The unseen things... or TUT

Walking down a dark hallway with but with candle in hand, you begin to understand why silence is such a beautiful thing. You stop and stand listening to the black nothingness that surrounds you. If you blow out the candle, and let the black void of space swallow you whole, then you will understand the reason of the light. For darkness is the absents of light, not the other way: no, never the other way. Every breathe, every beat of your heart, every little thing that lives in the four wall around you; no matter where the origin of the noise might have came from, they are different and yet somehow all the same. Somehow, somewhere, Meht came to be, Meht will watch and Meht will wait for us to fall and Meht will beat us while we curl up into a ball and cry over are things which matter not in the long run. But listen now even harder, a door ever so s-l-o-w-l-y opening up. The creaking of it is a sharp sword cutting down the silence in one swift stroke. Simple distance footsteps echo like a loin roar, and they grow louder with each moment you sit and listen: as you just sit and listen. From the sounds it seems like, there are more than just two legs walking to you, there is more pair of legs walking. You grab the matches from your pocket and striking the box, you relight the candle you see a single figure, it is man like, and there are two legs walking, but where are the other step coming from? Are they coming from behind the man-like creature, or behind your very self? Conjuring up all the courage inside you turn around to see-to your relief-no one. Your relief only lasts a moment though, for the silence you once found refuge in is now back, but you don’t feel any comfort from it. Turning around again you then see the man ascend it the air and begins come closer again with phantom footsteps being heard, but what makes the noise is not seen. Your mouth opens as you try to scream, but nothing comes out but silence as you start step backwards. Backing away you can’t unfix your eyes off the man as your candle light begins to reveal the truth of what he really is. The light has now showed you the truth, but you can’t expect what you see, it’s Meht. You keep repeating to yourself, “It’s not possible!” “No, no it can’t be Meht!” As you run there is an overwhelming sense of evil being projected from behind you. The steps speed up catching up to your own, and you push your body to it’s very limit to even try to escape from this, this evil, this fear, this thing which can’t be explained. Turning your head you see six large legs behind the man thick as pillars crushing the floor underneath them. Running faster down the black empty hallway Meht is now right behind you, a sharp pain begins to spread across your back, feeling with your hand and only to see your hand soak in blood. Wanting, longing, crying to just stop this endless pain of running you cry out. Again you feel the pain across your legs which now give out; tripping, falling, lying Meht stands over you now, the man sets himself on to the floor again and opens his eye. From his back two more arms appear and pull out a Zweihänder. As he raises it into air to perform the finishing move on your life, you feel a sense of hopelessness, and you close your eyes and now wait the blade to pierce your flesh. Again there is nothing but silence again, but out of the silence a voice speaks with a commanding tongue, “This is not the end!”

The Grotesque Art of Junji Ito

My first exposure to Junji Ito was in Spring, 2006, when I read a bizarre comic somewhere online called “The Enigma of Amigara Fault." After visiting the link, you, like me, will find you’ve been exposed to a highly unusual creator of comic art, with few comparisons on either side of the Pacific. Realizing this, I knew only that I had to have more, and more…and more. So, I began to seek out more information about this man and his queer manga.

The artist himself resides in Japan and has been a longtime craftsman of the grotesque, a dental technician, and has toyed with his ideas in manga, print, and film. The canon of his works exposed to the US is relatively limited, but those which are truly stand as some of his best works. And fortunately, even this may be slowly changing, since Dark Horse appears to be in the process of slowly printing translated versions of his full set of creepy manga, with three volumes printed already.

To date, I have wormed my way through his multi-volume mangas Uzumaki (Spiral), Gyo, as well as the shorter translated stories “Falling" and those which appear in volume three of Dark Horse’s Museum of Terror. Luckily enough, all of these works effectively represent the obsessions and sheer oddities that are the heart of Ito’s genius. Uzumaki, usually available in torrent form online and in fairly pricey print form, is a series of interconnected tales involving a Japanese town’s descent into madness over its obsession with spirals. The spiral itself becomes a sort of supernatural possession, heightening the insanity of the inhabitants with strange curses. People become snails, a girl’s hair is possessed by spirals and comes to life, and mushrooms with dizzying swirls sprout from spiral-infested pregnant women—all graphically portrayed by Ito’s frighteningly unique style. Gyo is equally strange, involving the rising of countless sea creatures bloated with a putrid gas that scurry about on land using sets of mechanical legs. Don’t worry, there is an explanation provided. Again, here the art is a hideous vehicle for forwarding the disturbing themes of Ito’s story.

Beyond these two long mangas and a selection of short tales, much of Ito’s work is beyond the American reader’s grasp, still existing only in Japanese or Korean. Yet, what is translated is just sufficiently weird and horrible enough to very likely continue generating interest (and sales), increasing the probability that we’ll see more of Ito’s haunting comics and films hit Western shores sometime soon.

-Namtlieu

Resident Evil 5 and Racism: Again

If you haven't read my first blog on this subject, here it is: RE 5 and racism.

