Review – Tales of the Dead (DVD)

Image courtesy Reality Entertainment

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Title: Tales of the Dead!
Genre: Horror, Fantasy
Distribution: Reality Entertainment

Just in time for Halloween. Tales of the Dead is a vivid introduction to the realm of horror as envisioned by the independent UK filmmaker, Kemal Yildirim.

Not being a huge horror fan, myself, it took me a while to get past my biases to crack open the DVD case, let alone watch this film.

On first try I just reviewed snippets to prepare myself for what I’d be in for. This allowed me to get my proverbial shields up and watch the entire film, later that evening.

And yes, this definitely is a movie to be watched after dark. You might want to take it to a Halloween party. But then again, maybe not!

Tales of the Dead is not for the weak of heart. It’s pretty shocking, contains brief nudity, and isn’t shy of presenting graphic violence.

Without serving up a spoiler, the basic story is about five friends who gather for a private Halloween party. This convincing part of the film is replete with drinking, smoking and profane language, as many of the younger set no doubt carry on in these days of global recession and the war on terror.

Then the film quickly shifts to the surreal as the revelers begin to tell ghost stories and grim tales of urban horror. Four of the five party guests bring short horror videos to share with their friends, which is an effective way to lead into and unify the different shorts.

The first video, “Less is More” calls to mind several classic horror themes, aptly synthesized to make it difficult to trace a particular influence to a given scene. A bit of Edgar Allen Poe here, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle there.

The plot involves a severely troubled woman who desires a mysterious surgery that she believes will cure all of her problems. Her decent husband tries to understand but can only take so much as her obsession mounts. A social worker suggests she try a psychiatrist, but a coincidental encounter in the night takes her entirely somewhere else.

The result? Well, let’s just say that this kind of film making is certainly not for everyone.

The second short, “Wolf Cry” is surprisingly clever at places, even if you’re not into horror, per se. Here we see into a young man’s incredibly delusional, amusing and horrifying imagination. This is probably the smartest segment of the DVD, sociologically speaking. Some scenes turn out to be ingeniously fresh vignettes about systemic hypocrisy and, as the classical sociologist Max Weber once put it, the Protestant work ethic.

“Penance,” the third short, also plays on several existing horror themes. In the DVD’s special features, the director explains that he wants to pay homage to some of the great directors within the genre while, at the same time, making his own cinematic statement.

And this he does.

In this short, a boozy British police inspector is called in to investigate a disturbing homicide. The inspector apparently has links with the killer, and at times we wonder if he, himself, is the maniac.

The fourth short, “Missing” plays on the fabled Cromwell’s Curse, which in urban legend is linked to the historical Northamptonshire witch trials of 1612. This portion contains some haunting street and good library scenes, but I found it the least engaging of the lot. We hear lots of “Oh my God… did you see that?” but don’t really witness anything for ourselves.

Oh yes, it’s all fiction and archetypal fun. I forgot.

But if that’s so, a few actors running through the night in white sheets might have helped here.

The final tale is told by the lone woman at the Halloween party. Like her guy friends, she’s trendy and hip. But unlike her groovy pals, she doesn’t bring a video to the party. Her story is said to be real…

Special features for Tales of the Dead include “The Making of Wolf Cry” and “The Making of Penance.” These peeks behind the scenes show how an indie horror film is actually made. They reveal the hard work, camaraderie and technology involved in independent film making—ironically humanizing our experience of an otherwise really “out there” film.

–MC

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Review – Real Ghosts U.K., DVD 1: The Mermaid Inn

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Title: Real Ghosts UK: Ghosts Aren’t Real? – Think Again!
Genre: Documentary, Paranormal
Production Company: Reality Entertainment

Real Ghosts U.K. is a 3 DVD set bound to astonish ghost hunters and anyone wanting to believe that there’s more to life than meets the eye.

Disc 1, The Mermaid Inn, takes us straight into the heart of a fascinating, centuries old inn, located in Southeast England. Here, an unabashed medium, Patrick McNamara, claims to see a wide variety of otherworldly presences.

