Undiluted Memories

Evil Dead 2013

Goretastic fun

When I hear of a classic horror movie remake (and you dont get much more classic than Evil Dead right?) I usually shake my head in disgust. I mean, we've been there, experienced the shocks from the original and moved on. Even if the reboot is any good our rose tinted memories will always favour the original, but this time I must shrug off my contempt for filmakers who try to cash in on past glories and admit: Evil Dead 2013 does look pretty darned good judging by that trailer up there. Theres no boomstick toting Ash this time but still, I personally don't feel disappointment in that fact.
Okay we've all been taken in and then burned by movie trailers before but this one is different, theres a definate buzz when you watch it, it 'feels' different if that makes any sense? I dunno, I might be just another Evil Dead fanboy who grew up loving the original and is now hoping to hell this works out to be at least better than recent shovelware horror remakes. Its co producers are Sam Raimi (writer, producer, director of the originals) and Bruce Campbell (who played Ash) so it already has better odds in being a success.
Lets hope so! Evil Dead is out on April 12th and you know what? Don't be suprised if you see me in the local Apollo.

A Christmas Gift Scam

The Dail Mail's story anout people selling unwanted Christmas presents on eBay is hardly a news story. Its a fraud and some sellers have done it for years - if you check their past listings and feedback you'll see they do the same thing again and again. They try to give people the idea that it's something worth a fair amount of money but in reality it's a load of cheap rubbish bought at a Poundshop. As the description was so vague, the buyer has no grounds to complain as they took the risk. If they really wanted to sell the stuff, don't you think they'd open it? Especially if they genuinely thought it was of value.

Speed Of Superman

I have been thinking about these 4 hour flights from UK to Australia. Usually takes 21 hours. Well London to LAX (Los Angeles) is 11 hours, while London to Houston is 10 hours. Does this mean we could be in California or Texas in about half an hour? That would truly be a revolutionary step forward in travel, and one could argue even bigger than a certain Neil Armstrongs stroll on the moon. A truly bite sized world which would change a whole heap of things from work to visiting family/friends in distand lands.
Be great for sporting events too! You could be anywhere in the world by early afternoon, hell you could even have dinner at home before setting off! And be back for supper. The more I think about it, the more exciting it sounds. Super quick travel is the logical next step because it needs to keep up with our almost immediate communications. This is not the age of the snail, it is the age of speed and bouncing across the globe like a pinball with barely time to catch a breath. Everything needs to be done YESTERDAY from messaging to meeting.

Dibnah Fear, Pet

You dont get many men like Fred Dibnah these days thats as damn sure as Strongbow. A proper working man from Bolton who sadly passed away aged only 66 (from cancer) in 2004. He was the type of man who was seemingly born with gifted hands because whatever the popular steeplejack did it looked like he did with ease. (And of course being a mechanical engineer helped.)
Watch the video (above) and you can easily see that Fred was a million miles from the type of vacuous, attention hungry celebrity on todays television screens. He was down to earth, humble and could talk at length on almost any given subject. None of those things could be applied to the reality dimwits in 2012.

1979 BBC documentary Fred Dibnah: Steeplejack.
Directed by Don Haworth
1980 BAFTA Best Documentary Programme winner

Resistance: Fall Of Man

Fight them on the beaches!

The Chimera are aliens who have not come in peace. Nor are they looking to phone home. All the fanged terrors want is to invade earth and eradicate all human life. Bugger. Oh and they have deadly automatic pulse rifles and other highly advanced weaponry to aid them in their dastardly mission. Double buggery.
The first game in the series, Resistance: Fall of Man (2006) takes us back to 1951 Britain as Sgt. Nathan Hale and troops attempt to stomp Chimera ass and send them packing. Afterall humans and 9ft tall murderous aliens are never going to make it work. And thus begins a spiffing trilogy (so far*) of First Person Shooters (FPS) games for Playstation 3. Ashamed to say im late to this party and have only recently got around to buying the first two games but better late than never and on the plus side I did manage to snag both for a bargainous £2.80! (When PS3 first arrived on the scene I was busy playing third person action stuff.) Ive always had a weird relationship with FPS games in that Ive never been their biggest fan but in spite of this been hammering them since Alien Trilogy and Medal Of Honour on the original Playstation donkeys years ago. Also if you were to look at one of my game shelves and see the amount of FPS titles I have in my collection, you would think I was the biggest fan. Weirdz huh?
Im not a total Resistance virgin, I played the demos and from those I knew I would be taking the longterm fight to Chimera sooner or later in the full games because lets not mince words here: these games f**king rock! Who the hell wants to be plugging terrorists in Call Of Duty when you can be lobbing Hedgehog Grenades into the angry faces of lizard extra-terrestrials? Sign me up for some of that shit quick as you like!
In fact thats one of the things which attracts me to Resistance so much. I really like the humans v alien scenario, pitting our primitive 50s weapons against superior alien technology. In the early part of the campaign before you get your hands on the baddies stuff, gunfights often feel like you'd be better off using a peashooter or catapult against Chimera. And you know what? Its awesome! David versus Goliath but always Mankind has spirit on our side.


*Following the release of Resistance 3, Insomniac left the series with studio head Ted Price stressing that they felt Resistance had "reached its logical conclusion in terms of the story that we wanted to tell".


School sweetheart

The Death Of Popstars

Opening sentence to an artice in this mornings Mail Online:
The population of Britain will rocket to nearly 80 million by 2050 — an increase of a third — according to an authoritative new projection by the Population Reference Bureau.

Apologies in advance if I deperess you with this post but I shudder to think how miserable and miserable life will be in 2050 and happy I am that I shall be long dead. (Sure theres a chance i'll be alive, I will be 73 in 2050 but those chances are slim at best.) Some people believe the future has a magical time in store for us where enlightened beings have conqured the planets woes and that humanity will have found sobriety after thousands of years of inebriation by our barbarian forefathers. In short they believe human beings will evolve into near God~like perfection.
Oh how television (the T Monster again) have warped their poor minds for certainly there will be no futuristic utopia where cars fly and cancer is defeated. In fact there will be a much worse cancer spreading as it already is. Blame youth obssessed with celebrity, or social media turning folk into near hermits through lack of integration, blame what you will, but it was as inevitable as a rainy summer in Britain. There is only so far a world can go before reaching flatline, and someone, somewhere will invent the 'trigger' that caused it.