#^ guy who just watched lair of the white worm :)

[autisticbillpotts]

whisht lads haad yer gobs I'll tell yous all an aaful story, whisht lads haad yer gobs I'll tell yous boot tha WERM

[cadmium-free]

Funeral Parade of Roses (1969) - Watched on August 5, 2023

It spirals to its inevitable conclusion. We revisit a moment, a scene. A little more plays out, we step back or step forward. We live transfixed in a moment. Sometimes a scene mirrors another, it's all the same but with different details. There is no escaping fate, we can only be sucked closer and closer to our inevitable conclusion.

Stop Making Sense (1984) - Watched on October 5, 2023

I genuinely don’t think this needs any explanation or justification at all. I could watch it over and over and over and over and over.

Possession (1981) - Watched on October 17, 2023

It took me three sittings to get through this film and I wasn’t sure I liked it immediately after I finished it. And then it just simmered in my mind for days and weeks after until it finally clicked into place. I love the way Sam Neill moves in this. Everyone comments on the haunting way Isabelle Adjani looks directly into the camera, and yea. Yeah. Ok. Yeah. Yeah.

The Devils (1971) - Watched on June 26, 2023

I thought going into it with the full knowledge of Urbain Grandier would defang it, and perhaps this did soften the blow a bit, but it's audacious, frenzied, sensual. You get tangled up in its themes, its sensations, its torture.

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) - Watched on January 13, 2023

This set off a brief and ferocious obsession with Al Pacino. I have a strained relationship with films based on true crimes, but this slides past my qualms, perhaps just on the strength of the fact John Wojtowicz himself did write a review of it.

Bound (1996) - Watched on April 5 and August 19, 2023

The way Corky and Violet can come together with genuine trust so quickly. The way Ceaser can misunderstand Violet so fundamentally. The literal betrayal in realising who someone is.

Häxan (1922) - Watched on October 27, 2023

The 1922 equivalent of a Youtube video essay where a guy is like, "Guys, I just learned a bunch of fucked up facts about witches and witch trials. I think maybe we just execute women for being poor and mentally ill. Also aren't mental institutions a bit fucked up?" but like, a bit hornier than you would expect for the subject.

Cruising (1980) - Watched on January 17, 2023

It’s all about looking and being noticed. The camera is looking. Al Pacino is looking. The men are looking. And the ambiguity of the gaze and the plot.

Pontypool (2008) - Watched on October 4, 2023

It's a film about words. It's a film about broadcasting from a radio station and seeing nothing. Our imagination fills in the visual gaps. It's so much more horrifying to be piecing everything together from the safety of a recording booth.

The Lair of the White Worm (1988) - Watched on February 1, 2023

Hugh Grant—looking like a lesbian—who is a freaky little rich boy who believes in cryptids, Peter Capaldi—looking like a lesbian—sucking snake venom from a neck bite, an incredibly sexy snake woman with a house full of snake stuff, a giant snake puppet, surreal dream sequences, the coolest game of snakes and ladders ever made, snake dicks, weaponised bagpipe music, homoeroticism, and giant strap-ons.

Ravenous (1999) - Watched on October 19, 2023

This film is so offbeat and strange. It has the strange feel of a comedy, while being a really understandably grim depiction of cannibalism as manifestation of greed, expansionism, and colonization. I kept having these moments of shock that this was a studio movie, that studios were willing to make this film that so thoroughly deconstructs the American mythology.

Penda's Fen (1974) - Watched on July 6, 2023

The first movie in a long time that has made me feel as though I need to pick it apart like an essay, to rewatch multiple times and take notes and repeat sentences until I’ve done a thorough analysis. I've never had a film hit me in quite this way before.

[optimisticaudience]

My Top 10 Unhinged Movie Recommendations

This isn't top 10 favorite movies. This is my top 10 movies to recommend when I want to make sure that person NEVER asks me for recs again. When I want to go nuclear in my weird shit(TM) this is what I go with, in ascending order. 10. Freaks by Todd Browning

I love showing this to people. Folks are like "oh hey is this a horror movie?" and then I show it to them. It's not a horror movie, unless Normies are the horror. I love sitting in a room where people slowly realize this isn't a horror moive, but a well done domestic drama. It's just a drama where the cast doesn't look like hollywood stars. It's a god damn masterpiece about a man who is forsaking this family to find mainstream acceptance and how his family fights to save him despite everything. 10/10 Masterpiece. Some folks question whether or not it is exploitative that Todd Browning made this movie. I've made sure the guy is dead so no matter what he's not going to make money either way.

9. The very beginning and very end of Streets of Fire.

Patrick Willems was right about this. Watch the first bit and then skip to the end to get a dramatic epic of rock music, motorcycles, and Wilhem Defoe fighting in a sledgehammer duel. Beautiful movie. Then people request to see the full movie, the fools. I show the full movie because they know not what they do. Then they don't like it. I told them this at the beginning. There are no sledgehammer fights in the middle of the movie. Why watch this if it's not a musical number or hammer time?

8. The Dark Crystal's bootleg director's cut

Cowards watch movies in languages they understand. Sometimes they use subtitles to pretend they are open to new experiences. Watch a god damn movie in a fictional language that no one speaks, you plebians. No subtitles, no explanations. Just watch the movie and have a great experience seeing the puppets portray the story using body language. Expand your horizons. It wasn't made on drugs, it just was made with more courage than you or I will ever have. Get fucking weird before you die.

7. Harry Potter and the Deadly Weapons

The last one was a bootleg reconstructing a lost film. This bootleg creates a new movie. Harry Potter with GUNS. It starts with an old guy shooting out all the lights in a street, and keeps on going from there. You want to see true cinema? Watch Emma Watson shoot Neville Longbottom in the face.

6. Lo

Romance is dead. There was a romance here. But it got killed and dragged to hell. This man is trying to summon love from hell. All he summons is ham and also overly dramatic soundtrack. Most of the movie is two actors sitting in the dark being assholes to each other. They actually have amazing chemistry. The Demon, Lo, is amazing and my scrungly blorbo or whatever the fuck people say. It's also a musical.

5. The Man From Earth

This is actually just a good movie. It's like what if a movie was also a bunch of smug people's podcast. However, they all are used to being smug and podcasting as most of them are from Star Trek. Beautiful and wonderful performances about a bunch of nerds arguing about a caveman Buddhist Jesus. It's a palate cleanser for what else is in store.

