Dismembear of the Week - Week Three.

I made this little guy for my best friend, Leo, he was the second one I ever made which is why he's not the best looking fellow, but I'm still fairly chuffed with him!

 

My Monster by Hell.R.

I can’t move.

My body refuses to comply with the simplest of requests, even the twitch of a single finger seems impossible.

I can’t speak.

My tongue feels like it’s been torn out and replaced with a slab of felt, stitched in place to fool anyone around me that it’s real.

I can’t open my eyes.

My eyelids feel heavy, even getting them to flutter feels like a challenge in itself.

Even with my eyes involuntarily closed I can tell that I’m surrounded by nothing but darkness, I should be led in my bed and sleeping soundly, but this feels like something much deeper.

There are footsteps to my side, shuffling along the floor to my left, accompanied by the sound of a girl muttering and whispering. They don’t sound like the typical kind of footsteps, more like a light scraping as if they had to force their feet along the ground.

The voice doesn’t sound like a young girl, more like an adult mocking a child much younger than them in a crude imitation. It’s almost pantomime like.

Within mere seconds I feel them shift on top of me, legs placed either side of me and hands splayed across my chest.

They’re as light as you’d expect a child to be, but yet I still feel my breathing become restricted. Taking in the smallest amount of air becomes a tremendous task and within moments my lungs are begging me to draw in a deep breath.

Their weight begins to shift in a pattern and it doesn’t take long to figure out that they have started rocking, using me like some kind of toy horse.

“You left us,” she coos in that horribly saturated sweet voice.

I want to respond ‘Us who?’ but still can’t speak, all that comes out sound like slurred grunts of incoherent words.

It transpires that I didn’t need to be able to talk as she mockingly replies. “You know who ‘us’ is.”

I half expected to hear a giggle at the end of that sentence, it feels foreign and almost empty when she doesn’t.

The weight shifts again and I feel strangely textured hands running up my neck and along my cheeks, eventually halting as they rest there with the thumbs pressed against my lips.

With a lot of force I manage to shift my head to the side and try to dislodge the hands from the side of my face, instead she shifts my head back up.

My body is crying out for oxygen and I feel close to panicking.

“We didn’t get to finish our last game.”

I want to push her off but it takes so much will power to simply move one part of my body, after an intense struggle with desperation I feel only my right index finger twitch a little, brushing lightly against her soft leg.

That’s when the giggle finally filled the air and shrouded me with dread, it was a haunting sound as she took glee in my weakness.

I feel two of the fingers shift up to my eyelids and push on them ever so gently, she pushed until my eyes are opened half lidded.

Even in the pitch blackness of the room she seemed to be illuminated in an odd light, one that brought out all her features.

I recognised the grotesque, grey skinned and terribly thin ragdoll of myself, her eyes half lidded and staring into my own. Patchwork marks were strewn across her body leaving the closest thing to scars that could appear on her body, her clothes matched my usual shirt and jeans style except they were much more tattered.

Her head was tilted so her straggly, woollen hair tickled the side of my neck.

Her mouth was stitched into a lopsided smile.

“I missed you,” she whispers in a husky tone.

As if she just realised that she should have no free will her arms collapse from underneath her, she drops limply onto me so her head is resting against mine.

Despite no other signs of life aside from her movement, I can hear her breathing in my ear. Almost like she was bragging about the life she was taking from me.

As she lies with her head resting against mine, the stolen breath wafting over my face rhythmically, she reminds me of a child. Cuddling up to the mother figure for comfort and warmth, waiting for those soft words of protection, she closes her hauntingly dark eyes and lets out a sigh of contentment.

My mind starts racing as breathing becomes impossible, no air was leaving nor entering my body and the world around me was getting hazy. It’s a familiar feeling, one I’ve encountered a few times in my teen years when this monster first reared her head and dragged me away from everything.

I won’t let that happen again.

I was defeated once and overcame it all, as I finally make my right hand move with great difficulty, I vow to myself that I will be sure to fight it again, get my strength back and steal my life from back her once more.

Hell Reviews: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher.

Synopsis: You can't stop the future. You can't rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.
Clay Jensen returns home to find a strange package with his name on it. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker - his classmate and first love - who committed suicide.
Hannah's voice explains there are thirteen reasons why she killed herself and Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why.
All through the night, Clay keeps listening - and what he discovers changes his life . . .
Forever.

This is one of those books that I picked up on a whim and kept on my bookshelf gathering dust for a few years.

