Baredevil

It's days like today that make me wish I wasn't boycotting Teefury. This design is both awesome, and hilarious. Damn you Teefury.

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Infinite Playlist - Nightmare on My Street and Are You Ready for Freddy

A double does of 80's rap dedicated to our beloved Freddy Kreuger! This is exactly what music today is missing. Gone are the days of movie soundtracks where artists made original songs that in some way connected to the source material, and I just think it's sad. No, these aren't the best songs in the world, nor is Dokken's "Dream Warrirors" from NoES 3 or Laaz Rockit's "Leatherface" song from the TCM 3 soundtrack, but dammit that doesn't matter. They're songs about Freddy and Leatherface. That may not excite anybody else, but I always dug them for their cheesy charm. Enjoy "Nightmare on My Stree" and "Are You Ready for Freddy?".

Some Random Bonestube

Watched a couple of interesting trailers yesterday, also watched some pretty terrible ones too, but I thought I'd share a couple that have caught my attention...

Game of Werewolves looks like an attempt at a horror/comedy with lycanthropes thrown in the  mix. I'm ok with that I suppose, provided it manages to be funny. If nothing else the werewolves look pretty cool, and it has Carlos Areces, the guy who played Javier in The Last Circus, in it. I'll watch it for that reason alone.



A lot of times being such a sucker for killers who wear masks turns out to be a bad thing for me, but dammit I can't help it. I've always been drawn to creepy looking masks for whatever reason. Even if the movie sucks...*cough*LaidtoRest*cough*, I will still sit glued to the screen if the killer is wearing a badass mask. Smiley goes the extra mile though by adding Keith David and what sounds a little bit like the plot to Pumpkinhead into the mix. Works for me!

The Last Circus

I'm currently under the weather again, and I woke up sick way too early this morning. Being unable to go back to sleep, I turned on the PS3 and started browsing Netflix. To my surprise, I found Alex de la Iglesia's The Last Circus staring back at me from the "More Dark Movies" suggestion tab. Holy shit! I've been wanting to see this movie forever, since the first time I saw the trailer. I was hoping to be able to catch it in a theater somewhere, and had no idea the dvd was already released. Blame that on the fact that I've been relying too heavily on Twitter for my movie, horror, gaming, and comics news. Sure it's convenient to have everything in one place, but when people don't keep things updated, I tend to miss out. I mean, it's not like at my age I can be expected to actually remember to check up on all the shit I think looks cool and want to check out, yanno?

When The Last Circus begins, it's 1937 and Spain is in the middle of it's Civil War. The Spanish army, marching through a small village, interrupts a performance by two clowns, forcing them to take up arms and join the march. Reluctantly, the clowns join them, take up weapons and when they are attacked by a band of rebels, one of the clowns almost single handedly takes out the entire group all by himself with a machete. All while still wearing his clown suit and makeup. The movie then fast forwards to 1973, and the clown's son Javier is following in his father's footsteps as a Sad Clown looking for work in a traveling circus. His first day on the job he meets Natalia, another of the circus performers, who is married to the circus' Happy Clown Sergio who is a violent, abusive drunk. Javier and Natalia strike up a friendship, and eventually fall in love. Tired of Sergio's abusive behavior, Javier sets out to rescue Natalia from her husband, all the while she is torn between her love for Javier and her lust for Sergio. 

As matters begin to get more and more complicated, Javier begins to descend into madness. After a confrontation with Sergio leaves him hospitalized, he escapes the hospital with the intention of killing Sergio. He attacks him, beating him nearly to death with a trumpet. Believing he's finally rescued Natalia, Javier is distraught over her compassion for her husband. He escapes the police and flees to the woods. Things get even crazier and eventually Javier returns, in full clown garb, armed to the teeth looking to exact his revenge on Sergio and Natalia.

