The Weekly Word #3

Though the title here is a bit inaccurate (I am insanely behind scheduel) and I apologize, I promise in the coming weeks I shall make up for my tardiness with many a blog post!

I suppose though I ought to get this quickfix out of the way and on with something of more substance though eh?

Now of course as everyone ought to know, Canada has a new future monarch in the form of the young Prince George (I actually had the name right btw) and he is such a cute little baby prince! Hopefully he will someday sweep another common girl off her feet and continue what seems to be a good pattern amongst the monarchy and bring in some fresh blood and establish a strong tie with the people.

He's also adorable

Many people of course took the opportunity of the hype surrounding the royal baby to bring out their rabid hatred of the royal family whether they had a legitimate point or not. I am a firm supporter of the monarchy and since many of the people who hate them seem to think that the royal family's biggest sin is either a) being a royal or b) being wealthy I can't stand the uninformed and idiotic criticism. Much of it is also hypocritical in my opinion since I saw far fewer people complaining over the media circus which was the birth of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's daughter, North West.

Long live the Queen and hail to the new born prince I say!

In other less happy news, it seems that the military take over of Egypt is going nowhere. Mind you the Muslim Brotherhood wasn't exactly a bastion of democracy and liberal values, and Morsi probably deserved to go. My greatest criticism of the military is for their brutal crackdown and rather ugly handling of the protests which have been dispersed with liberal ammounts of tear gas and bullets.

This in many ways though is like the French Revolution, there was no real power structure ready to take the place of the monarchy in France when they overthrew the king, and likewise when the protestors topples Mubarak the only group which had the political apparatus and popular support in place was the Muslim Brotherhood, who much like the National Assembly proved unpopular and were consequently overthrown. We can only hope that the military government in Egypt however, turns out nothing like the French Committee of Public Safety.

In news from around the internet and popular media I am pleased to announce that the first trailer for the new film 47 Ronin is out. Though I was a little disapointed it would not be the historical thriller about the true forty-seven ronin I had been expecting, I will admit the film looks to be the Japanese version of 300, and that could be something. It seems like it is worth watching, but here look at the trailer and decide for yourself.

Speaking of 300, the sequel, Rise of Empire continues to astound us with a lovely parade of teaser trailers which merely make me want to see it more. See for yourself!

In other news Matthew Quinn is releasing a slew of short stories right now. I've just finished his most recent story in the Afrikaner verse, Picking up Plans in Palma which I will be reviewing soon. It is a wonderful espionage thriller. Taking place in a world where a hyper-Calvinist South African federation/theocracy faces off in a cold war between a larger US it details one agents plan to pick up where his predecessor failed to obtain battle plans for a new orbital space station mounting space planes and kinetic weapons.

Its a fun read and a great universe with a fascinating alternate history!!

The World in question.

Combined with that he is doing a series of short stories centering around the ubermenshe Andrew Patel. I have yet to read these stories but I would recommend picking them up for sure! His writing was already wonderful, and thus far it is only improving.

As a final note I would like to share something my fellow blogger Korsgaard has also shared. There is an attempt ongoing right now to create a mini-series on kickstarter called The Confederation. The series deals with the question 'What if the Confederacy had won the Civil War?' Now this is of course one of the most often asked and contentious questions asked in alternate history, it is an interesting answer this project provides.

In this scenario the Confederacy is bogged down in a brutal Vietnam-esque occupation of Cuba and is fighting a guerilla war to keep a hold on the island. It follows a group of female snipers (showing the Confederation is really pressed for manpower) and former slaves as they tromp across the island in a savage war for control of the land.

It is an interesting take on a war series and an awesome bit of alternate history, I sincerely hope it gets off the ground.

This is a link to their Facebook page and website. It doesn't seem to have the support they need so I would ask that people please look into it.

Though I must note they seem to be going through some trouble right now so the project may simply be on hold. Only time will tell though.

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Well readers this caps up the 'Weekly' Word #3. I have some new posts coming up, and God willing I will keep up with the Weekly word scheduel now! Thank you for your patience and please keep on reading!

The Weekly Word #2

Hello again readers and welcome to the second edition of the Weekly Word on The M. Here this week I am again to bring updates on news, general topics, my blog, and of course my random ideas that I throw around!

For the record: Yes this will be the official picture of these articles ;)

I'm sad to say I start this week on a sombre note as I refer to the infamous Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman case. It would seem that George Zimmerman was indeed found innocent of the charges laid against him. Now that in and of itself isn't a terrible thing as it shows that the system did not convict him due to lingering doubts by the jury. Rather the terrible thing might be that his trial was presided over by a jury which comprised of five white jurors and a single 'minority' juror!

However, this was also a case where the prosecution again failed as they could not successfully strike jurors they did not approve of, nor did they manage to keep some jurors in whom they felt would successfully be swayed by their arguments. This of course left us with a jury who may or may not have allowed racial feelings or prejudices to get in the way. This did of course, lead to one disastrous interview on CNN.

Some might say that this unnecessarily brings racial issues into the trial. Let me just add that when a young black male is profiled by a non-black male and followed, confronted, then killed, there is no doubt that race was involved. I personally think this speaks to the character of the man who killed Martin, and I do believe that the mostly white jury is morally culpable for letting him walk.

However, I also criticize the prosecution who so badly handled the trial. They overcharged Zimmerman with second-degree murder where a manslaughter charge would have been more justified, and thus it fell on the prosecution to prove that Zimmerman had far more criminal intent than he demonstrated. For sure the man attempted to provoke a confrontation with Martin, and he carried a gun on his person and drew it on someone who was unarmed, but it would be highly disingenuous to say that he went out that night and intended to kill someone.

