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Upon hearing Matthew Greenberg is hired to do a remake of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary I remembered my first experience of the movie.  It was a truly terrifying movie because of the setting and peripheral events making it a true 3D experience.

I watched Pet Sematary for the first time as a young child at the family’s old farmhouse in Connecticut.  It is one of those scary type of old houses built in the 1800’s.  Complete with secret passageways and even a mud floor basement. It is probably haunted if not the feel would leave one believing every old creek and bump in the night was due to paranormal activity.

It was a late warm summer night when we started the movie.  The window was open to let in a cooling breeze.  The Lights turned off so the only eerie glow in the room was cast from the television.  Strange shadows danced about the room as it flickered.

Just as the movie reaches it’s climatic moment it happened.  Something big moved past the window.  We know it was big because its footsteps thumped in the soft grass.  With each impact the animal huffed.  The kind of huff that is a mix of an exhale and a growl, low, rumbling.

In an instance the gun rack was emptied.  Light flashed about the room from both the overhead lights and the flashlights that each armed occupant now carried. It amazes me how fast all of us moved  both to secure the area and to search for whatever it was outside.

The oddest thing, we never found what it was that moved past the window.  No animal left lurking in the yard and no tracks left in the soft ground outside of the window.

(via /Film)

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Xavier Institute for Higher Learning Meet Your British Counterpart.  A Ribble Valley businessman put in a bid to buy the Gwrych Castle in Abergele, North Wales.

His intentions is to open up a school or retreat for the psychically gifted.

“It has always been one of my ambitions to open a psychic retreat somewhere and this would work on several fronts.

It will be somewhere where psychics can go to meet like-minded people, to further their interests and develop their psychic senses.” He said.

(via Lancashire Telegraph)

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Snake eats alligator move over for we have found a fossilized proof of a snake eating a dinosaur.  At first I thought it was like something out of a 50’s B movie.

Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your perspective it turns out that the snake was 11.5 foot long and the dinosaur was a new born 1.6 foot long.

Read the full fascinating tale over at National Geographic

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Fourth time’s a charm as an Ipswich man’s hen lays an egg six times heavier then a regular one. Past are the day’s of cracking multiple eggs to fix a nice omelet for breakfast.

(via Mail Online)

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This is just funny.  It’s a video from the Jance Hall Show where he and Felicia Day face off in a Lightsaber fight.  Watch the video below.

I’m impressed with the quality of the choreography for the Lightsaber fight, well done!

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A Review of Paranormal Activity

Paranormal Activity is the first good horror movie I have watched in a long time.  They succeed in playing off the audiences fears, crawling into our head and best of all they do it without belittling their work with shock gimmicks.  It was also very entertaining to watch.  I give this movie a 9 out of ten and would recommend watching it.

The Story

After some strange things happen to Katie, her boyfriend Micah sets up a video camera to capture the events.  The paranormal occurrences increase in frequency and significance, leaving Katie more and more distraught — and determined to put an end to the terror.

Immaculate Reality

They did such a great job establishing the setting and creating a feel of a real home video.  I actually felt uncomfortable like I was some kind of peeping Tom watching some ones private life.  The immaculate reality was maintained throughout the entire movie.

The Parts In-between

I was so impressed with the great discipline demonstrated in this film.  The choices taken by the director, producers and writers deserves a big kudos.  There is so much said without words.  More of the movie and story happens in the moments between the dialogue and action.  This reminded me of the line in Almost Famous when he is talking about what makes music so great are the moments left out and missed beats.

The Fear of the Unknown

Paranormal Activity draws it’s strength by playing off the fear of the unknown, the greatest of all the fears.  I was so impressed with what they chose to show the audience and what parts were left just off screen.

This gave them greater control over the budget so that they didn’t have to waste money on special effects that would not do as much justice as the audience’s imagination could.

Laying the Eggs of Terror in Your Mind

By subtly using our imagination to fill in those parts the movie is able to crawl into our minds and gets us thinking.