Before working in my current job I always found that I tended to stick to the same kind of reading pattern and I was still learning, even at the age of eighteen, what 'my thing' was outside of manga.
In the past I'd picked up varying horror stories, ranging from kids to adults, picture books to novels, and very rarely did I delve out of that kind of genre. Which isn't something I'd do with the media I'd watch, I could tune in to all kinds of shows without needing them to be ghost based.
From time to time I found myself picking up a crime book from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation or the one Criminal Minds one I've read (I still have two more to read and I've had them for years) and I have read two biographies by two different comedians, otherwise I pretty much stuck to my basics of reading whilst still buying books from all kinds of genres about all kinds of subjects that got put to one side and never read, something more ghost based would usually be picked over it.
Eventually I jumped into new genres and began to whittle down my 'to read' pile when I didn't have a stack of about twenty four manga book to catch up on.

It wasn't until about May of 2015 that I picked up this books, finally ready to find out all about Hannah and why she committed suicide. The concept interested me and it seemed like my kind of thing, unfortunately it didn't quite live up to my expectations.

Now don't get me wrong it was fascinating, but I think that even at only twenty five I was perhaps too old for this book.

I couldn't sympathise with Hannah, nor really care about her problems as they all seemed rather trivial and nothing that far from what others dealt with. I know, people deal with things in different ways but this just felt like a bunch of tapes of happenings that she would have gotten past had she just fought and continued to push through things.

Most of her points could have been: A: easily avoided or B: easily ignored.

With her personality it seemed like she would have been able to brush these things off fairly briskly and move on in life, none of them seemed overly traumatic and in some cases she seemed to be the antagonist which caused it to happen. However she also isn't all that unique, she's still the 'deep', 'philosophical' girl with 'out there, radical' ways of thinking that a lot of teen female protagonists seem to be.

Then again everyone thinks differently, everyone has a different upbringing so maybe some people find it relatable and can understand her. I sadly didn't and found myself either questioning her actions, double taking at them or simply rolling my eyes at some of the things she said.
I only finished the book purely because I wanted to know what else was contained in the tapes, otherwise I would have had no reason to continue as I didn't care about any of the characters which is a shame, it had so much potential.

Clay is just find of there and ultimately had no real reason to be the main focus of the ones listening to the tapes, I feel it may have been more enjoyable if we followed as the tapes were being passed around and seeing the reactions of each character mentioned.
As a main boy he was just your typical 'could be any guy' character with no impact, the only reaction I ever got based on him was a little giggle as his name reminded me of a love child between a character from Friday the 13th (2009 remake) and one of the leading men of Supernatural...well...technically both of them seeing as the other lead plays Clay in the film, but I digress. That doesn't stop him from being boring, bland and a main character with no lasting impression.

All other characters I have honestly completely forgotten, along with most of her reasons why and most of the story really. I had to actually look back and re-read my old review and bits of the book to remember why I didn't enjoy it.
It's ultimately a forgettable read with unrelatable characters, a book that I feel doesn't help portray the thoughts and actions of a suicidal teen, but what do I know?
The premise is interesting but the execution isn't.

Would I recommend it?
Sure, but not all too enthusiastically.

Hell Reviews: Sanatorium.

 

Synopsis: For the 100th edition of their popular TV show Ghost Trackers , a team of paranormal investigators visit the notorious Hillcrest Sanatorium where a bloody massacre once took place. They venture into the bowels of the abandoned hospital to investigate claims of disembodied voices, ghostly apparitions and incidents of missing children that have made Hillcrest infamous. What they discover there is far worse than anything they could ever have imagined, and as they go deeper into the building they start to realize they may never get out alive.

 
This is one film I picked up on a whim, and surprisingly I really enjoyed it.

I personally really enjoy a good asylum based horror story, whether it’s film, novels or non-fictional stories, there’s just something about the details of the institution and the patients that just give me a thrill.

There’s something about the creepiness of the stories of past inhabitants, the actions of the staff or just general practices from back in the day that really grab my attention and screams at me to continue taking notice.

Sanatorium is a good, easy watch film, one where if you feel like watching a film you don’t need to be too invested in and just want to switch your brain off watching then there’s nothing you’d miss by putting this one on.

That’s not to say it’s bad and an empty film which lacks content, it’s an entertaining film for it’s run time but it’s certainly not one where you go in expecting nothing and want to unwind watching and instead end up find yourself catching things in the background of the shot that give small hints as to what’s going on along the way, hints that you need to pay attention to in order to follow the story.

