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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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The Best Games of 2020

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Despite how almost every other aspect of the year went, 2020 was a landmark year for video games. Not only did it see the release of highly-anticipated titles like The Last of Us Part II, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Ghost of Tsushima, and Cyberpunk 2077, but 2020 also marked the beginning of a new generation of console and PC gaming with the release of the Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and new GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD. We even got a new Half-Life game this year!

What would’ve made the gaming year ever better? Big-name video game companies could have done more to eliminate development crunch and be more transparent about their business practices with customers and the press. And we definitely could have all been nicer to each other.

But video games also helped keep us connected when we couldn’t see our friends and loved ones in person. They helped us travel to new and interesting places when we couldn’t leave our homes. Most importantly, all 20 games on our best-of-the-year list made us feel excited about this medium at a time when it was so difficult to enjoy anything else.

To that affect, Den of Geek is celebrating 20 video games our contributors and critics, as well as our community of readers, voted as the very best of 2020.

20. Star Wars: Squadrons

For the last decade or so, most Star Wars games have focused on the power fantasy of being a lightsaber-swinging, Force-wielding Jedi. That’s all well and good, but for a long time it seemed like everyone forgot that some of the most beloved Star Wars games of all time were actually space shooters like X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and Rogue Squadron. In many ways, Star Wars: Squadrons is a throwback to those games, both in terms of gameplay and design. Controls are a pitch perfect mix of arcade simplicity and strategy, requiring quick thinking about whether to focus your ship’s power on attacking or defending.

Squadrons is also much more tightly focused than other recent games from large publishers, with a breezy yet enjoyable single-player campaign, and a multiplayer mode that, while light on modes, eschews the more annoying modern conventions of the online PvP like invasive microtransactions. But Squadrons is not stuck in its old school ways.

If you have the hardware for it on PC or PS4, you can jump into the cockpit of any of the playable ships for one one of the most immersive VR modes around. Similar to how The Mandalorian has rejuvenated the live-action side of the Star Wars media empire, Squadrons is a perfect mix of all of the best things we’ve always loved about Star Wars video games, and everything we want them to be going forward. – CF

19. Journey to the Savage Planet

Science fiction writers have long held on to this idea that, if and when humankind eventually colonizes the universe, it will do so as some sort of united, utopian entity, like Starfleet. But that future seems less and less likely every day. If and when humanity spreads across the stars, it will likely be messy, absurd, and profit-motivated. Journey to the Savage Planet wallows in that type of future. As an unnamed human (or dog, if you choose), you’re dropped onto the planet AR-Y26 by Kindred, the fourth biggest intergalactic exploration company with the simple goal of collecting as many resources as possible and leaving.

The Metroidvania gameplay loop of crafting equipment to access new areas is compelling, a rarity for 3D games in the genre. And it offers plenty of surprises too. You’ll start off with the typical blaster and scanner before eventually unlocking a grappling hook that lets you swing around levels like Spider-Man. But it’s style that ultimately lifts Journey to the Savage Planet above so many other games released in 2020. For one thing, the world and the fauna you’ll encounter are incredibly unique, and well, alien. And the regular live-action updates from Kindred beamed directly to your ship are among some of the funniest and most bizarre cinematics out this year in any game, providing plenty of motivation to see this journey through to its end. – CF

18. Half-Life: Alyx

As VR gaming continues to evolve, it’s becoming clear that the technology is more than just one truly great game away from widespread adoption. If that were all it took, then Half-Life: Alyx would have put a VR set under a lot of Christmas trees.

It’s truly wild to think that we got a new Half-Life game this year and that it sometimes feels like the game’s release was barely a blip on the cultural radar. While its somewhat muted debut can be attributed to its VR exclusivity (and the fact it launched at the onset of a global health crisis), Half-Life: Alyx surpassed all possible hype by offering a truly incredibly narrative-driven adventure bolstered by some of the cleverest uses of VR technology that we’ve ever seen.

Half-Life: Alyx isn’t the first great VR game, but Valve’s glorious return to form does shows how VR can advance fundamental elements of gameplay and storytelling rather than just show familiar games from a new perspective. – MB

17. Carrion

The indie game space is where you typically see the most experimentation, and this year proved no different when the gruesome and morbid Carrion released back in July. Highly inspired by the likes of John Carpenter’s The Thing, Alien, and other cult classic horror films known for their excellent use of practical SFX, this platformer cleverly flips the script, putting you in the role of the monster to dispatch helpless scientists in the claustrophobic depths of an underground lab as an ever-growing amorphous blob creature. What follows is a brief but effective 2D platformer that is fast paced and delectably gory.

The controls could have made controlling the creature a real pain, but Phobia Game Studio recognized that the key here was letting you move swiftly through the levels. As such, gliding through vents to take down scientists from above or underneath quickly becomes second nature. Encounters still pose a good degree of challenge, however, thanks to the heavily armed soldiers that show up later in the game, but this never stops Carrion from fulfilling every horror aficionado’s devilish fantasy of being the bloodthirsty monster. – AP

16. Kentucky Route Zero

Calling Kentucky Route Zero an homage to classic point-and-click adventure games is technically correct, but it doesn’t come close to doing the experience justice. Kentucky Route Zero is more like a poem or fable in video game form. It’s a feeling, a distillation of what it’s like to come of age in the Great Recession and its fallout over the last decade. Kentucky Route Zero is an epithet for rural America told through a fever dream, an examination of a version of rural Appalachia where talking skeletons and robotic musicians live alongside gas station attendants and truck drivers.

Nothing about Kentucky Route Zero fits the typical confines of what we expect from a video game, and that includes its release. Developed by a team of only three, the first episode of the five-episode experience was released in 2013, but the final product was only realized in early 2020. That lengthy development cycle meant that the game’s scope and story could grow to only better encapsulate this moment in time, and the final product stands out as one of best games of the year. To say more is to spoil its excellent story. – CF

15. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2

Though it’s been a hot minute since skateboarding games dominated the console space, Vicarious Visions’ excellent remake collection of the first two Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater titles was a reminder of how the entire series captured a whole generation of players in the late ’90s and early ’00s. Whether it’s grinding down rails, performing kickflips, or landing the gravity-defying 1080 on a vert ramp, everything in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 feels and looks exactly as you remember it but touched up with modern flare. That’s the mark of any great remake, and why this game in particular was the best example of the practice this year.

Classic skating locations like Warehouse, School and Downtown have all been faithfully remade from the ground up for a 21st century audience, effortlessly delivering the same thrills and balanced challenge as they did before. The fact that select mechanical features like reverts, which wouldn’t arrive until later entries, have been retroactively added is also a nice touch, instantly making Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 the definitive way to experience these skateboarding classics. – AP

14. Ori and the Will of the Wisps

The fact that Ori and the Will of the Wisps managed to usurp the critically acclaimed 2015 original in most design aspects speaks to just how well Moon Studios has mastered the art of the Metroidvania. Whisking players off on another tight 10-hour journey set within a mystical forest full of secrets to discover, this 2D adventure gives off a fantastical vibe in a way few others do. It’s an expert blend between smart combat mechanics, highly polished platforming, and emotional storytelling. That it runs at a silky 60 fps both on Nintendo Switch and Xbox is the cherry on top.

The major improvements Will of the Wisps makes over Blind Forest relate to saving and combat. Whereas previously it was the responsibility of players to lay down specific checkpoints, progress is now more in line with other 2D platformers and less punishing. Combat, meanwhile, has been completely revamped with the inclusion of special charms and upgradeable skills, most of which result in more flexible enemy encounters. These tweaks are implemented without ever compromising on Ori’s core hook of magical exploration and challenging platforming, instantly making it one of the best Metroidvanias out there. – AP

13. Call of Duty: Warzone

Call of Duty: Warzone was a natural and perhaps even necessary evolution for the long-running shooter franchise, carving out a space for it in the ever-crowding battle royale genre. While it’s largely derivative of battle royale titles that came before, the staggering 150-player count, always excellent CoD controls, top-notch presentation, and flexible cash system have made it eminently popular and fun for casual players and series vets alike. The CoD fan base feels vibrant again after years of stagnation in the shadow of breakout titles like PUBG and Fortnite, and that’s without going into how Warzone has revitalized the franchise’s presence in the streaming space.

One of the best facets of the game’s design is that the large player count all but ensures that, even if a player is new to the genre or series, the chances of them being the absolute worst player in the field is very low. Better still, the “Gulag” respawn mechanic opens up the possibility for ultimate revenge should you earn your way back into the match, which is a nice way to up engagement for those who suffer disappointing deaths.

The game doesn’t feel quite as dynamic or high-stakes as some of its competitors on the market, but it’s definitely one of the easiest to pick up and play. It’s no wonder Warzone has expanded CoD’s already enormous audience over the course of 2020. – BB

12. Astro’s Playroom

With launch lineups mostly filled with graphically enhanced releases of last-gen games, the release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X has been more than a little underwhelming. The one bright spot is Astro’s Playroom, a little first-party Sony game that received virtually no pre-release hype and comes pre-installed on every PS5.

While at first glance a typical 3D platformer, Astro’s Playroom soon reveals itself to be a fantastic showcase of what’s possible with the new DualSense controller. In one level, you’re feeling the resistance from the controller’s adaptive triggers as you spring jump through obstacles dressed as a frog. In another, you’re expertly moving the controller back and forth to climb walls in a robotic monkey suit. Even just standing in the rain causes the controller to pulse ever so slightly with each drop. And all of this takes place across worlds celebrating the entire history of PlayStation, where you collect classic consoles and accessories, culminating in an unexpected boss battle throwback to an original PSX tech demo.

Astro’s Playroom may be short, but it’s an oh so sweet and exciting taste of what’s possible with the power of next-gen consoles. – CF

11. Doom Eternal

It would have been easy for Doom Eternal to be more of the same. After all, 2016’s Doom became the surprising gold-standard for single-player FPS games by virtue of its clever writing and gameplay that blended the best of classic and modern design concepts. Yet, Doom Eternal proved to be something much more than “the same but bigger.”

With its arena-like levels and resource management mechanics, Doom Eternal sometimes feels like a puzzle game set in the Doom universe. While the transition to this new style can be jarring, you soon find that Doom Eternal is speaking the same language in a different dialect. The brutal brilliance of a classic Doom game remains but it’s presented in the form of a kind of FPS dance that puts you in a state of pure zen once you figure out how to make that perfect run through a room full of demonic baddies.

Four years after Doom showed this old franchise could pull off new tricks, Doom Eternal proves that this series is at the forefront of FPS innovation once more. – MB

10. Demon’s Souls

Although initially released in 2009 for the PlayStation 3, Demon’s Souls would help define the next generation of gaming by establishing the Soulslike genre, which has influenced everything from recent Star Wars games to The Legend of Zelda. The “problem” is that the legacy of Demon’s Souls has been sort of eclipsed by the accomplishments of its successors.

That’s the beauty of the remake for the PS5. Aided by the power of the console’s next-gen hardware, developer Bluepoint Games pays homage to one of the most historically significant games of the last 15 years while wisely updating it in ways that show that the foundation of FromSoftware’s breakthrough hit remains arguably the best entry in a genre that isn’t exactly lacking in modern classics.

In a year where finding a next-gen console proved to be more difficult than any Soulslike game, Demon’s Souls remains the best reason to battle the bots at online stores in the hopes of joining gaming’s next generation as soon as possible. – MB

9. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

There were multiple times this year where couped-up players relied heavily on “bean” games to help maintain a human connection. Before Among Us dominated the Twitch streams, it was Mediatonic’s intentionally clumsy and hilarious Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout that had us competitively raging with our friends. It did so by merging the wildly popular battle royale genre with the inflatable-fueled antics of early ’90s game shows, where dodging swinging hammers and battling giant fruit against 59 others became the norm for a few weeks – all in the pursuit of winning a highly coveted crown.

Needless to say, making Fall Guys free to PS Plus subscribers for a month turned out to be a genius marketing move, urging everyone to hop into the game’s inventive gamut of levels and make a fool of themselves. Much of what sets it apart from other battle royale attempts is its low-skill barrier to entry, and thanks to frequent seasonal updates, new unlockable outfits and fresh mini-games always being added, bumbling to the top of the pack as a colorful bean remains consistent fun. – AP

8. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Animal Crossing: New Horizons should be included in history books about the Covid-19 pandemic. Releasing just as lockdowns were being instituted across the globe, New Horizons provided the escapism we so desperately needed while quarantining, attracting not just the usual Nintendo fanbase, but even those who had never played games in the past but were now looking for something to occupy their time at home. Whether we played it with friends or alone, New Horizons provided the routine and distraction that so many of us needed in a world suddenly thrown into chaos.