All in all the case is one that suffered from being surrounded by a media circus which lead to a poor handling of the effort to convinct Zimmerman as the prosecutors became almost honor bound to deliver the highest level of justice they could to Zimmerman, whether or not it was the most feasible charge that could be laid. It is another terrible example of trial by media.

In other, yet related news, I certainly hope that this will be something that forces an examination of the 'Stand your ground law' which exists in the United States. To me it seems like a law which is not well designed and one which doesn't seem capable of defending the people it is actually meant to defend.

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In more cheery and writing related news, I am coming a long way now on Service to the State and I've finally stopped waffling on whether to include a boot-camp section in the novel. There will be one, but it will be much briefer and intersposed with social commentary and Chekov's Gun related items than a normal set would be.

Much of the other chapters will involve the antagonist and supporting characters gearing up for the epic climax of the novel regarding some intense space battles and hot power armor on power armor action!

That is of course what I set out to accomplish with this story ;)

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Also, the once proud city of Detroit has filed for bankruptcy. Now I was personally surprised to hear this (mostly owing to the fact that I didn't know a city could file for bankruptcy) (and that is apparently being fought out in court) and felt it was quite the piece of news for me to get.

Well if entire cities can file for bankruptcy I think that we may sadly see more of this in the future as cities with declining economies and financial/industrial sectors are quite literally unable to pay their bills.

That bodes poorly for pensioners, city employee's, anyone dependent on welfare, and a myriad of other people who live in the city. This of course may increase crime, death rates, poverty rates, send the standard of living there plummeting. Though in a city where large tracts of it have been abandoned or turned into ghost towns I suppose it is pretty hard for it to get worse at this point.

The Education system really can't get any worse

What effect this might have on the economy of course, will remain to be see, but I can't call it a good one.

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In other mostly self-interest (and somewhat prepper related) news, I plan on doing a big article gushing about old stone houses, their pros and cons, and the fact that I'm currently working in one as a museum guide for the summer!

It's a beautiful old place and anyone who could see it ought to see it! Wonderfully preserved it is an amazing sight inside my old town here in Ontario, and I must say that I've come to fall in love with it!

But enough about that I'll be gushing on and on about it later!

Well I guess I haven't found much in the news I feel like reporting on today or this week really, so I'll leave you all with my usual farewell!

Until next time readers, until next time!

Prepping: Starting Simple

Well readers after a few hectic weeks where I have been stuffed to the gills with no fewer than four birthday cakes I am happily back to blogging.

This week however I am going to once again deliver a piece on prepping and how easy it can be. While the idea of prepping may seem a daunting task to the novice I assure that in the long run it is well worth it.

To begin there are seven primary things a prepper must have in abundance or plan for extensively to actually get started in the prepping game. In our modern consumer world storing up on these essentials can be as easy as 1,2,3 by going to cheap bulk mark stores like Costco and Walmart!
Though to begin here is a list of the 'must haves' when you begin prepping.

1. A clean and renewable source of water:

Water, the blood of life from the deserts of Arabia to the rivers of lower Canada. You can go for weeks without food but never more than three (and if you're insanely lucky, seven) days without water or fluids of some sort to help replenish your body.

The fact is that without this basic first step any attempts at prepping are sunk right from the start.

There are a myriad of ways for people to get a fresh, clean, renewable source of water from rain catchment to ground wells. This article is only a list of course but I will be going into other ways to get water another time.

What is important to remember is that you will also need a way to purify water as there is no stretch of water which is 100% safe from the contaminants of the modern world. Boiling, purifying tablets, even a rather simple charcoal and dirt water strainer is useful.

To use an example, I as a Canadian do not need to be overly concerned about fresh water. I live in a country where we have the most plentiful fresh water in the world! Now does that mean I can take it for granted? NO! I have to be aware of where my water is coming from, what possible pollutants could be going into the water, and what secondary advantages this water could offer me (fish, boat transport, ect).

Just remember, in a quick fix you can buy large 10gallon drums to store water in! Having at least ten of these fully stocked would be a good idea for a back up supply.

2. A safe place to lay your head:

Now if you have a fresh source of water you next need a shelter to protect yourself from the elements. Suburban home, old farmhouse, raised tent/treehouse, and hobbit holes abound for your choice in shelter.

A shelter is important as it gives you a place to call your castle (and depending on how you like to prep it will be your castle) and for you to store your supplies.

In designing (or buying) a shelter you must think about where you are prepping. Is it in a city? The country? The wilderness? Is it a warm climate? How are the winters? How much rain do you get annualy? What is the wild life like?

I am currently city prepping so I take into account what my home in the city looks like and I have a Bug Out plan in case the worst happens and I am forced to flee the city for my family home in the country. Its rather simple as plans go, with hopes for establishing a secondary stockpile of supplies somewhere else.

3. A good food supply:

Now I won't say a food supply is prep specific as food is a universal must, but I will say how you plan on prepping is going to effect how you prep.

The safest bet for an early prep is to have a six month supply of food stocked away (in emulation of the Mormon tradition) as a just in case idea. This can include canned goods, easily stored grains and vegetables and canned meat and blocks of salt.

Buying canned goods in bulk couldn't be easier if you go to places like Bulk Barn, Costco, or Walmart. You can set aside some money every grocery trip to get items that will store for up to five years and if stored right can last longer! A deep larder is just good planning people.

Now if you are thinking long term well that's another matter entirely and one which would require way more detail this this simple list post. Though there is one generalization I would make it is this, chicken's are a wonderful food animal and are great for eggs and meat.