This is usually where I’d put the ‘cons and pros’ but I have very few points so it would render it useless in this segment, so instead I am going to just make small points in a paragraph of each.

Now for me, it was a solid story for the film it was trying to be, while the characters could be a bit eye roll worthy they’re still fun to see interacting with each other.

It’s not a totally original story, it came out in 2013, only two years after Grave Encounters which was released in 2011. Considering the format and content of Sanatorium it’s easy to compare to Grave Encounters, and whilst it’s a good film Sanatorium isn’t one that I would choose to watch over the other if I had both on DVD.

The characters are the basic ones you’d expect to see in this kind of film, they have a little bit of background to make them have a story but otherwise they are mostly just blank slates, these kinds of characters are usually made so that the audience can project themselves onto them. I find that in horror films it’s unneeded, I would rather watch a horror film of characters I care about than one where it’s like ‘see, this could be you, what would you do?’

I don’t need to think about what I’d do in that situation, that isn’t why I, personally, watch horror films. I can think about that kind of situation and what it’d be like to be stuck in it, without needing the film to give me a character to latch onto and claim as being ‘me’.
Sometimes it seems like the writers weren’t sure if they wanted to make blank slate characters who you can project yourself onto, or characters who you need to feel and sympathise for so they floated in a happy medium. This didn’t really hit me until I sat here and just thought about the film, so it’s neither a negative or a positive, just a thought in hindsight.

The atmosphere is hard to get into as it’s a film of jumpscares, just like Grave Encounters was.

Despite being a horror fan I have an immense dislike to jumping, I am the first to admit that I jump easily which is a large disadvantage to being a fan of this genre these days.
Unfortunately it seems like all creators lately believe that jumps and screams equal fear and to me it just doesn’t. I would much rather be sucked in by an uneasy atmosphere and build up than sudden jumpscares to get a reaction from the crowd. The problem is that so many people say they were ‘scared’ when watching these kind of horror films, whilst I see jumping as more of a reaction and reflex thank fear, but the masses opinion means more than a mere few.
I felt the same about Paranormal Activity, given it’s hype I was hoping there’d be more to it than just mere jumps. It had an interesting story but I felt they were trying too hard to fit in the scares than create an atmosphere.

Did I jump whilst watching Paranormal Activity?

Yes.

Was it due to fear?

No

And it seems to me these days that most films seem to take that route, sadly Sanatorium is no exception. I’m just glad this one has an enjoyable premise behind it otherwise I’d be leaving my first watching with a large ‘meh’.

My only, and main, problem with this otherwise good film was that it is a more found footage style, which does fit the film due to it being another reality TV copy.

This is only a gripe of mine due to motion sickness, and compared to other films it’s not the worst or least stable when it comes to camera motions.

So would I recommend it?

Sure, it’s a good film and one that I kept the DVD of and would happily suggest to a friend.

Side note: Not to be mistaken for Sanitarium, even the great Robert Englund can’t save that borefest.

Happy Easter! With an Added bit of Potential Horror!

Hey everyone!
It's officially Easter here in the UK, so I dropped in to say that I hope everyone enjoys themselves and has a decent holiday.
The clocks have officially gone forward here, it's currently 3am and I'm tired from some long days at work, so I'm currently lounging in bed watching Criminal Minds.
Plans for Easter would be helping my dad make some chocolate rice krispie/cornflake cakes and enjoying a nice roast for dinner and trifle for dessert! Not that anyone cares but hey-ho!

Today I feel like we stumbled into a horror film earlier at work, as we were getting ready to leave and doing the final sweep of the shop to make sure it's all clean and ready for the two working on Bank Holiday Monday, and my co-worker stumbles across some random USB stick.
Now I've seen enough media in my time to know that there could be some juicy stuff on there!
Perhaps a secret link to a deep web red room ring.
Or perhaps co-ordinates leading to a location with Hostel like intentions and a location tracking device for those who look at it.
The USB stick would be left lying around for unsuspecting and curious people to pick up, stick into a computer and 'decipher', maybe a do-gooder would check it out to see if there was any information on there to contact the original owner or find an address to post the stick to. Thus luring in their next victim or victims who have to fight for their lives despite complete inexperience.
With the stick in what seemed to be it's original packaging I'm guessing they re-packed it to make sure that no-one would suspect anything, no need to worry about something that looks so innocent.
Or you know....it could just be a brand new USB that hadn't been unpacked and popped into a larger clear, plastic bag that got dropped by accident.
I'm sure I've just watched too many films, but I'd still watch another one like any of those!

