February 2009 Archives
If you have been living under a rock at crystal lake the story goes like this. A new owner and several young counselors gather to reopen camp crystal lake, where a young boy drowned and several vicious murders occured years earlier. They ignore the locals warnings that the place has a death curse..and one by one they find out unlucky the Friday 13th can be as they are stalked by a violent killer.
Now when you watch this put on your rose colored glasses and imagine it's 1980 and you are in the theatre watching this. You would be scared out of your mind.
The lighting, the story, randy teenagers, the twist in the plot + the suprise ending. All this was new and scary at the time. And it's still a good story today. And this it he ultimate DVD of this by Paramount. This includes Commentary by Sean S. Cunningham, The Friday the 13th Reunion, Fresh Cuts: New Tales from the Set, Lost Tales from Camp Blood, and the man behind the Legacy: Sean S. Cunningham. These are great, well produced and a lot of fun. It's great to hear the actors stories from Savini shooting arrows, to how they cloned Halloween, to why they chose the make-up for Jason.
All in all this is a classic for any collection. And enjoy the special 3D cover. Rent it or buy it today. I give it A.
Based on a chilling true story, Lionsgate's THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT charts one family's terrifying, real-life encounter with the dark forces of the supernatural. When the Campbell family moves to upstate Connecticut, they soon learn that their charming Victorian home has a disturbing history: not only was the house a transformed funeral parlor where inconceivable acts occurred, but the owner's clairvoyant son Jonah served as a demonic messenger, providing a gateway for spiritual entities to crossover.
Now unspeakable terror awaits, when Jonah, the boy who communicated with the powerful dark forces of the supernatural, returns to unleash a new kind of horror on the innocent and unsuspecting family.
Jane Austen's classic tale Pride and Prejudice has been updated and reimagined in a host of ways over the years, whether set in modern times or perhaps with a Bollywood flavour. However, a new parody -- incorporating zombies -- is generating buzz ahead of its release.
Television comedy writer and producer Seth Grahame-Smith is set to release his manners-plus-monsters mash-up novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies this spring.
"About 85 per cent is the original Jane Austen text," Grahame-Smith told the U.K.'s Sunday Times newspaper.
What the Los Angeles-based writer has added, however, are scenes of Austen heroine Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters pressed into battling an onslaught of undead zombies hailing from London. The Bennet girls are trained, interestingly enough, in Japanese fighting techniques by Mr. Darcy.
"I hated her when I was forced to read Austen in school, but when I started rereading, I realized she was a brutal, but very funny, satirist," added Grahame-Smith.
"I can only aspire to be as mean-spirited as she could be."
Grahame-Smith's other book credits include: Pardon My President: Apologies for 8 Years of George W. Bush; The Big Book of Porn: A Penetrating Look at the World of Dirty Movies; and How to Survive a Horror Movie: All the Skills to Dodge the Kills.
Though the book is not officially set for release until April, Grahame-Smith has already fielded calls from Hollywood, with several firms bidding for rights to a film adaptation, he said.
Our hero (The ever goofy Edward Furlong) has won a walk-on role in a film produced by movie chief Connor Pritchett (Lance Henriksen is amazing) and featuring Tara Leslie (Mercedes McNabb). Thinking his luck has changed our hero suddenly find himself the star of a real life struggle to survive a series of on film set murders. Kinda a tired plot already and it only goes downhill from there. I just never got into this film after the cool start. All of the spfx were very 3rd rate it seemed and the cgi they did was totally 4th rate (is that a term?)
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Plus they had what looked like Sugar Ray as a metal band. And I'm not going to lie. Edward Furlong just kinda creeps me out. I don't know if he is acting or is just creepy in general. He just kinda has a weird face I guess. The actor who played the on set sound guy is Hilarious though. Also I know plenty of people that would be creeped the hell out by "Gnome Killer". Also if people are really riding in a convertible their should be some hair blowing in the wind at least. Just some random observations on a less than memorable horror flick. It was a screener so no behind-the-scenes.
Over all I give it a D. It at least made me laugh some. Avoid renting or buying this DVD. But if it's on VOD give it a whirl if your bored.
So let me start my new year's posting by talking about this DVD. I'm a big fan of a lot of Indie films. A friend of mine got me hooked on them a while back. As such Indie Horror films are also right up my alley.
And this DVD is no exception. It contains a couple hours (almost) worth of short films.
Some of my favorites include "The Crypt Club", about an iniation that goes horribly wrong. "Ghost Busted", a short but twisted little film. "My Skin!", a kinda creepy, WTF type of film that makes you go "hmmm", and a bunch more.
Just because these are short films - some only a few minutes long - doesn't mean they couldn't be full length features. A couple of them have so much packed into them you'll think you've seen an entire movie in the time it takes to watch the shorter version.
Managing Your Ghost Hunting Data Collection
Once Webcam Viewer collects a volume of streamed images to your hard drive, the final step is to search through those images for something that jumps out as unique or different than the rest. This would signify a potential anomaly that you may want to check out. The best method I've found to do that is to view the images in sequence using thumbnail view in Windows Explorer.
As you scroll through the frames, you may spot a shadow, mist or movement from one frame to the next. The next step is to conduct a more thorough analysis of the movement or change. To do this I use ImageDiff, a free image comparison application that allows you to conduct a complete pixel-by-pixel comparison between two images.
The settings I use are: use overlay, monochrome colors, and set the threshold over 90%. This will force the difference in pixels to be at least over 90%, and the differences will display on the bottom window as big red dotted areas.