Of course, it helped that New Horizons is the best Animal Crossing game to date, with tons of new ways to customize your island (and yourself). And as Covid-19 restrictions have stretched much longer than many of us anticipated, New Horizons has kept pace, with Nintendo releasing a steady stream of new fish to catch, fruits to harvest, and events to participate in throughout the year. It may not be the game that everyone wanted, but New Horizons is the game that 2020 needed. – CF

7. Cyberpunk 2077

When Cyberpunk 2077’s legacy is written, there’s no doubt that the opening chapter is going to focus on the bugs, technical shortcomings, and empty promises that have turned what looked to be one of 2020’s guaranteed hits into one of modern gaming’s most debated debuts.

Yet, the reason that this game’s initial issues will likely not ultimately define it is that Cyberpunk 2077 reveals itself to be a special experience whenever you’re able to play it without crashes or bugs ruining your experience. From its stunning side quests that revive one of The Witcher 3’s best elements to its shockingly human narrative, Cyberpunk 2077 regularly showcases the undeniable talent of the individuals who battled internal and external factors to deliver their vision.

Cyberpunk 2077’s technical problems wouldn’t hurt as much as they do if there wasn’t a truly great game at the heart of them that people are begging to be able to play as intended. – MB

6. Final Fantasy VII Remake

The pressure was on for Square Enix from the moment it announced Final Fantasy VII Remake back in 2015. For those who obsessed over the original back in 1997, the prospect of a remake was the stuff dreams were made of, and this year we finally got to relive Cloud, Aerith, Barret, and Tifa’s grand adventure (the first act of it, at least) with fully updated, well, everything. Astonishingly, the remake actually lived up to expectations and delivered not just a faithful update to the original game but a modern RPG that stands as one of its generation’s best regardless of nostalgia.

The key to Square Enix’s success was its approach, which aimed not to duplicate the experience of the original game, but to capture the essence and spirit of it while using modern game design to deliver the story in a way that doesn’t feel retro or rehashed at all. The game looks dazzling by 2020 standards (Midgar never looked better) but doesn’t compromise the integrity of the original designs, and the real-time combat—arguably the biggest departure from the original—is a blast to play.

Time will tell how exactly Square Enix will follow through with the rest of the remake as we enter a new console generation, but in the meantime, they studio has left us with a terrific reimagining of the most celebrated title in the studio’s expansive oeuvre. – BB

5. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Ubisoft deserves credit for keeping a franchise like Assassin’s Creed, which is 13 years old at this point, thriving in an industry that is flooded with more open world games now than it ever has been. The series is always competitive in the genre, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla proves why: it’s as refined as any of its predecessors and delivers a balanced experience with a rich world to explore, tons of strange stories to uncover, and a mash-up milieu that combines the eerie atmosphere of 5th-century England with the otherworldly spectacle of Norse mythology.

No open world game is perfect, and Valhalla certainly has a handful of shortcomings. But it’s a bloody good time to play, and there’s so much to do that there’s no question that you get your money’s worth. Eivor’s quest for glory and domination is also arguably the most cinematic story in the entire AC catalog, with some truly breathtaking cutscenes that rival those found in more linear games that can’t sniff Valhalla’s scope. Some of the more otherworldly moments in the back half of the game are pure, unadulterated, nonsensical fun, and overall, this is one of the best entries in the series. – BB

4. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Insomniac is one of those studios that you can always rely on to deliver fun, polished games that shine in every category, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales only adds to the team’s sterling reputation. Building on the already brilliant formula the studio created with the original Marvel’s Spider-Man, Miles’s story is one of loss, friendship, identity, and the strength of the Black and Hispanic communities of Harlem.

The side-quel is also one of the best launch titles arguably ever. While it is a cross-gen game, the PS5 version is currently the best showcase of what next-gen gaming is capable of from a visual and performance standpoint. You won’t find a better-looking New York City in any other video game, period, and Insomniac’s outstanding animation work looks insanely good when bolstered by the PS5’s considerable horsepower. Miles plays differently than Peter Parker did in the original game as well, with his Venom Powers giving enemy encounters a new feel and rhythm.

Insomniac outdid itself with an excellent follow-up that would’ve been a forgettable DLC expansion in the hands of a less ambitious studio. But Miles Morales is one of the best modern-day superhero characters ever created, and it’s only right that he get a game that lives up to his greatness. – BB

3. Hades

The popularity of roguelikes has been calmly bubbling up for years now, yet only in 2020 did it truly become mainstream thanks to an ideal balance between gameplay and story as demonstrated by Hades. Players who previously took umbrage with the genre’s nature to wipe out all progress at each run’s end suddenly had a reason to jump back in, now inspired by Zagreus’ various tries to escape hell and overthrow his eponymous father. This alone sees Hades tower over most of its peers in terms of balance, further backed up by rewarding gameplay and a gorgeous comic book art style that makes the well-worn mythological Greek milieu feel fresh.

Developer Supergiant Games proved its penchant for creating flexible mechanical loops in prior titles, and in many ways, Hades feels like a culmination of all those ideas distilled in one neat package. It’s a great example of semi-randomized systems layering perfectly on top of other systems, until players eventually find themselves completing runs using distinct weapons, upgrading persistent abilities and slowly discovering which of the god’s many boons gel best with one another. Hades is always a hellishly good time. – AP

2. Ghost of Tsushima

The concept of honor has never been explored in a game as lyrically and philosophically as it is in Ghost of Tsushima, Sucker Punch’s story-driven samurai epic. Jin Sakai’s grand adventure is both brutal and beautiful, stretching across the grasslands and snowy peaks of the titular island, as he pushes the oppressive Mongol army out of his homeland, all the while wrestling internally with the kind of man, warrior, and leader he ultimately wants to be.

This game is outstanding on so many fronts that it’s difficult to list them all here. Visually, it looks so stunning that anyone who walks past your TV as you play is all but guaranteed to stop and stare for a while. The combat is fast and challenging, the stealth mechanic is on-point, the score is sweeping and sentimental, the character models are incredibly realistic, the online multiplayer mode “Legends” is actually a blast to play…and the list goes on. This poetic, pitch-perfect modern masterpiece is emblematic of the soulful, cinematic storytelling PlayStation Studios is known for, and it’s a wonderful way to send the PS4 off into the sunset. – BB

1. The Last of Us Part II (Also Reader’s Choice)

You can’t even say the name of our 2020 game of the year without sparking numerous debates that often make it nearly impossible to have a productive conversation about the game itself. That makes it that much more tempting to somehow find a kind of middle-ground that will “justify” the game’s lofty position to everyone regardless of where they stand.

The thing about The Last of Us Part 2,though, is that its divisiveness is very much part of the experience. Naughty Dog’s follow-up to arguably its greatest game is a bold attempt to live up to the franchise’s legacy by furthering what came before while trying to find its own way. Much like Ellie herself, The Last of Us Part 2 doesn’t always make the right decisions. Yet, at a time when bigger budgets are seen as an excuse to play it safe, The Last of Us Part 2 impresses through its willingness to present a big, bold, and personal adventure that is often anything but what was expected.

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Anyone can generate a little controversy by saying something stupid, offensive, or hurtful. The beauty of The Last of Us Part 2’s controversy is that it stems from a heartfelt attempt to advance the conversation through indie-like passion and big budget production. – MB

The post The Best Games of 2020 appeared first on Den of Geek.

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frankendykes-monster · 5 years ago

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"In April 1962, a match pitting Japanese pro wrestling superstar Rikidozan and tag-team partners Toyonobori and Great Togo against American challengers Freddie Blassie, Lou Thesz, and Mike Sharpe aired nationally on Japanese television. During the bout, Blassie bit Great Togo on the forehead, opening a horrible bloody gash. Two elderly viewers, shocked by the gory sight, collapsed and died, casualties of a media war that saw networks and sponsors producing outrageous programs and stunts to grab the audience. Released later that year, Honda's King Kong vs. Godzilla is pop art imitating life, with two gargantuan wrestlers of Japanese and American pedigree tussling on live TV, raising ratings while razing cities. It's monster-movie-as-satire, a biting critique of the banal programming that dominated television, prompting widespread debate over the ascendant medium's effect on Japanese culture. The social critic Soichi Oya warned that TV was creating "a nation of 100 million idiots."

"People were making a big deal out of ratings," said Honda. "But my own view of TV shows was that they did not take the viewer seriously, that they took the audience for granted...so I decided to show that through my movie."

King Kong vs. Godzilla was one of five banner releases for 1962 to commemorate Toho's thirtieth anniversary, along with [Akira] Kurosawa's Sanjuro (Tsubaki Sanjuro), Hiroshi Inagaki's 47 Samurai (Chu-shingura), Mikio Naruse's Lonely Lane (Hourou-ki), and Yasuki Chiba's Born in Sin (Kawa no hotori de). By far Honda's most commercially successful film, King Kong vs. Godzilla was a runaway hit and the bedrock of the long-running Godzilla franchise that followed. Though Godzilla was a household word, this was the monster's first appearance in seven years. Only after Godzilla battled "the eighth wonder of the world" - Kong, the more popular monster, received top billing - did Toho truly begin producing its long and legendary series of monster-versus-monster sequels.

This is also perhaps Honda's most infamous effort, thanks to a poor imitation of the great King Kong and an inept, reworked American version that, as with Godzilla [1954], was distributed to many more territories than Honda's cut. Most troubling for Honda, though, was how Godzilla, in only its third film - and the first in color and scope - transformed from nuclear protest monster into outsized Rikidozan, engaging in comic wrestling antics. "[The studio] thought it would be interesting to make these two monsters fight," Honda later reflected. "That was all there was to it. Still, when you are the director, it is your film, so you still have to do your best. So I sucked it up and worked as hard as possible."

The project originated in Hollywood several years earlier, when stop-motion animator Willis O'Brien developed a proposed project titled King Kong vs. Frankenstein (later King Kong vs. Prometheus). O'Brien envisioned a battle in the streets of San Francisco between Kong and a monster created by Victor Frankenstein's grandson; the creatures would be animated via O'Brien's signature effects work. O'Brien partnered with independent producer John Beck, who failed to attract a Hollywood studio but eventually hit paydirt in Japan. Beck brokered a deal wherein Toho purchased the right to use King Kong in a film; however, O'Brien's ideas were jettisoned and he would have no involvement in the production. Toho made King Kong vs. Godzilla instead, with Beck retaining the lucrative overseas distribution rights.

RKO's fee for King Kong was reportedly 80 million Yen (about $220,000), inflating the budget and forcing Honda to cut costs. At the last minute, he canceled plans to film scenes set on Faro Island, Kong's home, on location in Sri Lanka. Instead, the crew shot at Oshima Island near Tokyo and on studio sets. "King Kong took all the money!" said actor Yu Fujiki.

Shinichi Sekizawa's script is light and quickly paced. Tako (Ichiro Arishima), the excitable advertising chief for Pacific Pharmaceutical Co., is desperate to shake up the low-rated TV science program that his company sponsors. He sends a cameraman, Sakurai (Tadao Takashima), and a sound man, Furue (Fujiki), to the Solomon Islands archipelago to investigate reports of a majin (demon god) worshipped by natives of tiny Faro Island. They return with King Kong literally in tow, but Kong breaks free in route and runs wild in Japan. Meanwhile, Godzilla bursts out of an iceberg in the Arctic and instinctively heads south toward its Tokyo stomping grounds. The Japanese military can't stop either creature, so a plan is hatched to pit them against one another, a monster matchup tailormade for the TV cameras.

King Kong vs. Godzilla takes a page from the keizai shosetsu (business novels) and films of the late 1950s and early 1960s that spoofed ruthless Japanese business practices. There are also similarities to Yasuzo Masumura's excellent Giants and Toys (Kedamono no yado, 1958), a satire about two candy companies engaged in an over-the-top media war, though where Masumura is cynical and heavy-handed, Honda is lighthearted. "The reason I showed the monster battle through the prism of a ratings war was to depict the reality of the times," said Honda. "When you think of King Kong just plain fighting Godzilla, it is stupid. But how you stage it, the times in which it takes place, that's the thought process of the filmmaker. Back then, Sekizawa was working on pop song lyrics and TV series, so he had a clear insight into television."