Whatever you do don't forget about a personal garden! If you're tired of mowing the lawn go out and put that vacant space to good use! I personally reccomend this as most of the time you can get easy practice with growing items in a garden. It's good practice and most of the time it's good food.

4. Waste management:

This should be a must. Unless you have a generator which can run 24/7 continuously, at some point your toilet is going to break down. Now most toilets can still be flushed if you pour water into them or use the mechanism inside the toilet to auto-flush it.

However, what will you do if you can't make your toilet flush? How will you dispose of this human (or animal) waste safely?

The answer readers, ought to be fairly simple. An outhouse. This is the most ideal form of disposal when the toilet stops flushing. You will want to have a space marked for an outhouse on your property which is a) well away from your house and garden b) not going to interfere with your water supply. Unlike most animal wastes our own feces is not beneficial to growing good plants. Over time it will go back to nature but you will want to have a deep hole to let it do so for a while. Preferably three such sites in abundance in order to avoid overtaxing one area.

Trust me here, an outhouse may smell and have insects, but the alternative is much much worse to comprehend. I'd rather go in an outhouse than take a 'wild one' and worry about stepping in it later.

5. Toiletry Items:

This should be obvious. What happens when you can't get a good supply of toiletry items? What will happen when you run out of toilet paper? Feminine items? Toothpaste?

Stock up while you can readers. Remember how much of an inconvenience it was when you saw no one had changed the toilet paper roll? Think about how much worse it will be if you can't get any toilet paper for weeks on end.

The same goes for toothpaste and toothbrushes, deodorent, and of course soap and shampoo. There are many ways to make your own soap and find natural substitutes for these items. It should be a top priority amongst preppers to get these personal hygiene items in abundance in order to stave off disease, and of course, social problems from bad BO.

Soap stores essentially forever, and deoderant can be useful for a few years while shampoo will be essential (though you may not want to waste it every day) and simply feeling clean is a great mental boost after a while.

6. Necessary medical items:

Now this is important readers. Band-aids, lots of them! From painkillers to antiseptics you will want a well stocked first aid kit in your home. If God forbid you find yourself in considerable pain or having a minor wound which could get infected you will want it healed up as quickly as possible.

If possible you will want to be on good terms with your doctor so you can have some clue how to get help.

Since that is not always possible (like having a person who is skilled in medicine) you will want to have some rudimentary knowlegde of medical procedures and have some know how in order to look for the obvious signs of infection or illness.

There will always come a day when you just might not be able to go to the hospital so having at least the basics for first aid or how to set a broken bone could prove to be an indespensible boon someday. There are a variety of good books on the subject available on the market and I would personally suggest these three:

*American Red Cross First Aid

*Where There is No Doctor by David Werner

*Where There is No Dentist by Murray Dickson

They are good starter guides for prepping in the medical sphere.

Number seven however is something that many would say is essential but I would call a lesser consideration. Though I don't view it as optional since at the very least hunting is important.

7. A hunter's weapon:

The old US survival adage goes "Beans, Band-aids, and Bullets". This is true I suppose but contrary to many in the US who stock up on weapons to fight off looters and bandits I would only reccomend a weapon to hunt animals and push off the inevitable feral dog that will spring up.

No matter what your opinion on hunting/killing animals I view it as a necessary thing to keep a hunting rifle to at least bag the occasional deer, or shoot a pesky raccoon.

Hunting can be a great short term suppliment for food and meat if you can manage it, but it is only that, a short term solution. In a short prep scenario that means it is essential to have this as a back up plan in case your supplies run low.

For me driving off a wild animal or predator is more important (and likely) than pell mell banditry that many survivalists predict.

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So readers prepping is easy to start with! It is committment which is the key. If you can stick to it over time it is easy to stock up for tough times in bulk!

I understand prepping can be a daunting challenge, but as I said in my previous article on the subject, it is something that people ought to do. It is smart, forward thinking, and above all a good excercise in mental and family planning.

Until next time readers!

The Weekly Word #1

Hello readers! Here I am starting a new segment for the blog which I am calling, the Weekly Word. In order to keep myself motivated to blog and keep writing interesting articles I will be posting a segment which tops off the news for the week, any interesting thoughts I might have, my writing updates, and of course weird web stuff.

To start off the week I thought I might catch up with some news from yesterday. Yesterday was Robert Heinlein's birthday! One of the fathers of modern science fiction Heinlein was one of the great men to start off the science fiction genre and use it as a conduit to explore social norms and societal values. He wrote two of my favorite books, Starship Troopers and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. I've probably read each of those books at least ten times. Short sweet and packed with fascinating details on possible futures and interesting societies. The man was a great writer and visionary who should be remembered for all time in the literary genre.

Tor does a wonderful article in reflection on him.

On another note if you aren't following Tor on Facebook, I suggest you do so soon! They have a wonderful slew of updates on authors and books, and besides that they have countless fun articles for you to sample! I often post them on my page!

In international sector you've probably heard about the coup in Egpyt by now as the rather undemocratic President Morsi has been captured by the military. In a region which could use less unrest it seems that the country is slipping into a low scale civil war of its own.

It leaves a delicate question for modern friends of democracy to answer. If an elected official is up to no good and trying to subvert the democratic process is it right for him to be overthrown in a coup? To be fair to the Egyptian military however, they only acted when overwhelming domestic pressure against Morsi's policies (in the form of protests all around the country) and then exerted their considerable force on the government and seized the President.

The problem of course is that this sets an interesting example, the military has launched a coup (though some would prefer the term revolution) against a man who was elected fairly. However, supporters point out that Morsi (and his backers the Muslim Brotherhood) was the only man who had anything resembling a political party so there was little doubt who would win.