4. Existenz

People like to talk about Cronenberg and how shocking Videodrome is or something like that. Thing is people don't talk about this weird shit as much. David Cronenberg is a gamer and he made the ultimate gamer movie: where the scary stuff is physical contact and metaphors for sex. Watch people graft new orfices on to shove gaming consoles into them. What if the matrix had a gun that shoots teeth? Yeah it doesn't have the gunfingerpenis from other cronengerg movies. However it does have a game controller made of asymmetrical nipples.

3. Lair of the White Worm

Scottish Snake Vampires. That's actually pretty cool and sounds great. Hugh Grant and the Doctor from Doctor Who have a bromance. Why is it on here? Because the director was too horny. Random nudity is the most tame and normal part of this movie. I am not against the human body being used in art. I also think people shouldn't be ashamed of their bodies.

Except this director. He ends the movie with Hugh Grant lifting up Peter Capaldi's kilt and Capaldi bites him. Want to make movie night uncomfortable for everyone? Show this. Porn is less horny.

2. Wizards

This movie has so many great bits. The thing is you know about the great bits because no one wants to watch the whole thing. Imagine a movie with all the issues of Lair of the White Worm, while also made by a man who is by volume 80% cocaine, 10% rivalry with R. Crumb, and 10% mommy issues. Then have Mark Hamil show up for like five minutes. Then turn it into a commentary on fascist propaganda. It's the greatest artistic achievement in making movies that will make no one happy at movie night.

Possession (uncut version)

This is the nuclear option. If i don't want people to talk to me ever again, I'll show them this movie. You want to see a film made by the most Divorced man ever? Sure let's watch this. Elon Musk wishes he was this movie, but he, like everyone who sees this film, is a coward. The fucked up film that was banned in the UK for decades tells us the truly greatest fear of men: A version of the man who is a better husband than they are, especially if it's a living pile of raw viscera that is better at satisfying their spouse in bed.

No one i've shown this movie to has talked to me afterwards. I use it like pest control folks used DDT back in the day. Ironically, the movie has the same effect on Condor eggs. One day, however, i will show this to someone and they will like it. In that case, I will have three options:

-The person will be my new best friend.

-The person will be a cinderella-glass-slipper true love fit for me.

-This person will kill me in the next 24 hours.

All three of these will be true. The person who fits this will inherit my social media accounts, and be cursed with them until they complete this cycle again with someone else.

Anyways thank you for liking and subscribing to my Ted Talk.

[all-souls-matinee]

Quick-bite reviews: Gothic (1986) dir. Ken Russell

A dramatization of the Shelleys visiting Lord Byron in Geneva; the idea for a scary story competition is here put on hold as the group is forced to weather a storm and contend with true fear.

A friend and I were recently talking about the fun of historical movies that forsake 'accuracy' for 'being batshit insane RPF fanfic,' and if nothing else this delivers on that premise. Interpersonal social drama and the horrors of sexuality are on the rise as five characters attempt to seduce each other, break down in tears, make wild accusations, and then run around an estate like it's a cartoon haunted house, fleeing from (spoilers) a tulpa they accidentally conjured during a creepypasta summoning ritual they found on livejournal in 2011 seance. While not lacking in the confidence and tone departments I do think it's uncertain of how seriously it wants to be taken. You can tell that this was a story specifically moulded around Byron and Mary Shelley and not just period piece stock characters, that Russell had opinions on them and the nuanced trajectory of their lives, but he's also a bit of a video nasties guy who can't help but make weird porn. That's all happening on top of flipping between avant-garde surrealism and a perfectly normal three-act structure, which isn't really my scene to begin with and leaves even Russell devotees with an overambitious mess. There may have been a good movie in here but, eh, just as likely not.

Buy a ticket? Watch The Lair of the White Worm instead; part of the same picture deal it’s a great horror-comedy and a much better display of Russell’s whole deal.

[forthegothicheroine]

I know I’ve read Lair of the White Worm but I’m pretty sure I remember nothing about it, even though I remember plenty about the short stories by him in the same book.

The novella is a lot of guys sitting around, remarking that certain things are unusual, and then resolving to deal with the matter after dinner. Stoker was actually a pretty good short story writer, so I'm filing this as further evidence that he just wasn't trying here. Unfortunately, it's livened up with lots of racism! And the occasional welcome batshit snake stuff.

The movie dials up the batshit snake stuff and the cursed backstory, though they sadly lose the mixed race heroine who was probably the most interesting part of the novella. (It's also the only Ken Russel movie I've liked- I had quarrels with Gothic, and we had to stop watching The Devils during the exorcism scene when my husband got too upset.)

[degrassi-fanatic]

hi !

can you do a cm shot w

“hey hey! is that blood on your clothes?”

“uh I don’t know maybe?”

“... that isn’t a question that’s supposed to be answered with another question”

Or

“Angry. I’m- .. im angry.”

Thx sm ! Have a great night !

You ask and I shall deliver! Poorly! 

Here’s a one shot with morcia.

As Morgan wanders down the hall towards Penelope’s tech lair, his whole body is buzzing with a combination of both excitement and nervousness; all of that being attributed to both the homemade card and blue velvet box in the back pocket of his jeans. In his hands, he holds two mugs; one decorated with glitter and unicorns, while the other is just plain white. 

Once he’s in front of Penelope’s door, he uses his back to push it open. He spots her standing near one of her computers as she straightens out the monitor cables, her back towards Morgan. 

“Hey Baby Girl.” he greets brightly, already walking over to Penelope. 

Morgan waits for her to turn around and press a kiss into his cheek like usual but it never happens. He isn’t even graced with an acknowledgement of his presence. 

“I brought you coffee.” he says, hoping that maybe it will be enough to get her attention, “It’s in your favourite mug.”

Once again, Penelope remains quiet. Her hands are impatiently fumbling around the cords and if she’s not careful she might even rip one or two. Morgan sets down both the mugs of coffee down, somewhere away from all of Penelope’s precious technology. He strides over to her side and gently tugs the cables out of her hands before untangling them with ease. 

He shoots a smile in her direction but Penelope is still staring at the cables, a frown on her face. 

“How was your day?” Morgan asks. 

“Alright.” she answers.

At least she’s talking to him now. That’s a start. 

Penelope twists around before stalking to the other end of the room to go and rummage through her desk organizers. Once she finds a hot pink pen with pompoms at the end of it, she rips off a sticky note and scribbles something down urgently. 

“How are you feeling?” he questions. 

The pen slows down. 

“Angry. I’m— I’m angry.” she replies honestly, “And you should know why.”