Among the dead we vicariously meet are a hard-nosed tobacco importer, a comely yet melancholic woman, a sheep dealer, a baby stuck in time, a dog, and many other “incidental spirits,” as McNamara puts it.

But what makes The Mermaid Inn truly remarkable is the fact that not just McNamara, but several employees at the inn and the innkeeper, herself, seem fully convinced that the beguiling old place is haunted. Accordingly, they relate several ghost stories and other strange happenings that have been reported by startled guests.

Even if we don’t believe in the stories, just seeing the interior of this enchanting old inn is good enough, and might bring about that mysterious “old time feeling,” as Hank Williams Sr. once described it.

As with most paranormal accounts, skeptics will likely sneer as fans cheer. This seems particularly so with the rest of Disc 1, where McNamara leads a so-called physical circle recorded under infrared.

What’s a physical circle?

For the uninitiated, it’s a group of people, seated in a circle, interested in becoming attuned with supposed spiritual presences and ethereal vibrations. Some call it a magic circle, an idea roundly denounced in the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917 but treated more academically in the 2003 version.

I found this part of the disc slightly less compelling than the opening segment. The main shortcoming here, as I see it, is that we’re told the cameras can’t pick up the spooks and other anomalies which participants in the circle seem to confront. So we’ve got to go on blind faith.

For me, however, seeing is believing.

Still, ardent spiritualists and the merely curious will enjoy watching participants seeming to encounter all sorts of odd things at the inn. In addition, visible orbs as well as audible voices and creaks are apparently captured on camera.

So who knows…

To add to the mystery, the proprietor, herself, is part of the physical circle, along with her employees.

It’s doubtful that publicizing ghost stories and eerie apparitions would be particularly good for her business. After all, this is no hole in the wall but a highly respected inn, well-ranked by its diverse clientele.

Indeed, it seems that the individuals in this film really do believe what they’re saying, and it’s not just a clever hoax.

The Mermaid Inn also spells out some core concepts in parapsychology, such as photoplasm and etheric body. And it forwards a theory to explain the documented psi phenomenon of objects seeming to move by themselves.

Too bad we can’t witness most of what the participants in the physical circle seem to see. Instead, we’re compelled to give the benefit of the doubt.

But that’s okay.

Believe it or not, The Mermaid Inn is literally oozing with old world charm and numinous power. And that, alone, makes it well worth watching.

–MC

Discs 2 and 3 are reviewed here!

To add to the mystery, the proprietor, herself, is part of the physical circle, along with her employees.

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Review – Real Ghosts U.K., DVDs 2 & 3: Scotland’s Haunted Bunker & The Guy Fawkes Inn

Image courtesy Reality Entertainment

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Title: Real Ghosts UK: Ghosts Aren’t Real? – Think Again!
Genre: Documentary, Paranormal
Production Company: Reality Entertainment

Real Ghosts U.K. is a 3 DVD set bound to astonish ghost hunters and anyone wanting to believe that there’s more to life than meets the eye.

Because there’s a lot of material here, I reviewed these discs over the span of a few weeks. Disc 1, The Mermaid Inn, is fully reviewed here.

Disc 2, Scotland’s Haunted Bunker, takes us deep underground into an actual Scottish bunker, built to preserve government leaders in case of a massive military attack.

This is interesting footage. We see old radio equipment and other electronic gear, designed, I guess, to enable the rulers to broadcast an SOS.

Soon we learn that the place is known to be haunted. So two paranormal researchers lead us through some supernatural accounts and, as in disc 1, the alleged medium Patrick McNamara heads a physical circle.

What’s a physical circle?

For the uninitiated, it’s a group of people, seated in a circle, interested in becoming attuned with supposed spiritual presences and ethereal vibrations. Some call it a magic circle, an idea roundly denounced in the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917 but treated more academically in the 2003 version.