Anyway!
Happy Easter everyone!

Update: We just made our cakes! Sadly we didn't have any Mini Eggs to put on the cakes, so instead we got large M&M's!

La..la..la... by Hell.R.

Why won’t it stop? I just want it all to stop.

A whimper left my throat as the sound continued to resonate around my head, it had been like this for hours. Constant yelling and screaming, thuds and crashes, the usual routine of sounds repeated over the course of two days before things would go silent for another week, their anger towards each other rebuilding over the week until one of them steps ever so slightly out of line.

It had to have been a record for them though, they usually began around early evening however tonight they’d made it until late night at about ten pm.

Usually I’d use music to try and cover the sound, my hands would cover my ears to distort the sound further as I danced around my room clumsily. I didn’t care what moves I made as long as I focused on the muffled music to take my mind off of things.

However tonight had been different.

I’d stood in the darkened hallway and watched their silhouettes in the light that rested on the floor from the open doorway of the living room, their movements threatening towards each other. Pacing back and forth, pointing as they spat violent insults and accusations at one another.

There was at least one respectable thing about them, despite me being an adult they tried to keep their arguments concealed from me and would stick to the boundaries of that single room to hold their disagreements, as if that room was sound proof to the rest of the world.

I never understood why they didn’t at least close the door, obstruct the doorway to keep the noise behind the wood. Instead they let the light from the room pool out into the hallway as their voices bounced along the bare walls.

Memories continued to flash violently in my head, I tried to stop it with all my might but it seemed impossible.

Lifting my gaze I looked towards the doorway from the corner of the hallway I sat in, I took in the sight of the bloody trail of footprints that had been left. The blood already congealing against the wooden floor, the sticky substance causing my feet to tack against the floor every time I moved my legs.

A limp, feminine hand now rested in the doorway where the footprints started. Blood dripped from the fingertips and created a pool underneath the palm of her hand.

I remember how she’d tried to block the open wound with that hand, trying to stem the flow of blood.

The look of surprise she’d given me as the knife sunk into her like it would through the softest butter flashed into my mind, her eyes shone with betrayal as she stared into my eyes, questioning why her own daughter had turned on her so violently.

Her mouth hung open unattractively, but the shouting still hadn’t stopped.

Her husband had tried to help her, running to help cover the wound with his own hand. He turned an evil glare towards me and began screaming abuse at me, making the shouting even louder. My eyes stared at him blankly until the pieces of the puzzle fit into place, realization hitting me hard.

It was him; he was the cause of my torment.

The knife had been plunged into his back, how many times I couldn’t remember but it was enough to make him slump over the woman’s body. His blood seeped out onto the floor and coated my feet. Once all movement had seized from the body I’d stepped over him to make my way back to my room, I hadn’t gotten far before a tight grasp caught onto my ankle, which I fiercely yanked away and proceeded further into the darkness without looking back to stare at the pleading face I knew was being pulled.

I had barely made it three steps away when the sound of shouting, crashing and stomping made its way into my ears again.

It hadn’t stopped, why hadn’t it stopped?

I found myself frozen to the spot until I could find the courage to turn towards the living room.

No movement met me as my eyes stared into the room where the two figures lay motionless, cuddling up to each other even in death.

The noises only seemed to grow louder despite the room being still.

I’d sat in the corner hoping that eventually the noise would fade away, my gaze glued to the hand in the doorway, just waiting for the slightest twitch of life.

The weapon lay next to my left foot, the blood coating the weapon was proof enough of what I’d done. Proof that the source of the noise was disposed of.

So why was the yelling still continuing?

I pulled my knees up to my chest and put my head on top of them, covering my ears tightly to block it all out, but it wouldn’t stop.

I’ve been sat like this for hours and silence has still evaded me.

I’ll just continue sitting here in the darkness, rocking side to side with my ears blocked until it all goes away.

Maybe I can block the persistent noise with my own voice.

“Lalala…”

Dismembear of the Week! - Week Two.

This little guy was made for my brother's girlfriend one Christmas about three years ago, I can still feel the sore fingers from doing the nose transplant!

 

 

 

Wow...So that just happened!

