RSS Feed

Tag Archives: Brain Eaters

Have You Missed Me? Or the Monsters?

Six days! It has been six days since I made a blog post! What the hell, me? This is a monstrous situation!

Artist’s depiction of my troubles getting the better of me.

How’s that for a melodramatic caption? I actually do not feel that I am being eaten alive by giant insects. I do not imagine they would find me to be an appetizing treat, but of course I don’t know these things. I am really just trolling my Media Library for monster pictures so I can post something, anything.

“Could I be of help?”

No, I am not ready for the Grim Reaper! But it was a pretty cool decoration at the Halloween party we went to at the Herkimer VFW last October.

They would surely starve to death around here!

I do like to share this poster when I am feeling brain dead. Will my brain ever revive? Will I ever go back to making good blog posts and posting on a regular basis? Will I ever upgrade and start posting new pictures? For the answers to these and other burning questions (and a few luke-warm ones as well), stay tuned to Mohawk Valley Girl.

Advertisement

I Had a Monstrous Time Trying to Write

I knew earlier today I would make a blog post about Not Writing. I knew it when I got to work early, took out my notebook, put pen to paper, and… no words. I don’t even know how to describe it. I usually say Writer’s Blank, as opposed to Writer’s Block, but it was more than a blank mind. It was a complete lack of mental function. Cue unkind remarks about how my mental facultlies’ functioning is sporadic at best.

At least he managed more than a blank page.

I threw in a picture of Nosferatu so I could combine a whiny I Can’t Write Post with a Monstrous Monday Post. Regular readers know how much I love my monsters.

It was quite the disappointment this morning when my brain refused to work. I suppose some people would have advised me to write anyways, that I was just being lazy or timorous, there’s no such thing as Writer’s Block! They could have a point. I did give up rather quickly.

Maybe my brain had been eaten!

The thing is, sometimes I want to give myself a break. Sometimes I am completely disinclined to sit in front of a blank page feeling huge resistance. Sometimes I just want to open my puzzle book and work on a cryptogram.

Um, I did not pour myself a glass of wine at work.

As I type this (on my Tablet, one letter at a time with the stylus, just to give you the picture), I am suddenly not inclined to let myself off the hook. For heaven’s sake, I say to myself, couldn’t I have written SOMETHING? Perhaps not the project at hand, but another project, a blog post, a letter, anything! Did I even try?

That’s it! We’ll blame it on Monday!

This self-recrimination is useless. I can’t jump into a time machine, return to this morning and try again, a little harder this time, to write. All I can do is work on the next time I put pen to paper.

In the meantime, I am over 300 words and have included a couple monsters. Let’s call it a blog post. Thank you for tuning in.

After All, Alliteration Isn’t Everything

Stand by for a really lame post.

I pause, as no words come to mind.

Yes, it is Lame Post Friday, although not a true Friday since I work tomorrow. But whatever the day of the week, my mind is blank. What the hell, me? Will this be yet another post concerning my inability to make a decent blog post? SAY IT AIN’T SO!!! Quick, throw in a picture.

Is that the secret formula for a good blog post?

I downloaded the above picture of Nosferatu last week, thinking I could use it for a Monstrous Monday Post. Then I didn’t have a Monstrous Monday. What kind of a Monday did I have? I forget.

The week has been a kind of a blur. I seem to remember thinking this might be the week I get my act together. It should surprise no one that that did not happen. Any suggestions on how I might proceed in the future?

THAT’S the problem! Somebody ate my brain!

I thought adding another picture might help. Could this be a Monstrous Friday Post? That’s not alliterative. Of course, neither is Lame Post Friday. Now I am getting silly. Oh wait, I started out that way. Happy Friday, everyone!

It’s All About Monsters

I feel it is very appropriate to have Monstrous Monday the day after Halloween. But can I find any good monsters to post? We shall see.

It creeps, and leaps…

I often feel like a blob on a Monday. Oh who am I kidding? I have blob-like tendencies most days. I was once accused of being a mud puddle waiting to evaporate. I was unable to frame a convincing argument. But we’re not talking about me.

I know: they might starve to death.

I don’t know how I got that picture here. I was looking for Nosferatu. Sometimes I am dangerous with a stylus in my hand.

Now I can’t seem to get my Media Library to show up. Once again, I’m sure it is Operator Error. Most of my life can be summed up in those two words, but, once again, we are not talking about me.