Much like in disc 1, I found this part of the program slightly less compelling than the opening segment. The main shortcoming here, as I see it, is that the cameras can’t pick up the spirits and other anomalies which participants in the circle seem to confront. So we’ve got to go on blind faith.

For me, however, seeing is believing.

Still, ardent spiritualists and the merely curious will enjoy watching participants seeming to encounter all sorts of odd things.

Disc 3, The Guy Fawkes Inn, begins by showing us the enchanting Guy Fawkes Inn, along with a smattering of related history and provocative questions. Patrick McNamara returns again, this time telling us about a panoply of spirits and spiritual presences that are said to haunt the inn.

This DVD tends to emphasize, even more than the previous two, the idea that spiritual presences of the dead can draw energy away from the living.

McNamara also suggests that a physically hot kitchen can feel spiritually chilly, and that he smells spiritual odors – some pleasant, some sickening – that the ordinary senses can’t pick up.

Employees are guided through another physical circle, and all sorts of fantastic things seem to happen–to include, no less, the appearance of Michael Jackson’s face. As with the first two discs, however, we can’t really see most of the strange claims. So many do sound a bit strange.

But we should keep an open mind. I suspect that if I panned this part of the DVD I’d probably start seeing something weird just like the stuff described in this video. It’s easy to close off the mind and accept a materialistic paradigm. It takes a bit more insight and, perhaps, imagination to consider that there just might be more to this world than green eggs and ham.

Green eggs and ham? Whaaaa?

Just checking to make sure you’re reading carefully…

But seriously, we all know about radio waves going through the air, quite invisibly. So it’s not such a huge stretch to suppose that some gifted individuals can inwardly “see” other types of energy and presence that most of us cannot. The ability may be genetic, possibly spiritual or, perhaps, some combination.

I have no problem with that. And furthermore, the employees at the Guy Fawkes Inn give a final wrap up of the experiment, seeming to verify their experiences, even though we can’t witness them via the infrared camera.

Altogether, the three discs of Real Ghosts UK should please ghost hunters and those wanting more coverage of all things paranormal. Although we don’t literally see most of the alleged supernatural phenomena, this 3 DVD set opens a forum for discussion, which is always better than close-minded nay saying.

–MC

Disc 1 is reviewed here!

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Updating our look

I’ll be testing out a new appearance here, hopefully to be used at earthpages.org and earthpages.ca.

If you see strange things happening, especially in the banner section at top, you’ll know why.

This is temporary and your patience is appreciated.

–MC

Review – BIGFOOT IS REAL!: Sasquatch to the Abominable Snowman (2 DVD)

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Title: BIGFOOT IS REAL!: Sasquatch to the Abominable Snowman
Genre: Documentary, Ghosts, Paranormal, Occult
Production Company: Reality Entertainment

Despite the title, Bigfoot is Real!: Sasquatch to the Abominable Snowman isn’t an overzealous account in favor of the well-known Bigfoot and Sasquatch legends. Instead, it’s a sober investigation, on several levels, of one of North America’s most puzzling enigmas.

The DVD is actually a two-disc set.† The first disc contains three parts. Part One, “Bigfooting in Oklahoma,” features Esther Schritter, a level-headed health care provider whose hobby is to hunt through forests with stick in hand, in search of the elusive Bigfoot.

Esther has her reasons for this unusual pastime. As a kid she recalls seeing an ugly, hairy, humanoid face out the window. Since then, she’s had more strange encounters – sometimes alone, sometimes with others – that she believes point to the reality of Bigfoot.

This film also provides a first hand look at a bona fide Bigfoot conference in Honobia, Oklahoma. In addition, we get a glimpse at a possible sasquatch hair sample, and are shown a considerable amount of evidence from other amateur researchers.

Much attention is given to the idea that mankind’s industrial development is destroying Bigfoot’s habitat, making it more difficult for the creature to survive. It may even become extinct, Schritter and others fear.