[Section omitted]

"This is neither the Kong of 1933 nor the Godzilla of 1954, and the monsters inspire little of their original pathos. Instead of moody monochrome, they are photographed in bright, revealing Eastmancolor and often framed at waist level, betraying any illusion of size. Godzilla has an improved design and blue-hot radiation breath; but Kong, played by stuntman Shoichi Hirose, is too obviously a man in a furry costume with lumpy facial features. Curiously, RKO reportedly required Toho not only to distinguish its Kong with a different face, but also to depict the ape snatching a female and scaling a building, recalling the original. Mie Hama does an excellent job shrieking in Kong's clutches, though one wishes Honda had borrowed even just a bit of the tragic romance of Merian C. Cooper's film. Godzilla mocks its opponent, Kong beats his chest and scratches his noggin, and both monsters employ slapstick fighting moves - Godzilla kicking boulders, Kong swinging its foe by the tail, and so on. Kong appears outmatched, but the odds are evened in the final battle via a deus ex machina, a thunderstorm that gives Kong a jolt of strength-inducing electricity."

[Section omitted]

"Because it was made not long after the AMPO protests, King Kong vs. Godzilla is sometimes interpreted as a critique of the Japan-US alliance, the monsters representing their respective countries. Studies such as Cynthia Erb's excellent Tracking King Kong make this analogy, but Honda had no such intent and, in fact, he portrays Kong as something of a proxy Japanese monster, with no apparent American origins. Unlike The Mysterians, Battle in Outer Space, Mothra, or Gorath, there is no involvement by the West in averting the crisis, and unlike Honda's 1950s dramas, the trappings of imported American culture (steaks and fries eaten with a fork and knife, jazz albums decorating Fumiko's apartment) are benign. Kong unintentionally helps expel Godzilla from Japan, playing the hero-by-default role that Godzilla would adopt a few years later. The fight ends in an apparent draw, then the monsters swim away - an ending to be repeated often, with variation."

- Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, From Godzilla to Kurosawa, by Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski

#king kong #godzilla #king kong vs godzilla

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creativearcades · 2 years ago

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The Best Arcade Games That Are Worth Playing in 2022

Pizza, our best friends, and some quarters are the only things we miss most about our childhood. We might not be the Genie, but we can grant your one wish! With the same vintage touch, we promise you a gaming experience you won't forget. It can indeed become a reunion if you invite your childhood friends over too!

We don't know what your personal favorite cabinet games were. But we managed to get you a list of some of our most popular arcade games worth playing in 2022.

Enlisting Our Top Arcade Games That Are Worth Every Quarter!

Most Americans approve of this jam as the most dope cabinet games of all. So let’s hear it!

Space Invaders

One of the earliest instances of a shoot-em-up game is Space Invaders, which debuted in the gaming industry in 1978. The game's objective is to eliminate every alien invader before they descend to the bottom of the screen. The joystick and buttons are used to control the arcade game consoles. The player controls a ship tasked with protecting Earth from an alien invasion. The game is extremely challenging because they get closer to Earth when the player eliminates aliens.

Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong is a game series with several spin-offs and a movie dedicated to itself. It is a game of apes playing around and having adventures on a construction site to rescue a trapped princess. You can call it a simple game that does not take years to master. It indeed had everything it took to become the tremendous success of all time.

Street Fighter II

If you have never played the game, then also you will immediately understand why it has such longevity.

Simply choose a unique character like the Brazilian Blanka and go into the city on your opponents. And we are pretty sure you'll be Arcading N Chillin'. Add this arcade game console to your gaming dens or barcades, where people can crowd around the Street Fighter II cabinet, challenging their foes, placing bets, and earning bragging rights.

PacMan

If you were a gamer in 1980, you were about to witness one of the most pivotal moments in gaming history. With the release of the Pac-Man arcade game, the gaming experienced one of its most significant booms.

The game was a fast-paced maze adventure where the player controlled the titular little yellow circle, Pac-Man. The player had to consume all of the dots scattered throughout the maze while avoiding the various colored ghosts: Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde.

It can get pretty frantic avoiding these cutesy foes level after level. Pac-Man can activate the energy dots, causing the ghosts to turn blue, allowing it to eat the ghosts and score even more points.

Dragon's Lair

Those who have seen Don Bluth's films will recognize the excellent cartoon animation in the hit game Dragon's Lair. Don Bluth cabinet game was personally involved in the development of the game, which was released in 1983. Those familiar with quick-time events (QTEs) will recognize where they came from.

Dragon's Lair puts you in the shoes of a knight on the hunt for the dragon's lair's kidnapped princess. Beautiful cutscenes are shown as the player chooses which path the knight takes on his perilous journey.

The House Of The Dead

The House of the Dead, Sega's 1996 release, was an instant classic arcade machine ‘game with all the gory images, ghouls, and zombies. It actually gives you the rush when with an on-rails shooter that puts you in the shoes of one of the two protagonists, Rogan or "G." They must stop the evil scientists while blasting through the army of the dead, similar to Resident Evil.

Players use light guns (controllers shaped like guns) to advance through the story while aiming and shooting at enemies. These foes were unlike anything we'd seen before: fast-moving zombies. Previously, classic arcade machine gamers had only known George Romero's lumbering, slow zombies. This introduced a high-octane, adrenaline-fueled style of play that many gamers adored.

To Sum It Up

It's no wonder some of the most popular arcade games also happened to be some of the first to successfully break into popular culture. Many copies of the top action games can still be yours. Want to know how? Check out Creative Arcades to get cabinet games for your den and to have those nostalgic nights with your buddies.

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myupostsheadcanons · 7 years ago

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Myu Reads

I am making a list of books/series that I read and enjoyed over the past few years, especially since I began listening to audio books regularly. I am making this list not in order of favorite to least but In The Order of Fluff to Grimdark.

The Wind in the Willows.

Charming characters, each with unique personalities, a classic, well-written series of short stories that has lessons for all ages to learn.

The Wizard of Oz.

Experience the magic of Oz. Much of which was removed in the classic movie adaptation. It wasn’t a dream after all.

Anne of Green Gables.

The tale of a spunky orphan girl being taken in by an middle-aged brother and sister duo.

A family dynamic that is not seen in modern westernized settings any longer.

Slice of Life. Light reading. The first book is the best book.

Howl’s Moving Castle.

Howl is a roguish wizard out to have fun and games manipulating the world around him. Sophie just wants to make hats and live a simple life, but is forced by a curse into adventure and into the path of Howl.

The movie and book are only alike on the surface. There is more charm in the books and Howl actually has a backstory.

Mrs. Frisby and the rats of NIMH

A tale of a mom wanting to save her children, told on top of the story of humanity corrupting nature and abusing animals.

A true “strong female protag” without the need of the female being either cruel, cold, or emotionally distant.

A Wizard of Earthsea

The movie Tales from Earthsea used the character’s names only and lifted elements from all the books rather than just adapting the first one.

Honestly I remember more from the sequel books more than I do the first one.

The Chronicles of Prydan (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron)

A hero’s tale of a simple boy, an assistant pig keeper, wanting to become something greater and finding out that being a hero it isn’t all glory and fame.

Characters and Lands based off of old Welsh mythologies, the same ones that also inspired the Welsh folk heroes that later became King Arthur’s Court.

The Once and Future King

The Sword in the Stone half of the book would have made it closer to the top of the list. But the second half involved some rather graphic deaths and fights (a gory depiction of killing a unicorn among them).

Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars (Barsoom) and Tarzan

Both characters helped define what would later become the modern super hero genera.

John Carter was a direct inspiration to Super Man and the Tharks popularized the idea of little “green men” of Mars. (The entire population of Barsoom are very color-coordinated, tbh. Green, Red, Black, White, Yellow). Many ideas created in this series are prolific in Science Fiction of today.

Tarzan of the Apes can be read by itself, no need to get into the later books. The original character is so popular that any attempt to stray too far from the core characterization leads into disaster. The movie “Greystoke” is perhaps still the best adaptation of the character to screen, and it was a deconstruction of the character.

Redwall

It is easy to get away with whole-sale death when it is done with animals, however many of the animals act human-like and that needs to be taken in consideration

Baby’s first “Dark Fantasy”. Dialog is written plainly for younger audiences, but subject matter is straight out of adult fantasy (mass murder, kidnapping, slavery, war of attrition).

Harry Potter

If you just watched the movies you are missing out on a lot of the descriptions and world-building in the books, especially in the second half of the series: Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, and Deathly Hollows.

The second half is when the series went from older-child reading to young adult as the characters went from child to teenagers in the books themselves.

Ready Player One, Armada

An easy introduction to retro 80′s and 90′s pop culture, old computer games, and science fiction dystopia.

If you are a layman, a young adult, or didn’t pay attention to most of the media during that era the books do gloss over and explain most of the references made.... sometimes too often.

Armada is not as well seeped in pop culture as RPO, but it is a much more streamlined story and you can get a clearer judge on the author’s actual writing capabilities without the kick-back of nostalgia.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

There are just somethings that can’t translate well from text to screen.

One of those series that is best when read in High school or if you are a fan of British Humor.

The Scarlet Pimpernel

A masked hero come to save French Aristocrats and Nobility from the guillotine of the Revolutionist Government. Among one of the first novels to set down the common tropes for heroes with secret identities to come.

History and backstory might be a bit too heavy for younger audiences to understand.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection

There are two great audio book versions of this: one by Simon Vance, the other by Stephen Fry. Vance is a long time audio book professional and also narrated the Dune books and in general just having him read the book is a good indicator that it would be done well. Fry is a famous comedian and colorful character actor and was in the recent Holmes movies as Mycroft Holmes.

Barns n Noble has a beautiful leather-bound hardback edition of the Complete Collection as well for $25, if you are the type of person that reads the book and listens to the audio at the same time. The book will look nice on your shelf afterwards.

Victorian/Edwardian Horror-Romance: Frankenstein, Dracula, Phantom of the Opera

Classic stories, adapted and retold many times, it is always nice to get a perspective on the original works if you are only familiar with their newer incarnations.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Darker than the movie.

A reminder that all N*zis are bad.

Children characters get killed just as often as adult characters

Deals heavily with mental issues and adults/authority figures gaslighting children.

Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Stardust

A couple “lighter” examples of Gaiman’s work.

Stardust is classic fantasy with a bittersweet ending.

Ocean is told mostly through the POV of an adult remembering his “magical” neighbors as a kid and his traumatic experiences with his parents and babysitter.

The Lost Fleet Series

What the modern space battle genera should be.

The battles are in real-time, using real physics. It may take hours or even days to find out if that heavy ballistics missile is going to hit its target or if the target moved out the way.

The characters are typical for the genera, but are still engaging. Though the love-triangle rears its ugly head.

NPC’s (Spells, Swords, and Stealth Series)

A new game is hitting select markets. One that has consequences not only for the characters in the game, but the players. NPCs inside the game find themselves thrust into the role of adventurers when a PC party drops dead in their small town.

Classic “role reversal” or unconventional class/char combos (Gnome Paladin? Half-Orc Wizard? Noble Lady Barbarian? City Guard Rogue?) It’s kind of the norm now days after the whole “Drizz’t the Ranger Dark Elf” became so popular in the 90′s.

Star Wars: Heir to the Empire (Trilogy)

The first official trilogy of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, now known as the Legacy series.

It is always interesting to read through some of the EU to see what the Cinematic Universe is “borrowing” from.

Grand Admiral Thawn was such a popular character that he survived being rebooted.

2001: A Space Odyssey

If you have no idea what was going on in the movie. The book will help.

H. P. Lovecraft’s Collection of Horror

There are lots of copy cats, but only one original H. P. Lovecraft.

Mild in terms of today’s standards, but still thought provoking.

Good you are still wanting something creepy/spooky with out it being full of gore, swearing, or other ‘adult’ content, or looking for nothing exceedingly long

A “next step up” after reading Dracula, Frankenstein, and other fiction of that era (penny dreadful, or horror romances).

Heinlein’s Lazarus Long Universe (basically, most of his books)

It is decent until the last 5 books when things really get duct-taped together, then you’ll want to pull your hair out

Time Enough For Love, Number of the Beast, Cat that Walks through Walls, and To Set Sail Beyond the Sunset are some of the worst offenders.

An Incest warning is needed.

The ideas of these stories are timeless, the writing not so much. Characters are antiquated and firmly in the “men’s club” of old-school science fiction. (Even the “strong female protag” in some of the stories still find time to be a wife and mother above all else. Many of the relationships are “open relationships,” so frequent wife/girlfriend swapping)

Starship Troopers

If you ignore the rest of Heinlein’s work, make an exception to at least read this one

Warns of the dangers of being in a global totalitarian society.

POC main character. Juan “Johnny” Rico. Something that was unheard of at the time of publishing.

The Silo Series (Wool/Rust)

Post-Apocalypse science fiction.

Not as dark as say something like bleak The Road or the bloody Red Rising, a PG-13 book.

Set firmly in the middle-ground of fiction despite the setting, the characters aren’t one-note, a solid little series of books and short stories

With some editing it could have been an other dystopia YA series.