This is all part of the growing pains of what we hope will turn Egypt into a modern democracy. With the military suspension of the Constitution however and an insurgency forming only time will tell what happens. Though the military kept the majority of its promises last time and allowed for elections and didn't interfere with the process, except to preserve their considerable power as a state within a state. How this will play out for the future of democracy in Egypt again, remains up in the air.

On a more cheery and amusing note, today is the 66th anniversary of the Roswell UFO incident in 1947!

So today is the day when aliens potentially visited Earth for the first time. Now I don't actually believe that personally but hey someday I could be proven wrong!

Either way next time you look up to the sky, wave because you never know, little grey men could be watching you!

Hope you enjoyed the first update readers! I'll make sure to keep 'em coming! Until next time!

World War Z (Film)

Well readers here I am critiquing the most recent zombie film of the year. That film of course is the same-title-of-the-book-but-different film called World War Z.

Now as some of you (but hopefully most) may know this movie is based of a book of the same name by author Max Brooks (and yes he is related to that other Brooks) and is a continuation of the mythos set up in the Zombie Survival Guide he wrote some years previously. The film however, is an in-name-only adaptation with the sense that the is a world wide zombie apocalypse going on.

A while ago I saw the first trailer and upon realising it wouldn't be a movie version of the book decided I would cease to put it past Brad Pitt and give the movie a second chance in my mind. I realised that the film would be a mythos unto-itself and felt that instead of criticizing the film for not being enough like the book I would decide to let bygones by bygones and watch it and enjoy it for what it is.

Though what is this film you ask? Well read on and find out!

First off though let me set down two of the films largest pre-showing failures. The first is that in a very controversial move for a zombie film it only has a rating of 14A which is well below the R rating most zombie films get. This of course removes any gore factor the movie could have provided and stops the idea of zombies eating people from being an issue on screen. These two things are bad in and of themselves as it removes the gore/cannibalism factor that is mostly essential to the zombie genre. The second is that the film right off the bat bills itself as more of another over the top action film which looks incredibly cheesy to say the least.

Now the film itself is something that opens up on a rather confusing note playing some very interesting music over a number of strangely irrelevent images of nature and humanity (some showing animals being eaten) but tells us nothing about the plot or where we will be seeing the story set. We then get a cut to a scene of Gerry Lane's (Brad Pitt) children jumping on him to wake him up. Then a thinly done spread of news reports referencing a very vague blink-and-you-miss-it rabies outbreak and the implimentation of martial law...somewhere? I really can't remember. We then cut to downtown Philiadelphia where Lane is stuck in traffic. His mirror is smashed off by a speeding police car and then another police officer is killed when a garbage truck driven by either a man who is turning or being attacked (you can't tell) is smashing through traffic.

Then zombies show up. And by show up I mean some people who you can barely differentiate from the running masses of people around them start attacking people. Due to the restrictions on footage of people being eaten we see the zombies bite people then run off to bite more people. In a 28 Days Later style fast turn the people die and reanimate into zombies (this using the loosest sense of the word) in seconds. They then turn into an unidentifiable mass of running people who tackle others so it is essentially impossible to tell attacking zombies from fleeing people.

The first ten minutes and already the film is looking like a disaster! You can't tell the zombies from their victims and you don't even understand where they came from! This could have been fixed with the whole walking zombie thing. They could be blood soaked shamblers wandering into the crowd and grabbing people forcing them down making for a confusing panic as people run away. That's a big detractor.

Next we amble on into some looting territory as Brad Pitt struggles to get supplies to his family and a UN administrator (Fana Mokoena) agrees to help him get out of dodge on a helicopter. He then stumbles upon a Spanish family who lets them hide in their apartment for the night. The next morning the family escapes and shows an astounding degree of common sense by improvising a bayonet for Pitt's rifle, tying ropes around their wastes to prevent them from getting lost, and having noise discipline. (All pretty survivalist if you ask me). This then leads to a truly great scene where they have to shuffle back and forth from hallways in a dimly lit building and make their way to the roof.

I will admit that even though I knew what was going to happen I was legitimately stressed out and sucked in. To that I give the director props since this will later be a staple of the movie. The scene was done well and you actually felt a sense of dread as the characters stumbled around not 100% sure of their destination. Accompanied by crazy music and wonderful direction this is probably one of the best scenes in the movie, next to the ending of course.

The stressful scenes, great lighting and actor coordination (though not acting) are probably the high points of this film with one scene being masterfully coordinated in each section, from the overrun US base in Korea to the rapid run through Israel, and the well done finale in the WHO research center in Wales. Each scene is a pump action thrill ride as you are kept guessing at which secondary characters will survive (since obviously Pitt can't die) and just how close Pitt will come to serious mutilation. Sadly the zombie killing is either kept to a minimum or is masked by dim lighting and good camera work or cut away shots.

Truth be told I am rather impressed the film manages to make it still feel stressful or the zombies seem scary without the gore and guts.

Though let's take a break to talk about the zombies for a moment. As stated earlier, in the beggining of the film you can hardly tell an attacking zombie from a running human, that isn't helped as time goes on. Sure they start to look more bestial and kinda sickly, but for all intents and purposes they are lame and don't fit the zombie mould other than a few hamfisted attempts at scary makeup.

I guess it could be a zombie, or a really angry hobo.

In the movie they emit cries similar to the necromorphs in Dead Space which while when you can't see them it's scary but when you can its underwhelming. They run, which as zombies go is a problem that deserves a whole other article to express, and they seem to be able to return from the dead in seconds. This isn't the only way they flout science! No they act like African Driver Ants and come in swarms which are able to clog entire streets, or in one infamous instance, form a less that human semi-pyriamid and scale a hundred foot wall...somehow.