He should?

“I should?” he blurts. 

It’s apparently the wrong thing to say because right away Penelope whips around and glares at him. None of the effect of the look is lost even though she’s wearing a dress with daisies and yellow hearts.

“Well, since you don’t know, you should get out.” she sneers, “Now.”

Oh no.

“I’m not leaving.” he announces.

“Well, I’m not talking anymore.” Penelope declares as she twists around to go back to whatever she was doing. 

Letting out a deep sigh, Morgan leans against the edge of the desk he was near and folds his arms against his chest. Mentally, he sorts through recaps of what happened yesterday to figure out what he could have possibly done wrong. 

It was a normal day; Morgan drove the two of them to work, he made Penelope coffee, they shared lunch in his office, and that was that. The only thing out of the ordinary was that Morgana didn’t come home last night. He lied to Penelope and told her that he and Rossi were having a guys’ night, when in reality he needed Rossi’s approval on the ring he had bought. 

“Is it something I did?” he asks.

Although he doesn’t get any verbal response, he can see the way Penelope’s pen stops gliding on the paper and that is confirmation enough for him. 

“Did I miss something?” he probes. 

Her fingers twitch around the pen. All of her pent-up energy inside of her needs an outlet. 

“Was it important?” 

Within a second, Penelope whirls around and stalks over to him. Once she’s close enough, she jabs a finger into his chest, her nail almost stabbing through the fabric of his shirt. 

“Was it important?” she shouts, “You missed our one year anniversary yesterday! Of course it was important!”

Immediately, Morgan stands up straight.

“What?” he questions, “It was not our anniversary yesterday.”

“Yes, it was!” she insists.

What on Earth was she talking about?

“Today’s our anniversary!” Morgan shouts, matching the volume of Penelope’s voice.

The fury on Penelope’s face drains away and is replaced by confusion. She cocks her head to the side as she looks at him expectantly. 

Morgan reaches behind himself and pulls out the card he had made at Rossi’s house yesterday, ignoring the older man’s teasing the entire time. There’s a crude drawing of the two of them on the front, dotted with stars, glitter, and everything else Penelope liked. He flips it open and reveals hospital discharge papers pasted on the inside, with tiny hearts and a heartfelt message written overtop of it.

“We got together the day I was let out of the hospital, last year after that unsub shot me.” he reminds her as he points at the date neatly printed, “See? November 15.”

She yanks the card away from Morgan before bringing it up to her face to see for herself. As she mouths the words to herself, he watches her freeze up once she realizes she was the one who had gotten the date wrong. 

“Yesterday wasn’t our anniversary.” Penelope confirms. 

“No.” he says as he shakes his head. 

“And you didn’t just ditch me to go hang out with Rossi.” 

“No.” he says again as he shakes his head, “In all honesty, I went to Rossi because I needed his opinion on this.”

Anxiety worms it’s way into his chest but he stamps down the feeling while he reaches into his back pocket. He pulls out the velvet box and lets it rest in the palm of his hand.

At the sight of it, Penelope lets out a gasp as she brings her hands up to her mouth. 

“Wait, are you—”

“No! No!” he exclaims after realizing what pulling out a ring box may look like, “I’m not proposing.”

“Thank God.”

Both of them let out a sigh of relief, which then morphs into a gentle laugh as they stare at each other over the ring box. 

“It’s just a ring.” he explains, “And if it’s alright with you, I’d like to put it on you.”

Wordlessly, Penelope presents her with her left hand. Morgan flips open the box and pulls out the ring. The metal glints in the fluorescent lighting and suddenly, his hands feel too big and clumsy to be putting this ring on Penelope. 

She must see the way his hands are shaking because soon after she wraps the fingers of her free hand around his wrist. Her thumb rubbing soothing circles.

Needing no more encouragement, Morgan slides the ring down her finger. It looks both out of place and right at home between the rest of Penelope’s bright and colourful jewellry. 

Her hand slips out of his and is soon at the back of his neck. She presses their mouths together in a chaste kiss. Her glasses knocking against the bridge of his nose in a way that always makes him smile. 

“I’m sorry I got all mad.” she whispers after they pull apart. 

“It’s alright.”

[captainficspace]

Heroes and Villains- Allison’s Day

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy

Characters: The Hargreeves Sibs

A/N: Happy day 3, everyone :) I thought it would be super fun to write about the sibs as kiddos and tbh I had the best time. I hope you all enjoy 

Despite the entire having powers thing, they never got tired of playing superheroes. Maybe they should have blamed it on the training drilled into them nonstop; it was all they knew. But if it was, maybe it wasn't so bad compared to the other parts of their childhood. They all had memories of racing through the house after each other, shrieking and laughing and lost in the fantasy of being someone else.

  Allison had a secret bent towards villains. She loved the drama of it all, the scheming, the witty remarks, the dark colors and flowing costumes. While everyone fought over who got to save the day, she reveled somewhat in getting to be bad, just for a moment.

   Especially when she got to pick on her brothers, finally getting an upper hand before someone inevitably rushed in to the rescue.

  "Now here's your last chance before I drop you into the worm pit...who are you working for?" She paced the length of the room before dramatically turning on her heel and facing Five, their damsel in distress for the day. He leaned back in a chair, arms behind his back like he had been tied up.

 "Fuck you!" Five's voice cracked and Allison couldn't help giggling. In all honesty, he was the first in line to be "captured" and be oh-so unfortunately trapped in the villain's lair, avoiding Luther and Diego desperately trying to one-up each other with their rescue.

  "We have ways of making you talk." Klaus announced, flinging Allison's boa over his shoulders and fluttering the edge over Five's neck. He squealed.

"You said you would let me hide here until Luther showed up!"

 "You gotta tell me your secret identity or it's into the worm pit you go!" Klaus wriggled his fingers and Five shrunk away.

 "What my assistant said!" Allison said, “We know your weakness, and if you don’t surrender now, so will the world.”

 "Not so fast!" Diego announced, masked and all as he appeared in the doorway, "You've done evil for the last time…evildoers." Five bit back a smirk. He couldn’t say his brother wasn’t trying.

 "Oh no. I'm so scared."

"As you should be!" Ben added, emerging by his side.  Allison struck a haughty pose, head tipped back and hands on her hips

  "Whatever, I STILL have your secret code to the confetti factory so I can break into the vault and take ALL the-EEK"

  Her pose was exactly perfect for Five, who they only pretended was tied to the chair, to sneak up from behind and shove his hands up under her arms, right where he knew it tickled most.