I really want to get more into the plot, but I don't want to spoil any more than I already have. Wow, that's all I could say when The Last Circus finally ended. It's nothing short of amazing. It's incredibly well made, well acted, well shot, well written, everything about this movie is fantastic. Javier's transformation from the cowering Sad Clown, to the insane instrument of destruction he ultimately becomes is amazing to watch because of the wonderful performance of actor Carlos Areces. Antonio de la Torre turns in an equally good performance as Sergio, who is without a doubt the villain of the movie, but at the same time is a guy dealing with his own demons, and it's hard not to feel just a little sympathetic for the guy, asshole that he is.

The design and overall look of the movie may be it's biggest asset though. The costumes are brilliant, I loved the style and tone of every character. The circus vibe in itself is cool, but having it set in the 70's gave it even more of a greasy, gritty, brightly colored polyester feel. It is one of the most entertaining films I've seen this year and I really wish I had stayed more on top of it so I could've seen it sooner, possibly on  the big screen.

 

I've not seen any of Alex Iglesia's other work, but rest assured after watching The Last Circus, I'll be looking into his other films. I'm planning on starting with The Oxford Murders and going from there. If anybody out there who is familiar with his stuff has any suggestions, please pass them along. I haven't been this impressed with a movie since The Loved Ones. If you have a Netflix account, definitely watch this movie as soon as possible. If you don't have Netflix, do whatever you have to do to see it, you won't be disappointed.

Friday Night Drive-In

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and it's beginning to look a lot like Xmas, everywhere I go. Well kids, allow me to share with you my first official "bah Humbug" of the holiday season, as I have grown to hate this particular holiday over the years. I'll keep my reasons to myself, being that the last thing the internet needs is another asshole complaining about the holidays. Anyway, as a big old FUCK YOU to Xmas, the Drive-In will be showing fucked up holiday flicks throughout the month of Dismember...er, December. Hey, that's kinda catchy. In fact, yes, this is the very first official Dismember December at my Drive-In!

What better way to start things off than with that yule tide classic, the 1974 slasher Black Christmas? Seriously, is there anything more fun than watching sorority chicks get tormented and then slaughtered in the snow? I don't think so. Let's overlook that remake from a few years ago, and give the original the credit it's due. Enjoy!

Filthy Billy, I know what you did, nasty Billy!

Happy...

.

and remember...

Why Won't You Die...David?

Man this guy is just ALL kinds of annoying. He breaks the Bro-Code, he's a negative nelly, and he does little other than bitch and complain throughout the entirety of Shaun of the Dead. He gets on my nerves right off the bat and just never lets up. Even when he has a chance to somewhat redeem himself, or admit to being wrong about Shaun, he STILL acts like a dick.

Aside from all the bitching, whining, and second-guessing of Shaun's every move, what REALLY annoys me is that it's painfully obvious to everybody that David is after Shaun's girlfriend, Liz. Nevermind the fact that he's already got a girlfriend of his own, Dianne, and she's WAY hotter than Liz. It seems that David is just one of those dude's who wants what he can't have and is never satisfied. I fucking hate that shit. He's always there, ready to point out Shaun's every shortcoming to Liz, like a little guy dressed in a devil suit sitting on her shoulder. Even when Shaun attempts to get his shit together, saving Liz and the others from the zombie horde, he is still there to bring him down. It's nothing short of a blatant Bro-Code violation, cock blocking in the first degree, which a pretty serious offense and is punishable by death.

Luckily for us, there's a large group of zombies waiting outside the Winchester ready to carry out David's death sentence. Seriously, there is nothing between you and hundreds of flesh eating zombies except a pane of glass, and you're going to stand right by the window? Yeah you deserve every bit of that being torn to shreds, dude. The best part? Liz doesn't even appear to be all that upset. Turns out you weren't as "in there" as you hoped you were, douche. Burn in Hell, David, nobody even cares that you're zombie chow.

The only Sam cooler than Sam Winchester

Little sketch I did today, as I had nothing else to post and didn't feel like really writing anything. I found this image on Deviant Art an liked it, an thought "Hey, I can do that". So I did. I actually finished it back around Halloween, but not in time to post that week, I was about a week off. Anyway, it's done now, so here it is.