Some might smirk at this point, saying it’s folly to worry about an endangered species whose existence has never been verified.

Well, yes. But maybe not.

Part Three of the first disc replies to that and other criticisms, such as the fact that Esther’s own possible Bigfoot footage isn’t terribly convincing. But we’re jumping ahead…

Part Two, “Tale of the Honey Island Swamp Monster” sounds like something straight out of a 1950s B-movie. And it should, because in this section Jay Michael thoroughly debunks numerous plaster casts of an alleged Swamp Monster footprint. In fact, Michaels tracks down an actual 1970s-style shoe glued to a phony man-made foot, obviously used by a hoaxer to create fake imprints on the ground.

A few decades ago, The Honey Island Swamp Monster was highlighted by Leonard Nimory (Star Trek’s Mr. Spock) in the critically acclaimed TV documentary series, In Search Of.

So when filmmaker Jay Michael visited the area, 40 miles NE of Oklahoma, to shoot some background footage and investigate the story, he found that local residents knew all about the Swamp Monster tale, along with the fake shoe and phony footprints.

From this revelation, Michael puts forward the axiom, “trust but verify,” which could be restated as “give the benefit of the doubt but check things out yourself.”

Part Three of Disc One, “Swamp Apes,” is more speculative and theoretical than Parts One and Two, which focus more on interviews and evidence.

Here Jay Michael asks some tough questions about how an unusual ape might have arrived in North America. Theories abound here, from apes being brought to the shores of America by European colonists and even pirates, to the notion that they traveled independently along the Bering Strait land bridge.

The idea that Swamp Apes were transported to The New World by faraway sailors is attractive to some, considering that the mysterious creatures allegedly have been sighted from Oklahoma to the Florida Everglades, but with absolutely no fossil record to speak of.

On this point Michael speculates that the Phoenicians might have been taught how to domesticate primates by the legendary Atlanteans. And they could have landed on the North American coast, with ships containing apes, far earlier than the Vikings or Christopher Columbus.

As to why we have no conclusive photos of this species, Michael suggests that Bigfoot differs from all other animals: This ape is smarter and knows full well that its most lethal enemy is mankind. So it makes sense, he says, that Bigfoot would lay low and keep out of gunshot range. Michael adds, however, that Bigfoot’s curious and wants to know his foe. This would explain the fleeting, distant images that we do see from time to time.

A creative theory, to be sure. While it may sound far fetched, the film notes that some Bigfoot stalkers believe the best way to preserve this mostly unseen but apparently endangered species is to provide a specimen—living or dead.

At first glance, Bigfoot is Real! might just seem like more paranormal hype or crazed credulity. But beyond this DVD’s perhaps unfortunate title, intelligent viewers should soon recognize several lively and provocative instances of what Edward de Bono called “lateral thinking.”

–MC

† Disc Two of this set “The Wildman of Kentucky: The Mystery of Panther Rock” was independently reviewed several months ago » Go to the review.

Review – The Wildman of Kentucky: The Mystery of Panther Rock (DVD)

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

Title: The Wildman of Kentucky, the Mystery of Panther Rock
Genre: Bigfoot, Supernatural, History
Production Company: Reality Entertainment

Is Bigfoot real?

This is the question that The Wildman of Kentucky† asks, featuring on-site interviews and an investigative team’s foray into the night woods in search of the unknown.

Some might think Bigfoot (aka Sasquatch) is just a North American myth but, as the song goes, it ‘aint necessarily so.

Cultures around the world have reported sightings, recorded hairy giants in folklore and shared stories about attacks and abductions at remote camps. Some paranormal investigators even link the Bigfoot phenomenon with UFOs, Atlantis, and who knows what.

So where does this leave us? Is Bigfoot just a lot of Big Bunk? Or is there something more to the story?

It’s easy to dismiss Bigfoot as a product of wishful thinking, overactive imagination or hallucination. I might have done so a few decades ago.

But let me tell my own true story.