Pictured: Zombies...I guess...

Let me now address the two worst sequences in the film. The first is a sequence which takes place in Israel and is basically ripped off part and parcel from the book with the character of Jurgen Warmbrumm and his entire speech ripped straight from the novel along with the whole giant wall section. This feels out of place and shoehorned in since unlike the rest of the film is has something to do with the novel. It was rather annoying to watch since it seemed to contribute nothing to the film (other than adding the character Segen and getting Israel eaten as the zombies come in) other than showing so much changed between even the trailer and the film itself with dialogue going from 'Russia is a black hole' from the trailer to 'India is a black hole' in the film (making an even larger change to seem that unlike in the book the outbreak starts in India, which shows that Hollywood is probably more sensitive about upsetting China and Russia than India).

The Israel sequence is doubly bad since the zombies impossibly scaling the wall is more irritating because the reason they eventually decide to scale it is ridiculous! The film establishes the zombies are attracted to sound, and yet the wall around Israel (not to mention the copious ammounts of traffic coming in) must be carrying sound for miles. Yet when people start singing on a loudspeaker that is when the zombies decide to scale it. It seems to have been added in for no other reason that to give us another thrill sequence, which I didn't enjoy as much mostly for the stupidity of it.

The second worst sequence is the plane incident where the zombies basically crash a plane after one infected soul gets inside and tears shit up. It speaks for itself how bad it is since I decided that it was so boring I could take a bathroom break and I was assured I missed nothing. The ending was basically just any other movie crash.

Then we have the contrived plot twist at the end which saves humanity. After that is some awesome sequences of people running from zombies. If the movie had been like that I would have loved the whole thing! However the amazing stresser sequences still worked perfectly well for my taste and made something that would have otherwise been unbearable, bearable.

Though let's face facts however, this is not a zombie movie. This is a movie where we see Brad Pitt go from one scene to another and run from faux zombies who you never really see. Sure there are some tense and fun moments, and you can get swept up in the excitement of certain scenes, but this isn't really a good movie and there are no characters other than Pitt's who stick out.

For characters there are his bland and mostly annoying family members, a young premier scientist who promptly dies, a semi-useless UN big shot, and a colorful cast of extras who don't do much with Pitt's character leading the way to victory each time. So yeah there never is any doubt that Pitt is the most important person in the world, and we never get to see anyone else do anything amazing save for screw up and leave Brad to save the day.

My final thoughts on the film are that it's ok. It's not great, not terrible, but not to good either. It has its moments, some fun action scenes, and a number of fun bits that can be interesting to watch. Hell I might even see it again when it's out of theatres. If a friend buys it.

Sadly it's not what World War Z could (or should) have been. We don't get the good zombie drama we should have, and we certainly don't get the world destroying apocalypse we were promised. Instead we see Brad Pitt running from place to place never doing anything.

Instead of this:

We get this:

For two hours.

In the end though we just have to remember this film is possibly going to have sequels, and that is the real apocalypse.

2 stars out of 5, and that's being generous.

The Purge

Well dear readers after a long hiatus I come back to you now at the opening of the summer blockbuster season. I start though with a film that many have been writing about in the corners of the net I visit, and that film is The Purge. This is the first horror film of the season that I've looked at and the first I've seen in a long time in theatres, so to do this review I will be doing it in the traditional review style and examining it from the perspective of a home defense analysis, since this movie is about a family supposedly prepared for a home invasion.

Now without further ado let's dive in and look at the interesting horror/thriller, The Purge!

The Purge is set in America in the near future of the year 2022, and is 'a nation reborn' and having had a new Constitution put down by the 'New Founding Fathers' who seem to run the country (who also appear exempt from the Purge) and in this new nation the pent up rage and anger at the world is unleashed annualy on a night known as The Purge where all crime (though that appears to exclude political assassination) is legal for twelve hours and all emergency medical, fire, and police services are suspended. It would also seem that since everything on the night of the purge is legal then you can't sue anyone for damages incurred because of a person's actions on the purge.

The film though, starts out showcasing a number of violent crimes and murders being caught on 'purge cams' and showcased to the audience with violent murders seeming the norm for the purge and roving death/rape gangs killing people all across America. There is also the very casual reference to people going 'hunting' on the purge night (which is heavily implied to be hunting other people) and is evidenced by both shots of people armed to the teeth wandering the streets and the films primary antagonists being a roving gang of masked students carrying weapons looking to kill a homeless guy.

Actually they almost look as though they're trying to offer you a copy of the Watchtower.

Now the movie seems to be trying to shove some political commentary into the mix by taking pains to point out how affluent the main characters are and having various radio announcers comment on how the purge seems to target the poor and homeless who are less capable of defending themselves, while others defend that as a 'natural course of life' or a 'survival of the fittest' style of living. In fact in the opening shots the Sandin's wealth is commented on quite a bit by other characters on how they can afford to defend their home and are in fact wealthy because they have a business centered around the selling of home security systems which protect homes and deter maurauders. More on the home security issue and social commentary later.

Questions of that aside the film introduces us to the Sandin family who have a very typical suburban life with a stay at home mother, a teenaged daughter and a younger son who has questions about the nature of the purge and whether it is a good thing or not.

Here we are clearly establishing an obvious suburban family with obvious issues as the teenaged daughter is dating an older boy and is very rebellious, the son looks as though he is going through coming of age issues and the parents are having vague and unspecified reactions in dealing with them.

