. Off-putting, yes, and if you want to count the drama and traumatizing effects of just being the recipient of high school politics and bully-ing, then yes: Carrie is a horror novel. However, given that I picked up the book because I was told that this was about a girl that could make stuff move with her mind–which is the #2 super power a 14-year-old boy would want (#1 being invisibility, for the usual stereotypical reasons)–the whole telekinesis thing was merely the secondary horror, here. The main horror portrayed is the teenage girl dealing with a daily life that consisted of being bullied at school, and then coming home to a beyond fanatical ultra-religious mother whose grasp on reality not only packed up and left a long time ago, but has also filed a restraining order.

Looking back at it now, I can’t say that I would necessarily recommend reading Carrie first when you’re just checking out Stephen King’s vast bibliography. I can understand how some would feel weird if they don’t start at the first thing King has written and work their way up; Carrie, I’ve found, while still pretty much required reading eventually, is a bit wooden and suffers from First Novel Awkwardness. It’s still a rather good novel, and should be read eventually. It’s a good early glimpse at what was to come from the writer.