Infinite Playlist - Loco

Blast from the past today, well sort of the past I guess. I still feel like it isn't all that old. Anyway, for your enjoyment here's Coal Chamber with "Loco"...

Justice Brociety of America

You've heard of the Justice Society of America (JSA) but NOTHING will prepare you for the coming of the Justice Brociety of America (JBA)!!! So far we have a small handful of members, although hadn't been able to actually get together to fight crime and kick some asses...until tonight that is. Kaptain Kannibal and Tech Stryker took to the dark streets of Gotham City to do battle against none other than Bane. Alongside Nightwing, the JBA had little trouble subduing the Venom-filled behemoth, ridding the Gotham Harbor Lighthouse of his tyranny once and for all. It was a most thrilling victory for the JBA, can't wait to see what kind of havoc we can wreak once we get the full roster in the field...

Before taking to the harbor, Kaptain Kannibal was spotted atop the East End Gotham City Police Department, playing with the Bat-signal.

Prior to the Gotham Harbor Lighthouse battle, the JBA briefly took control of the Justice League of America's Watch Tower base on the moon. Just for the record, "took control of" definitely does NOT mean "got completely lost in". From the Watchtower security cameras, here is a photo of Tech Stryker and Kaptain Kannibal patrolling the Watchtower halls....

The JBA have arrived, and evil-doers the world over should consider themselves warned. We will not stand for your nefarious schemes, we will not tolerate your tyranny, and we're totally gonna steal your money and loot after we kick your ass. JBA Unite!

Friday Night Drive-In

I have three Thanksgiving traditions. One is dinner, of course, two is football, and the third is one that I've only recently begun, in fact this will only be my third time doing it, a viewing of Thankskilling. This is without a doubt one of the stupidest things you are ever likely to see, but it's so hilariously bad that I can't help but laugh at it. There's a ridiculous origin story involving Pilgrims and Indians, and a curse which causes a homicidal turkey who is resurrected every 510 years to wreak havoc.

This movie has everything you want in your B horror movie. Terrible acting, terrible effects, blood, gore, nudity, and it's only a little over an hour long. I literally laugh until I cry every time I watch it. This turkey is a master of disguise, he mercilessly kills, rapes, and yes, even CARJACKS his way through this entire movie. I literally can't think of a better way for you to spend your Thanksgiving evening than by finding a way to watch this movie. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find it to post here in the Drive-In tonight, so you're gonna have to settle for the trailer. But the full movie is available on Netflix streaming, and I'm sure there are other options out there. Point being, do whatever you have to do, but don't miss this movie. Happy Thankskilling!

"Gobble, Gobble, Motherfucker!"

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Bonus Screen Grab! In which one of the single greatest lines in the history of cinema is spoken....

What? You fuckers think just because a guy reads comics he can't start some shit?! I'll fuckin' take all of you on!!!

Zombie Rabbit Award!

Look at ME! I got another award. Woo HOO! Ahem, I mean I humbly accept this award, and would like to thank all the little people who made and continue to make this blog possible. Namely ME, MYSELF, and I.

Seriously, big thanks to my blog buddy Cherry Neko, who has herself a pretty awesome blog that you should all be reading, Cherry Neko Saves the World. She writes about everything including horror, video games, comics and even a bit about herself, which is rare in the blogs that I read regularly. It's always a fun read, and I greatly appreciate her passing the zombie rabbit on to me in my little Batcave.

As per usual, there are rules involved with this award, and they state that I must pass the award along to up to 100 other bloggers, and I must link them up here in the Batcave and inform them of the award. Being as I don't think if you added the total number of people I've actually known since birth you would even get close to 100, I'll probably just do 5. And here they are in no particular order...