There’s my guy!

Now I found one of Nosferatu! Then I hit something that made the space where I am typing these words all narrow. I managed to fix that and feel I should quit while I’m ahead. Happy Monday, everyone!

Movies on my Mind

I last posted four days ago. This is not normal behavior for Mohawk Valley Girl. And about all I can manage right now is a Wrist to Forehead Sunday Post. Or perhaps a Sunday Cinema Post. Hmmm…

Today has been a very relaxed day, even for a Sunday. After I took my post-run shower, I put on neither earrings nor a bra (do NOT say TMI) (you know who you are). I wore pajama bottoms and a Halloween t-shirt. We watched movies while I crocheted a crochet in Halloween colors (black, orange and purple).

My Sunday guy.

We started out with Dracula on Svengoolie, DVR’d recently. I was telling Steven some of the differences between the movie and the book, although it is not a bad adaptation for Hollywood.

We had a hard time deciding on a second feature but finally settled on Murder on the Orient Express, the newer, Kenneth Branaugh version, which Steven recently acquired on DVD.

A star-studded Agatha Christie romp!

I prefer the Albert Finney version, but the new one is entertaining, and I am happy to have it in our collection. After that, I wanted something cheesey and suggested Monster from Green Hell, which I picked up on video at a rummage sale some time ago.

It’s scary!

It actually took a lot of time to get to the monster, and there were some dull parts between attacks. You’ll have that with these old flicks. When the movie ended, Steven had stepped out of the room, so I sneaked in another cheesey rummage sale video, The Brain Eaters.

I don’t remember that chick in the movie.

I wrote about this movie some time ago in a post titled “Rest Your Brain With Brain Eaters.” Steven came up with that title. I need to start writing about cheese movies again. Um, and everything else I used to blog about.

Movie-ing into 2019

Steven and I are once again spending a quiet New Year’s Eve at home.  Sometimes I long to go to a fancy party, dress to the nines, rub elbows with other fancy people, dance, sip champagne and have a balloon drop at midnight.  Then I find myself sitting on my couch in my sweats, crocheting and watching movies, and I say, “This is the bomb!”  Still, a blog post must be written, so while the current movie plays, I shall type a few words in hopes of entertaining somebody besides myself (of course it will entertain me, but I am notoriously un-fussy in that department).

Steven was enjoying the usual Twilight Zone marathon on Sci-Fi channel, but I confess to not being a fan of that show.  I hope that statement does not lose me any readers, but I believe honesty is the best policy.  Anyways, he graciously agreed to watch movies instead and we enjoyed The Wasp Woman (1959), which I had DVR’d off TCM recently.  I loves me some Roger Corman!

Actually, in the movie she has a wasp head and a woman body.

I wrote a blog post about The Wasp Woman once.  I remembered it being fairly entertaining, and it was.  I missed some of the movie because I was cooking, so I asked that next we watch a movie we have seen, so I wouldn’t mind being in and out.  We settled on Ed Wood (1994).  Back when I liked Tim Burton movies.

One of Johnny Depp’s better roles, in my opinion.

Next we went to one of our go-to movies, House on Haunted Hill (1959), the original William Castle film with Vincent Price.  I loves me some William Castle!

It has always seemed to me that you could win a fight with a skeleton, because they don’t have any muscles. Just saying.

Next I found a video I purchased at a rummage sale some time ago, Brain Eaters (1958).  Unfortunately, Steven found that one rather boring and asked that we switch it out.  I suggested Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) with Fay Wray.  I consider that a New Year’s movie because in includes New Year’s Day 1933.

I’d scream, too!

And that brings us up to date.  I am half watching the movie while I type this.  As I am over 350 words, I shall feel free to hit Publish and go back to my crochet. Happy New Year, everybody!

 

Rest Your Brain with Brain Eaters

My favorite part about Brain Eaters (1958) was that the characters spend a lot of time driving places.  I like to see the old cars.

Spoiler Alert!  I’m going to just tell most of the plot of this movie, at least, as much as I can remember (regular readers know how little attention I pay to these things).

The movie was one of the VHS tapes I purchased recently at a rummage sale (perhaps you read my blog post about it), so its cheesy bonafides are impeccable. Steven and I selected it of the several I had bought because it had the shortest running time, just over an hour.  We wanted to watch several movies that day.

