oselle: (Default)
oselle ([personal profile] oselle) wrote2010-11-04 09:24 pm

Bela gets a real job

I checked out The Vampire Diaries tonight and much to my surprise, Lauren Cohan (formerly SPN's Bela) was a guest star. It took me a half hour before I realized it was her because her look was so different...but more because she actually had something to do. I really disliked Bela's character on SPN but I never felt anything but pity for Ms. Cohan, who had one of the most useless, thankless roles I've ever seen on television. So, good on the CW for hiring her and actually giving her, y'know...a part.

I've also seen both Mr. and Mrs. Carrigan (the pagan deities from "A Very Supernatural Christmas") turning up on the CW this past week. I just spotted Mr. Carrigan on Nikita (playing a "Senator Kerrigan" LOL) and last week, Mrs. Carrigan was once again a party to human sacrifice on Smallville. Regarding the latter, WHY oh WHY is the idea of hicktowns sacrificing unwitting travelers for the sake of their crops so popular in genre television? I mean really...their crops? It's 2010 and the world turns on credit default swaps and hedge funds. How much mileage can a small town in the middle of nowhere get out of a good apple harvest? Have all of these writers just seen The Wicker Man too many times?

Speaking of which, if you ever get a chance to watch The Wicker Man (the original, not the piece-of-shit remake with Nicholas Cage), don't pass it up. And wear diapers, because it's shit-your-pants scary.

[identity profile] zatnikatel.livejournal.com 2010-11-05 01:44 am (UTC)(link)
The Wicker Man! It's a freaking masterpiece, totally chilling. I haven't seen the remake: why bother when the original is so terrifying? I love British horror movies from that era: my folks are huge movie buffs and have a massive collection of films, including a lot of that Gothic/folksy horror that came out of GB in the 60s and 70s: lots of Hammer horror, like The Witchfinder General, Quatermass and the Pit, She… it's such a shame there is a whole generation who haven't seen them! ;-)

[identity profile] oselle.livejournal.com 2010-11-05 01:54 am (UTC)(link)
I think movies like The Wicker Man are so scary because they didn't have good SFX back then so they had to rely on things like atmosphere and suspense instead of gross-out. One of the creepiest parts of that movie is when the police inspector is running around town trying to find that little girl while everyone else has already gone off to the May Day celebration...spooky as hell. And then man, they sure don't skimp on the ending.

[identity profile] twirlycurls.livejournal.com 2010-11-05 04:03 am (UTC)(link)
I loved the original version of The Wicker Man -- that's easily one of my top-10 favorite horror-ish movies.

[identity profile] oselle.livejournal.com 2010-11-05 11:36 pm (UTC)(link)
I caught it on the Independent Film Channel very late at night a while ago. I thought it would be some corny '70s horror flick but it really hooked me.
ext_6866: (Boo.)

[identity profile] sistermagpie.livejournal.com 2010-11-05 01:54 pm (UTC)(link)
I just leant somebody in my office The Wicker Man. Though sadly, he doesn't much like the whole 70s nudity horror thing. But even he recognized how bad the remake was in comparison--apparently the poor man had actually seen the remake of no point.

But yeah, I do love the "for the crops" thing. Like...what crops? Somebody should come up with some twist on that idea by watching that movie Food, Inc. Like it's more likely that the big corporations would force the farmers to murder people for them just like they keep insisting on crueller practices with animals.

[identity profile] oselle.livejournal.com 2010-11-05 11:35 pm (UTC)(link)
I found the nudity in Wicker Man used to supremely creepy effect -- like when all the naked virgins were "jumping the fire" trying to conceive a god's child? Even that crazy dance that Britt Ekland did was so spooky when taken with the music and what she was trying to do to the poor bastard next door. The best part, though, was that you didn't really know what was going to happen up until the very end. You're sort of lulled into thinking that maybe these were just nice, naked pagans peacefully dancing around the ol' Maypole and then...whammo.

In the excellent X-Files take on the hicktown human sacrifice thing ("Die Hand Die Verletzt"), they at least had the sacrifices happening not to unwitting travelers but to townspeople who had lost their satanic faith and not kept up the old rituals. Once the devil had meted out some punishment, Mulder and Scully were free to go unscathed. I seem to recall that SPN's version of the story focused on some unspecified prosperity (i.e., that town had survived while all the towns around had economically died), but there were definitely apples involved.

[identity profile] dodger-sister.livejournal.com 2010-11-08 06:49 am (UTC)(link)
Rate in order of how much you shit your pants...

The Evil Dead
Wicker Man
Paranormal Activity

Go. ;)

[identity profile] oselle.livejournal.com 2010-11-10 01:18 am (UTC)(link)
1. Paranormal Activity: the tension made me so sick to my stomach that the "shit your pants" thing was almost literal.

2. The Evil Dead: no explanation necessary. You were there.

3. The Wicker Man: made me thorougly reconsider any idea of ever visiting Scotland.

[identity profile] dodger-sister.livejournal.com 2010-11-10 04:34 am (UTC)(link)
See, this just makes me want to watch Paranormal Activity even more. But you have convinced my sister that it will somehow come alive at night through the TV and kill her in her sleep...so that's probably never gonna happen. ;)

Though I still can't figure out what about The Evil Dead was so scary, except for the fact that we were in, at the time, a cabin in the middle of the woods.

You know when the last time was that I held my breath during a horror flick? Oh right...that was yesterday during the most recent episode of The Walking Dead! You are watching The Walking Dead, right? Right?

[identity profile] oselle.livejournal.com 2010-11-11 01:52 am (UTC)(link)
I think you can handle Paranormal Activity although be prepared for higher electric bills. I had to leave the light on in the living room every night for at least a week after watching it.

The Evil Dead is NOT scary while you're watching it. Every one of the seven times we watched it we sat there and made fun of it. It only becomes scary later, when the woods are so dark...and the house is so quiet...and suddenly you hear something rustle by outside, under the window...

I am, of course, watching The Walking Dead. It is terrifying AND grotesque as it bloody well should be.