I can't express how amazingly funny I find it that after my post just the other night of me translating how I hear Mmmbop by Hanson, that I log onto Facebook to find a headline of 'Hanson says you've been singing Mmmbop wrong all this time'.
Really?
The song is twenty years old and it no longer matters!
I didn't read what the 'right way' is because...well...it's a song that's twenty years old and you can't really understand anyway, if you listen to it for fun, like I do, then what difference does it make how you sing it?
It just makes me chuckle that we get the 'truth' twenty years later!

Original post mentioned above:

http://hellrreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/hell-translates-mmmbop-by-hanson.html

Hell Reviews: Scream Street by Tommy Donbavand.

Synopsis: In Scream Street, Luke and his parents discover a nightmarish world of the undead. Luke soon makes friends with vampire Resus Negative and mummy Cleo Farr, but he remains determined to take his terrified parents home. After liberating the powerful book Tales of Scream Street from his new landlord, Otto Sneer, Luke learns that the founding fathers of the community each left behind a powerful relic. Collecting together all six is his only hope of opening a doorway out of the street, so with the help of Resus and Cleo he sets out to find the first one, the vampire’s fang. But with Otto Sneer determined to thwart him at every turn, will Luke even get past the first hurdle alive?

 

Sometime in about 2013 I was browsing my local Superbook for anything that would catch my eye and stumbled on this small series called Scream Street.
It wasn’t anything I’d heard of before but the colours of the spines were pretty eye catching, looking at the font I knew it would be for the ages around seven to nine (a trick I picked up when shelving books at work, if in doubt check the font), but I’ve come to learn that sometimes children’s ‘horror’ books are just as good as the adult ones.
So I picked up the first two, Fang of the Vampire and Blood of the Witch, and figured ‘Screw it, I’ll give it a shot,’ at £1.99 each I couldn’t complain if they weren’t to my taste. It also wouldn’t be the first time that I picked up multiple books in a series that I didn’t even know if I was going to like or not, it’s a terrible whim thing I have.
It wasn’t until late spring of 2015 that I finally got around the reading the first book, with it being a fairly large printed book of 160 pages I naturally flew through it and loved every second of it, so I picked up the second one immediately and read that one in about an hour (then had an odd moment where I swore I bought the third one as well and went hunting around my room for it, it goes without saying that I didn’t find it.)
About three days later I bought the boxset of all thirteen books plus the kindle one. It wasn’t until about November of 2015 that I got around to reading this boxset and rekindling my love for it.

 

Pros:

1: The story – As mentioned above I love children’s horror books and what’s better than a whole town of horror? Twisted in its ways and going about their normal day whilst thinking the human world is unusual in their practices.

As made evident by the titles each book, which averages between 120-200 pages, focuses on a different aspect and adventure for our main three characters to focus on. Sure sometimes it can seem a little rushed, but for a children’s book series that’s to be expected.
It’s a typical hero story made for easy entertainment and I think it does it well.

2: The content – Despite being a children’s series the content can sometimes seem like it may be a little much for younger readers, but being in my twenties I personally love that it’s only a little toned down.

I have seen people in other reviews saying that it was too much for their children and it scared them, which is fair enough as fear is so subjective, however I personally found it wasn’t too much but also wasn’t too tamed down to the point of having nothing going for it, and considering the whole premise of the series and it ultimately being based in a ‘scary horror’ town it wouldn’t have worked to tame it down further than it was.

3: The illustrations – Scattered throughout the book is a series of illustrations, some are full page ones, some partial page ones and each page has themed pictures from blood splatter to scratches surrounding the writing.

Each chapter starts off with a picture to get you hyped for the upcoming events.
Lily Bernard’s illustrations have a unique, simplistic style that helps paint the scene and the moment without being a distraction as you’re trying to read.

4: The covers – Yes, once again I am raving about the cover of what I’m talking about. Also illustrated by Lily Bernard, the covers seem dominantly black, but this only helps the other colours to spring out from the page and draw your attention to it.

Each book has a different colour theme, which is shown on the spine as the black slowly bleeds into the main colour from top to bottom.
On every book it’s a different scenario involving the antagonist of that particular novel and the three characters in a burst of colour, making it easy to draw in a child’s eyes, so essentially it does its job.

5: Resus Negative – There is a whole magnitude of colourful characters in this series, from Dr Skully the skeleton teacher, Eefa Everwell the witch and Sir Otto Sneer the main antagonist of the series, there is such a wide array of people to take a shining to, but by far my favourite so far has been the vampire Resus Negative.

