Spontaneous Combustion - Six For The Price Of One.

Ladies, gentlemen, misfits, creeps and weirdos, here at the Circus of the Freaky I, the Freak, plan on telling you as many freaky and disturbing TRUE stories as possible. So, along with all the strange news, I'll also be going back into time and posting about past events. So to kick start this off, here's a true story about Spontaneous Combustion! It's getting hot in here.

Everyone knows what Spontaneous Combustion is (and I'm not talking about Tobe Hooper's terrible film of that name) but no one knows for sure why and how these incredibly disturbing events happen, leaving everyone hot under the collar. Here's one particular story that provides a lot of unanswered questions for, unlike the majority of SC cases, this one involved more than one person at once. In fact, six people went up in flames! Eeek.

Smokin'!

It all took place towards the end of December, 1976, Lagos, when a family of seven were involved in this tragic and spooky event. Out of the seven members, six of them burst into flames for no apparent reason, leaving only one person (the mother) to live with the horror that she witnessed for the rest of her life. The majority of Human Spontaneous Combustion reports center upon one person, but this case confused the whole phenomenon even further. An on the spot investigation after the event found six ex-humans burnt to cinders. Firstly, the heat required to burn a single person is very...hot. In fact a human cremation requires the body to be burnt several times and then the bones and all that remains to be crushed into a powder. So for a fire to engulf and reduce a living human to dust in just a matter of seconds would require an unbelievable (some may say unholy) amount of heat. Let alone to burn six individuals! And like most SHC cases the objects in this room appeared to be untouched, even the highly flammable cotton mattress which laid untouched next to the reduced bodies.

Upon further investigation, no traces of foul play including the ignition of petrol, etc was found.

Very creepy.

Traaaaains!

There's no denying that we are living in a zombie boom. Over the past few years zombies have taken over everywhere. From low-budget films to big blockbusters, to books, comics, music, clothes, TV, insurance, cakes, Lego, EVERYTHING! So it's not a real surprise that the flesh-eating undead have also popped up in advertisements. Adverts! The latest one comes straight from Virgin Trains and it is quite simply awesome.

Rob Zombie's Bigfoot - A Graphic Graphic Novel

Bigfoot - The big hairy guy that's supposedly one with nature; a kind and caring creature. Often represented as being a shy and timid beast with only one problem: that's just too damn boring! No one cares about love-giving, tree-hugging yetis with flowers in their hair. Nope. Everyone prefers the flesh-eating, brain-smashing, rib-cracking, human-killing, psychotic-son-of-a-hairy-bitch beast from Hell that lurks in the darkness of the woods ready to rip any and every man, woman and child apart and feast on their steaming innards. 

Or maybe that's just me. 

Well if, like me, you prefer you Sasqatch scary then this extremely graphic graphic novel is right up your alley! Created by Rob Zombie (a man best known for his admiration of horror films, his music and his own films - less said about his Halloween remakes the better), Steve Niles (a king among graphic novels with work including 30 Days Of Night, Criminal Macabre and 28 Days Later: The Aftermath) and Richard Corben (the creator of many of the awesome Meatloaf CD artwork and Heavy Metal) this comic is a must for fans of Bigfoot horror.

The plot of these (a total of four comics)  is very straight forward and doesn't provide the Sasquatch Horror 'genre' with too much that is new; except of course a crazy body count and quite a bit of sex, typical of a RZ film. It tells the story of a psycho Bigfoot that bursts into a cabin and kill a young boys mother and father in front of his eyes. A few years later the boy (now a man!) is back in the town...and so is Bigfoot who's mighty pissed off.  Like most yeti films, there's a large portion of 'Bigfoot? There's no such thing!" dialogue followed by the characters realising they're wrong and going off to kick some hairy ass. Only difference is, as previously mentioned, is the body count. Often characters are brought into the story merely to stack up the pile of bodies. They're literally in it for just afew frames before they're killed off!

Blog Recommendation

If you enjoy horror films, science-fiction cinema, exploitation and B-Movies in general, then be sure to check out the below two sites for some absolutely cracking reviews!


Pedro Of The Dead

and


The B-Movie Motel

Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!

Planet of the Apes (1968). Who hasn't heard of this? A film so amazing it quickly spawned one of sci-fi cinema's greatest franchises, a TV-series, tones of rip-offs and cash-ins (even the spanish Blind Dead zombie series attempted to cash in), merchandise and even a (crappy in comparison) remake. This is a true cinematic masterpiece which I urge all to see. This film blows other so called sci-fi classics such as  Star Wars (1977) clean out of this solar system.

What's it about?


Well the plot is pretty straight forward and I'm sure most of you will know it. A group of astronauts are traveling to a nearby planet however something causes the ship to suffer from a few problems. Next thing they know they've landed on a strange planet, 2,000 years into the future. Upon further investigation of their new home they come across, what appears to be a primitive and mute version of man. Their plans of ruling these humans are quickly thwarted as several man-sized gorillas riding horses capture them. Only one survives, George Taylor (Charlton Heston)  only to find that this planet is run by man-sized apes. Will he escape? Will he survive? Or will he be experimented on by the monkeys and kept in a cage for the rest of his life?



