Goth Girls' Detective Club

Temporal paradoxes confuse me. Back to the Future confuses me. I’m ok with the first one, but after that I’m out of my depth, or bored, I may have just got bored. Now, I hasten to add, my mama didn’t raise no fool, I’m a smart broad, even though I do do a mighty good impression of an abject idiot quite a lot of the time, but, nonetheless, I have to confess, when this time travel malarkey kicks off I have to concentrate so hard I’m in danger of popping and eyeball or having something prolapse. That said, I did thoroughly enjoy Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes , which I originally watched purely because I was ridiculously over excited after watching Predator , knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, and it was on next. Timecrimes begins with Hector (Karra Elejalde),Hector appears to be blissfully happy with his lovely wife Clara (Candela Fernández) and to compound this happiness the couple have seemingly just moved to a beautiful rambling house in the middle of the lush Spanish countryside an...

Well, not Christmas exactly, but my weekend and that’s as near as damn it, and I’m confident that Billy Loves Stu could save Christmas if it was necessary. I had a pretty crappy weekend. Predominately the reason for this is that my darling mother had to have much beloved dog put to sleep, which is sad enough, but my poor ma is heartbroken, completely and inconsolably devastated and this has made me very sad too. Also my husband made me watch Hot Tub Time Machine. Fortunately, king of all things awesome. Pax Romano of Billy Loves Stu, had thoughtfully produced The First Ever Billy Loves Stu Meme for Horror Bloggers and reading the many responses to this made me very happy and giggly and cheered me up immensely thus saving my weekend, until my husband made me watch 2012 last night. God damn it, John Cusack, what did I ever do to you? So, in attempt to get my week rocking and to obliterate the awfulness of, well, Hot Tub Time Machine mainly, I thought I’d have a go myself. 1: In...

This is a little bit of a divergence from my usual offerings, but please indulge me. I’m a huge fan of the super camp 60s TV series Batman. I also have a big girl crush on Julie Newmar. So I was more than a little surprised when found out that there was a Batman reunion TV movie that I had never heard of or seen and took pains to rectify that oversight immediately. Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt is a low budget typically camp catch up with the stars we loved from yesteryear, and it probably the sweetest and also saddest thing I’ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. I spent the entire runtime simultaneously mesmerised and melancholic. The general conceit of the movie sees Adam West and Burt Ward playing stylised and exaggerated versions of themselves in a nostalgically functional plot that necessitates them to recall past events from their Batman careers. We catch up Adam West living in a fancy Los Angeles mansion bedecked with Batman memorabilia, i...

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Joe Monster from From Beyond Depraved . In fact, I love Joe so much I’d like to adopt him and make him my boy ward much like Bruce Wayne did with Dick Grayson. We could fight crime together and, as I’m fond of a snazzy costume and am liable to insist upon it, we’d doubtless look pretty fabulous doing it, there would probably be sequins. Joe works tirelessly over at his awesome blog to spread the word about all the great things about horror and share his joyful enthusiasm with us the unwashed masses (the unwashed bit could be just me; it’s been a long week). He really is one of the most knowledgeable, witty and kind writers out there so please do pay a visit to my boy Howlin’ Joe and send him some good clean cyber love. In recognition of his sterling efforts Joe was recently, and justly, awarded the Versatile Blogger award and he has been kind enough to pass that award on to me, sweetly ignoring the fact that my versatility extends mainly as far as...

I’m a fan of a beard. Please see exhibit A : I married this beard In film the presence of a beard is often synonymous with evil and we often see pointy bearded, moustache twirling villains on our screens. However, in reality, many of the great and good historical figures have merrily sported facial fuzz: the baby Jeebers, Santa and Brian Blessed, for example, so I think that proves what a silly generalisation that is and we can rest assured that beards come in many colours, shapes and sizes, and varying degrees of evil. I have decided to celebrate my appreciation of the beard in all its glorious forms by sporadically (as and when I remember one and/or when I can be bothered) presenting the beards I have known and loved in some manner of written and/or pictorial format. Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) Jaws (1975) I was born just a little bit after Jaws was released which makes me and Jaws more or less the same age, though I like to talk about our 35ths less than Jaws, but re...

Last week I watched The Slaughter . It was procured for 150 of Her Majesty’s pennies. I watched the first forty minutes of The Slaughter before I realised I’d seen it before. Really this probably isn’t a good reflection on The Slaughter , but then I used to drink a lot so maybe it’s just not a good reflection on me. Bless its straight to video heart though; it leaps into the hackneyed action with unabashed gusto and before the credits were even over I’d seen so many boobies it was like I imagine Christmas must be at the Playboy Mansion. The boobies were not only prolific but also diverse, they were a spectacular range of size and shape and artificiality, so top marks for the boobies. In a personal aside, when my brother was in his early teens and suffered from that common teenage affliction of ‘selective hearing’ a sure fire way to get his attention was to say ‘boobies’. My brother is 24 now. This still works. Anyway, The Slaughter begins with a wholly anthropologically accurate...