1. Astrovania

2. Back On Line, Back On Duty

3. Lissa's Shop of Horrors

4. Horror Movies and Beer!

5. Maynard Morrissey's Horror Movie Diary

Congrats to the winners! If I didn't pick you, it's likely because I went to your blog and you already had the award. If you didn't, it's merely an oversight on my part, and I humbly apologize. Enjoy your award people! And thanks one more time to Cherry, awards are fun.

Upgrading Your PS3's HDD the Mister Bones Way

As you may or may not know, recently Sony not only made an option for DC Universe Online to become free to play, but they also offered the game itself to download for free. As you can imagine, this made me very excited and I anxiously awaited the day that this deal would go live. The day finally came, and sadly I was unable to get the game right away, as it required 20g of free space, and my meager 40g hdd was already nearly full.

I had read online that you could buy a larger hdd and easily install it in your PS3, but hadn't really had a need to do so before, even though I had considered doing it just because. This game, however, with it's monumental space demand forced my hand. Now, consider that I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to things like this. I wasn't even sure what a hdd looked like before I started looking at pictures of them on the many, many tutorials I read before attempting this. I had my doubts at to whether it would be as easy as these articles continually assured me it would be.

As it turns out, it wasn't easy. In fact, the entire process from start to finish took me about 16 hours. In an effort to help anybody else out there who may be thinking of upgrading their PS3 hdd's, I thought I'd do a little step-by-step "how-to" post, breaking down my experience so that you can really see what all is involved with this project.

1. Google - Google is my bestie when it comes to doing almost anything. And when I say anything, I mean anything. I've googled everything from how to tie a tie, to how to scramble eggs. When I first decided to do this hdd upgrade, I read a TON of articles, tutorials, and how-to's, and learned many new terms, such as FAT32, SATA, NTFS, and 5400 rpm.

2. Get discouraged - Yep, all those new terms, none of which I had any understanding of whatsoever, coupled with the fact that I was having trouble finding a larger hdd for the amount of money I wanted to spend (not much) got me to thinking about throwing in the towel early. Luckily, I mentioned to a friend at work that I was debating on upgrading, and he asked me what size drive I needed, and hooked me up with one for my absolute favorite price to pay for anything, NOTHING.

3. Get excited - A free 350g hdd! Score! Now I HAD to go through with it, no way I'm not taking advantage of that kind of generosity. Back to the tutorial reading!

4. Begin process of transferring data from old hdd to external hdd - I didn't want to lose my Arkham City save. That is the one and only reason I even bothered with moving any data from the old drive to the new one. In order to do this, I apparently had to format my 1t hdd to from NTSC to FAT32, whatever the hell that means. According to many sources online, this was easily done by opening a command window and typing in "format /fs:fat32 X:" but replace the "X" with whatever letter is assigned to your external hdd.

5. Wait 10 hours - Yep, followed the directions above, and looked at the time as the format progressed. By my calculations, this was going to literally take somewhere around 10 hours to complete.

6. Go to bed - Formatting wasn't going to be done until close to 2am, andl let's not kid ourselves, there's simply no way my old ass will be staying up that late for any reason, let alone this one. I took my tired ass to bed.

7. Wake up, check format progress - Well, it finished but I got a message stating "Volume too high for FAT323". Apparently drives larger than 32g don't like the FAT32 format. Who knew?!

8. More Googling - I'm back to Google, trying to figure out how to format a larger capacity drive to FAT 32. I'm learning more new terms, like "partition". I'm now googling "partition". Discourage is setting in again, as there seems to be a lot of opinion as to the best way to go about creating a partition, and apparently it requires the download of a program which will do so.

9. Come close to quitting - At this point, I was getting aggravated with the whole thing.

10. Find a youtube video which also has a link to a program that will format my 1t hdd without creating a partition - SCORE. Back in the game.

11. Begin transfer of content from PS3 to external hdd - This was easy, bascially one of the only parts that I had no problem with. Find your stuff, hit the triangle button, hit copy.