I just read another bit about RE 5 on Kotaku. Some guy said that the RE 5 trailer looks like an advertisement to shoot poor people! Here's a link.

You guys are really taking this too seriously. Again, I will give my example of RE 4. The spanish people in there didn't exactly look like upper or even middle class to me. Yet, no one bitched about them. Stop taking this so seriously, it's just a game!

Yes, things are really bad in Africa, but they're doing that to themselves. Fighting constantly over land or tribal belonging. There is nothing anyone can do to stop them from fighting. As long as they fight over such trivial things as these we cannot help them. Stop worrying about the poor people in Africa. They can only help themselves. (I am not against helping the poor if that's what you're thinking.) It's only after all the useless fighting stops that we can give them help.

Just focus on the game that will no doubt be fun, and remember that Resident Evil isn't just about killing zombies. It's about an evil corporation that unleases it's viruses on unsuspecting people. Then you as the hero, have to come in and try to stop them. When you get to the bottom of it. The game is about helping the people who aren't infected yet. Which leads to helping the poor survive a bit longer. If you can't get past the trailer, don't play the game, and stop your bitching already!
-VampKei

Resident Evil 5 and Racism

Resident Evil is my all time favorite video game series. It's what got me started on my horror kick. I got into horror hard after I played the first Resident Evil back in 98. I also loved RE 2 when it came out. I used to have beating that game down to an art form. I could beat it in an hour and twenty minutes.

Anyways, after many, many games we're finally up to Resident Evil 5. I'm extremely excited for this game. Instead of using a background of darkness like in previous games this one is going to emphasize on light. It's looking awesome. It's set in either Africa or Haiti. I've read reports that it's set in either place. There will be a mixture of the zombies and the ganados from RE 4, and that there'll be some new monsters we've never fought before. This looks so cool. Of course, some uppity PC person had to ruin the fun.

http://gamepolitics.com/2007/08/01/african-womens-blog-critical-of-resident-evil-5-trailer/

Seriously, what the fuck?! She says that:

"The new Resident Evil video game depicts a white man in what appears to be Africa killing Black people. The Black people are supposed to be zombies and the white man’s job is to destroy them and save humanity. “I have a job to do and I’m gonna see it through.”

This is problematic on so many levels, including the depiction of Black people as inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young… fearing, hating, and destroying Black people."

There are many problems with her statements. The game is set in Africa where the population is predominantly black. It's not like there's going to be a bunch of white zombies there just to appease the fucking PC people. Fuck them. With the way she's making it sound. She probably wants white people in Africa just so we don't have to shoot the black zombies. That's even more racist than there just being black zombies killed by a white man. There's black people in Africa. Just deal with it.

The main character is from an earlier game, and he's been sent on a mission to check out what's going on there. My guess is that since the zombie myth stems from the very much real voudun zombies, that we will find Umbrella used something from the zombie powder to create the zombies that have been the antagonists since the first game. It's not like he's there to expressly kill the black people.

The game is not marketed to children. It's gonna be rated M for a reason. The M rating means that you have to be 17 or older to buy a copy of it. All of the other Resident Evil games are rated M because they are for adults, and no doubt even before the people are 17 they will have an idea how they feel about black people. It's not like a game is gonna sway them one way or the other.

For those who would call me racist, I've never been a racist. I lived in a predominantly black neighborhood when I was a child and they don't bother me in the least, and still don't. The only black people who bother me are the suburban kids who think they're thugs from the ghetto. That's just fucking annoying! When I watched the trailer for this, I wasn't thinking, "Oh man, I get to kill me some blackies!" I was thinking, "This is pretty cool. We're gonna be seeing some voodoo zombies!"

Finally, Resident Evil 4's zombies were predominantly spanish. I didn't hear any spanish people pissed off about the zombies in that game as inhuman savages. The reason, it's not meant to be an attack on your race. They seemed to understand that it's just a game, and where the game is set is what kind of zombies will be portrayed. The first three games were set in America, hence American zombies. The fourth game was set in some spanish-speaking village in Europe, hence spanish zombies. Now with the fifth game it'll be black zombies because it'll be in Africa or Haiti.

This political correctness just has to stop. It's gone way too far when people are bitching about hate mongering in video games. Video games are for fun, and not there to push someone's agenda...unless it's the fucking bible game... It just goes to show how far people will go to find something to bitch about.

The Malignant, Consuming Horror of Thomas Ligotti

Lately, I have had the pleasure of delving into the contemporary weird fictional works of Thomas Ligotti. Like the great ones before him (particularly H.P. Lovecraft), he first gained critical attention in small press publications during the 1980’s, and also prefers the creative characteristics of short tales, as opposed to longer works. A recluse who grants few interviews, makes even fewer public appearances, and seemingly lives in Florida working for the Gale Publishing group, Ligotti functions like a minor blow to the stomach sufficient to topple one to the ground. Once there, one is awakened to the inherent nightmare of all existence—the essence of the Ligottian vision—and comes away with the expected shock and existential unease.