It's never a good idea to trust only your eyes. Even though you may spot a difference in the video frames while you're scrolling through, this pixel comparison will scientifically verify that you aren't just seeing things. As you can see in the photos above, the only differences were the time stamp, and some very slight lighting or shadow differences. If someone (or something) were to walk across the hallway, the lower image would light up like a red Christmas Tree.
How Internet Technology Can Help Ghost Hunting
In time, ghost hunters around the world will recognize that they can't be everywhere at once. And while there's some chance of capturing something interesting on film by sitting for a few hours in a haunted location, those odds are multiplied exponentially when you set up a webcam to monitor many locations over hundreds of hours, around the clock. Let your computer do the watching, and you can capture that elusive ghost on camera at your leisure.
Setting Up Your Ghost Hunting Lab
The first step to beginning your virtual ghost hunting career is to configure Webcam Watcher to start logging the video streams from all of your favorite webcams.
First select the "Add" button to connect to a new webcam stream.
Just type the name of the webcam, the URL link, and how often you want to refresh the image. If you're not sure how often the stream was set up to update, go to the main page of the webcam and check the posted update time.
If the webcam doesn't update more often than every 30 seconds, it wouldn't make sense to update your image every 15 seconds. Keep the refresh rate at, or greater than, the webcam's actual update time. If you can't find the update time, 60 seconds is a good default refresh rate.
As you add each webcam, they will show up on the left menu bar. Double clicking each one will add them to the icon display box on the right, as shown here.
Clicking on any of the icons will display the actual webcam in the larger window to the right, with options to zoom, save the image, or make it a screensaver. However, the real purpose of using this software is to make it automatically collect updates for you. If you click the box next to "AutoSave New Pictures," the Webcam Watcher will start logging updates to the "cam" folder after each update.
"There are hundreds of property owners across the world who have already realized the value of setting up a webcam at a haunted location. By taking advantage of video streaming technology, these home and business owners can allow ghost hunters to watch for ghost and spirit activity around the clock. This new advancement allows you, the Internet ghost hunter, with the unique ability to be at dozens of locations at once in order to monitor for ghost or spirit activity anywhere.
The Best Ghost Hunting Webcams
I've been doing paranormal research for almost two years now. Much of my own research is academic, meaning that I draw data from field investigators all over the country for analysis, and I write articles on the paranormal. The last thing I have time to do is watch a webcam for several hours, waiting for the 15 minute refresh. The most effective application I've found that will monitor and record a whole list of webcams for you is Webcam Watcher 2.1.
You'll need a good list of ghost hunting webcams to start with. Copy any of the link locations provided below. A few of the most popular ghost webcams include:
- Star Chamber, Ordsall Hall ( http://services.salford.gov.uk/ghostcam2/latest/ghostcam2.jpg?&1232108648923 )
- Great Hall, Ordsall Hall ( http://services.salford.gov.uk/ghostcam/latest/ghostcam.jpg?&1232108691644 )
- Willard Library Children's Cam ( http://www.libraryghost.com/ghost/images/childrenrm.jpg_CAM1.jpg?&1232109184735 )
- Willard Library Basement Cam ( http://www.libraryghost.com/ghost/images/ipixghost.jpg.jpg?&1232108749368 )
- Willard Library Research Room ( http://www.libraryghost.com/ghost/images/researchrm.jpg?&1232109201265 )
- OKC-PRG / OPRA Research Cam1 ( http://www.researchwebcam.net/cams/cam1.jpg?&1232109120817 )
- OKC-PRG / OPRA Research Cam 2 ( http://www.researchwebcam.net/cams/cam2.jpg?&1232108816907 )
- OKC-PRG / OPRA Research Cam 3 ( http://www.researchwebcam.net/cams/cam3.jpg?&1232109120818 )
- OKC-PRG / OPRA Research Cam 4 ( http://www.researchwebcam.net/cams/cam4.jpg?&1232108864968 )
- OKC-PRG / OPRA Research Cam 5 ( http://www.researchwebcam.net/cams/cam5.jpg?&1232109049483 )
- Knickerbocker Hotel ( http://www.jasonsghost.com/remote/hotel.jpg?&1232108953436 )"
Greetings Haunters,
On behalf of the HHA and an interim board member I have taken it upon myself to spearhead something the industry has lacked - A Group Healthcare Plan.
Many haunted house owners are being held back and cannot concentrate fully year round on their passion of working on their haunt because they need to hold full time jobs for their Healthcare benefit for themselves and their families. Others who work full time on their haunts are paying high prices for individual Healthcare plans which are not cheap.
We as an industry need to work together to make this long overdue benefit a reality and we need YOUR help moving forward. Our next step is to obtain information from those of you who are interested in participating in a Healthcare plan either now or in the future. Ultimately you will need to be an HHA member to take part in the benefit, but for right now we are just generating data for quotes so whether you are an HHA member or not does not matter.
Please contact me directly allan@bennettscurse.com if you are interested in helping support this cause by filling out a quick questionnaire so we can move forward in getting a Group Healthcare Plan we can all afford.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Lastly, the biggest haunt tour EVER is being planned on Saturday night of The Darkness Haunted House. The Darkness has been featured on National Geographic Channel, History Channel, Travel Channel and inside USA Today. Named one of the best haunted houses in America by AOL.com, About.com, Hauntworld.com, USA Today and many more the Darkness will undergo a total renovation for guests who visit the attraction. The Darkness will have a lights on behind the scenes tour on Thursday, March 26, 2009 limited to the first 250 people complete with dinner, drinks and more. On Saturday, The Darkness will open for a live show with actors. To learn more visit www.TheDarkness.com
Friends of HR