12. Remove hdd tray from PS3 - Almost every single tutorial will tell you how easy this is. These are LIES. Sure, it was easy to open the small plastic cover over the hdd tray, but that's where the easy stops. To remove the screw that holds the tray in place, you must first find the world's smallest phillip's head screwdriver, you must then harness the strength of Hercules to get the tiny screw to release it's grip from the tray.

13. Remove hdd from hdd tray - You just THOUGHT the tray screw was tiny, and had a steely grip. The four screws that hold the hdd in the tray have been spot welded into place by lightning bolts thrown down from the top of Mount Olympus by Zeus himself. I'm pretty sure I heard them laughing at me as I tried in vain to get them to release the death grip they had on the tiny 40g hdd. Eventually, through the aid of a rubber band, pliers, and my screwdriver, I managed to remove three of the screws, MacGyver style. Yep, three, not four.

14. Strip the fourth screw - Dear God at the obscenities that spewed forth from my mouth when that last screw stripped. My occasional tourrette's came on in FULL force. I'm pretty sure I've only been madder at anything once in my life, and that was the time that I got so mad a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, and for some reason my brain decided that the curse words that exist in the English language aren't harsh enough, so I ended up screaming the words "YOU CORE" at my skater. "Core" being an amalgamation of two other words, which I'll leave up to you to decipher.

15. Get out the tool box - I had to get this screw out, even if I destroyed the universe in the process. My struggle against the hdd tray had become personal. I was so close to finally getting the damn thing out, and here was this one little tiny screw smugly staring back at me, mocking my rage, refusing allow me progress further toward my goal. This motherfucker was coming out one way or another. To the tool box! I tried everything I knew to try, different screwdrivers, pliers, a chisel, a hammer, my power drill, etc. and still this damn screw held strong.

16. When all else fails, DESTROY - Being a man, as is my nature, when something doesn't work, or do what I want it to do, I resort to destruction. The screw won't come out? Ok then, I'll take to goddamn tray off around it. Luckily the tray itself was nowhere near as strong as the screws that were connected to it, so I began the process of bending the metal around the screw so that I could pry it out. After a few minutes, I did just that. Sure, the hdd tray was a mass of mangled, twisted metal on one corner, but that's beside the point. In the war against the screw, I had emerged victorious.

17. Put the new hdd in place - Easy peasy. I did my best to bend some of the metal back to what it was supposed to look like, just enough to get the hdd in place and put the screws in it. Goddamn screws. Then put the tray back in the PS3 and replace the tray screw.

18. Turn on PS3, get "Correct Hard Drive Not Found" error message - You've got to be fucking kidding me. None of the tutorials I read made any mention of this error message. Back to Google, and yep apparently this is a fairly common problem, although there seemed to be a lot of difference of opinion when it came to how to deal with it. The one thing that everyone seemed to agree on was to bring up the PS3 recovery menu by holding down the power button until you hear two quick beeps. Did that, and decided to first try the "Restore File System" setting, as that to me sounded like what the problem might be....

19. Get "critical error has occurred" message - This obviously wasn't the right option to choose. FML.

20. Get supremely discouraged, believe that you've essentially destroyed your PS3, decide your best option may be to sell it for parts to somebody on eBay - Yep.

21. Try other options, "just to see" - Maybe I could bring her back, maybe I hadn't completely broken the console. I decided to at least try some of the other options in the restore menu, I did "restore default settings", "restore PS3 system", and even "system update", and nothing worked.

22. Google, one more time - Last chance before I give up, I looked one more time, if I couldn't find anything else I was going to attempt to put the 40g hdd back in and call it a day. I found one more thing to try, downloading a system update file from the Sony website, putting it on the external hdd, and uploading it from there to the PS3 system, from the system recovery menu. It sounded like a long shot to me, like it was too simple of a fix, but it was all I had left so what the hell.

23. Download the system update file - First thing I had to do was go into my external hdd and create a PS3 folder, then go into that folder and create a second folder labeled "update". Folder creation, FINALLY something I can do without needing assistance from Google! Got that all done, now back to the PS3...