While driving from Toronto to Ottawa I saw a man hitchhiking on the side of the highway. I rarely if ever pick up hitchhikers but this one seemed different so I stopped to give him a ride.

The hitchhiker and I started talking. I was a Ph.D. candidate in Religious Studies and he, for all intents and purposes, was a homeless wayfarer.

After a few minutes of conversation, I quickly realized that he was an intelligent, God-fearing man.

Our talk drifted to matters of religion and spirituality and I asked why he left society for the life of a traveling man. At that point he told me he’d seen a Sasquatch in a forest.

What really “did it” for him, he said, was seeing the large beast running straight through the trees–not around but right through them.

Bigfoot skeptics note that no actual specimen, living or dead, has ever been produced, despite a $100,000 reward offered by a Canadian publishing house in 1973.

The paranormal researchers John and Anne Spencer admit that some reported cases may be true but believe most are an “American myth” (The Encyclopedia of the World’s Greatest Unsolved Mysteries, Headline, 1995: 55).

The Spencers say that if Bigfoot were as widespread as many claim, we’d no longer have a mystery but a well documented phenomenon with lots of hard evidence.

That might sound good to hardheaded debunkers who just can’t envision the world beyond today’s acceptable paradigms. But is the universe really that simple?

If the story I heard from the hitchhiker was as genuine as it seemed, it’s possible Bigfoot-like beings might live somewhere between this and another world. An alternate reality?

This might sound strange. But considering we’re smack dab in the middle of a great mystery called life, it would be arrogant to dismiss all Bigfoot accounts without first considering alternatives.

And that’ s exactly what The Wildman does–consider alternatives without getting hooked on any particular one.

–MC

† This film now comes in a Two DVD set: BIGFOOT IS REAL!: Sasquatch to the Abominable Snowman.

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Review – Sunshine (DVD)

This review also appears at Earthpages.org

The other day I happened to notice Sunshine in the video section of the local library. I’d never heard of this film but being something of a sci-fi buff, was willing to give it a try.

Glad I did.

Blending the genres of action thriller and psychodrama, Sunshine boasts an international cast with recognizable influences from several sci-fi classics, such as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris, and Douglas Trumbull’s Silent Running, to name a few.

Without this being a spoiler, let’s just say that a group of astronauts are sent on a follow-up mission in a spaceship, Icarus II, to save the Earth from its dying sun. The first Icarus mission failed. And the second team’s job is to seed the failing sun – our sun – with an atomic bomb that hopefully will jump start a new star within it.

Not being a physicist, I wondered about the math behind this. But that didn’t really matter. What makes this film well worth watching is its solid cast, whose characters are a bit different from the usual sci-fi template, but not too different.

In addition, Sunshine’s special effects are certainly up to scratch. No jerky starfields, overdone spacecraft shadows, or obvious cutouts here.

The paradoxical closeness and distance of Sunshine to so many other sci-fi films and TV shows makes it a bit elusive—but in a good way. Maybe dreamlike would be a better word. The sets and action scenes are familiar, but not quite like anything else we’ve seen.

All in all, an engaging, enchanting film. Possibly not a timeless classic. But sci-fi fans should definitely take a look at this unique mix of action and introspection.

–MC

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civilized nature II

civilized nature II, originally uploaded by earthpages.

Had a great bike ride the other day in the Kawarthas…

Review – The Occult: The Truth Behind The Word (DVD)

This review also appears at earthpages.org

Title: The Occult: The Truth Behind The Word
Genre: Documentary, Occult, Magic, Paranormal
Written by: Brian Allan
Director: James Earnshaw
Production Company: Reality Entertainment

“You have the world at your fingertips”
–Spirit, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus

Back in my twenties a friend once joked, with a touch of sarcasm, that I was into “The Occult.”

This was the mid-1980s. I was studying the Chinese I Ching and Tai Chi, and can’t remember which one of those disciplines seemed “weird” enough for my friend to imply that I was an occultist.