I first encountered Ligotti a couple years ago while reading the “New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos,” which included his most Lovecraftian tale to date (also dedicated to the memory of HPL): “The Last Feast of Harlequin.” It is also a masterful expansion inspired by Poe’s brief poem, “The Conqueror Worm.” My renewed interest, and sudden feverish NEED to burrow into the man’s broader literary output, was inspired by his tale “Vastarian” in “The New Lovecraft Circle” put out in the middle 1990’s by Robert M. Price. The piece haunted me for many sleepless nights, and thus began my search for all things Ligottian.

I am currently worked through a collection of his most renowned tales, accompanied by a guidebook put out by longtime Weird Tales Editor Darrell Schweitzer entitled, “The Thomas Ligotti Reader.” It includes interpretative insights into Ligotti’s tales and collects the scant interviews to date, save one (conducted last summer). Such aides are almost necessary since Ligotti weaves his horrific vision in a framework of high quality philosophical precepts unusual in horror. The present short story collection has impressed me most with “The Cocoons” and “The Shadow at the Bottom of the World.” Both take degeneracy and madness from unexpected sources, accompanying terror from equally unplumbed depths to new heights. Ligotti’s prose is rich, intelligent, and beautiful; like the shimmer as one raises hemlock to their lips. And indeed, his philosophy in its baldest appearances poisons the spirit. Where Lovecraft’s universe was merely indifferent to mankind, Ligotti’s is actively malevolent and entrapping. Worst of all, there is no escape. One is left with little choice but to embrace horror on some dimensional plane, since the nightmare permeates all of existence: a malignancy that may not even be blotted out by death’s oblivion.

Presently, I have only been able to come across (and afford) the 2005 edition of “The Shadow at the Bottom of the World.” It the only reasonably priced collection of Ligotti’s work currently in print ($12.00 on Amazon.com) and constitutes a “best of” anthology. If my enthusiasm and income holds, I may breakdown and purchase his magnum opus (out of print and expensive), “The Nightmare Factory” in the near future. Unfortunately, good editions seldom cost less than $100 these days and are increasingly rare. Hopefully, some new publisher will pick up his good name soon and again reprint his stories in more substantive collections. For anyone with an inclination toward intelligent horror, the dark implications of ontology, or certainly weird fiction; Ligotti is not to be missed, if only to see the very possible development of a titanic literary talent in the horror and weird field over the next few decades.

Thomas Ligotti Online (his website): http://www.ligotti.net

Recent interview with Ligotti, July 2006: http://theteemingbrain.wordpress.com/interview-with-thomas-ligotti/

-Namtlieu

Ghost movies

I love ghost movies. Since I was a child I've loved ghost movies. I had three favorites as a kid: Mr. Boogedy, Ghostbusters, and Ghost Fever.

Mr Boogedy was about the ghost of this crazy old pilgrim who's haunting this house as the boogey man. In the end they defeat him by sucking him into a vaccum cleaner, genius! It was a made for TV movie from Disney when they were actually good. This was one of my favorites. The tape that we had it on wore out because I watched it so much. There was also a sequel which wasn't as good but furthered the story and it was still decent. A couple of interesting facts about this movie is that David Faustino from Married With Children and Kristy Swanson who was the original Buffy are both in this.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091566/

Everybody knows Ghostbusters so I don't really have to get into it, so I'll go with Ghost Fever. It's a delightfully bad movie about two detectives who go to this mansion to evict whoever is living there when they stumble upon this house that's populated by a couple of ghosts and a vampire. It's really really bad, but in that good way. I first saw this when I was a kid, since I was obsessed with ghost movies due to Ghostbusters, my mom rented every single ghost movie they had in the kids section at Blockbuster. This one we rented a lot. It's one of those movies that would be perfect for MST3K. I watched it again recently because I found it at Goodwill, and it's as bad as I remember it, but just as funny. I'd definitely recommend this one.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093088/

Ghost movies are the best because of the atmosphere. Most involve an old house covered in spider webs with really old books, and furniture. Then weird shit starts to happen, floating books, pots and pans banging together, sometimes an apparition that someone sees out of the corner of their eye. The movies play on the fear of the unknown, and that's what makes ghost movies scary. What you come up with in your mind is always scarier than what could ever be shown.

That's what makes them more effective than any vampire or zombie movie. You know what's there, eventually you'll get used to the sight of whatever monster is being thrown at you. With ghosts, you never know where they are or what they look like, and that's brix shitting scary. I hope we get more ghost movies soon. I'm getting tired of all this torture porn. Real people aren't scary, we already know what they're capable of. We need some good old ghost movies. I haven't seen 1408 yet but I heard it's good. Hopefully that movie made enough of an impact on the movie bigwigs to start greenlighting more ghost pictures.

Some of my other favorite ghost movies are:
The Haunting of Hill House
Potergeist
Thirteen Ghosts (remake, another one so bad it's good)
Beetlejuice (The first movie I ever sat through as a kid.)
The Fog
The Frighteners
House and;
White Noise
-VampKei