Now we get a clear family dynamic as the father James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) is shown being personable for the neighbors while the mother Mary (Lena Headly of Game of Thrones and Dredd fame) deals with the kids while having a conversation with her clearly not psychotic and jealous neighbor Grace (Arija Bareikis) who comments on how all their success has paid for a new addition on their large home. This is interuppted by shots of Zoey Sandin (Adelaide Kane) and her boyfriend Henry (Tony Oller) getting frisky and talking about their relationship issues.

The opening of course establishes the setting of the Purge as well as the house of the Sandin's which will be the main focus of the plot as a typical siege style film is. However almost immediately the film begins introducing a number of painfully obvious Chekov's guns in Zoey and Henry's relationship issues as a point of contention between the father and the boyfriend, the fact that Grace seems like a babbling psychopath who seems incapable of taking the wide eyed crazy look of her face while making passive aggressive comments about the Sandins wealth and home, and that the son Charles (Max Burkholden) has a little remote control robot named Timmy which has a laundry list of useful functions such as night vision, being able to play music, use a camera to spy on people, ect. This of course makes a number of upcoming plot twists rather predictable.

Now the siren sounds for the Purge to begin reminding everyone of the rules (no government officials of Class 10 can be harmed and Class 4 level weapons are allowed) and the Sandin's immediately lock down their house (which all it seems to involve is the lowering of a number of heavy metal plates over doors and windows and Mr. Sandin getting a snub nosed pistol from the gun safe in the ludicrously badly secured security room) as Charlie contemplates why they don't participate in the Purge. Mary then notes that contrary to Grace's previous statements her house is hosting it's annual Purge party (which seems to be a nice little ice cream social with guns).

Then the drama begins as it is discovered as Henry has snuck back into the house and a bloodied man is seen running down the street screaming for help. Charlie immediately takes pity on him and opens the doors to let him in before his father can lock them and keep him out, right afterwards Henry convinces Zoey he wants to talk to Mr. Sandin. It immediately becomes clear Henry only wants to talk using 9mm bullets as he tries to kill James with a concealed pistol but is a terrible shot and is killed by an abdominal wound when James fires back. The Bloody Stranger (as he is billed in the credits and played by Edwin Hodge from Red Dawn) disapears in the confusion and hides somewhere in the massive house.

Meanwhile a roving murder gang of well dressed white kids appears wearing masks hunting the stranger whom they refer to as a homeless parasite piece of filth. He is their target for this years purge and since he has taken refuge in their house they offer the Sandin's a deal, give them the hobo by an unspecified time before their means of breaking in arrive or they will bust in and murder everyone. Then, inexplicably, they cut power to the house.

Because it's so much easier killing people when you can't see anything

Here the social commentary bludgeons you over the head as the roving murder gang is made of well dressed students (who are apparently only wearing masks to be terrifying rather than avoid repurcussions) who are chasing after a black homeless man shown wearing dog tags and weilding a combat knife. Clearly America before this was such a terrible place that it must now be preferable for the rich to hunt the poor with impunity. You can tell that the film is trying for some commentary on the American lifestyle, how there is a divide between rich and poor and even the divides across neighborhoods as success and wealth collide with petty jealousy, now instead of merely making snarky comments and spreading malicious rumours about your neighbors, you can kill them to vent your frustration at your own inadequecies!

That might not necessarily be the point of the film however, but it is maddeningly unclear what kind of message the film is trying to send. The rich want to hunt the poor? That man doesn't have to act like animals in order to vent its frustration? That if you cave to social pressure you become that which you disdain? Now on the last one the Sandins nearly do as James almost tortures the hobo into submission so he can turn him over to the murder gang. Mary also displays that when in the last act after they are saved by the very homeless man they are originally trying to hand over to the murder gang when her neighbors show up and save them only to try murdering them because they are jealous of the Sandins wealth.

However, here I have to point out one issue which ruins any suspense the film might have, the fact that while James Sandin sells a security system that is supposed to keep people out, right before the crazy kids break in he points out a number of rather obvious flaws in the system that is supposed to defend his house. Now that wouldn't be so bad if the gang set out to kill them had actually used any of those weaknesses, instead they simply rip the armored plates out of the house and waltz inside like they own the place.

Thank God I had the foresight to install this useless system

What follows is a number of unexciting fight scenes where the Sandins have to either defend themselves or hide from the insane student murderers. Now there is one very well done scene in here, a piece where James has to fight off three students who he catches in the game room of the home. It's actually fairly fun to watch if only because you can scream 'yes!' as you see him gun down or bludgeon mask wearing crazies. There is also a blink and you miss it moment where he sees one of the kids he's killed not wearing a mask and gets a look of remorse on his face, which contributes nothing to the film as he then shoots their bodies to make sure they are dead.

Now the film itself is described as social commentary/horror thriller. It fails at both of those since it sends a garbled message about social values and has people forming roving murder gangs because why not? Seeing a trailer before this film came out I actually had a lenghty discussion with friends about what I would be doing in the Purge. We all honestly decided we'd rather hunker down and protect ourselves, or at least move countries to escape such weirdness. That and roving murder gangs seems unlikely since it would probably be more like large scale riots every night with an increased murder rate as people plot out murders for that time of year.

Aside from that the film wasn't even very scary. There was no suspense as characters were saved at the last moment from dying or being wounded, the plot twists were tragically predictable, and the fact that they purposely dehumanized the antagonists made them much less scary than they could have been. I probably would have been more scared had the murder gang simply shown up in their school uniforms and declared their intent to kill everyone inside very casually and for no reason. Then we have the neighbors who show up and with absolutely no emotion kill all the students before trying to kill the Sandins themselves. If you didn't see that coming well clearly you weren't paying attention.