After viewing the movie, I made a note in the TV Journal that no brains were actually eaten or in fact used in the making of Brain Eaters.  I’m not sure what I expected.  Maybe a few munching sounds at least.  Nobody gets to die in agony, which I’m sure was a great disappointment to the actors involved.  It can be a great deal of fun to die in agony, I would imagine even more so on screen than on stage.  On stage you have to either get carried off or lie there and try not to let anyone see you breathe.

Be that as it may, Brain Eaters opens with a scary sort of prologue in which one guy attacks another and something gets spilled. A voice-over says something about a nightmare.  I dislike voice-over narration, although I have always narrated in my head about my own life. When I was younger, my voice was a good deal more euphonious than it really was and had that slight echo like in the movies, and I narrated in the third person. Now I use first-person and have the eventual intent of writing it down in this blog.  But enough about me.  Getting back to the movie, this scene is never explained that I could tell.  Of course there is that not paying attention thing.  Perhaps subsequent events made all clear to the more discerning viewer.  If you are one of those and you watch this movie, please clue me in.

The movie proper begins with a a classic car driving along a road surrounded by a wooded area. The guy in the car is the narrator.  He and his fiance are returning from a visit to her parents, where they set the wedding date.  They are about to let his father know.  This bit of backstory never recurs, but I mention it because it is the only real backstory any of the characters get.  Perhaps I should not have a beef with that.  After all, we tuned in to see brains get eaten, not believable characters play out human stories.  Only your really classy horror/scifi movies give you both. It’s not really fair to ding the cheesy ones for not.

I was making a note in the TV Journal, so I missed why they stopped, but when I looked up the Narrator and his Fiance were looking at some dead animals in the woods. Come on, Hollywood!  Be kind to animals! (I wrote a blog post with that title.)

Next, they find a cone-shaped space ship and the plot thickens. At least, it gets so dense I didn’t quite know what was going on (Hey! Do you suppose some of my brains got eaten somewhere along the way?  Oh, you’ve probably been supposing that for years).

A government guy is sent to check things out.  All kinds of cops are hanging around the cone, which is now surrounded by scaffolding.  A dashing scientist type is there along with his beautiful assistant.  They don’t know what’s in the cone, but they can’t damage it in any way.  Typical!  They don’t know what it is, but the first thing they try to do is break it!  Dashing Scientist even fires a gun into the opening, so they can hear it ricocheting off the sides as it apparently travels all around inside the thing.

It gets pretty dull and boring for a while when Dashing Scientist crawls into the hole and starts wriggling along an endless tunnel while everybody waits outside for him.  Things get a little more lively when they go to talk to the mayor, who just happens to be Narrator’s father.

The group converging on the Mayor includes cops, Government Guy, a few scientists (including Dashing and Beautiful Assistant), Narrator and Fiance.  Before they enter, Mayor is struggling against himself with a gun.  He picks up the gun, aims it at his head, pulls it away from his head, puts it in a drawer. It seems he is struggling with some unseen force for control of his arm.

“Is he trying to kill himself or to not kill himself?” I asked.  It was the most interesting bit of acting in the movie.

You’ve probably guessed that Mayor is having his brain eaten. These creepy bugs attach themselves to the backs of people’s necks and feed on the brain.  While making a hearty meal, the bugs can also control the person’s actions, some with greater success than others, apparently.  Really, the movie is not consistent on this point at all.

They figure out the brain-sucking thing pretty easily with a lightning fast autopsy on Mayor (oh yeah, he gets shot in a dramatic scene I didn’t tell you about) (this write-up is getting pretty long after all).  Seriously, one minute the guy’s is getting shot, two minutes later, the doctor is telling us all about it.  That is some damn good forensic science!

Of course, just because they know the problem doesn’t mean they can deal with it right away, especially since it is more widespread than they realize.  They sensibly call for help first thing (they don’t always do that in these pictures), but it does them no good when the brain eatee in the telegraph office assures them the message will be sent then sends an entirely different one.  The phone is no better when the bug-laden operator keeps telling them, “I’m sorry, that line is busy.”

And then a bunch of other stuff happens.  I know I said I was going to tell you the whole plot, but this post is over 1,000 words already.  Is anybody even still reading?  I kept watching till the end, paying my usual sporadic attention.  It isn’t a bad way to spend an hour on a lazy Sunday, if you like cheesy old sci fi flicks.  Which I do.