Review

Often described as being one of the greatest science fiction films ever to be made, it's easy not to see why, and I for one fully agree with this statement. Every part of this film (besides the occasional problems with the ape make-up) is perfect. Each of the characters, from Taylor to the apes, are fully dimensional (and fantastically acted by an incredible cast) - there are no stock characters here with little to offer than cliched stereotypes. The music by Jerry Goldsmith is just incredible as is the Gaudi inspired sets of the ape landscape. The plot and the pace of the story is another breathtaking part of this film. With moments as slow and provoking as the best scenes in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey of the same year and other moments full of action and suspense.

Two Horror Related Adverts

Adverts. Commericals. Whatever you like to call them one thing's for certain, most of them annoy the hell out of people. From their stupid 'Go compare' shouty-man to the cute-but-so-annoying-you-want-to-kick speaking animals. So here are two horror themed adverts. If only there were more of these.

First up we have an advert staring the golemn himself, Frankenstein's monster, Adam.



And next up, yet another annoying Windows advertisement. But this time, with the infamous scene from Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters! It's amazing how this film's reputation has changed over the years...

The body of a Chupacabra?

In North Texas the sightings of possible Chupacabra's have, it seems, rocketed within the past few days. Over the course of three days two unidentified animals have been killed which have a strong resemblance to the (supposedly) mythical creature that sucks the blood of goats  and (according to myth) can eat human babies, not to mention the countless sightings and encounters of these creatures in these region of Texas. Animal control officers are even confused as to what this creature could be. Is it the real thing? Have we just found undeniable prove that these creatures do exist? Or is it a rather ugly looking dog?

Here's a link to an article on this news.

Zombie Car Crash!

Here's a rather strange news story for you. It's pretty simple really. A group of five where driving towards a party when they were involved in a horrendous accident that resulted in the car tipping over. Witnesses to the crash described in horror how after what they thought was a fatal crash, several zombies began to claw and crawl their way out of the wreckage causing a lot of panic. It turned out that the 'zombies' were infact the group of five, very much alive, but dressed in zombie costumes for the fancy dress party!

The Metro

Download a piece of obscure zombie history.

We all, probably, know the history of the cinematic zombie. Starting with voodoo zombies and then progressing to the flesh-eating kind with Romero's masterpiece Night of the Living Dead. But few people know about The Peoria Plague.  This was an early 1970s radio broadcast that was very similar to the 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds by Orson Welles. It sounds like a normal radio broadcast, but things start to become increasingly scary as chaos begins to destroy the country. The undead have risen and this is what a radio broadcast would probably sound like.

Amazing stuff which should be known about among Zombie Aficiandos. So check it out!

Here's the link to download it, since it's quite hard to track down.

Enjoy :)

Dead Rising 2 'Outbreak' Edition

Maybe to make up for the fact that this game has been put back a few months, Capcom revealed today that a new special edition of this will be available to purchase for the PS3 and XBOX 360. The set includes the new game (obviously), a 12" zombie figure complete with accessories such as a Lego mask, and free downloadable content!

WIN The Beast In Space!

This week over at the Cult Labs forum I'm giving away the incredibly sleazy and incredibly cheesy sci-fi sexploitation film, The Beast in Space! Head on over the forum to be in a chance with winning.

“ [IT] WILL IMPALE YOUR BRAIN WITH ITS SLEAZY DEMENTIA.” – DVD VERDICT

 Science fiction was never so wild and depraved as it is in The Beast In Space, a sex mad intergalactic saga starring Sirpa Lane (Love Goddess Of The Cannibals) who’d already shocked the world when she starred in Walerian Borowczyk’s notorious art-house porno classic, ‘The Beast’. She now returns in this mind-blowing, completely unofficial, outer space set “sequel” as a woman forced to submit to the carnal lusts of an horrific space monster in a movie that gives trash cinema lovers exactly what they want in a riot of space disco insanity, sci-fi oddness and twisted eroticism.



Mind scrambling aliens, eye scorching special effects and the co-star presence of porn diva Marina Hedman (Satan’s Baby Doll) combine to make The Beast In Space one of the strangest trips you’ll ever take.



This exclusive Shameless Rebuild presentation of The Beast In Space features the bonus attraction of extra footage, added by the film’s producers and previously only available in a hardcore, XXX porn version release.

The Beast In Space (cert. 18) will be released on DVD (£15.99) by Shameless Screen Entertainment on 26th July 2010. Special Features include: Shameless Rebuild with extra footage, previously only available in XXX version; alternate scenes comparisons; reversible sleeve featuring original artwork;  optional English subtitles; theatrical trailer; Shameless trailers.