The film them ends on a downer note as the siren signalling the end of the Purge sounds and emergency sirens sound in the distance as presumably police, fire, and ambulances pour in to ensure that the people participating actually stop and to help those still alive. The Sandins then realize their jealous neighbors are out to kill them and hate them, and the bloodied hobo walks off into the morning.

All in all the film was a rather big let down which could have been done way better. I wasn't scared at all and saw the film as predictable and bland. There was no solid acting, but I can't blame the actors for that (barring Arija Bareikis who couldn't wipe that psychotic look off her face for five seconds) since the script was weak and garbled with contradictory purposes.

So I'd reccomend people purge this film from their to watch list and look for something more straight forward instead. I give the film 4/10 stars.

But now for the second part of the review as we examine the Sandin's so called security system!

Pictured: State of the art security

James Sandin is supposed to be a man whose company thrives on selling people state of the art security systems to protect them and their homes from the violence of the purge. Sandin makes assurances to people that his system is good, his system is reliable, and that it will keep people safe from attack.

The fact that it fails to do that is the entire premise of the film ought to tell you something.

I understand personally that there is no fool proof defense system in the world, and I also understand that you can't protect your home from every conceivable threat there is but when your entire business runs around this kind of thing you should probably have a more realistic understanding of its strenghts and weaknesses.

For instance let's look at the defences of the house. They basically appear to be giant sliding metal plates which cover all the doors and windows making them essentially impenetrable. That's about it for the security system really. In fact other than this rather superficial and showy device the house has no other security features. No panic room in case the house is actually breached, and no interior system of defence.

In fact the family has no coherent plan in place of what to do if the unthinkable should happen, which considering the level of violence that takes place every year, is ludicrously short sighted!

In film when discussing the possibilities of whether they can defend the house James says testing has shown the system can stand up to attack 90% of the time, and that a determined attacker can get in through a number of ways (tunneling, smoking them out, devising a battering ram). Now to address each of those, tunneling is the most wildly impractical and unlikely to occur so not big deal there. Now setting fire to the house is a big issue so why a large and well stocked fire proofed panic room isn't a staple of the design is beyond me. Finally we have the issue of a battering ram. The plates seen in the film are very thick and they cover every easily enterable entrance and seem to slide down and lock in place from inside the house. It would take a very serious battering ram to smash its way through that!

However, in the film none of these items are used. Instead the roving gang uses a jeep with chains and cables to pull these plates off. Now where they attach the plates to the hooks and how they manage to pull them out of a shutter system inside the wall is beyond me, but that's just poor planning by the writers.

Now how the family reacts to the sudden storming of their home is even more inexplicable. Instead of trying to hold any specific point in the house, or even shooting to inconvenience the attackers while they come in, the family opts to let them just walk in the house and tries to hunt them down despite being outnumbered and seeming to not even know their own house that well. This is simply ludicrous as it gives the initiative to the attackers and doesn't stall for time, and since there is no saferoom/hardpoint for the family to defend it leaves them and their dependents horribly exposed.

When the family splits up and hides in ludicrous places in order to try and hunt down their hunters I just about gave up on the film entirely.

So in the home defence category not only is Mr. Sandin's business bad at what it does, but how the Sandin's survived so many years of purges is beyond me.

Until next time readers, until next time!

 

Gorn (or the Etiquette of Blood and Gore)

Readers let it be known I am no stranger to the concept of blood and gore in stories, nor am I opposed to it. Sometimes though we just have to find a better way to use it. Today I talk about gorn (and boy is the page image for that accurate).

Now of course I'm not referring to the alien from Star Trek.

This alien for those of you who are wondering

No today I instead talk about (as quoted from TVtropes) the 'extreme and sadistic violence, to the point of prurience. A portmanteau of "gore" and "porn". The term can refer to just an extremely graphic scene of bloodshed, or the entire sub-genre of torture films in the spirit of Saw'. And of course if that's not explanitory enough for you, let's just say that it's blood and gore for blood and gores sake.

Now that's not to say that the application of gore is a bad thing, in fact some of the best video games and horror movies use bloody murder to captivate/horrify their audiences and wratchet up the action in the game/film. In fact in some cases it can be downright hilarious! That is, if it is used tastefully and applied well.

Some video games just tend to suffer from over the top gore with blood dripping from the screen, these aren't even necessarily horror games, but action games which have ridiculous ammounts of blood and guts just seemingly for the sake of it! It can be fun, but after a while it is just boring, and incredibly juvenile. You won't see much evolution in gameplay terms as long as developers concentrate on this!

I'm no stranger to liberal gore, some of my favorite video games include the Dead Space series, Gears of War, and Resident Evil. Now none of these games is exactly light on violence. In fact Gears of War is billed as being a violent action game with some of the over the top violence being the selling point. I mean when your using a chainsaw bayonet to saw through a Locust Drone while screaming 'yeeeeaaaaah!' along with the character on the screen you can't exactly claim you aren't enjoying it.

Case in Point, vis Destructoid

Now this is a game which is sold on over the top action along with a mediocre story. Here's the thing though, the weapons and violence sell it. They are larger than life and improbable, which combined with good gameplay mechanics and interesting hammy characters we have something that sells quite well.

Looking at Dead Space, you have something which is basically zombies in space. They have scything talons and go around infecting people by driving a proboscus into the player characters head or removing his limbs from his torso in various gory and creative ways. These are all items that are expected in a zombie style game, and as watchers/players of that particular genre we now expect that people will be messily devoured and zombie heads will explode through high velocity lead poisoning (or plasma cutter related work injuries) and that is pretty much what we watch the genre for. The Walking Dead would not be what it is without the proper application of zombies eating people and zombies being killed by people. Done in proper context and shown well it is what viewers enjoy.