The Great Book of Amber (The Amber and Chaos Chronicles)

High fantasy written with a modern voice. A Shakespeare and Arthurian setting. Avalon, Oberon, The “fairy realm,” Civil War. Court intrigue, back stabbing, fratricide. Unicorns.

Written in the 70′s and 80′s. Likely inspiration for other series like ASOIAF, Dresden, and The Witcher. Suggest reading this one before either of them.

The two main POV characters are enjoyable with a snarky sense of humor. The side characters have personality as well.

Multi-dimensional universe, one of the better ones.

Has a Table Top Game.

Welcome to Nigh Vale: A Novel.

Quarkie, Mysterious, and odd.

Heavily inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, X-files, and other conspiracy theory genera, but treated in a mundane manner which makes it unnerving in itself.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (AKA: Blade Runner)

The book that inspired Blade Runner. To the point that many further publications of the book often call itself Blade Runner instead of its actual name (including the audio version).

The book and moves are only alike in theme, and some plot points

The book is bleaker, more Fallout than Ghost In the Shell.

Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune

The “Lord of the Rings” of Science Fiction.

What started out as a “deconstruction” of campy science fiction like John Carter and Flash Gorden, and a “take that” to Issac Asimov and Heinlein’s style of writing shaped all science fiction written afterwards.

GRRM (A Song of Ice and Fire) is often compared to Herbert... for good and bad reasons.

Neuromancer.

The book that brought us the first REAL Cyberpunk in the 80′s.

It is interesting to see the ways they thought computers would be part of 21st century society back in the Cold War Era.

Mort(e)

Animals take over the world killing most of mankind along with it.

A mysterious “virus” sweeps through the animal population, and the Ants in charge began culling the animals to remove it.

The Hunger Games Trilogy.

There is a lot less HAM in the books than in the movies.

Upper Young Adult. Class Warfare. Post Apocalyptic Dystopia. Children killing children.

You can get into Katness’s head a lot easier, understand her reasons for being emotionally distant with people.

Jurassic Park, The Lost World

Dinosaurs and Assholes. Perfect Michael Crichton books.

The second one should be read just for the fact that the movie is nothing like it. The first movie had a passable resemblance, with some character tweaks... the second movie barely resembles the book at all.

The second attempt of Crichton writing a series about “high-tech theme parks gone wrong” (the first being Westworld)

Android’s Dream (John Scalzi)

When you find out why the book is called “Android’s Dream”... feel free to be grossed out.

Let’s just say the book isn’t about androids...

The Illuminatus Trilogy

Written in the 70′s. Plenty of Sex, Drugs, and Rock-and-Roll.

Some of the conspiracy theories will throw you for a loop, then suddenly you’ll remember that this is a comedy/parody book and gods are real.

fnord.

Cryptonomicon

A long fictional account about the invention of computers. Told against the backdrop of WWII and the Early 2000′s internet boon.

I feel this one is on par with the Illumanatus Trilogy when it comes to tone and feel, but with no magic-chaos-cults involved.

Parodies of Historical figures, large a corporation with their fingers in many-o-pot, main characters that would be considered counter-cultured for their time period finding themselves in over-the-top situations.

Neil Gaiman’s American Gods

Personally I found the book to be slow and meandering, but interesting as a whole.

Basically defines what people think Gaiman’s style is. Dark imagery, weird shit happening, and lots of contemplating your navel.

The Comoran Strike Detective Novels.

What J. K. Rowling is doing whenever she isn’t milking the corpse of Harry Potter.

Would be a better series in general without the fake love triangle...

The Godfather

The movie is better than the book, but then the movie is like in the top-5 best movies of ALL TIME.

The movie does follow the book for the most part, with some variation for time and content.

The Guns of August (Non-Fiction, WWI novel)

Accounts what caused WWI and the events of the first two months of the war.

It doesn’t demonize the Germans, Russians, or any of the sides in particular. It explains quite clearly as to what all their motivations were getting into this war and how the war ended up becoming a complete slog.

Realm of The Elderlings Series (Robin Hobb)

If you ever want to experience “the feelz” in book form.

The relationship between FitzChivalry and the Fool is one of the most anguished you’ll ever read about.

There is a lot of ship baiting however, as the Fool is genderfluid and Fitz refuses to believe their relationship is anything other than close-brotherly love...

About 60% of the entire series is seen through FitzChivalry “head as thick as a brick” Farseer ‘s POV, be prepared for lots of PTSD.

The Mists of Avalon

The classic tale of King Arthur imagined and told through the eyes of the women of the court.

There are no real villains in the series, even the most morally dark among them have justifiable reasons for what they are doing. Unlike something like Once and Future King. Mordred, Morgause and Morgan are not evil stereotypes, they have human real-world reasons for what they do.

The Red Rising Trilogy

The Adult Fiction version of The Hunger Games.... In SPACE.

Color-coded for your convenience.

All the surrounding characters are more interesting than the main character.

Your favorite character is likely going to die.

Darrow always reminding you about his fridged wife... even after he finds a replacement goldfish.

The Cycle of Arawn, The Cycle of Galand

In a world of black magic and white magic, it isn’t always clear on which side is good or evil.

Plot holes you can drive a truck through, or at least hope will get resolved/remembered in later installments.

Most of the charm of this series is the relationship between Dante and Blaze. The way they both converse with each other and the people around them is very reminiscent of Buffy Speak.

The Dresden Files (Harry Dresden... Wizard)

Dresden has a great mix of humor and cynicism.

Plenty of action, not entirely predictable in plot, and a heaping helping of stopping the forces of evil from destroying all existence.

A modern-era fantasy with plenty of demons, fairies, vampires, and ghost. Never loses the feel that it is set in the modern times.

Stephen King’s Horror-Fiction (The Stand, Under The Dome, IT, The Shining/Doctor Sleep)

The human condition at its worse told in speculative horror fiction.

The Forgotten Warrior Series (Son of the Black Sword)

Future Earth, brought back to an age of magic (or science-like magic) when demons fell from the sky and ravaged the planet. An entire race, the last survivors of the people that turned away the demons and drove them to the sea, are forced to live as slaves, vagabonds, and in perpetual poverty.

The Witcher Novels

Books are published OUT OF ORDER in America. Please read The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny short-story collections before the Saga books.

CDPR Games are a Fan-created sequel to the books, so the games spoil the books (especially the third game).

Netflix is making a (new*) show adaption of the novels with the author’s approval and getting advice from the game makers as well.

*we don’t talk about the old show.....

The First Law Trilogy

It will get worse. When ever you think things can’t get any worse. It always does. And you watch the characters struggle all the way through it and everybody around them dying along the way.

Don’t get too attached to anybody without a POV.

A Song Of Ice and Fire

The modern “Gold Standard” for Dark Fantasy when Game of Thrones brought it to the mainstream.

Just about everything black and grim can, has, and will happen.

Nothing is glorified, everything is awful. When something problematic to our modern society happens within the narrative, it is often treated with the weight that these issues are a problem and part of their corrupt society (things like incest, child murder, rape, abuse....)

Hannibal Lector Series (Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal)

humanizes the most horrible of mankind.

if you had at least watched any of the movies and/or the show, read the books as well.

Dogsland Trilogy (J. M. McDermott)

Nothing good will come out of this. There is no hope for any of the characters. It starts out black and will end just as black. It is like a slice of life for the dirt poor and shunned. Forever on the run from hunters and discriminated against just because of being born. It ends where it began.

The Road

A story about a father and son at the end of humanity. There is nothing that can be done, a harsh struggle to delay the inevitable death of man kind.

#book recommendations #book rec #myu reads

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theinquisitivej · 7 years ago

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Late to the Party - ‘Night of the Living Dead’ (1968)

You don’t need to have seen George A. Romero’s films to know that his death meant that a giant of cinematic and pop culture influence had left us. The zombie is not only a permanent fixture of the list of all-time classic monsters, standing in equal footing alongside vampires, werewolves, aliens and so on, but zombies are also one of the most prevalent creatures of 21st century fiction, whether depicted straight-faced or as a deviation from the norm. Although the term ‘zombie’ wasn’t invented by Romero (before him it was usually found in films and stories about witch doctors using mind control to enslave people as lifeless ‘zombies’), and it wasn’t even him that termed the monsters in ‘Night of the Living Dead’ as ‘zombies’, I still think we can comfortably say that he invented what we know to be the zombie horror genre. But far from being content with just inventing a new horror subgenre, he stuck around to revisit and improve on his creation again and again with numerous titles that are synonymous with zombie fiction. Romero’s name is renowned by filmmakers and lovers of film, so I have no doubt his career took him to areas beyond zombie flicks and this particular series. I am not the person to tell you about this man and his accomplishments. ‘Night of the Living Dead’ is the first Romero film I’ve ever seen and I will not disrespect his legacy by claiming that my limited experience even scratches the surface of his life’s work. But my hope with this review is to be one example of keeping a filmmaker’s memory alive by celebrating and discussing their art after they are gone.

Romero directed ‘Night of the Living Dead’ in 1968 and wrote the screenplay together with John Russo. The two had previously worked on commercials, along with their friend Russell W. Streiner who would eventually act as producer for ‘Night’ and play Johnny in the film. The three friends were growing tired of working on commercials and wanted to create a horror movie, which they felt encouraged bizarre creativity. After a few redrafts, Russo and Romero put together a screenplay for a story about flesh-eating reanimated corpses, with Romero openly taking heavy influence from Richard Matheson’s novel ‘I am Legend’. For context, 1968 was the same year the original ‘Planet of the Apes’ and ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ were released. In addition to ‘Night of the Living Dead’s black and white colourisation distinguishing it from these two examples of well-known Hollywood films of the time, ‘Night’ had a significantly smaller budget of $114,000 versus $5.8 million and $10.5 million for ‘Apes’ and ‘2001’ respectively. For as much as this story redefined horror, it nevertheless has the feel of a well-crafted cult classic, rather than a massive blockbuster.

The narrative shows a simple series of events; a woman visits her father’s grave with her brother, they’re attacked by a strange man and the two are separated, the sister winds up at a seemingly abandoned house, and slowly more survivors begin congregating at this house and must try their best to survive until the authorities can save them. The experience is deepened by the TV and radio reports which add lore and context to the characteristics of these ghouls, where they might have come from, and how they can be defeated. The resulting movie draws the viewer in by slowly revealing a more detailed picture of the living dead while simultaneously raising the tension as characters become more unstable as ever more ghouls surround this claustrophobic setting.

Despite the exact timescale of this narrative being unclear, ‘Night of the Living Dead’ is appropriately titled, as it neatly sums up the nightmarish atmosphere the film so successfully manages. The lighting is exceptional, illuminating the frightened faces of terrified survivors as they are surrounded by oppressive darkness, while shadows cast vague, uncertain shapes across their faces. On the zombies, the lighting frames the vacant expressions and the little gory touches effectively, but the shadows obscure things just enough to ensure that you aren’t ever able to take in the full picture of them, making what you can’t tell about them haunting while simultaneously accentuating the off-putting nature of the details you are able to take in. The camera is often tilted slightly, even when nothing is happening. This makes even the typically comforting setting of a home into a twisted and unsettling version of itself. The editing can be a little rough at times as it frantically cuts between shots during the ghouls’ attacks, but this works in the film’s favour, making you even more unsure of your surroundings as the whole world goes to hell. Finally, the music can be cheesey when listened out of context, but when paired with the film the bombastic tracks make the shocking moments hit harder, while its absence during the uneasy quiet moments adds to the viewer’s paranoia that something terrible could happen at any moment, putting you in the same headspace as the characters. Despite almost 50 years having passed, and countless other films, books, tv series, games, and more having taken their stab at selling the horror of this exact scenario, ‘Night of the Living Dead’ still works remarkably well as an atmospheric narrative that evokes a frightening nightmare you desperately want to wake up from.

All of these elements combine to emphasise the uncanniness of the ghouls and the character’s surroundings. At first, the ghouls aren’t noticeably gory or disfigured; they just look like regular people who have gone mad. It is only as reports come in that the ghouls start to reflect our increased understanding of them by being more noticeably divorced from typical humans. Some wear little to no clothing, others show facial scars of more significant wounds, and we even get to see them ripping and eating viscera as we approach the final act. But this happens by degrees, slowly being introduced to us rather than being thrown at us all at once. Mankind is gradually disintegrating into depraved animals, but their human appearance makes the decline of something so familiar abhorrent and believable, despite, or maybe even because of what the limited budget can manage. If the uncanny is about taking the grounded world we know and shifting it ever so slightly into something unbearable, then ‘Night of the Living Dead’ is a successful example of how to use the tools of cinema to achieve this effect, and horror movies owe a lot to that, from the early slasher films of the 70s all the way to recent zombie films.