24. Upload system update - To upload the update, I first went back to the "restore PS3 system" option from the restore menu. I fired up the controller, and waited to see if the system was going to find the file to upload....

25. SUCCESS! - The file uploaded, and the PS3 went back through all the motions as if I had just gotten it out of the box. I set everything all up, restored my PSN account, and transferred all the info from the external hdd to my brand spanking new 350g hdd. Next step was to re-download all my PSN games, including the hdd space hogging behemoth that set these events into motion, DCU Online.

(not actually me, but pretty close)

That's all there is to it! Easy right? Just like all those damn tutorials said it would be. If you're planning on upgrading your PS3 hdd anytime soon, might I suggest you skip all those other tutorials, and simply follow my 25 step program detailed above, in a mere 16 hours you'll be transformed into a hdd changing BEAST, just like me.

Infinite Playlist - Astral Rejection

Some new I Set My Friends on Fire for the Infinite Playlist today. This is one of my favorite tracks off their new album, "Astral Rejection", which also happens to be the name of the song. It starts off pretty fast, but give it a chance, the pace changes a couple times, which should come as no surprise to fans of this band.

Astral Rejection is a great follow-up to their first album "You Can't Spell Slaughter Without Laughter", thankfully they didn't stray too far from the formula that made that album so good. They have a distinct sound that I really dig the hell out of. They aren't for everybody, and that's ok, but I love em. Enjoy!

Hellboy: House of the Living Dead

In this new original hardcover from Dark Horse, Hellboy wrestles luchadores in Mexico, there's a Frankenstein's Monster, a werewolf, demons, and almost a vampire. Almost. Seriously, why wouldn't you want to read this book?

It's a direct continuation of the "In Mexico" one-shot from last year, which just as House of the Living Dead, featured a collaboration between two of my most favorite creators currently working in comics, Mike Mignola and Richard Corben. Mignola of course is the creator of Hellboy and the BPRD, and should be a stranger to absolutely nobody. Richard Corben however, is a little more obscure of a reference, sadly even to most comic book fans. He's done work for all the major publishers, but it's because of his affinity for horror comics, like Hellblazer, Steve Niles and Rob Zombie's Bigfoot, and of course Hellboy. He has a bit of a different style, but I dig it.

House of the Living Dead is a fairly quick read for a $15 hardcover, but the story is so much fun, I couldn't pass it up. Plus if you've read "In Mexico", you'll probably be interested in seeing where the story goes. There's nothing in the way of extra material, like you'd find in a trade paperback, this is strictly just the story. While it's not mandatory to have read "In Mexico" prior to reading this, I would recommend tracking down a copy to get the full tale. Unless you're a Hellboy completionist, or die hard Mignola/Corben fan (I'm guilty on both counts) it's hard for me to recommend picking up the hardcover on House of the Living Dead. It will likely either be released at a cheaper price as a softcover at some point soon, or collected in one of the next Hellboy trades, and that might be a better bet for most people. Still, it's definitely a fun read, and worth it for the story and art.

Friday Night Drive-In

It's Veteran's Day, and in the Batcave we're celebrating the only way we know how, breaking out the Uncle Sam dvd and getting tipsy! I know this may be another movie that a lot of you would turn your nose up at, but listen up ya horror snob, this is one damn entertaining movie. Plus it's got some serious sleaze and horror street cred, as William "Maniac, Maniac Cop, Vigilante" Lustig directs, and PJ Soles even has a bit part. I had zero expectations going in the first time, and I ended up having a blast with it. So much so that I watch it at least once a year, either on the 4th or Vets Day, and tonight I'm showing it at my Drive-in.

Sam Harper is killed in action in Desert Storm, and has his remains shipped home to his sister's house. After some teenagers burn an American Flag over his burial site, he returns from the grave on July fourth to wreak havoc and mercilessly slaughter all the unpatriotic people in town.

"I want YOU....Dead."

Two-Face SMASH!

For my buddy, the Artist formerly known as J. Astro...

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