 "You've found her weakness!" Klaus grinned, rubbing his hands together and letting out an evil laugh. He couldn’t help but sneak in a few pokes to her ribs himself.

 "You TRAITOR!" She shrieked, trying to get away from the death grip Five had on her.

"I’m the bad guy! I do what I want."

“Then do you want to help us interrogate Madame Wicked?” Diego asked.

“What do we need-“

“Interrogation!” Ben was just going to assume Diego didn’t know entirely what the word meant yet, but he was happy to go along with the plans.

Luther joined them, skidding to a halt in the doorway, dramatically late when everyone knew he was just waiting to come in at the last minute and save whoever needed it. This time, it seems that his squad had beaten him to the sweet satisfaction of justice; the threat already contained as everyone was in the process of seeing what information Allison was going to give up.

  “What’s your real name?”

“Where are you keeping the codes?”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Klaus!”

They all piled onto each other, a wriggling ball of kicking limbs and shrieks. Diego ended up pinning Allison’s arms behind her back so Five could get better leverage at her ribs. She was nearly folded in half with laughter, her long hair falling in her face. They had already forgotten about extracting information and gone straight to torture for torture’s sake.

“Try her neck.” A voice said from the doorway. Vanya watched the scene play out in front of her, a faint spark of mischief in her eyes. Allison went to protest, but all that came out were shrieks as Ben lightly tickled down the back of his sister’s neck. Her legs kicked out and nearly hit Luther in the face.

“Do you want to try?” Ben asked, “It’s fun.” Vanya shook her head, but she was smiling for once, lingering for a moment to watch before she left. It could be considered an improvement, possibly.

“I’ll get you for this!” Allison said, although to no one in particular. All of her brothers were playing an equal role at being terrible.

“Not from white-collar business prison, you’re not. Because it’s on an island. Underwater.” Luther declared.

“And it’s guarded by penguins!” Klaus added.

“And the penguins know karate.” Diego said.

Just when Allison thought she was going to lose her mind completely, Five screeched.  Everyone turned and noticed Klaus had gotten bored picking on his sister and had looked for someone else to bother instead. He rubbed his knuckles up and down Five’s ribcage, making him howl.

“I’d like to see you all try and get away with that! Especially now that I have the heir to the confetti factory fortune.”

“Stohop s-switching sides!” Five managed between giggles, trying and failing to glare him down.

“Make me! I’m eeeevil again.” He took a swing at Ben as well, who squeaked as he dodged his hand. What brought him back on track was the sound that left Allison’s lips, so different in nature from her loud, musical laugh.

“She snorted!”

“She sounds like Luther.” The others burst into giggles at Ben’s observation. She would have retaliated instantly and tickled Ben until he cried if she were able, but she was far beyond being able to do anything at that point. Her face grew hotter as more snorts found their way out. She couldn’t even get her hands out of her brothers’ grip to cover her mouth.

 “Ok! OK!” She shrieked out, kicking and fighting until they all finally stopped. Allison wanted to go back into villain-mode so badly, all aloof and dramatic. However, she had just had a full-blown snort fit and her uniform was hopelessly rumpled from wrestling with the others and her stomach hurt from laughing so much. The best she could do was manage to look pissed-off.

 “Now TALK.” Diego grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her playfully. His smile was giving him away, and everyone was now far too giggly to suspend their disbelief too highly.

 “It’s too late. I’ve passed on the information to one of your own. There’s a double-crosser among you.” Allison rubbed her hands together before pointing to Luther, the one who had suspiciously joined the “heroes” so late.

“Surprise, bitches!” Number one grabbed Diego in a headlock with one arm and launched a tickle-attack on his belly with the other, making him screech. Allison had finally started to carry about her revenge on Ben for going for her neck. Klaus, now back on the villain side, had Five by the wrist and was skittering his fingers over the palms of his hands, sending him into hysterics.  

The plotline of their game only became more and more convoluted from there, but the confetti factory heist saga was the most fun anyone had in months. Victory flipped from the heroes to the villains and back again countless times over the course of the afternoon. Everyone claimed they had found the other’s weakness, and the halls echoed with giggling and shrieking. Allison stayed “evil” the entire time either to carry out torture or receive the vengeance that maybe wasn’t so terrible after all; what was the point of being good all the time if she couldn’t at least pretend to be just a little bad?

[transmortifried]

Night 22! Ginger Snaps and Lair of the White Worm!

Date night watch for both, had a great time with the gf with these.

I went into Ginger Snaps not having seen it before and hearing very little about it, only knowing it by the reputation of "dykish horror movies" like Jennifer's Body and The Craft. Imagine my surprise when the two main characters were sisters! Imagine my further surprise when I found the reputation was very much deserved!

Good movie, the effects at the end look so very bad though. Such a shame when the regular makeup effects were pretty damn solid. Worth a watch for sure

Second half was Lair of the White Worm, on the recommendation of both my lovely gf and my cool mom.

I see why this was recommended, it's got a young Hugh Grant and a somehow young Peter Capaldi, which was surprising as he seems like the kind of guy who was just born old.

TOTALLY silly movie, nonsense plot, ridiculous characters, bad effects and questionable writing. Watch it immediately, if only to try and reckon what store stocks bagpipes, snake antivenom, live mongooses, and hand grenades.

October's here again, we're going to try and do a proper 31-day streak of horror watches this year. I ALMOST got it last year but I missed a day because I got fired.

Night 1! Double feature of Uzumaki Episode 1 and Color Out of Space

First episode of Uzumaki is pretty goddamn good. Really faithful to the art style of the original manga, and I love that they stuck with the black-and-white aesthetic. There's a couple of moments that I'm so glad I got to see fully animated, and I'm really looking forward to watching the rest.

I went into Color Out of Space with rock-bottom expectations and was pleasantly surprised! Nic Cage is in it, and for a good part of the movie he's hamming it up in this bizarre old man/Donald Trump impression which I will admit took me out of the experience a bit. He does manage to put a lid on it in the last act though, and the last act is decently intense. Some good creature effects too, really put me in mind of The Thing at points, which is high praise when I say it. Worth watching!

[atomic-taco-muffin]

The Lost Princess Chapter 32

Warnings: Same as the other chapters

Rating: SFW

You and the trio had exited the Eighth Floor world entrance and had entered the world of Atlantica. 

“Gawrsh! This looks like the bottom of the sea,” Goofy said. 

“It sure does. So how come we can breathe?” Sora said. 

