Why Don't I Enjoy Horror Movies Like I Used To?

In the 80's I couldn't get enough of of the horror movie genre. Of course it was all new to me back then. Many things were new to me in the 80's. Obviously there are a lot of firsts when you're growing up. The very first horror movie that I can remember seeing (sort of) was a movie called 'Tourist Trap'. The problem was that it was so scrambled on our satellite dish that you couldn't make out what was happening all of the time. I remember getting a bit creeped out by the craziness that was going on. I couldn't get the full effect of it thanks to the signal being scrambled. I knew I liked the feeling I was getting though. I was a bit scared. This was 1981. That makes me a 9 year old boy with an imagination. I found that when I went to bed that night my imagination was worse than anything that movie could have showed me. It definitely helped to kick start my imagination though. In the same year that I saw this scrambled mess of a movie my elementary friends were talking about a movie that premiered entitled "The Exorcist". I don't remember any of the details they talked about, but I remember the look of genuine fear on their faces. These are second graders we're talking about here...maybe third graders. Now that I think about it I think who in the hell would let a kid that young watch this movie? My mom didn't. I remember her making me go to bed when it came on. It would be another 3 years before she would let me watch it. I wasn't even ready then.

It wasn't until 1984 that I was in full on horror movie mode. My Dad had just passed away in February of that year. My Mom basically did all she could to get my mind off of his death. If I wanted to watch horror movies or teen sex romp movies like "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" that was fine with her. My Dad never would have allowed it. I hadn't even seen a rated R movie until after he died. Months later my Mom met a guy who is still my step-father. Around this time all kinds of mom and pop video rental stores were popping up all over town. I would always wander over to the horror section and stare at all of cool VHS covers. We'd rent a couple and bring them home. At first these movies seemed so cool. After a while you discovered that it was the same old slasher flick over and over. This was cool the first 10 times, but then it just got old. What I needed was something that would stand out above the rest. I needed ghosts and demonic possession! Yeah, that's what I needed! I needed THE EXORCIST! After pleading with my mom that I could handle it she let me rent it. She warned that it would scare the shit out of me. I told her over and over that it couldn't be that bad. Oh, how very wrong I was!

Nothing could have prepared me for just how freaked out I would be after seeing THE EXORCIST. I remember not even wanting to walk down the dark hallway to the bathroom after it was over. My mom had to walk down the hall with me. Yeah, I was that scared. I slept with the light on that night. After that I plugged in a nightlight and slept under the covers for at least the next five nights. Talk about being scared. This movie still freaks me out today, and I'm 38 years old. You couldn't pay me enough to watch THE EXORCIST in my basement in the dark. I wouldn't do it. I told this to a friend of mine a while ago and he laughed at me. Call me a pussy, but at least I'm being honest. The only other movie that has scared me as much as THE EXORCIST was THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. That one also did a number on me. The thought of a family like that existing just fucked with my mind. These two movies for me are the most notable in terms of having a lasting effect. There have been moments here and there in other horror films, but nothing touches those.

Now all of these years later I generally dread bothering to watch a new horror movie. I feel like I'll just never be scared by a movie again. I'll admit that the very end of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT had an affect on me. I just found that last scene very disturbing and unsettling. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY had an affect on me as well. I thought what they did with that film was done well. To me it was creepy. I hyped myself up a bit before seeing it at midnight in the theater as well. Of course I'm also freaked out by paranormal things like ghosts and demonic possessions, so that may have helped. We're dealing with things in our apartment that can't be explained right now, but that's a story for another day.

I guess I'm just older and desensitized now. There are just so many "horror" movies being made that make me question why anyone would waste the time, effort, and money to make them. If anyone has any suggestions for movies that might actually freak me out I'm all ears. Until then I'll just have to watch THE EXORCIST alone in my basement on blu ray.

Top 5 Games You Need To Be Playing This Fall

It's that time of year again! It's time to kiss your cash goodbye if you're a gamer. Your wallet will be sad, but your fingers will be happy when you're hitting those buttons on your controller. Quite a few good games have been pushed back to later release dates. That's actually a good thing. Here is a list of the top 5 games you need to own/rent before the end of the year.

1) FALLOUT NEW VEGAS (If you're a FALLOUT 3 junkie like I am you've probably already pre-ordered this. If you haven't then what the hell are you waiting for? Get your ass over to Amazon.com right now!)