While a streamlined narrative giving rise to a genre of imitators would have you believe that the original would pale in comparison to the examples that expanded upon the experience with deeper characters and complex moral situations, ‘Night of the Living Dead’s story is still compelling to watch. It does meander and feel a bit creaky once or twice, particularly when Barbara takes some time going over every detail of the attack on her and her brother; seeing her recount this might be more effective if we hadn’t already seen everything she’s describing barely 20 minutes before this. Also the limited makeup and practical effects worked for me because it was paired with some clever techniques that push them further, but tastes may vary and some viewers might find the visuals too cheap to take seriously and invest in. But neither of these drawbacks ruin the experience of seeing a group of characters act and react in a reasonably believable manner to extraordinary circumstances. Hearing the unfolding reports as more information is drip-fed to our characters keeps you hooked even as you spend much of the runtime in a quiet house with people just trying to wait this disaster out. The direction of how certain tensions and character conflicts will progress is pretty apparent from the get-go, but I appreciate that they aren’t a one-way journey where things only get worse. People make concessions, little gestures to help out, and work together long enough so that it doesn’t come off as an inevitability when things go from bad to worse, which makes the tragedy of this social microcosm’s descent all the more potent. Without going into spoilers, the ultimate fate of one character is particularly chilling, while another character’s end is so sudden and unexpected that it leaves you reeling in a way that stays with you. This is a fine example of the zombie horror genre, even as it lays the foundation for the stories that would follow suit.

I have no doubt George A. Romero went from strength to strength in his series of zombie movies, just as other filmmakers took the genre in countless directions that took the zombies as metaphors for any number of things, or placed them in ever more imaginative scenarios. But for a starting point for not only an entire genre, but for one director’s career, this is especially impressive. It deftly captures the feeling of a nightmare, and I would argue its visuals are just as potent all these years later.

8/10.

Even at this early stage, George A. Romero shows his admirable grasp of brutal horror, and shared his creative nightmare with a world that has kept it going even after all this time.

#The Inquisitive J #film #movies #films #classic movies #classic movie reviews #film reviews #movie review #movie reviews #film critic #film criticism #night of the living dead #george a romero #george romero #late to the party #night of the living dead review #the inquisitive j reviews

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versatilepoetry · 5 years ago

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This Very Moment When I Was Dying Today

The leaves withered as time passed; falling inevitably on the ground to blend with disdainful chunks of dust, The roses blossoming radiantly in the valley; knelt their heads in meek submission as the chilly winds and nightfall took complete control, The lines of the palm bifurcated enigmatically all over in boisterous youth; started fading and diminished to a trifle as the perils of old age took over, The vivacious mounds of virgin clay which smiled mischievously under the Sun; looked completely battered and bashed as they were indiscriminately trampled by ongoing vehicles and metal tyre, The eyes which were once able to intricately sort out the inconspicuous needle from the colossal haystack; now looked as specks of dirt behind a factory of thick glass; as the years descended by, The legs which were springing and tenaciously marching forward at the ripening of dawn; now collapsed in a bedraggled heap at the onset of stark darkness and ghostly night, The towering castle which was once the pride of the royal emperor; now was a sight in complete shambles; with broken glass and century old cobwebs the only things welcoming the predecessor's, The image which was brighter than scintillating light in sweltering afternoon; now metamorphosed into lanky shadows; trespassing furtively through the fleeting blanket of dusk, The footprints which were profoundly distinct as the travelers strolled; were now wholesomely erased as the turbulent draught of breeze swept by, The waves spasmodically swirling towards the skies all throughout the evening; now appeared as placid as the singing angel; when the storm and ferocious cyclone had totally dissipated, The tongue which was raring to shout deafeningly in open space; now resembled the dying insect; after countless hours of giving speech, The shock of hair which was once as black as oil trapped within the belly of earth; now appeared as snow white as the man who sat astoundingly near to his grave, The pristine air of the snow clad slopes which was stupendously clean and enchanting as the cows grazed; now transited into plumes of treacherous black smoke; as the aftermath of war took its gory toll, The vegetables which were fresh and glowing with sparkling health as I hoisted them from the stores; now transformed into soggy and squalid as I rang the doorbell; utterly exhausted and entered home, The time which seemed to tick faster than light during examinations; now appeared to be crawling slower than the tortoise as the summer holidays descended by, The ape man who once could conquer invincible heights with raw muscle and unprecedented power bulging from under his shirt; now seemed to be unable to even lift a finger; as the decades unveiled in quick succession, The candle which was burning inexorably; illuminating every cranny of the room with its profound shine; now extinguished in entirety with a single kiss of the autumn wind, The heart which throbbed violently after witnessing the girl of its dreams for the first time; now reduced its intensity a whisker; after spending marathon times together, But my love for her got all the more stronger as each second unfurled into a minute; as each minute sped into an hour; as each day evolved into a week; as each year evolved into a decade; and no matter how old I became; how frigid the conglomerate of bones in my body converted; I loved her more than I loved her when she first met me; I loved her more than I ever did in my passionate dreams; I loved her more than I had loved her anytime before; this very moment when I was dying today.

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nixonsmoviereviews · 7 years ago

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"Life"- An 'Alien' knock-off for sure... but a decent 'Alien' knock-off. It's appropriately gooey, gory and thrilling and never mistakes itself for being more than it is.

You can't keep a good classic down. Nor evidently, can you keep others from trying to replicate the success of a classic for years- even decades- after. This is especially true about the 2017 Sci- Fi/Thriller release "Life" from director Daniel Espinosa. Yes, for all intents and purposes, the film is very much aping off of one of the great classics of the genre... that of course being Ridley Scott's phenomenal 1979 release "Alien." From tone to character to basic structure, Espinosa and the wicked screen writing duo of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick craft a film that is either lovingly paying homage to the iconic Scott picture... or drastically ripping it off. Either way, it isn't the first 'Alien' knock-off... nor will it be the last. The best we can hope for it is that it ended up being one of the better 'Alien' knock- offs... Thankfully enough... I'd say it is. Yes, despite a few major problems with the pacing and a few questionable choices with the structure, I found "Life" to be completely entertaining and a lot of fun for what it was. Sure, it won't win any Oscars... but there's nothing wrong with a good, old-fashioned thrill-fest. It's got all the goo and gore you'd expect from a deep-space creature-feature, and boasts a massive budget and top-notch talent on-screen to boot. It honestly reminded me of an old nostalgic favorite in that respect- the Kevin Bacon thriller "Hollow Man", which similarly boasted a big budget and big talent for what amounted to a cheesy slasher movie. A lot of people complained (just as a lot of people are complaining about "Life"), but they seemed to miss the point... these movies are meant to be pure, visceral fun. Not mind-bending or even all that complex. And in that respect, I think "Life" works quite well. In the near future, a six-person crew aboard the International Space Station intercepts a probe returning from the planet Mars with soil samples for study. Soon enough, it is discovered that a microscopic organism exists within the soil- the first real sign of alien life beyond Earth. After managing to revive the organism (nicknamed "Calvin"), it begins to grow and display signs of intelligence and thought. However, things take a turn for the worse when Calvin escapes his "habitat" and begins to act in an aggressive and defensive fashion... eventually beginning to kill off members of the team in order to feed. And so, the remaining crew must work together to try and kill this martian beast before it is able to reach Earth... I really gotta hand it to the cast- they all knock it out of the park, despite the film zooming through their establishment a little too quickly. Our leads Rebecca Ferguson and Jake Gyllenhaal are a lot of fun, and both are given just enough motivation to help you care about their characters. Supporting roles by the likes of Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ariyon Bakare and Olga Dihovichnaya are all very well-played and are given just enough quirks and defining features that you actually do kinda feel bad when the creature starts to attack them one-by-one. It's a case of good casting overcoming a few missteps in the narrative. The script by Reese and Wernick is quite entertaining, and they show that they have a knack for suspense and thrills. I've been seeing a lot of reviews nit-picking the minute details or trying to poke holes in the logic... but you gotta remember: these are the same guys who wrote "Deadpool." If you think they're trying to deliver a hard-hitting and cerebral drama set to the backdrop of a Gothic horror picture, you're clearly not in the right mindset. They know exactly what they're trying to do... pay homage to Sci-Fi classics like the aforementioned "Alien" while delivering as many jumps and disgusting displays of bodily- fluids as possible. It's not tongue- in-cheek per se, but it's also not 100% trying to be overtly realistic. They're crafting a fun movie... not a complex one. The tones and style that Espinosa injects into the film are incredibly invaluable. It's a very competently made movie, and there's a lot of really fun visual nuances and nifty camera-work on display that lends much to the proceedings. From an opening sequence told almost entirely in a single complex (and breathtaking) shot, to more subtle moments like allowing the camera to linger on the various crewmembers as they cry at their terrible situation in one genuinely touching scene... there's a lot of really smart moves being made in the storytelling thanks to top-notch visual guidance. I'm not overly familiar with Espinosa's filmography... but if he's able to do so much creative and original work with what is essentially an homage-picture, I'd keep my eye on him in the future. All that being said, however... there's some issues I cannot deny. And they do bring the whole thing down a few points. Despite allowing the story to truck along quickly, the pacing does rob some much-needed moments with the characters and I would have liked to have seen some more development in the supporting roles. A few of the "scares" are telegraphed from a mile away, which annoyed me a bit. And I do think that despite aiming to pay homage to the classics... the film could have subverted expectations a bit more than it ended up doing. It would have helped it stand alone a bit more. But in the end, for what amounts to a fun-albeit-generic creature- feature in space, "Life" is very much an enjoyable time. It's not going to break new ground and I certainly wouldn't call it a great film. But it's more than adequate and I know I had a lot of fun seeing it on the big-screen. I give it a pretty-good 7 out of 10.

#imdb #movie #film #review #sci-fi #thriller #alien #creature

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chernobog13 · 3 years ago

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NOT YER GRAMMA’S SPECTREMAN!

Someone on Youtube has posted the original pilot (although it plays more like a pitch proposal) of Spectreman from P-Productions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP9Sk58anlw

As you can see in the screenshot above, Spectreman looked a whole lot different in the pilot than he did in the series.

That’s not even a full mask he’s wearing; the bottom part of the actor’s face was painted silver!

The pilot is short, barely 12 minutes long; has no dialogue; and has loads of Japanese narration throughout, which are factors that lead me to believe this is more a proposal for network executives, or a condensation of a full episode for the same purpose.

Like in the series, Spectreman is a cyborg, although the transformation sequence makes it appear that he is more of an android.

Spectreman tackles the foot of a dinosaur-like monster

Perhaps the biggest difference between the pilot and the actual series, though, is that Dr. Gori, the alien ape who tries to conquer Earth, was supposed to be the star character. In fact, the pilot’s title is Space Monkey Man Goro (Uchu Enjoin Gori).

The monster tries to shake off the pesky cyborg hugging his foot

Dr. Gori’s appearance in the pilot is also different from how he appears in the series. In the pilot he is a gorilla wearing a black cuirass. He was re-designed for the series into the green-faced, blonde-haired, pink leisure suit-wearing master of menace we remember. The Gori costume from the pilot was repurposed in the series as Dr. Gori’s assistant, Ra, or Karas as he was called in the English dub.

Almost the first half of the pilot delves into Dr. Gori’s backstory, with many shots of the actor wearing the impressive gorilla mask speaking (or at least moving his mouth). I always found the Ra/Karas mask to be superior to any of the gorilla masks used in the Planet of the Apes films.

Along with backstory on Dr. Gori, we learn that Spectreman, when in his human guise, is found of wearing a cowboy hat with business suits. He also has to request permission to transform into Spectreman from his commander, appropriately named Overlord, who watches over the Earth in a spaceship called Nebula 71. That arrangement reminds me of Omac and the overseer satellite Brother Eye from Jack Kirby’s original Omac comic book.

The original tone of the pilot is much darker and grimmer than the far more kid-friendly series. There are still monster battles (they cram three into the pilot, one right after the other), and the dinosaur-sized monster seen above is actually stop-motion animated, which I feel was a great touch even if it feels more like Rankin-Bass the Willis O’Brien or Ray Harryhausen.

But of all the differences between the pilot and the actual series, I am happiest about the change in Spectreman’s costume. The original design seen here isn’t too bad, but the execution is just gawdawful. And kid as we might about superheroes wearing their underwear on the outside, it does look like Spectreman is wearing tights-whities over red longjohns.

For more information about this pilot, and the Spectreman series as a whole, track down G-Fan #132 (summer 2021) for Neil Riebe’s excellent article about same.

#Spectreman #Spectreman pilot #G-Fan #tokusatsu

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lightningwolf66 · 8 years ago

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ATTACK OF THE CELL PHONE ZOMBIES

New Post has been published on http://app2chart.com/attack-of-the-cell-phone-zombies/

ATTACK OF THE CELL PHONE ZOMBIES

“Zombies. man. They creep me out.” -Dennis Hopper in the Land Of The Dead.