“Hmm... Beats me! Maybe someone cast a spell on us?” 

“It's just like breathing air!” you said.

“But it's not air. See? Someone's swimming this way!” Donald said. Ariel appeared and swam over to the four of you, holding a trident.

“If anyone asks, you didn't see me!” she said. 

“What?” Donald asked. 

“Sorry, I don't have time to explain. Just promise you won't tell!”

“Hey, what's that sparkling thingy you got there?” Goofy asked. 

“Oh, nothing---nothing at all! Remember, you didn't see me!” She swam away leaving you and the trio confused. 

“What was that all about?” you asked. 

“Well. Looked like she was in a hurry,” Donald said. 

“She was hiding something,” Sora said.

“I wonder what it was?” You, Sora, Donald, and Goofy entered the throne room of King Triton, and met a crab named Sebastian.

“Oh, woe is me...” Sebastian said. 

“Is something wrong?” Sora asked. 

“Someone stole the king's magic trident. Atlantica is defenseless! And to top it off, Princess Ariel has disappeared! King Triton's worried sick. He won't leave his chambers.” 

“Ariel? She disappeared?” you asked. 

“Ariel's friend Flounder would know where she is, but now he's gone, too.” Sora turned to you, Donald, and Goofy.

“Wait a sec... Didn't we just see Ariel?” he asked. 

“Yep. But she didn't look real happy to see US! Hey, wasn't she carrying something when we saw her?” Goofy said.

“You don't think that was the trident?” you asked. Jiminy hopped down.

“You know, maybe it was,” he said. 

“Wak? But that means Ariel stole it!” Donald said. 

“There must be some explanation.” Sebastian was talking to himself while the five of you were talking.

“Ariel! Where did you swim off to this time? If anything happens to you... The king will think it's all my fault! He told me to keep an eye on her, and now this! What if she ran away because of something I said?! King Triton will banish me forever!” he said.

“He'll pop his shell if we tell him Ariel took the trident,” you said to the trio.

“Guess we'll have to get to the bottom of this ourselves!” Goofy said. You and the trio left the throne room. You, Sora, Donald, and Goofy found Ariel and the trident in her grotto.

“There she is!” Sora said. 

“This is all my fault. I wish I'd never taken Daddy's trident. I should've known things would turn out this way,” Ariel said to herself. 

“She DID take it!” Donald said. 

“Pipe down! Somebody's comin'!” Goofy said. 

“No need to worry, child. You did the right thing,” someone said. Suddenly, Ursula appeared in a cloud of black smoke.

“Why, I'm sure you'd do anything in the world to help your little friend. Poor Flounder has been swept away to the human world. No place for a little fish. Why, if we don't hurry, you might not have a friend to save---” she said. 

“No!” Ariel said. 

“Besides, you're not GIVING me the trident, dear---just letting me borrow it for a bit. You can save Flounder! Lend me the trident, and I'll help you!” 

“I know. But Daddy needs the trident to defend Atlantica. I need time to think.”

“Well, it's all the same to me. Just remember, your little friend is dodging fishhooks while you twiddle your fins. Well, you can come see me once you've made up your mind.” Ursula disappeared in a cloud of black smoke. 

“What am I going to do?” Ariel asked. You, Sora, Donald, and Goofy walked up to Ariel.

“Don't trust HER, that's for sure,” you said. 

“How long have you been listening?” Ariel asked. 

“Oh, long enough,” Sora said. 

“It doesn't matter. (Y/N)'s right! Don't trust that sea witch! She's up to no good. You can see it in her face!” Donald said.

“Then we all agree! The problem is, I don't have any idea where Flounder is. And she's the only one who can help,” Ariel said. 

“What about us? C'mon. Let's go talk to her. You shouldn't have to do this by yourself,” Sora said. 

“Really? You'll come with me?”

“You bet! Sora and I know how it feels to have friends in trouble. Let's get going!” you said. You, Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Ariel entered Ursula's lair. Ursula came out of the shell at the end of the room and down to the ground.

“My, so many guests! Have you made up your mind, my dear?” she said. 

“I'll do anything for Flounder. But I need proof I can trust you. You said we could save Flounder if I gave you the trident. Well, prove it!” Ariel said. 

“But of course! See?” Ursula waved her hand, and Flounder appeared in a shroud of darkness.

“Ariel!” Flounder said. 

“I knew something was fishy!” Donald said. 

“There you have it. If you want your precious Flounder back, give me the trident!” Ursula said. The trident glowed and levitated over to Ursula.

“Ha ha! Mine at last! Now I'm ruler of all the seas!” she said. 

“Let Flounder go!” Ariel said.

“But of course! I'm feeling generous.” Ursula let Flounder go and he swam over to Ariel.

“Which reminds me... You always wanted to see other worlds, didn't you? Well, dear, I know just the world to send you to! Unfortunately, this will be a one-way trip!” Ursula said. She created a strike of lightning with the trident. You and Sora was transported to a single platform. Ursula, who had grown gigantic with the power of the trident, slammed her tentacles down.

“The sea and all its denizens shall grovel before me!” she said. You and Sora fought and defeated Ursula. Everyone was back in Ursula's lair afterwards.

“Please don't be mad, Ariel. That ol' witch tricked me,” Flounder said. 

“Flounder, as long as you're safe, nothing else matters. Now all we have to do is return the trident and everything will be okay,” Ariel said.

“But what if the king finds out you're the one who took it in the first place?” you asked. 

“I'll be grounded forever...” Sebastian's voice was heard somewhere in the area.

“Ariel! Ariel! Where are you, girl? If you can hear me, please answer!” he said. 

“It's Sebastian! He came all this way just to find me,” Ariel said. 

“Yep, and when he does, you're gonna get it!” Goofy said. 

“Hey, I know! Why don't you just say the sea witch stole the trident? And you got it back all by yourself! Then there's no way you'll get in trouble!” Sora said. 

“I just had the same idea! But...I can't do that. I don't want to get in trouble, but I can't lie. Not about this. I know I haven't made the best decisions lately. It was a mistake to take the trident. But I made that mistake because I wanted to help you, Flounder. I'm proud of that. Blaming someone else would mean giving those feelings up. So, I'm going to tell the truth,” Ariel said. 

“She's right, Sora! Honesty is the best policy,” Jiminy said. 

“Hey, I was just kidding! Great, now I'M the one in hot water!” Sora said. You and the gang soon left Atlantica and entered the Eighth Floor Exit Hall. You and Sora saw Riku walking to the next floor and gasped. The two of you then ran to Riku.