2) Fable 3 (Fable 2 was definitely a top notch game. I expect an even better sequel this time around. I'm sure Peter Molyneux and Lionhead Studios will deliver a triple a title worth owning.)

3) Call of Duty: Black Ops (Sure it's not Infinity Ward this time around, but I'm sure Treyarch will be releasing a great multiplayer experience. Besides that I've seen some gameplay videos and it looks like a hell of a lot of fun. It's going to have to be to get people like me to stop playing Halo Reach or even Modern Warfare 2.

4)Medal Of Honor (Yep another modern day shooter! I'm a sucker for shooters what can I say?)

5) Rock Band 3/ Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (I couldn't make up my mind here. It's the third Rock band game. It's the third Assassin's Creed game. I must admit that I did get a little tired of AC, but I'm curious to see what changes will be added as well as what the multiplayer mode will be like. Rock Band 3 will include keyboards this time around. While I'm not thrilled about that I do like the track list a lot. In my opinion it's better than the two games before it as far as songs go.

Music You Should Be Listening To In rOCTOBER

It's my favorite time of the year. Summer is gone. Thank You!!! Everyone who digs metal or hard rock should be cranking evil heavy metal or at least creepy tunes. Not that it all needs to be creepy. Some of it is just kinda fun Halloween stuff. Now let me suggest some appropriate rOctober music.

1) Alice Cooper! Just about anything Alice has released will do, but there are some choices that are better than others. Welcome To My Nightmare is a good place to start. I'd rather pinpoint specific songs though. You can't go wrong with songs like Dead Babies, I Love The Dead, Ballad Of Dwight Fry, Welcome To My Nightmare, This House Is Haunted, and many more.

2) King Diamond (All of it really. It's King's specialty. I prefer THEM to all of his albums though. Not much is creepier than old people. Just ask G-G-Grandmaaaaaaaa!)

3) Misfits (Lots of good stuff from the Danzig era. Songs like Die Die My Darling, Horror Business, London Dungeon, Ghouls Night Out, Skulls, Mommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight?, and Death Comes Ripping should get anyone into the mood for Halloween.

4) Wednesday 13 (Transylvania 90210: Songs of Death, Dying, and the Dead was my first introduction to Wednesday 13. I'll sum up their sound like this: Take Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Misfits catchiness, and throw it all in a blender. Wednesday 13 is what you get, and this album rules.

5) Rob Zombie (Hellbilly Deluxe is a great album to play in rOctober. It's catchy as hell and the songs reek of every b horror movies Rob has ever seen.

6) Obituary ( Cause Of Death and Slowly We Rot are both great albums for this time of year. COD also happens to be my favorite Death Metal album ever.

7) Manimals (Horrorcore is a fine Halloween time album. Search out this album.

8) Bronx Casket Co. (This is DD Verni's side band when he's not tearing it up in Overkill on bass. I recommend the following songs: Little Dead Girl, Sherimoon, Bleed With Me, Mortician's Lullaby, Sewing the Dead, Dead For The Moment, Creeperia, Who Lives Forever, and their cover of Metallica's Jump In The Fire.

9) Helloween ( You gotta listen to Halloween. AAAAAHHHHHHHH IT'S HALLLLLLOOOOWEEEEEN!

10) Mike Oldfield (Tubular Bells anyone? You couldn't get me to listen to this one in my basement in the dark for any amount of money.

11) B.O.C. (Don't Fear The Reaper. It's a classic. It's still got this underlying creepy factor to it.

12) Dokken ( Dream Warriors. I always associate this one with this time of year. Well that and Freddy Kruger

13) E.L.O. ( Fire On High. That may seem like an odd choice, but give it a listen alone in the dark.

14) Black Sabbath (They have a few like Black Sabbath, Electric Funeral, and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Black Sabbath the song takes the prize though. It's creepy!

Part 2 coming soon....

Holy Crap It's Been A Year!

No updates to speak of for over a year. The sad part is not much has really happened in a year. It's groundhog day every day in my life. Wake up. Get on treadmill for 30 minutes. Take shower. Go to work. Come home. Play video games. Go to bed. Repeat for 5 days. On the weekends I do the same minus the work part.

Obviously a lot of video games have been played over a one year span, but I won't bore you with all of them. Halo Reach has been dominating my Xbox 360 for the past few weeks. Bungie has finally made a multiplayer mode that I am good at. Halo Reach goes out the window as soon as FALLOUT NEW VEGAS arrives. That is definite.