Book Excerpt:

By William Thomas

They are everywhere.

And they are winning.

Walk down virtually any metropolitan street, if you still dare, and you will discern with a jolt of alarm that no one around you is aware of each other’s presence or their surroundings as they shuffle past with the shambling gait of automatons. Hearing blocked by blaring or blathering headsets, heads bent over cell phones, iPods, palm pilots, multimedia players, text messagers and other hypnotic gadgetry, these walking dead with their vacant stares are so far departed from the reality around them they don’t even know they’re gone.

Cell phone zombies are proliferating everywhere. Spread by the most virulent contagion on Earth – the lust to own and continuously jack into wireless technology – addictive endorphin jolts sent by cell phones to the brain threaten agonizing withdrawal, even as their invisible emanations attack the frontal lobes, short-circuiting memory, awareness and cognitive thought.

Succumbing to the identical marketing strategies marshaled by the same advertising agencies pushing tobacco onto children, hordes of cell phone zombies as young as four-years-old are replacing normal human relationships with the cold calculus of truncated text messages, while disturbing their sonic space and interrupting conversations with friends and spouses to jabber with ghosts who are not even present, even as they spread the blight of their second hand microwaves among the last pockets of cell phone resistance.

Unlike the flesh-munching ghouls depicted in Hollywood horror flicks, which die and “reanimate” through the transmission of the Solanum virus through a usually gruesome exchange of bodily fluids, “voodoo zombies” are created by potions and spells cast by Haitian hougnan priests.

“Zombie powder,” as Max Brooks notes in his essential ZOMBIE Survival Guide, “contains a very powerful neurotoxin” not unlike the pervasive brain-eating chemicals added to food, soft drinks and other drugs – including (as we have seen elsewhere in this book) fluoride, aspartame and mercury. Separately and in combination, these insidious compounds are synergistically activated by pulsating electromagnetic emissions that mimic and override normal cellular functioning to destroy brain neurons and turn people into zombies.

Held entranced as their life force is leached away by devices eerily similar in size and shape to the voodoo dolls used to cast curses, cell phone zombies are especially dangerous, because unlike real Solanum-inducted zombies incapable of expressing feelings or speech, cell phone zombies can appear nearly normal when not jacked in. A real zombie, when it encounters you, “will home in like a smart bomb,” Brooks explains, and start gnawing your face. A cell phone-voodoo zombie “will take a moment to try to figure out who or what you are.”

Smiling a reflexive, unfelt apology for their intrusion – even “growling if hurt or provoked” as Brooks describes – many cell phone zombies “understand words; some even understand simple sentences [and] possess the ability to speak – simply, of course – and rarely for extended conversations.”

TILL DEATH DO YOU APART While not known to devour human flesh like “real” zombies, their mindless preoccupation with themselves, slavish fixation on meaningless distractions, and complete disregard for their rapidly deteriorating ecologic, economic and Constitutional environment threaten to spill from the worst zomboid infestations in the United States across the entire globe.

Certainly, the carnage caused by their mindless wars against non-threatening nations on which American zombies project their paranoia is consuming bone and gristle, hopes and dreams by the boxcar loads. With more than one million people – mostly children – killed in Iraq since 2003 by zombie-like GIs hopped up on anti-malarial pills and Dexedrine, fear, stress, exhaustion and the potent spells of patriotism and “revenge” for non-existent crimes, America’s blindly-following zombie legions are as dangerous to any country they overrun as the horrors described by Brooks in his best-selling account of the zombie wars. [World War Z]

CELL PHONE CARNAGE Still, innocent bystanders and drivers can be at grave risk from deranged zombies talking on their cell phones while operating heavy fast-moving vehicles.

In cities that have not yet disarmed cell phone-brandishing drivers, the resulting daily carnage is as gory as any scene out of “Night Of The Living Dead”. Stunned by an additional $4 billion a year in claims for drivers using cell phones, North American insurers discovered that juggling phones while driving is not causing a 600% increase in accidents. Other drivers busy shaving, applying makeup, tuning radios, taming pets, pouring coffee, eating meals, retrieving dropped cigarettes, talking to passengers or attempting various sexual gymnastics are even more preoccupied.

Cell phones are much worse than lmerely dangerous driving distractions. Tests conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy found that using a cellphone turns drivers into zombies, severely impairing their memories and reaction times by disrupting signals to and within their brains. Hands-free mobile phones cause even more crashes because they typically emit 10-times more brainwave interference than handheld units.

Phoning from inside a car or truck is a bad call for everyone in the vehicle – especially children – because the surrounding steel structure amplifies cellphone emissions. The UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee reports, “using a mobile phone in a vehicle can accelerate radiation levels by up to 10-fold due to resonance effect.”

For all drivers dialing out, Swiss researchers have found “changes of brain function induced by pulsed high-frequency electromagnetic fields outlast the exposure period.” University of Toronto investigators report that the heightened probability of cracking up your car persists for up to a half-hour after completing a call.

That’s comparable to the risk of crashing while driving dead drunk exclaims Dr. Chris Runball, chairman of the B.C. Medical Association’s emergency medical services committee.

“Talking on a cell phone makes you drive like a retiree even if you’re only a teen,” reports the University of Utah, after finding that when motorists as young as 18 talk on their cell phones, “they drive like elderly people, moving and reacting more slowly and increasing their risk of accidents.” Only hands-free phones were used in the study.

“If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, his reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver,” says David Strayer, a University of Utah psychology professor and principal author of the study. “It’s like instant aging.” (Except studies have shown older, more experienced drivers are much more cautious – and safer – than testosterone-addled teens.) [AP Feb 2/05; Human Factors Winter/05]

Cell phone users are also as impaired as alcoholics. The quarterly journal Human Factors and Ergonomics Society reports that motorists talking on cell phones are actually more impaired than drunk drivers with blood-alcohol levels exceeding 0.08. It doesn’t matter whether the phone is hand-held or hands free.

EM engineer Alasdair Philips of Britain’s Powerwatch looked for people under age 40 using cell phones more than four hours a day, and found them already retired as “unfit for future work” due to early onset dementia. Philips says, “I would rate over four hours per day cell-phone use as potentially as dangerous as drinking a bottle of spirits per day – only it will damage the user’s brain function rather than kidney function, and we don’t yet have brain transplants.”

SAFETY TIP: Protect yourself from zombies operating motor vehicles! If you are driving and spot someone using a cell phone in a vehicle nearby, pull off the road and seek cover as soon as it is safe to do so. Or maneuver behind that driver and increase your distance accordingly. Do not open fire. “Self-defense” is not yet a legal defense for shooting drivers wielding cell phones.

PHONING FETUSES If infants are born zombies, we are doomed. In the world’s most extensive, government-funded report on cell phone radiation, biomedical expert Dr. Stan Barnett described cell phone radiation effects on fetal tissue. After its release in June 1994 by a reluctant Australian government, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) described laboratory tests as far back December 1974 showing how neurons in the soft skulls of developing fetuses are extremely sensitive to heat during the process of cell division.

“The mother’s pelvic structure promotes deep RF radiation penetration and that radiation can be absorbed within the developing embryo or fetus,” Dr. Barnett warned. The womb’s saline fluid is also highly conductive to Radio Frequencies and microwaves – and the EMF-conductive human body is 65% water-by-weight. [CSIRO June 1994; irf.univie.ac.at/emf]]

Whether cell phone radiation cooks the baby’s brain or destroys its rapidly dividing brain cells through microwave radiation, “the resulting neural deficit may not be restored,” Dr. Barnett found. Perhaps not wanting to terrify the public, he neglected to add that this fetal brain damage from cell phones could easily lead to zombification. But he did add that though the fetus may continue to develop and appear normal, her brain functioning may be reduced for life. [EMFacts Consultancy Mar 26/03]

PhD Robert Kane points to corroborative research showing that all fetuses “showed growth retardation from cell phone exposure” – with female offspring exhibiting the highest risk of “impaired learning ability.” When we recall that cell phone zombies speak largely in clichés, corporate jingles and broken sentences we can see how insidiously far-reaching this process has already gone.

Associated Bioelectromagnetics Technologists findings also show that RF exposure from cell phones and cell phone relay towers “is wholly correlated with the repeatedly documented increased incidence of autism – now reported by at least some researchers as greater than 1 per 100 newborn.”

God have mercy on us all. If one in a hundred infants are not actually autistic but hard-to-differentiate zombies – we may find ourselves overwhelmed within another generation.

TOASTED TOTS No one saw it coming. At first a cumbersome novelty, then a faddish convenience, the turning point in the zombification of humanity came in 2006, when corporate hougnan witch doctors casting microwaves began targeting the newborn. Already brain damaged by forced mercury injections in multiple infant vaccines, these newly arrived humans were taken home and bathed in electromagnetic smog invisibly spread by wireless routers, portable phones and intercom “sentries” placed in close proximity to their cribs.

The next step in their zombification came in putting cuddly “kiddy” phones capable of speed-dialing grandma and grandpa into the grasping hands of four year-olds. Soon, humans just out of the womb will no doubt be taking congratulatory calls at their mother’s breasts.

Some of us tried to resist. The MO1 developed by the toy company Imaginarium and telcom giant Telefónica in Spain prompted parental groups across Europe to demand a government ban on inflicting cell phones on children. Jóvenes Verdes, an environmental advocacy group for young Spanish persons, denounced the mobile telephone industry for “acting like the tobacco industry by designing products that addict the very young.”

In Paris, where the curvy crimson-and-blue MO1 “beginner” mobile phone for 6-year-olds has overcome defenders by promising “peace of mind” – or maybe no mind at all – the French health minister has issued a public warning against “excessive” mobile phone use by young children. “I believe in the principle of precaution,” muttered Monsieur Bachelot. “If there is a risk, then children with developing nervous systems would be affected. I’ve alerted parents about the use of mobile telephones because it’s absurd for young children to have them.”

Also concerned about the zombification of the young, Frank Barnes, a professor of engineering at the University of Colorado who led a study showing that children are at special risk from cell phones, told the press: “This clearly is a population that is going to grow up with a great deal of larger exposure than anybody else because the kids use the phones all the time.”

TARGETING CHILDREN Responding to relentless advertising spells and giveaways, the age of cell phone users continues to drop as fast as their IQ and attention span. In 2007, the average age of first-time “users” was 10. Within the next two years, International Data Corp forecasts the 9-and-under market will rack up an additional $1.6 billion in revenue for cell phone companies – and add another nine million child zombies in the United States alone.

Despite desperate rear-guard stands, the last holdouts against child zombification in the European Union are crumbling. As Dorjeen Carvajal reports, “Telephone use is also getting more precocious in Europe, according to a Eurobarometer survey of almost 1,000 children in 29 countries, most of whom had telephones after age 9.”

The mobile telephone industry “is reaching deeper into saturated markets to tap customers with chubby hands capable of cradling both dolls and phones,” Carvajal comments. As cell phone users in their ‘tweens and teens drive subscriber- growth everywhere, International Data Corp projects that by 2010, 31 million children could become zombies from holding miniature microwave ovens to their vulnerable soft brain tissue.

Targeting the youth market for zombification is especially cynical because children treat their microwave phones like a doudou or stuffed animal companion, the French mobile phone trade association AFOM revealed after surveying the habits of children too young to discriminate against dangers proffered by adults they trust.

Cell phone-toting tots also spend more of their parent’s money on the latest games, ring tones and wallpapers – and teens chatter even more than adults on their cell phones, greatly increasing cell phone company profits. Not to mention their own risks of developing allergies, senility, cataracts, learning disabilities, hyper activity disorders and brain tumors. [Intl Herald Tribune Mar 7/08]

Brain-damaging cell phone exposure continues through childhood. A 1996 study probing the “Electromagnetic Absorption in the Human Head and Neck for Mobile Telephones at 835 and 1900 MHz,” conducted by the fabulously named Dr. Om Gandhi showed electromagnetic radiation from cell phones “coupling” even more alarmingly with the electrically active brains of children, than through the thicker carapaces of cumulatively compromised adults.

“I didn’t know at the time industry was targeting children as the next growth segment. Boy, they really got after me,” Dr. Gandhi says, after he found that the thinner outer ears and skulls of children allow more energy from their cell phones to short-circuit delicate brain tissue. “The reason industry doesn’t like it,” Gandhi explains – “They don’t want to lose this part of the market.” [IEEE Transactions of Microwave Theory and Techniques Oct/96]

“We’re pretty bullish on increased usage by teenagers,” exudes Adam Guy, a senior analyst at the Strategist Group. “Usage penetration is exploding.”