However, few people want to see a show or game where the zombies win and eat everyone, or all the main characters are messily devoured in pointless ways. Admittedly some people were rooting for the zombies in Land of the Dead (I wasn't) but no one really wanted to see them win!! What they wanted to see was the plucky human characters defeat the evil villains and if the zombies helped do that, great! If not, well, putting a bullet in their brains isn't a terrible idea.

The reason you can't have a zombie as a sympathetic character (most of the time) is that they are human eating machines, and as such are beyond the sympathy of people. You don't want to see them messily devour someone who might be innocent, and you don't want them to win in the end. In fact I've only ever read one series which did this well, is The Rising by Brian Keene.

The thing is though, that mindless gore will be a given when a zombie is the main character, just like if the main character in a movie is a slasher. We will have to sit through ages of the villain/monster killing people, now this can be done well by being downplayed in favor of the horror of this person winning, or it can be done poorly by dragging out the horrible torture for ages.

A point in case of this being done well is actually the first Saw. I personally may not have liked it, but, I will concede that it was not especially gory and used the terror it created in a decent fashion for reeling the audience into the characters awful dilemma. The sequels however, instead turned up the gore and violence and had people dying for no other reason than for us to see them brutally murdered on screen. Another movie which invokes this trope, is Hostel which is literally a movie with no point other than seeing young tourists having sex, then being kidnapped to be tortured to death by foreign rich people. The ludicrous ammount of gore and its ridiculous use (I mean blow torch to the eye?) makes people want to vomit. Literally none of this adds to the movie, and its more disturbing than scary, and not in a good way. It doesn't leave you asking anything about the movie, instead merely wondering who the hell would come up with this plot?

It's hard for people (most people) to sit through a film where teenagers are being slaughtered left and right with no reason. Some movies today will spend mindless ammounts on gore budgets just to get realistic looking slit jugulars or ripped out rib cages. In fact some movies have decided to just ditch the concept of plot or characterization altogether in order to show scantily clad co-eds being ripped apart or hacked up in order to appeal to the lowest denominator in advertising.

This film being a recent offender

You see gore isn't what people expect from a horror movie. What they expect is to be scared or terrified, and in truly well done cases ask fundamental questions about their own humanity and what constitutes a monster. Yes they expect blood, yes they expect murder, but what they don't expect is for the set to be drenched in so much blood you could fill a swimming pool. Sometimes just finding a dead and mutilated body is much better than having to watch that character be mutilated and then have their friends stumble upon the scene moments later. It just saves time and can increase terror.

The fact of the matter is that lots of horror today suffers from a lack of substance and a ridiculous infusion of severed heads and spurts of blood flying around for no reason I could point out. Even in video games (like Left 4 Dead) the gore begins to become an impediment when you can't even see the screen properly through the layers of blood. In fact one of the reasons the Resident Evil series has suffered recently is the fact that it has become self aware of the gory nature of the transformations and monsters and is just playing them up for kicks! This is in no way interesting, and really doesn't appeal to most players who are looking for an exciting horror survival (or maybe in the far future an actualy horror!) game with puzzles.

Crime dramas today are also becoming dependent on gory murder rather than the idea of solving crime. Thankfully however, some shows are coming out which deal less with us following demented serial killers as they butcher people in 'creative' ways (such as in the ever sinking Criminal Minds series) or the psuedo-science and ripped open bodies as seen on CSI, and instead lead us to the enjoyable 'murder as a framing device' plots of great crime dramas and character driven stories such as Castle (which in my opinion is probably the best crime drama on TV right now).

Literature isn't immune from this either. Some series take the gory horror to a ridiculous level. Many modern Lovecraft books begin having freakish monsters messily and slowly disembowling their victims for no real reason. Some novels (like some particular moments in the Sword of Truth series) just have long torture sequences (committed by the heroes no less) and use them for what might have been a metaphor about war, but it is lost in the ensuing random 'heroic' violence that follows.

In fact much of the literary genre of horror has also come to try and depend on gory monster attacks rather than the physical horror of such monsters, or being alone, isolated and under attack by otherworldly creatures! The Slenderman mythos is so scary not because of any gore which might be in it (and there rarely is any) but because of the sense this tall suited blank faced creature can chase you down anywhere and then...well what exactly he does do when he catches you is left to the reader, and that makes it all the more scary!! No gore necessary but maximum scare fest!

It's the unknown or monstrous that usually scares people, not the sight of someone being dismembered or a college co-ed having her still beating heart ripped out and force fed to her. While those images are disturbing I wouldn't call them terrifying in and of themselves. I mean I've seen uncensored battlefield casualty photos which are gorier than these films and while it makes me feel sick it doesn't make me particularly scared.

What writers (and more importantly, executives) need to learn is that you can't just appeal to the common denominator base that looks for bloody gore and sex while expecting to win out in the box office. People tend to quickly tire of that kind of thing, and it ends up with the same repetetive, boring, predictable, and idiotic, plots that people really only go to see from boredom. Just putting bloody murder onto a screen and expecting it to sell is not an incredibly successfull business plan (hell even the classic 'sex sells' mantra fails if you underestimate your audiences intelligence).

What horror and action writers should learn is that you can't abandon plot for silly gimmicks and expect to be wildly successfull in your careers. Hopefully this can end with a thrilling psychological horror movie coming out that serves to scare me because it's actually scary, and not because the script says its scary by decapitating some teenagers.

Now here's a picture of a zombie getting it's head blown off.

Until next time readers!