Still have the plague...

...and that, and other musings, have put me in the mind of diseases. But not the boring, mundane ones we have here. We're talking about fantasy worlds, or imaginary (zombie!*) kinds of diseases.

I used to read a lot more sci-fi/fantasy than I do now, but from my fuzzy recollection J don't seem to recall much in the way of STDs - and I do have a little bit of a problem believing in a world without them. Even in Star Trek, where they have uber-technology to cure everything (nanobots!), it still sometimes goes horribly pear-shaped (rogue nanobots!).

So in a magical fantasy world, if there were STDs, would they be cured magically? Or, more importantly, would you have MTDs (magically transmitted diseases)?



* Ultimate Warrior had Vampires vs Zombies for their season finale, and it sucked so very very much. Not that the show is usually much good, but, man, this episode was so bad.

Meme meme meme meme meme....

clare_dragonfly gave me these five questions - if you want your own questions, respond to this post with 'Moo with Me' (I did not come up with that, it came with the meme...)

( My Questions and Answers )

Paranormal Activity: a movie review

Hold on to your butts, this is going to be a bumpy review. And not a 'ooooh, scary bump in the night!' review, but the repeated bump of my head hitting the desk and me wailing 'why, why, why did I just lose an hour and a half of my life to that tripe?!'

Back story is SOMEONE told me I had to watch this movie because it was scary. Everyone knows I love horror movies, though I would rarely call anything I watch scary. Yes, sometimes I am startled by loud noises or flashes, but that's not the same thing as edge-of-your-seat shaking. I... can't remember a movie ever making me feel that way. It's a movie.

(Before you ask, I watched this movie alone in my bedroom with the lights out for greatest 'effect', though that really just worked against me in the 'fighting to stay awake through this crap' way.)

Please remember that apparently, when I was 4, my mother let the neighbor kids take me to the theater to see Godzilla, and I quite enjoyed myself. So.

I understand this was a very low-budget movie. Handycam filming at its best! Bad audio, crappy lighting, the works. And completely unbelievable if you're supposed to think this isn't a staged and set movie. The splices in mid-sentence, where the actors obviously screwed up their lines and reset, the scene where she's 'working' on jewelry under a table lamp that's not on, and the fact that I'm not sure she even knew how to knit were kinda give-aways. Plus, their 'fights' had all the heat and passion of teenagers in a high school play. Scratch that. LESS believability than teenagers in a high school play. The dialogue was awkward and badly delivered. I... would worry on a lot of levels about people who spoke like that 'normally'.

The plot was so sad and sparse (some minor haunting since she was a kid, one mysterious fire, some random chick who had the same things happen they found on the internet) it was laughable. She's terrified by a few groans in the night, though she'd been through this cycle how many times? He's a jerk about 'this is my house and I'm going to take care of it!' and yelling at her. It's annoying. By the end, you really are rooting for the demon just to shut them up.

The 'haunting' amounted to very little above what you'd expect to see at a fake seance, with knocks and groans and things moving on their 'own'. Not even much in the way of creepy shadows (I kept expecting to see something dark dart in the hallway, but that would have taken a little bit of special effects).

The very last thirty seconds of the film are the only thing that showed any promise (the theatrical ending, not the really lackluster alternate ending on the DVD), but sadly, I had been lulled into a near-comatose state by the rest of the movie to even muster the energy to be startled. All I thought at that moment was 'please let this be the end... YES! IT IS!'

I think the majority of the regular audience critics have this one - Rotten Tomatoes critics give it an 82%, but the audience weighs in at a dismal 56%. I would give it more of a 2%, and that's only because I got it free from the library. So really, that 2% goes to the library for keeping me from wasting any of my money. (I do so love the library)

And I'm not all about gore and special effects. I hated the Saw series just as much (um, also fell asleep trying to get through those). Some of the most truly terrifying, creepy things I've ever watched have been old Twilight Zone and Outer Limits episodes. But they put thought into those. There's an underlying, coherent story. There's a grain of truth that, no matter how fantastic the story is, will resonate with you (I'm still unnerved by the episode about the man being held prisoner by they aliens who, thinking he was giving his fellow captor one last good memory to hold on to, dooms the rest of humanity because... well, you really have to watch it).

Sadly, the reviews say the second one (which I also have on DVD from the library) is even SLOWER paced, and I'm not sure I can subject myself to that. I'd rather watch Mega Piranha for a fourth time, or stick my head in a blender. Either way.