It’s now 2010. The I Ching is a part of pop culture, and the health benefits of Tai Chi are enjoyed around the world by people of all ages.

Funny how times change. And social attitudes along with them.

O. H. Krill’s The Occult: The Truth Behind The Word does a good job at illustrating this. People can be afraid and overly judgmental about things they don’t understand. Or worse, downright brutish.

The Occult makes this abundantly clear by recalling past Catholic abuses regarding the persecution of so-called witches. The film correctly notes that the perverse witch hunter’s manual, the Malleus Mallificarum (Latin: “The Hammer of Witches”) was approved by the University of Cologne’s Faculty of Theology, and received full support from a Papal Bull: Summis desiderantes affectibus (Latin for: “Desiring with supreme ardor”) in 1484.

Ouch. Talk about big mistakes.

The film, however, doesn’t dwell on the downside of our checkered human history. Instead, it also optimistically heralds the resurfacing of the apparently hidden, interior knowledge of the occult.

Along these lines, The Occult suggests that the ancient belief in animism, where individual spirits are said to inhabit all phenomena, has been reaffirmed by the discoveries of quantum physics.

To demystify the idea of the occult, people like Philip Gardiner, Sheena McDonagh and Doc T use everyday words like “intuition,” “hunch” or “gut feeling.”

As well, it looks at the related areas of shamanism, magic, gnosticism, alchemy, psychotropic plants, the Gaia Hypothesis and Jungian psychology, to name a few. And interviews with contemporary figures like Philip Gardiner, Sheena McDonagh and Doc P make this film comprehensive and up-to-date.

Gardiner, for example, says that magic, especially the dark side of magic, is really about manipulating people. The manipulator may be a small time snake oil salesman, an advertising exec, a politician or a religious leader. This sociological aspect of the film gives it a down-to-earth realism often lacking in other accounts of magic and the occult.

The film also gives a penetrating account of the life and works of the notorious magician, Aleister Crowley. And it examines Crowley’s links with another controversial figure, L. Ron Hubbard. Other leading names in the history of mysticism and demonology also come up—for example, John Dee and King James I.

My only misgiving about this film is its tendency to polarize organizational Christian worship and mysticism. Catholicism, for instance, has always recognized meditation, contemplation and profound mystical experiences. And, in contrast to the idea that the Catholic Church is all about misogyny (also hinted at in the film), many pious women have been venerated and canonized by the Holy See. One only has to think of St. Teresa of Ávila, St. Hildegard of Bingen, St. Faustina Kowalska, and many others.

So the argument that Catholicism is largely about ignoring and oppressing women might be a bit off the mark.

Granted, it did take the Catholic Church centuries to apologize for the persecution of so-called witches. But it eventually did acknowledge this distressing aspect of its past (better late than never, one could say). Moreover, not all of the condemned who came under its jurisdiction were women. As the film points out, men, children, and even animals were also victims.

Now, I’m not maintaining that a mere apology suddenly makes all human foibles disappear. And we should accept nothing less than zero tolerance for any scapegoating of the weak and vulnerable in society. Scapegoating is an age old practice that continues today under the sometimes ugly but seemingly pretty masks of social power.

But things have changed in the digital age. Citizen journalism is on the rise and public accountability is becoming increasingly important. As a result, information, to include compromising information, is not so easily concealed as in the pre-internet age.

What fun! Perhaps the occultists are finally about to have their day in the sun again. After all, insights about corruption are more readily supported by the wealth of knowledge (and news) at our fingertips in the 21st century.

The Occult seems to encourage this welcome development. For too long callous individuals have hidden in backrooms, boardrooms, and, of course, cheap motel rooms where all sorts of bad choices can be made.

Today, however, insight and empiricism are coming together. Hopefully this meeting of mind and method will create a new kind of culture where goodness, not old world arrogance, will be the order of the day.

–MC

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me at trent university 2010

me at trent university 2010, originally uploaded by Michael Clark.

i tried to give this an “old newspaper” look