As far as my listening habits go...I still listen to most of the same old stuff. I've decided that there will never be any great new metal bands. There are some decent new bands, but nothing I'm going to waste my time on. I'm still cranking all of the old thrash metal and some death metal here and there. I really don't listen to death metal like I used to though. I'm also listening to lots of 80's tunes as usual. I still say one of the best bands outside of metal is The Hold Steady, but even they have let me down with their last two albums.

I just turned 38 last month. I'm having my mid life crisis now. That started when I decided to take another mirror and use it to look at the back of my head before shaving it which I've been doing every four days. I have a big bald spot shaped like the number 8 back there. Yeah, I don't deal well with physical changes that make me feel older, so I had a day of depression over that one. Still trying to deal with it all. Not trying to be overly dramatic here. It's just how I am when it comes to aging.

It's hard to believe that I've been online since the spring of 1999. It all started with good old Webtv. I used to get on various discussion groups and flame people constantly. If I could go back in time and smack myself...well I probably wouldn't. I still have a few issues online with people I don't like. Not nearly as many as I did 8-11 years ago, but still I do.

I may just start this whole blogging thing again if I can actually come up with interesting tidbits. So far I'm not off to a good start. I guess the reason I stopped was because I stopped having fun doing it. Facebook may have also had something to do with my stopping of the blog. Facebook is evil. I'm back now bitches! So the two people reading this...you've been warned.

Vacation Time Again...Various Crap On My Mind

I'm off for ten days. I still have one more week of vacation after this one that I'm taking the week before Christmas. I plan on doing the usual crap for the most part. I'm sure I'll make a trip to the movie theater at least once if not twice. Zombie land looks promising. I may even end up seeing Surrogates with Bruce Willis. Last week I went with the fam to see Pandorum. Didn't really like it. It was barely ok. Besides movies I also plan on finishing the Halo ODST campaign as well as playing a bunch of firefight with friends online. Speaking of video games I got a chance to play the Brutal legend demo. Loved it! It's a day one purchase. Can't wait to hear all of the podcasts I listen to talk about this game so I can roll my eyes when they start talking about metal in general. I always cringe when gaming podcasts start talking about music because they generally have no idea what they're talking about. Stick to talking about video games, PLEASE! Once the conversation goes to bands and songs from rock band or guitar hero it becomes clear how little most gamers know about music. I find myself correcting them out loud. Yes, I realize I sound like an ass saying that, but I know a shit ton about music in general. End of rant.

The NHL season starts tonight! The Dallas Stars play their first game tomorrow at home against Nashville. Can't wait!!! GO STARS!!!

Some games that I'm buying on day one.
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Uncharted 2 (PS3) Oct 13th
Brutal Legend (360) Oct 13th
Borderlands (360) Oct 20th
Forza 3 (360) Oct 27th
COD Modern Warfare 2 (360) Nov 10th
Assassins Creed 2 (360) Nov 17th
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The next Rock Band game really should be KISS Rock Band! I want it, and I can't imagine KISS not having their own music game at some point. Especially if Gene $immon$ has anything to do with it.

Halo 3: ODST

I haven't been excited about this game. For some reason I finally became a bit interested in it. The main reason is probably because all of the people on my friends list will be playing it. I know I'll feel like I'm missing out if I'm not playing it as well. Today I broke down and pre-ordered it from Best Buy. I'll be headed to Best Buy to stand in line in about 25 minutes. When I went earlier today around 7:30 there were already two chuckleheads waiting in line sitting in comfy lawn chairs. I asked them how long they thought the line would be. Their response was we don't know that's why we're in line right now. I expect the line across the street at Game Stop to be much longer. I say that because I remember the line at Game Stop the night Halo 3 was released. To say it was a long line would be an understatement.

Honestly I'm expecting a really good game. Thus far I've seen a ton of great reviews, so I basically have to buy it.

Californication Rocks!

No, I'm not talking about that terrible Red Hot Chili Peppers song. I'm talking about the incredibly awesome show on Showtime starring David Duchovny. Holy shit is this a great show. I'm just now discovering it thanks to Netflix instant streaming on my Xbox 360. I don't have any of the the premium movie channels on Directv because it's a waste of money for me. I'm only two episodes in, but if the first two shows are any indication of how good this show is then count me in as a fan. I found myself laughing out loud several times. I also enjoyed the eye candy. Quite a few super hot naked women in the episodes I watched. Wow! Definitely a show for men. The world need more shows like this one! If you have a penis you need to watch this show.