Found Footage- It Doesn’t Have to be Bad

So, M. Night Shyamalan has returned to theaters with a new film, The Visit, and, doubling the fun for the many who like to take the mickey out of him and his works these days, the new film falls under the much despised and ridiculed Found Footage genre. Well, I’m not going to defend M. Night or the film here; especially as I’ve yet to see the new film. However, the release of the film, outside of just starting up the usual M. Night hate on the net, has gotten some people talking about, and hating on, found footage films again.

So, while having no desire to get into M. Night talk here, I do want to talk about found footage films. See, there’s a segment of film fans, especially horror film fans, who automatically hate on anything found footage whether they’ve seen them or not. Just the fact that it’s found footage is enough for some to deem it automatically bad. But the thing is, found footage films are here to stay, and they’re not necessarily bad when the people behind the lens use a little common sense so as to not insult the viewer’s intelligence.

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Cleanup In Aisle 9: The Top 10 Gruesome Headbusting Scenes in Cinema

My friend, NC indie horror film FX artist, director, writer, and actor Bill Mulligan, has landed a gig writing for Gruesome Magazine. His first piece counts down his choices for the best (or most gruesome) scenes in cinema where people’s heads go splat in spectacular fashion.

You can check it out here.

Recommended Listening while Reading- Monster Magnet

Dragon Con 2015 is in the Books. So, How Many More Days is it Until Dragon Con 2016?

Freaking awesome.

That’s the only way to describe it. Dragon Con 2015 was just freaking awesome.

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These Are the Faces of a Wannabe American Christian Version of Sharia Law

So, I’ve been avoiding politics a lot lately when it comes to blogging. I should probably continue to do so, but the stupidity I’m seeing in some of this Davis garbage is annoying as hell. So, in reference to all the damned conservative memes I’ve seen on social media since I got home from vacation and started looking at Facebook and Twitter for more than just a few minutes two or three times in the day…

Kim Davis is not Civil Rights figure Rosa Parks. Kim Davis is the bus driver who refused to drive the bus when Rosa Parks refused to move seats.

Kim Davis is not Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King. Kim Davis is racist politician George Wallace who in defiance of desegregation laws led others to physically stand in the doorway of a school to prevent black students from entering.

At best, Kim Davis is the 2015 version of the bigoted, racist clerks who still refused to give mixed race couple marriage licenses in the wake of Loving v. Virginia. At worse, Kim Davis is a hypocritical bigot using religion as an excuse to be a bigot while helping to give both anyone truly religious and religion itself a bad name.

And This is Why I Owe My Wife a Huge Geek Debt of Awesome Proportions

I’m a huge fan of Dragon Con. Ask anyone who knows me well. They’ll tell you that I’m practically a walking, talking, breathing advert for the convention during the parts of the year that I’m not there and enjoying myself at my favorite home away from home. In the last few years, I’ve even had more than a few people call me, depending on how kindly disposed they were towards me, either the most loyal or most fanatical fan of the convention that they know of. But the weird thing (The funny thing?) about this is that if I had gotten my way about it, I would never have been a fan at all. 

A Few Geek Complaints I’d Love to See Go Away

Look guys, we’re geeks. Theoretically, that means we’re supposed to be the smart ones. But I keep seeing certain arguments brought up in discussions about our ever growing conquest of pop culture that just have a certain ‘WTF’ nature to the position behind them. It’s not even a matter of disagreeing with certain opinions here. I can disagree with some opinions while still seeing their validity to someone with a different point of view or differing tastes. No, I’m talking about the arguments/complaints/debate points that are put forward (a lot) in discussions that are just completely nonsensical in their nature.

This first one is a complaint that I’m seeing a lot with the rise of comic book movies and TV shows being both popular and successful as well as with some other adaptations as well. It’s usually offered as a reason why something (still sight unseen) will fail miserably, but the only thing that fails miserably is the thought process behind it.

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