So is brain penetration. Guy’s gushing followed yet another study – this one published in the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry – found that heavy cell phone use can cause brain cancer and other diseases in children, as well as adults by interfering with DNA repair

Speaking directly to cell phone zombification and death, Dr. Theodore Litovitz, a biophysicist and professor emeritus of physics at Catholic University, explains: “Because stress proteins are involved in the progression of a number of diseases, heavy daily cell-phone usage could lead to great incidence of disorders such as Alzheimer’s and cancer.” [Reuters Apr 23/08; wirelessconsumers.org Dec03/01]

A ZOMBIE CASE HISTORY In Claysburg, Pennsylvania, Greg Pozgar resisted buying a mobile phone for his then 12-year-old daughter, Morgan. “My biggest concern was whether my children were responsible enough to handle it,” he said.

No one told him to worry about its emanations.

After receiving her first cell phone as a Christmas gift that year, young Morgan went on to become a champion of text messaging at age 13 in a national $25,000 competition organized by the electronics manufacturer LG. This is the company that in 2007 made Europe’s “fashion handset of choice” by offering a “Chocolate phone” featuring an advanced touchscreen interface, instead of conventional keypad. [techdigestuk.typepad.com]

Competing Motorola’s V220’s Tri-Band promises “network connection” between zombies-under-construction in countries becoming saturated in brain numbing electrosmog. The “stylish” V220 offers chic brain damage, exciting car crashes, no-fear-of-pregnancy sterility or classic cancer – in pink.

After hesitating over heath concerns, Disney has also jumped into the kiddy cell phone sweepstakes. Mattel markets a Barbie cell phone for girls 8 to 14. “Nine-year-old Trey Chapman loves the cool design, flashing lights and big buttons – one for mom and one for dad,” chuckled USA Today. How well Ms. Chapman will enjoy her daughter’s reduced learning ability, asthma and other potentially debilitating maladies was not mentioned. [USA Today Mar 14/05]

Verizon has also responded with its popular “parent capable” LG VX8300. The “Chaperone” cell phone puts the “home” in Homeland Security. Now parents can harass their kids with text messages while tracking them through GPS satellite locators built into their continuously radiating cell phones. Every time a young family member enters or leaves an electronically designated “Child Zone”, participating parents receive automated text messages informing them of their child’s movements – “So you can relax wherever you are.” [verizonwireless.com; Intl Herald Tribune Mar 7/08]

Whether this home surveillance puts a crimp in the sexually transmitted diseases currently afflicting one in four American teenage girls, or their nearly one-in-three pregnancies before the age of 20 remains to be seen. [Reuters Apr 23/08]

The good news and the bad news is that cigarettes are being replaced by mobile phones. Unable to afford both addictions, teen smoking fell off sharply in 1996 – the same year mobile phone use skyrocketed among 15- to 17-year-olds. And no wonder, since cell phones are marketed by the same ad agencies using the same self-image come-ons that attracted teens to cigarettes – a sense of individuality and sociability, a desire to rebel, the need to bond with friends. [British Medical Journal Nov 4/00]

Totally hooked, Morgan now sends and receives up to 7,000 text messages a month.

AVOIDANCE THE ONLY DEFENCE After the Spanish Neuro Diagnostic Research Institute in Marbella discovered that a call lasting just two minutes can alter the natural electrical activity of a child’s brain for up to an hour afterwards, Spanish doctors now fear that disturbed brain activity in children will lead to zombie-like impaired learning ability, as well as psychiatric and behavioural problems.

Brain scans allowed Dr. Michael Klieeisen’s team to see what is happening to the brains of cell phone users. “We never expected to see this continuing activity in the brain,” he told the European press in new stories blacked out in the U.S. “We are worried that delicate balances that exist – such as the immunity to infection and disease – could be altered by interference with chemical balances in the brain.”

The study coincided with a survey showing 87% of 11- to 16-year-olds own cell phones, with 40% of them spending 15 minutes or more talking on them every day. A troubling 70% said they would not change the use of their phone even if advised to by the government.

A British government adviser on mobiles, Dr. Gerald Hyland, finds the results “extremely disturbing.” Parents who believe they are enhancing their children’s safety and social standing by sending them back to school with cellphones could be impairing their health and ability to learn, Dr. Hyland warns. “The results show that children’s brains are affected for long periods even after very short-term use. Their brain wave patterns are abnormal and stay like that for a long period. This could affect their mood and ability to learn in the classroom if they have been using a phone during break time, for instance.”

These same altered brain waves “could lead to things like a lack of concentration, memory loss, inability to learn and aggressive behaviour.”

He could be describing zombies!

“There really isn’t a safe amount of mobile phone use,” Dr. Hyland continues. We don’t know what lasting damage is being done by this exposure. If I were a parent I would now be extremely wary about allowing my children to use a mobile even for a very short period. My advice would be to avoid mobiles.” [Mirror Dec 26/01]

AN OCEAN APART It’s not like nobody knows how dangerous cell phones are. Perhaps because of earlier unpleasant experiences with vampires, European governments are intensely studying the effects of cell phones on otherwise normal humans. So far, their scientists have found everything from nervousness and headaches to brain tumors and even genetic damage resulting from cell phone radiation. [Independent Mar 30/08]

Led by Sir William Stewart, the famous British biochemist and president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science biomedical specialists, the Stewart Inquiry report on “Mobile Phones and Health” was released in April 2000. At a science conference in Glasgow, Sir William urged mobile phone makers to stop presenting their products as essential “back to school” items for children, whose easily penetrated skulls and longer lifetime use makes them particularly vulnerable to Radio-Frequency (RF) and microwave (MW) cell phone radiation. Sir William told the press he would not allow his grandchildren to use mobile phones. [Journal of the Australasian College of Nutritional & Environmental Medicine Sept /01]

In Sweden, where cell phones are being marketed to 5-year-olds, Olle Johansson, Associate Professor of Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm declares: “Parents should take their children away from that technology.” [Dialing Our Cells by William Thomas]

In an interview in the Berlin Morgenpost, Wolfram Koenig, head of the Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz – the federal authority for radiation protection in Germany – urged companies not to target children in their advertising campaigns.

Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, director general of the World Health Organisation, also told a major Norwegian newspaper that children should be discouraged from using mobile phones. The former Norwegian prime minister and popularizer of “sustainability” is also a licensed physician with a degree in public health. Making shorter calls does not help, Brundtland emphasized. [Microwave News Mar-Apr/02; Dagbladet Norge Mar 9/02]

France, Germany and the European Environment Agency also advise “minimal” handheld and hands-free cell phone use. But the Irish Doctors Environmental Association says flatly that young children should be stopped from using mobiles. The Irish point to zombie-like side-effects from cell phone radiation, including excessive clumsiness, fatigue, confusion, tingling and dizziness. [Independent Mar 30/08; Irish News Feb 9/05]

Back across the Atlantic, where one in three teenagers uses a cell phone, “There is no research being done in the United States at the present time,” Dr. Ghandi laments. “All of that research has been stopped because of industry.”

Dr. Ghandi says this violates both the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act and the mandate of the Federal Communication Commission, which regulates RF transmitters on behalf of the industry. His latest heavy-duty paper – Thermal Implications of the New Relaxed IEEE RF Safety Standard for Head Exposures to Cellular Telephones at 835 and 1900 MHz – compares the relaxed RF exposure standards set by an American advisory group called the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers to standards now followed by the European Union.

Gandhi helped establish those regulations. As he explains, in the United States “these days in the committee (that sets the standards), one co-chair is from Motorola and the other is from the Navy, the military-industrial establishment, and they are suddenly loosening their standards. I compared the three standards to show the new standards are out of line. Too loose.” [Uncensored (NZ) Nov 9/06]

HEAVY CASUALTIES SOON COME, MON? If tobacco companies dared employ the same sophisticated neural “programming” techniques to sell cigarettes to toddlers as cell phone manufacturers do by using the same marketing firms – they would face a lynch mob. But by inflicting devices recently denounced by a leading cancer researcher as injurious as smoking on the very young, mobile manufacturers are turning the public into compliant, brain dead zombies.

And maybe just plain dead, as well.

Just-released findings by award-winning cancer expert, PhD Vini Khurana predict that cell phones will kill far more people than either smoking or asbestos. Smoking continues to cull some five million people worldwide every year, while asbestos exposure in England continues to claim as many corpses as road accidents.

After carefully reviewing more than 100 clinical studies showing that using “hands free” and regular cell phones for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer, the very capable Khurana – who has received 14 awards while publishing more than three dozen scientific papers over the past 16 years – concludes that malignant brain tumours resulting from cell phone use constitute “a life-ending diagnosis” for hapless users who now find themselves in an “unchecked and dangerous situation.”

Professor Kjell Mild, of Orbero University, Sweden, who is a Government adviser and led the research, said that children should not be allowed to use mobile phones because their thinner skulls and developing nervous system made them particularly vulnerable. He and Professor Lawrie Challis, who led the MTHR research, want a revision of the emission standard for mobiles and other sources of radiation, which they describe as “inappropriate” and “not safe”. [London Telegraph Oct 9/07]

Professor Khurana has become a Big Kahuna in the war against cell phone zombification after placing his considerable reputation behind the most damning indictment of cell phones to date. He warns emphatically: “Unless the industry and governments take immediate and decisive steps, the incidence of malignant brain tumours and associated death rate will be observed to rise globally within a decade from now – by which time it may be much too late to medically intervene.” [Independent Mar 30/08]

PROCESS OF ELIMINATION It may already be too late.

A recent poll of 1,286 cellphone users has found that one in four cannot imagine life without their cell phone. The question remaining unasked is if they can imagine their lives continuing unimpaired with it.

Four in 10 people, particularly young adults, make cell phone calls to kill time as well as themselves, when traveling or waiting for someone they will invariably ignore. “We’ve got everything on my phone,” boasts Mark Madsen, a 24-year-old college student from Chattanooga, Tennessee. “I use it mostly for the phone, but I also play video games and use the MP3 player. I pretty much use it all the time.”

Like addicts everywhere, more than one in three cell phone subscribers say they are occasionally “stunned” by their user bills. Nevertheless, an increasing number of homes are speeding the zombification of their inhabitants by going completely wireless, with no landline at all. Public pay phones are also being removed, making it ever harder to avoid being owned by a brain-stunting cell phone.

This is good news for political leaders desiring a compliant populace for policies involving genocide, torture and concentration camps. It is also a boon to an illness industry feeding off human misery. On a New Zealand news show, Dr. George Carlo called marketing strategies aimed at children, “grotesque” after identifying as many as 50,000 new cases of brain and eye cancer attributable to cell phone use being diagnosed every year. (Mobile users who wear metal-frame glasses intensify the exposure to their eyes and heads). [IsraCast Technology News July 29/05]

Based on current epidemiological studies, that number will reach half a million cell phone cancer cases annually within the next two years.

WRONG ANSWERS “We have never had this kind of impending risk to society,” Dr. Carlo says. After heading a $28 million cell phone study from 1993 through 2001, his finding – “that RF causes genetic damage” was welcomed by his cell phone industry sponsors.

Jerry Phillips worked with Ross Adey on similar research funded by Motorola beginning in 1991. After Adey came to similar conclusions as Carlo, “Motorola was adamant that Adey never mention DNA damage and radiofrequency radiation in the same breath,” Phillips recounts. [WSW July 11/02; wirelessconsumers.org Dec03/01]

More than two decades ago, EMF researcher Alan Frey also wondered if headaches experienced by radio and radar operators – and now widely reported by cellphone users worldwide – were resulting from microwave-induced leakage of toxic molecules through the blood-brain barrier. “Headaches may only be the most obvious indicator of what is going on biologically,” Frey warned back in the mid-1980s.

Studying blood-brain barrier changes since the late 1980s, neurologist Leif Salford of Lund University in Sweden is the leading expert in this research. “With improved detection procedures and new tracers, one of his most recent studies found changes in the rat brain chemistry after only two minutes of cellphone-level exposures; the rats’ blood-brain barrier had failed, allowing proteins to enter the brain, and it is known that certain proteins which are normally present in blood, can cause nerve damage in the brain,” writes Aussie cellphone rsearcher and reporter Stewart Fist.

Professor Darius Leszcynski headed up the first two-year program looking at the effects of mobile phone radiation on human cells rather than those of rats at Finland’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority. He, too found that cell phone transmissions open the blood-brain barrier to potentially brain-damaging toxins in the blood. [WSW July 11/02]

“We think we are on to something very significant,” Professor Salford says. “It seems that molecules such as proteins and toxins can pass out of the blood, while the phone is switched on, and enter the brain. We need to bear in mind diseases such as MS and Alzheimer’s are linked to proteins being found in the brain.”