“Take the hint... I told you two to go home,” Riku said. 

“Not until we rescue you 'n Naminé,” Sora said. 

“I don't remember ever asking you two to rescue me.”

“Did you forget? Kairi's there---waiting for us to come home,” you said. 

“You're the one who forgot. I told you at Kingdom Hearts when we closed the door... ‘Take care of Kairi.’” You and Sora gasped and looked down.

“Give it up. I'm not going back to the islands---for anything,” Riku said. 

“It's not just for Kairi! What about the rest?” you said. 

“You can have those losers. Already forgot 'em.”

“That's enough!” Sora said as he summoned his keyblade and you with your dagger. 

“What about you, guys? Do you actually remember what they all look like?” Riku asked.

“Of course we rememb---” Sora said. Sora looked down causing Riku to laugh.

“Don't feel bad. That's what this castle does to you---after a while. It's good. You forget all the useless stuff and remember for the first time what really matters. I remembered it. I now know the one thing that is most important to me. Protecting Naminé. Nothing else matters---not a thing,” Riku said. You and Sora looked at Riku and remembered when the three of you used to fight using wooden swords as children.

“Hey...Riku... I think I'll jog your memory,” you said. Sora readied his Keyblade while you readied your dagger. Riku snickered and raised his Soul Eater.

“Go ahead and try,” he said. You, Sora, and Riku battle. After the battle, Riku laid on foot on the ground, defeated. He used his weapon to get up.

“Hmph. Too bad, you two. You can fight me all you want, but I still won't remember a thing,” he said.

“C'mon, Riku... Let's quit fighting---let's go help Naminé,” Sora said. 

“Together---right. So like you... ...Sora, (Y/N)---you're always trying to worm your way into my heart!” He held his weapon to you and Sora in a hostile manner.

“Hold on! When did we ever do that?” you said. 

“Hmph, you forgot that, too? You two never cared. It never mattered to you!” Riku said. He ran away into the next floor.

“You won't push us away,” Sora said. You and the gang left the Exit Hall. Meanwhile, the girl was still in the white room. Axel appeared and walked over to her.

“Does it hurt, Naminé? Watching your three childhood friends fight all because of you? You have my sympathies. From the heart,” he said. Naminé picked her head up and looked angrily at Axel.