The experience of the movie is enhanced by how they would suggest and nudge the audience in the direction desired.  Showing us the more believable moments of paranormal interaction and our minds fill in the rest based on each participant’s desires.  The skeptic would not see more then they would believe and the believer would fill in all kinds of spectacle that would occur off screen.

The Conversation Generated

The amount of conversation that was generated from watching the movie is also another testament to it’s quality.  We actually found ourselves pausing the movie about 30 min in and shared personal stories of encounters with the unexplained and our own warning tales about using Ouija boards.

For me the theatrical ending was brilliant.  I’m glad they used it instead of the other although both are included on the DVD.

Favorite Parts

• The foot prints
• Standing beside the bed
• picture in the attic
• Ouija board
• Ending

Though not an owner Paranormal Activity is a must see.

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Andrew Watters took a picture of what appears to be a ghostly apparition.  The picture is of the old St Bathans post office near Alexandra.

Could this picture be proof of the afterlife, a more natural phenomenon like clouds or is it faked?

For most they will believe what they want.  For me the value in a picture like this one is it’s inspirational value.  To dare to dream that ghosts walk amongst us.  That phenomenon beyond our current science knowledge occurs all around us. The questions it raises is what makes it worth sharing.

(via The Southland Times)

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Breakthrough pill to help people live to 100

The pill is based on immitating [sic] the effects of three super-genes that make people 20 times more likely to live to be 100 and 80 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s or other similar diseases. The new pill is expected to be ready for testing within three years.

This would be awesome!  Not only give a nice extension on ones lifespan but to reduce the chances of Alzheimer’s or other similar diseases.

Sounds too good to be true?

Possibly, The quest for the philosopher’s stone goes back for millennium and shows up in speculative fiction in many forms.  My first reaction to this is to sigh and think ‘ah, another snake oil salesman.’  What is fun with this pill concept is that they gave it some credibility by tying it to the longevity effects of genes.

There is ongoing research into human longevity.  Most of the successful results are tied to tweaking the subjects (mostly worms) genes.  A while back I watched a fascinating news piece on the longevity research and it’s results.  They were successful in extending even doubling the life span but there was a catch.  It doubled all of the lifespan which means twice as long as an infant, puberty twice as long, and the declining years taking twice as long.  Would this extension and payoff for the extension of life really be any increase in the quality of life?

The ethical questions raised were fascinating.  If one could live longer what quality of life would they get for it?

Would you be willing to take a pill to extend your life to 100 years?  Would you still be willing to take a pill if it had to be taken on a regular basis?

(via Unexplained Mysteries)

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Cerbalus Aravensis, a giant spider was discovered in Israel.  Reigning in at 5.5 inches to 6 inches across it is huge.

To put it into context and to share in my own skin crawling realization on just how big that is I want you to remember the Alien movies.  Remember those nasty face-huggers that would crawl around and leap out at it’s unsuspecting victim, wrapping it’s self around their face.

The size of this spider is around the size of the face-huggers from the Alien movies.  That is huge

It’s a nocturnal hunter using trap doors to get it’s prey.

(via Cryptomundo)

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I really enjoyed watching Sanctuary episode 208 Next Tuesday.  In it they were hunting a Vampire Squid off the Gulf of Mexico.  In the setting it’s a rare, docile abnormal and I wondered what is the real Vampire Squid like?

Unlike in the show the real Vampire Squid or Vampyroteuthis infernalisgets to a maximum of one foot in total length.  Big enough to battle a scorpion but not big enough to pull a person under the water.

They also differ by having a webbing connecting the eight arms so it could not do battle with those individual arms.  It does have two additional filaments that are like a squid’s tentacles which do reach well beyond their arms.

What I found particularly fascinating about the Vampire Squid are all of the light-producing organs covering it.  It has great control over the individual organs that they can produce a disorienting light show with them, varying the intensity and size.  If only I could have one in my fish tank, turn off the lights, sit back and enjoy the show.

I wished Sanctuary would have spent more on their version of the Vampire Squid.  What makes them an abnormal beyond their intelligence?  Part of me hoped they would be more of a humanoid octopus hybrid.

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