So, he added, is Parkinson’s Disease. [Electronics Australia Magazine Feb/00]

Alzheimer’s mental and memory impairment, and the jerky motions of Parkinson’s are telltale zombie symptoms.

PROTECT THE MACHINES “There is no proof that cellular telephones can be harmful,” insist already infected FCC zombies on their “Kidszone” website. Blithely ignoring hundreds of alarming clinical studies, the Federal Communications Commission offers reassuring “Cell Phone FAQs” before going on to advise:

“Some of the places that you should never use your mobile phone are inside hospitals and airplanes. When you make or receive calls, electromagnetic waves are sent through the air. Hospitals have a lot of electronic devices that monitor patient’s heartbeats and other things when they are getting surgery or when they are recovering from an illness. When electromagnetic waves try to go through them, the devices sometimes stop working.”

The FCC does not say what happens when a much more subtle and sensitive instrument called the human brain is exposed to “electromagnetic waves… sent through the air”. [fcc.gov]

LOST CONTACT Max Brooks, best-selling chronicler of the first Zombie World War, informs us that “nzúmbe” is a Kimbundu, West African word for a dead person’s soul. “So what makes this living human a zombie?” Brooks asks. “The answer is simple: brain damage.” [World War Z]

Few things damage brains as severely as chronic exposure to cell phone radiation. Leif Salford is concerned that spreading wireless technology is “drowning people in a sea of microwaves.” Speaking directly to the threatened zombification of the entire human population, Salford says brain neurons that would normally not become senile until people reached their 60’s, are doing so now when people reach their 30’s because of cell phone exposure. [RFSafe.com Nov26/03]

Children and teens who become hooked on cell phones face a lifetime of learning disabilities, hyperactivity, high risk from driving accidents, greatly increased acute and chronic asthma, hearing loss, vision loss, sleep disorders and cancers – as well as classic symptoms of zombification, including loss of social skills, inability to think and reason clearly, loss of contact with their surroundings.

Faced with hard-to-detect zombies in their own ranks, alarmed British military scientists have discovered that every cell phone transmission disrupts brain functioning responsible for memory and learning. “Overuse” can cause forgetfulness and sudden confusion, as well as loss of the ability to concentrate, calculate and coordinate. [India Tribune Sept 17/04]

A leading Lloyd’s of London underwriter refuses to insure phone manufacturers against the risk of subscribers developing cancer. The world’s most prestigious insurer also fears even more claims arising from zombified cell phone users who develop early onset Alzheimer’s. [Observer Mar11/99]

NO MORE KIDS? The coming cell phone cancer plague could terminate the cell phone zombie threat. But the cost to societies will be far greater than tobacco-related deaths. With more than 2 billion people – including at least 500 million children – using cell phones at present, the coming die-back of habitual cell phone users threatens the ability of nations to cope with bankrupt medical systems and overflowing hospitals and hospices. How will the trains – and everything else – run on time during socially dizzying disruptions caused by the sudden loss of key executives, city managers, government bureaucrats, tradespeople, professionals, as well as busy NGOs and activists to brain damage, electromagnetic sensitivity as acute as chemical sensitivities, and debilitating cancer?

RF/MW signals currently under discussion for inflicting on wireless classrooms throughout North America and the overdeveloped world will operate in the 2.4 GHz frequency range. This should do it. Because this cell-disrupting power density is two to three times higher than current cell phones. If schoolchildren survive this onslaught, plans are already underway to boost classroom radiation levels with “upgraded” technology emitting an even more lethal 5 GHz frequency range.[www.irf.univie.ac.at/emf]

Once turned into zombies and eventually culled by cell phones, these kids may be difficult to replace, because researchers at University of Szeged in Hungary have discovered that men carrying their cell phones on standby anywhere in their clothing throughout the day produce about a third less sperm than those who do not. Of the remaining sperm, high numbers were found to be swimming erratically – significantly reducing chances of fertilization. [BBC June 27/04]

Now put men made infertile by their cell phones together with fashionable beachgoing women who carry their cellphones in their bikini bottoms and the coming cell phone cull could become a crash. Especially if women are culled by bra-makers encouraging them to carry cell phones in their convenient, already cancer-prone cleavage.

Ironically, as more and more once-normal humans succumb to the seductive status and convenience conferred by cell phones, these extreme dangers become as self-perpetuating as the plague of brain-dead zombies already walking among us.

Vini Khurana urges everyone to stop using cell phones immediately. [Independent Mar 30/08]

LOW POWER INCREASES EFFECTS Cell phone manufacturers often point to the low power output of their devices. But Dr. Franch and other medical investigators have found that the negative health effects of cell phones worsen with low dosage. This “simply reflects the fact that biological systems operate in a non-linear manner,” writes Dr. Peter Franch in a co-authored landmark study, Effects Of 835mHz Exposure On Cell Structure And Function. “The higher frequency range” used in today’s digital cell phones “is also very close to the resonant frequency of human DNA, and as well as the resonant frequency of the human skull case.”

Oops.

“Mobile telephones are arguably the most radiative appliance we have ever invented apart from the microwave oven and people are putting them by their heads – arguably the most sensitive part of the body,” comments British biologist and mobile phone specialist Roger Coghill. “Human brains may absorb up to 40% of a cell phone’s RF energy, and as much as 60% of its microwave energy.”

Sensitive to subtle electromagnetic harmonies, human brains and bodies depend on electrical impulses to conduct complex life-processes �� including the ability to read, recall and respond to these words. Much like a boxer taking repeated blows to the head, rapidly pulsing cell phones signal permanent brain damage.

Cell phone researcher Dr. Peter Franch says unequivocally that brain and other “cells are permanently damaged by cellular phone frequencies.” This cellular damage, Franch notes, is maximized at low dosage, and “inherited unchanged, from generation to generation.”

“For the first time in history, we are holding a high-powered transmitter against the head,” agrees Dr. Ross Adey. “When you talk on your mobile phone, your voice is transmitted from the antenna as radio frequency radiation between 800 MHz and 1,990 MHz… at a range that’s right in the middle of microwave territory. [WSW July 11/02]

Whipping anything back-and-forth 800 or 1,990 million times per second is bound to cause breakage in the double-strand DNA of human cells.

Sure enough, in Dr. Franch’s clinical study, both normal human cells and malignant brain tumor both cells were permanently damaged by cellular phone frequencies.

Dr. Henry Lai, a 20-year EMF researcher, and colleague Dr. N.P. Singh confirmed these conclusions by finding double-strand DNA breaks in test animals exposed for just two hours to pulsed, cell phone microwaves. Double-strand breaks do not repair themselves and can lead to mutation. An Adelaide Hospital study confirmed these findings after discovering that B-cell lymphomas doubled in mice within 18 months of one-hour daily exposure to power densities experienced by a cellphone user. B-cell lymphomas are implicated in 85% of all cancers.

Before having their research abruptly shut down by zombie officials, Dr. Lai’s experiments at the University of Washington placed rats in a pool of water where they learned to swim to a platform. After half the group was exposed to cellphone radiation, they became zombies and forgot the way to the platform. After it was removed, unexposed rats swam around bewildered, while the cellular-exposed group exhibited zero memory of it ever being there. [guardian.co.uk]

SAY WATT? Even though irrefutable medical evidence shows that, in addition to sparking a host of other maladies, cumulative brain damage from cell phones can lead to impairment severe enough to turn users into the walking dead, so far cell phone “safety codes” only regulate radiation capable of burning skin. “Basically, Health Canada claims if it can’t cook you, it can’t hurt you,” says Canadian EMF expert, Walter McGinnis. “It’s like saying cigarettes aren’t dangerous unless they burn you.”

Setting the standards for cell phone exposure in Britain, the National Radiological Protection Board’s recommended radiation limits are expressed in Specific Absorption Rates that measure radiation averaged over one gram of tissue. The 1999 NRPB recommended limit was 10 milliwatts. One year later, proposed European guidelines of two milliwatts were five-times more restrictive. But on March 9, 2000 the China Consumers Association issued a worried warning about cellphone radiation after their tests found that some cell phones radiate up to 1,550 milliwatts per square inch.

Cellphone manufactures insist that “many studies” show their miniature microwave ovens are safe. But when pressed by the Washington Post to back up their claim, the cellphone industry could cite no studies showing no adverse impact from cellular telephones on human tissues, nervous systems or organs. As Dr. George Carlo confirmed, “The industry had come out and said that there were thousands of studies that proved that wireless phones are safe, and the fact was that there were no studies that were directly relevant.”

Among more than 15,000 scientific reports on the cell phone hazards, at least 66 epidemiological studies show that electromagnetic radiation increases brain tumors in human populations. [“Cell Phone Convenience or 21st Century Plague?” by Dr. Nick Begich and James Roderick earthpulse.com]

THE CELL PHONE “SHIELD” SCAM Can shooting yourself in the head be “safe”? Cellphone “shields” do not block microwaves, or change their harmful frequencies. If they did, cell phones could not communicate.

The only way to ensure complete protection against being turned into a zombie by cell phones is to avoid using them except in emergencies when no other voice communication is available – at the max, experts suggest, one or two minutes per month.

But cell phone manufacturers and sales rep zombies are working tirelessly to infect others by situating cell phone relay transmitters in town centers, schools and shopping centers. Remote natural settings especially attract towers festooned with microwave transmitters. Be wary! Faced with growing public opposition and some recent notable victories that have seen cell phone towers removed, their rote-reciting advocates are once again advancing their contaminating emissions by stealth – hiding cell phone relays in trees, eaves and even church steeples. Private landowners are also paid annual fees to site unassailable cell phone transmitters on their property capable of irradiating entire neighborhoods.

Incredibly shrinking mobile phones are being made small enough to fit inside a cigarette case by putting their antenna inside the phone. But this sharply reduces reception, which in turn is causing base stations to boost their RF and microwave power outputs back to size-challenged cell phones. [New York Times Mar 10/03]

SAFETY TIP: If a visitor’s cell phone picks up a strong signal where you live, find the offending tower and remove it. Or move.

Before you become a zombie, too.

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zuranimukherjeenudexn · 8 years ago

Text

ATTACK OF THE CELL PHONE ZOMBIES

New Post has been published on http://app2chart.com/attack-of-the-cell-phone-zombies/

ATTACK OF THE CELL PHONE ZOMBIES

“Zombies. man. They creep me out.” -Dennis Hopper in the Land Of The Dead.

Book Excerpt:

By William Thomas

They are everywhere.

And they are winning.

CELL PHONE CARNAGE Still, innocent bystanders and drivers can be at grave risk from deranged zombies talking on their cell phones while operating heavy fast-moving vehicles.

That’s comparable to the risk of crashing while driving dead drunk exclaims Dr. Chris Runball, chairman of the B.C. Medical Association’s emergency medical services committee.

God have mercy on us all. If one in a hundred infants are not actually autistic but hard-to-differentiate zombies – we may find ourselves overwhelmed within another generation.

“We’re pretty bullish on increased usage by teenagers,” exudes Adam Guy, a senior analyst at the Strategist Group. “Usage penetration is exploding.”

No one told him to worry about its emanations.

Totally hooked, Morgan now sends and receives up to 7,000 text messages a month.

These same altered brain waves “could lead to things like a lack of concentration, memory loss, inability to learn and aggressive behaviour.”

He could be describing zombies!

And maybe just plain dead, as well.

PROCESS OF ELIMINATION It may already be too late.

Based on current epidemiological studies, that number will reach half a million cell phone cancer cases annually within the next two years.

So, he added, is Parkinson’s Disease. [Electronics Australia Magazine Feb/00]

Alzheimer’s mental and memory impairment, and the jerky motions of Parkinson’s are telltale zombie symptoms.

The FCC does not say what happens when a much more subtle and sensitive instrument called the human brain is exposed to “electromagnetic waves… sent through the air”. [fcc.gov]

Vini Khurana urges everyone to stop using cell phones immediately. [Independent Mar 30/08]

Oops.

Sensitive to subtle electromagnetic harmonies, human brains and bodies depend on electrical impulses to conduct complex life-processes – including the ability to read, recall and respond to these words. Much like a boxer taking repeated blows to the head, rapidly pulsing cell phones signal permanent brain damage.

Whipping anything back-and-forth 800 or 1,990 million times per second is bound to cause breakage in the double-strand DNA of human cells.

Sure enough, in Dr. Franch’s clinical study, both normal human cells and malignant brain tumor both cells were permanently damaged by cellular phone frequencies.

SAFETY TIP: If a visitor’s cell phone picks up a strong signal where you live, find the offending tower and remove it. Or move.

Before you become a zombie, too.

app marketing buy app reviews

0 notes