“But don't waste your time. We Nobodies can never hope to be somebodies,” Axel said. 

~~~~

You, Sora, Donald, and Goofy entered the Ninth Floor. Sora sighed and you put your head down while Donald and Goofy looked at each other, worried.

“I don't get it. Riku and I---we both want the same thing. Both of us want to help Naminé out. How come we're fighting each other? I mean, Riku and I have argued about stuff in the past, but...” Sora said. 

“I know. But he was always so kind around me. What happened to him?” you said. 

“Could be 'cause ya care what happens to each other,” Goofy said. Donald nodded in agreement.

“Hm... I really thought so, too, but...maybe Riku doesn't...” Sora said.

“You can't give up. You're friends---tied together. (Y/N), Sora, Riku, and... and... What was her name?” Donald said. Goofy thought but came up with nothing.

“Hm. It seems our memories are fading mighty fast. Sora, (Y/N), we gotta hurry. I bet Riku will come around if you just talk to him,” Jiminy said. 

“You're right. We three were never apart. Me, Sora, 'n Riku... ...and Naminé,” you said. You and Sora held up the next card at the Ninth Floor world entrance, and entered to the next world.

To be continued...

[derl30]

ALTERED STATES REVIEW TIME!

OK, this tumblr is, today, a vehicle for me to review ALTERED STATES. And you (the one person who stumbled on this review two-hundred years from n- oh who am I kidding, when the aliens from A.I. who show up to thaw out Haley Joel Osment and the teddy bear who was the real hero of that movie find this) should be very excited about this. Because this movie is insane. And highly entertaining.

Yes, the movie poster looks like ass. If I told you this was a movie where William Hurt (not the William Hurt from that awful 90's Lost in Space remake, or the one who slept through an entire performance as Duke Leto in the Syfy miniseries of Dune. This is before the body snatchers got him) took ayahuasca and got in a isolation tank and it blew his mind so hard he started devolving into a neanderthal and creating dimensional portals and he couldn't stop because he was addicted to finding the truth of existence... Well you wouldn't get that from this poster, would you? So let's move on. Shall we?

The film opens in 1967 with William Hurt's character, psychopathologist Edward Jessup, already immersed in a sensory deprivation tank, whilst his colleague and “buddy” Bob Balaban (he's just Bob Balaban in everything I'm not giving you his character's name look it up yourself if it's bugging you so much) oversees.

Now, you may notice I put buddy in quotes. The reason for that is that Jessup is a self-obsessed ass who seemingly has no reason to be around other people unless he can expound to them one of his various monologues. Bob Balaban barely gets a word in edgewise throughout the entire film. Bob Balaban.

See, Jessup loves the sensory deprivation tank experience. Unsurprisingly, as it allows him to be completely alone with himself for hours.

Later, at perhaps the lamest party ever, a bunch of faculty are chilling out and listening to the Doors. Everyone we see is talking about Jessup. Why? Well, much as Jessup is obsessed with himself, everyone else seems to follow suit by being obsessed with him. One young woman, Emily, (Blair Brown) is introduced to him in this very shot below as he arrives at the party:

Notice how is framed in holy light? There is a closeup after, of him framed in blinding glowing light followed up with a zoom in on Emily's face, enraptured with this incredible dynamic man. So much so that the moment he tries to make a goddamn sandwich she starts grabbing his celery (get your mind out of the gutter) and flirting with him. Which for these two that means talking science, immediately. Talking more at each other than with each other. This is often the way with Paddy Chayefsky's scripts.

PAUSE

Paddy Chayefsky is doubtless one of the great American writers for the screen. He wrote Marty, The Hospital and Network (which is a fucking incredible piece of work). He got an Oscar for all three. He also wrote this movie (Altered States, remember? Good lord) and disowned it completely three weeks in to production. His scripts tend to have very intelligent, driven characters at the center, who monologue extensively at each other. These scripts are not attempting to sound naturalistic.

Ken Russell, however, directed the film. He, like Chayefsky, is top notch at what he does (Direct. I said he directed the film like a second ago, come on keep up). His films, like Women in Love, The Devils, (which was banned in several major countries upon release and has never been shown publicly in its full, uncut form (by the way it's a masterpiece)) the Who's Tommy, Gothic, and Lair of the White Worm are all fucking gonzo nuts. I mean like, when you gave this guy the reins, you were going to Overthetopsville and there will be no stops on this trip. And god bless! I love directors who GO for it!

You're getting the chance to make a movie. Stop hemming and hawing and hit me over the head with what you want to say! Film is a visual medium, USE IT!

I feel I might have made my feelings clear here. So, moving on...

Ken Russell and Paddy Chayefsky immediately started butting heads, right from the start. Chayefsky was a BIG deal, and he wanted control over the picture in a BIG way. Ken would listen to his suggestions on everything to lighting and set dressing, and politely tell him, “No.”, and continue being the director of the film. Chayefsky hated him pretty quickly.

He had much more control over films like The Hospital. Which, if you watch The Hospital, well, it shows. You've got great actors (George C. Scott, Dame Diana Rigg (Dame may be the greatest official title of all time)) saying great dialogue. But its just two very witty bitter people sort of expounding on topics and speaking at each other and suddenly admitting they are in love and discussing what drapes they will have to buy for their new home. It's utterly preposterous, and it doesn't work in the way Sidney Lumet got it to work in Network, by literally making one of the lead characters realize his life is turning into a ludicrous soap opera.

So of course Ken tried to humanize, naturalize, the dialogue sequences. And it works! The film feels more human than the Hospital or Network. Despite the fact that Jessup is literally becoming more and more inhuman throughout the film. One of the ways he does this is by having the character's eat, drink, and work on other things during the dialogue sequences. This is perfectly normal in film, it's called giving the actor “business” to do, during the scene. Chayefsky HATED this. “They are mumbling my precious dialogue! Chewing through it! Sucking it through a straw!” Sorry, Chayefsky buddy. It works for the picture. Chayefsky also felt the actors were too emotional with his dialogue. Right. See, they call that acting.

UNPAUSE

Which brings us back to the first meeting of Emily and Jessup at the party. They are eating during this important scene! I can just picture Chayefsky seeing this, and running to the studio brass to tattle and get Ken Russell fired (as he got Arthur Penn of Bonnie and Clyde fame fired before Ken Russell came on board).

Emily and Jessup are, true to Chayefsky form, extremely intelligent, driven people and hearing them discuss topics such as anthropology and schizophrenia is quite interesting. It's just that what is to come, film being a visual medium, will eclipse just about any dialogue, no matter how good, from our mind thingys.

The two give up on the science talk and go straight to banging on her couch. After, she asks what he was thinking about. His answer is priceless. “God. Jesus. Crucifixions.”

She smiles.

Bwahahaha! Oh Paddy Chayefsky, you sure know women.

He admits he used to have religious visions. She listens to him from the sweaty couch whilst he sits naked on the floor, and starts going on about his father's horrible death of cancer and his loss of faith. And he admits to her that he's a nut. Her response is to call him a fascinating bastard. I think Lucas may have taken notes for Padme and Anakin.

So naturally, they get married immediately.

But none of that matters because Jessup gets back in the sensory deprivation tank and has his first vision. A nightmare of his dying father and lost faith in christianity. It's pretty great, filled with foreboding hospital rooms, his father's face being covered in a burning Shroud of Turin, everything covered by horrible blood red clouds and then THIS FUCKING THING SHOWS UP AND ITS ALIVE AND WRIGGLING

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

excuse me...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

The many-eyed goat is slaughtered over a gold bible and suddenly Jessups screwing Emily again and we enter a blood vessel looking thing and the vision ends and he never mentions this again. Oh. Okay,

Emily continues on about what a nut Jessup is as they make marriage plans. Her monologue:

“You're an unmitigated madman. You don't have to tell me how weird you are. I know how weird you are. I'm the girl in your bed the past two months. Even sex is a mystical experience for you. You carry on like a flagellant... Which can be very nice, but I sometimes wonder if it's me that's being made love to. I feel like I'm being harpooned by some raging monk in the act of receiving God. (Emphasis mine)

"And you are a Faust-freak Eddie! You'd sell your soul to find the great truth. Well, human life doesn't have great truths. We're born in doubt. We spend our lives persuading ourselves we're alive. And one way we do that is we love each other, like I love you. I can't imagine living without you. So let's get married, and if it turns out to be a disaster, it'll be a disaster.”

It's a disaster.

As in, by the next scene. It starts off happy enough looking, they have kids and people are smiling. And hey, wow it's seven years later! But, well, see, whoops, they are getting a divorce. Well, not they. See, he is divorcing her because he considers the seven years with her a complete waste.

She still loves him, desperately. He doesn't give a shit about her or the kids. He tells Bob Balaban this, straight up. And then starts bugging him about deprivation tanks and Hinchi Indians in South America who have sacred mushrooms that can really fuck you up.

It's at this point you would like for Jessup to be hit by a Mack truck. But the movie continues on. By the way, this is one of the kids he doesn't give a crap about:

That's right. Drew Barrymore's first role is a kid that William Hurt doesn't give a shit about. Something that William Hurt would make a career out of with narcoleptic performances in Lost in Space and Syfy's Dune. So, Emily takes the kids to Africa for her anthropology work while Jessup goes to South America to go deeper into his own creepy mind.

The Hinchi Indians agree to allow him to participate in the drug ritual. They enter their holy cave.

