The Fractal Hall Journal

It turns out that Britain really is in the grip of a UFO invasion. At least, it is according to the Torygraph (via Warren Ellis). Now, I’m pretty sure the (ahem) “quality” daily isn’t owned by Murdock. Or, for that matter, Marvel. And they’re usually pretty hostile towards the BBC. So we can rule out advertising stunts for the X-Files, Secret Invasion and Doctor Who, respectively. Strange shit is indeed afoot (or aflight), although I haven’t heard of much in the way of abductions, implantations or probings. At least, no more than usual for Cardiff on a Saturday night.

The rest of the papers are getting in on the action, too. The Guardian recently featured a ghost-busting weekend in Ludlow (Ludlow?) as a recommended activity holiday. The Indie’s ran an article on ten scary tales from folklore, and if we hop back to the Telegraph for a sec, we’ve got Civil War ghosts showing up on camera.

Man, I could eat this stuff up with a spoon. I should turn the Journal into a Paranormablog.

The Independent article is particularly interesting to me because it’s written by Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson, who authored the absolutely indispensable book The Lore of the Land, one of the most comprehensive volumes of English folklore I’ve ever seen. It was recommended by Neil Gaiman on his site a couple of years ago, and it’s one of the best suggestions I’ve ever got from the internet. Yes, even better than instructions on how to use Mentos to blow up Diet Coke. The article includes extracts from The Penguin Book Of Ghosts, so you can bet that just jumped to the top of the buy list. Sorry, hardback collection of The Rise And Fall Of The Shi’Ar Empire.

One of my major ambitions has been to contribute to a great work of reference (stop giggling at the back, I’m being serious. You all know this site is an official nerd-haven). I’d love to tackle a book like the one above that dealt with Welsh folklore. Even though the whole lack of focus and short attention span thing may well get in the way.

The Haunting Breaks mentioned in the Guardian sound pretty cool too. Long term readers may recall a trip to Edinburgh I mentioned here last year. We actually went on one of the Edinburgh ghost tours, into one of the vaults beneath the streets. It was pretty effing scary, even for people not as easily terrified as I am.

The only problem with the tour was the vague worry that an actor would jump out on the tour group for a cheap scare. It didn’t happen, which I was glad for, because you don’t pay your money for a ghost train, you want to get creeped out by spooky stories, stone circles and dark rooms. The whole point of going is for the chance of maybe seeing a real ghost, and cheap tricks would have really soured the experience. Then I found out not long ago from a mate who lives in Edinburgh that some of the tours do have “jumpers” on them, which is seriously disappointing.

Returning to the Telegraph one more time, Archaeologists are planning on opening a long-sealed chamber beneath a Mexican pyramid. I don’t know about anyone else, but with all the weird shit above, is this a fantastic idea? I mean, I’m jumpy enough about the Large Hadron Collider as it is, but after watching The Mist, I’m somewhat concerned about the consequences of anything that may lead to tentacled insectile monstrocities roaming over the planet.

In other, lighter news, and as a palate cleanser to the end of the world as we know it, I caught Kung Fu Panda the other day. Damn, it’s a great film, way better than any of the Shreks or the Cars or the Monster Houses we’ve been plagued with recently. It may well be my favouritest CGI cartoon ever, although that may change as soon as this Friday, what with Wall-E’s arrival on these shores. And impressive CGI aside, I’d actually have rather seen the entire film done in the stylised animation form that the initial dream sequence was made with. The best thing about the movie, and I know it’s been said by many people before but it bears repeating, is that it’s a genuinely great action film, as well as being hilarious. Seriously, the bad guy’s escape from prison was absolutely riveting. Speaking of which- Lovejoy as the voice of an evil snow leopard? Who saw that one coming?

     Feed

I forgot to mention that I’ve been away a bit for the last week, so I’ll start with a quick apology for the time it took to reply to recent comments. Also, a big wavey hello to the new readers who’ve joined us recently.

In local news, Caerffili’s been invaded by carniverous ghost slugs. I’m not kidding. I’ve not spotted one myself, but with all the damp weather I’ve had enough trouble keeping the ordinary variety out of the courgettes. That noise you may be hearing is the last vestiges of any coolness I once possessed draining away.

Speaking of things that make me sound like an old man, the band suffered a catastrophic amplifier failure last week (unrepairable crispy fried circuits all the way) which led to a desperate hunt for a decent rig for under two hundred quid. No fucking chance. After nosing around various music shops, it turns out that guitar equipment has doubled in price in the five years since I bought the last one. It was expensive enough starting out ten years ago as it was. I don’t know how the hell we can expect The Kids to make their own way in this crazy world, the way things are now.

The Mist has finally been released in Britain, and it is awesome. One of the best pure supernatural monster horror films I’ve seen in a long time, even if it’s such a grueling experience that I now need to see Wall-E more than I’ve ever needed to see anything in my life. At least the latter’s out on Friday, and I’m pretty excited about it. Chalk it up to the robot fixation.

As for the King adaptation, it really was a fantastic piece of work even if the CGI was a little ropey in places. I can see why it was intended to be released in black and white (and gray- something that would have played to the film’s central theme), and I wonder if they shouldn’t have gone completely retro and done the monsters in stop motion. Loads of in-jokes for the writer’s fans (I particularly liked the use, of all things, of the word “smooshed”, which once appeared in an essay King wrote about his childhood in one of his short story collections. Yeah, I can’t believe I spotted that one either), including what I assume is a gentle pitch by Frank Darabont to direct a Gunslinger film. Of course, this one wasn’t much of a hit, so he’s probably hoping.

I’ve got no idea why it took so long to release in Britain, but (SPOILERS, even though the rest of the world has had a year to see it. If you do reside this side of the Pond and you like your horror films I suggest you go and see it as soon as possible because it won’t be out for long if it hasn’t stopped showing already) it’s an incredibly bleak, dark film, dealing with extremes of human morality that only horror as a genre can really tackle. There’s the obvious, of course. Religious nutters are a staple of King’s work and he outdid himself with the woman in this one (I’ve never, ever heard an audience in the cinema applaud someone’s death before, but they sure as fuck did when she got dispatched in this one), but humanity’s turn to questionable superstition in times of horrific crisis is pretty obvious. More interesting is the way every single character- even the “good guy” characters- suffer from a narrowness of vision and perspective, never more shocking than at the end of this film. Seriously, I cannot believe Darabont managed to get the ending past the studio.

King’s work, a lot of the time, deals with matters of hope. He can be a pretty optimistic writer, all things considered and when he wants to be. Shawshank’s the most famous example, but even darker works like IT address the possibility of redemption. Not here, though. Here, he’s quite clear that we can all be small minded bastards that may not deserve to survive. The grace note of the film is the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reappearance of the woman who is refused everyone’s help at the very beginning. She survives, the subtext being that a simple act of selflessness, of human perspective, may have changed the characters’ fates.

It’s a brilliant, engrossing film, and it deserved to do more business.

     Feed