This shot is beautiful. At this point the film becomes increasingly gorgeous. Ken Russell has started to go into overdrive, ladies and gentlemen. Buckle. Your. Seatbelts.

The Indians grab Jessup's hand and cut him, freaking him out. They pour his blood into the drug mixture. They begin to drink. Then he takes a sip. The intensity of the film here has quadrupled. The vision begins, fireworks going off all around him. He sees cave paintings of humans and komodo dragons and this:

The proper life he left behind with Emily. He's convulsing, sweating. The Indians are all around, masked. Snakes. He's laughing in pain. Energy spills from the void. A snake under the parasol strikes and begins to strangle him. He and Emily march toward a nuclear explosion as energy pours from the cut on his hand, becoming a lizard. From within a sandstorm, Emily watches him, naked. Jessup looks at her, entranced, as the soothing sands cover them both, slowly.

It's a beautiful sequence. A perfect film sequence. I can't overstate how strong the vision sequences are from this point forward. Great visual effects work and the madman mind of Ken Russell create something unforgettable, with it's own pace, independent from the rest of the film.

Jessup awakens with a komodo dragon laying before him, ripped to pieces. The Indians and the others all claim he killed it in rage. Jessup remembers nothing, takes samples of the drug to reproduce it, and goes back home.

Back home, Jessup keeps doing as much of the drug as he can and having Bob Balaban record results. They can't up the dosage any more so Jessup hops back in to the self deprivation tank to create a more extreme experience.

In his next session, Jessup states he is having a vision of early man, hunting a deer and killing it. Suddenly he states he is one of them, killing the deer. He begins to grunt like an animal. The two pull him out. He's incredibly pale, blood seeping out of his mouth. He can't speak, and has difficulty breathing. He insists they do an X-ray. It shows that there is a vocalizing lump in the front part of his throat. Jessup claims that his body had begun to revert to a simian state. The medical doctor agrees, stating the throat X-rays looks like that of a gorilla.

Luckily his throat returns to normal. So Jessup finishes up his day by having over a student of his and sleeping with her.

Our hero, people!

At this point we hardly feel sorry for him as his body suddenly begins to twist and bulge in the middle of the night, shifting in and out of neanderthal shapes. It's a horrific sequence, disturbing as hell. You certainly didn't expect the film to shift into body horror.

Jessup feels normal after a while. but sees visions of lava explosions, the birthing of the Earth all around him. Not a good sign.

He goes to pick up Emily from the airport the next day. She asks how he is doing.

“Oh, fine.”

Yeah right.

Emily has been told what Jessup has been doing and is worried, which of course pisses off Jessup even more. The guy is obviously obsessed with reaching the truth and root of existence, much as Emily surmised earlier, and we see he has no fear of even losing his own soul, again true to her word. The only thing that allows us to give a shit about him at this point is that Emily cares for him and she's decent people, okay?

So back Jessup goes into the tank with his ayahuasca or whatever it is. Alone. The tank door opens from the inside.

The hand that pushes it open is covered in thick hair. He's devolved.

Ape-Jessup escapes the tank room and chases a janitor around the building. Again, this scene is fucking freaky as hell. We can't get a good look at this screaming animal that was Jessup.

The janitor gets a guard to help and chases after him into the boiler room, where we finally get a good look at him when he assaults the security guard and escapes.

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Ape-Jessup runs through the city at night, making his way to the zoo where he kills a antelope and eats it. The Ape-Jessup sequence goes on way too long, but is nonetheless unforgettable. The makeup is much more convincing than the above picture suggests, and whoever performed Ape-Jessup did an admirable job.

The cops find an unconscious Jessup in the zoo and bring him in. Emily picks him up and questions him. Jessup admits everything that he can remember. He also admits that he probably killed that security guard. And once again doesn't seem to give a shit. Prick. He calls it the most supremely satisfying time of his life.

Even Emily seems disgusted with him. But, she's also fascinated with what he's accomplished. As an anthropologist, his transformation fascinates her. And so, she agrees to help oversee his next session. Big mistake.

Before the big session Emily and Jessup romantically reconnect, and then into the climactic session we go!

Get your popcorn ready!

After a few hours in to the session, the video monitor shows Jessup begin to literally melt apart like goo, reverting to primordial ooze, the very beginning of existence. An attempt to open the isolation tank doors blasts everyone unconscious, as light and energy pour forth. Emily is the only one left. She sees Jessup's life energy pulse from within the tank.

Rain pours down around them. The pipes on the walls twist and turn like jelly. The ground is covered with a pool of swirling fog and energy. Emily advances toward the vortex of the tank.

In the emptiness of the beginning of everything, Emily seizes the energy before her and reconstitutes Jessup.

They take him home. While he sleeps, Emily rages over the fact that she loves such a insane bastard, and can't get over him. And, then, after Bob Balaban leaves, leaving Emily alone, Jessup wakes up.

He sweetly admits that the truth he learned was that there was no learnable truth, just unknowable horror, and all that's real is human experience. And he'll be a good boy from now on. Well too bad!

Because that horrible truth isn't done with him, and it's back to goo-Jessup! Emily tries to help him, grabbing him, but this in turn effects her, turning her into a shimmering lava form of herself. Both of them begin to self-destruct as Jessup, enraged, watching her in pain, struggles to retake his humanity, slamming himself into the wall, reforming himself through sheer will and physicality. He grabs her and brings her back, mirroring what she did for him during the final session. They embrace naked in the hallway. He finally admits, “I love you, Emily.”

Fade to credits.

Awww true love!

What can I say to sum up? Awesome 80's practical effects. Genius wacko go-for-it Ken Russell directing. Out of this world vision sequences. A awake and actually remarkable performance from William Hurt. An occasionally turgid but often fascinating script by the ever ornery Paddy Chayefsky. Whats not to like?

Well, the ending is a little rushed. The ape sequence goes on for a little too long and takes up perhaps too much of the films overall running time. The central love story is, well... a little hard to swallow, but hey, I guess there really is somebody out there for everyone. Even self-absorbed, deadbeat, cheating, sensory deprivation loving, ayahuasca dropping, Harvard teachers with a messiah complex!

And on that note, aliens from A.I. Artifical Intelligence, have a good day, and don't leave poor Teddy alone with no one to keep him company!

Sayonara!

[confrontingbabble-on]

Every religious belief system...is a complete blasphemy...in the eyes of every other religious belief system...and all are a complete blasphemy in the eyes of rational unbelief...

For example, as outlined by Atheist Ireland ...

“Here are the 25 blasphemous quotes that we first published on 1 January 2010, along with the quotation that has caused the Irish police to investigate Stephen Fry.

1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.

2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.

3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.

4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy — he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.

5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: “Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”

6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”

7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: “While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”

9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being “a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”

10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: “In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”

11. Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”

12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: “The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.

13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”

14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”

15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”

16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: “He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”

17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: “Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.

18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”

19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”

20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a “character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that “the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that “reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”

21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: “There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing—absolutely nothing—in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”

22. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”

23. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: “Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.

24. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: “They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: “Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: “Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.

25. As a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.” Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law.

26. Finally, here is the quote that has caused the Irish police to investigate Stephen Fry for blasphemy. Asked by Gay Byrne on RTE what he would say if he was confronted by God, Fry replied: “How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault. It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?” Questioned on how he would react if he was locked outside the pearly gates, he responded: “I would say, ‘Bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’ Because the God who created this universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac. Totally selfish. We have to spend our life on our knees thanking him? What kind of God would do that?””

https://atheist.ie/2017/05/25-blasphemous-quotes-in-solidarity-with-stephen-fry/