I seem to have this natural draw to the sarcastic characters and it didn’t take long for him to pick my top spot of favourite character, he’s a character with morals and can understand right from wrong whilst also being a typical young boy.
His design is your typical vampire look with dark hair, pale face and black clothes, but he’s a little different to the other vampires (something I won’t be giving away here.) One thing that sticks him out from the rest is his magical cape of everything, he has a range of things in his cape that range from salt shakers to a picnic table.
He's just one of those characters I could imagine myself being friends with at that age.

 

Cons:

1: Plot convenience – With this being a load of books for children it’s natural for large conveniences to litter the plot, it’s part of the progression to push things forward and keep it entertaining for young readers without dragging anything out too long.

This is something that you learn to look over, I understand it’s not a series for my demographic and most kids won’t fully comprehend just how ‘really?’ some of the moments may be.
It’s still a ton better than most of the B-movie clichés I've seen over the years and it's easy to brush off.

I can’t really think of any negatives to say about the books, for novels aimed at children I think it’s one of the better ones. Some of the adult books I’ve read have been worse than this and that’s a great sign to me.

The only other let down I found involved a TV series produced by the CBBC in October of 2015, that’s something I’ll write about some other time.

Would I recommend Scream Street?

Yes, without a moments hesitation.

Adult or child, I think if you like spooky things then this may be a fun read for you.

Hell Translates: Mmmbop by Hanson.

Alright, it's about 2:30am here and I'm in that random mood where everything is funny.
I was merrily listening to music on my laptop and Mmmbop came on, an old but catchy song that I can't help but love.
As I was listening I was trying to decipher what they were saying into possibly understandable words, it was making me giggle a little so here I am, at 2:30, typing down what I heard.
I'm so sorry about this....and yes, listening to the song whilst reading does help.
Here we go:

Oh, uh-oh!
Oh, oh!
Oh, yeah.

Yes a lelulaze into his life,

Boy you wanted to relax.
You golf knew all bane in strife,
When you turn you’re back and you’re gone so fast.
Oh yeah.
And you’re gone too fast, yeah, oh.

So don’t do on too many air,

In the end of an ear is seer.
When it all stands in your head,
Can you tell me who will still care?
Can you tell me who will still care?
Oh, oh geyeah.

Mmmbop, dappa doowop.

Dillyappa, doowop,
Dappadoo.
Yeah, yeah.
Mmmbop, dappa doowop,
Dillyappa, doowop,
Dappadoo.
Yeah, yeah.

Said oh yeah, eh mmmbop a gone.

Yeah, hey yeah.

Then it seem that a flour plan knew worse,

Planning one us!
You burn it to find that which one knows,
It’s a secret no one knows!
It’s a secret no one knows, uh-ohs.
No one noose.

Mmmbop, dappa doowop.

Dillyappa, doowop,
Dappadoo.
Yeah, yeah.
Mmmbop, dappa doowop,
Dillyappa, doowop,
Dappadoo.
Yeah, yeah.

An mmmbop, ya gone,

En mmmbop, you’re not there.
En mmmbop, ya gone,
An mmmbop, you’re not the-e-ere.
When you stand in your hair,
Oh, oh.
With a donkeh.
Un yeah.

Mmmbop, dappa doowop.

Dillyappa, doowop,
Dappadoo.
Yeah, yeah.
Mmmbop, dappa doowop,
Dillyappa, doowop,
Dappadoo.
Ee-yeah-ee.

Can you tell me? Oh.

Know your king, but you don’t know.
Can you tell me? Oh yeah.
You say ya can, but you don’t know.
Can you tell me? Oh (Put your flowers gone a rogue.)
You know your king, but you don’t know.
Can you tell me? (It’s gonna make cheesy-o.)
Say you can, but you don’t kno-o-ow.
Say you can, but you don’t know.
Ya nu-huh,
Ya nu-huh, oh, oh.

Mmmbop, doowop,

Doowop, doo.
Yeah, yeah.
Mmmbop (Oh yeah-ee-ey), doowop,
Doowop, doo.
(Oh, oh!) Eh-ey!

Mmmbop, dappa doowop.

Dillyappa, doowop,
Dappadoo.
Yeah, yeah.
Mmmbop, dappa doowop, (Oh-whoa-oh!)
Dillyappa, doowop,
Dappadoo.
Eho-whoa.

Mmmbop, dappa doowop.

Dillyappa, doowop,
Dappadoo.
Yeah, yeah.
Mmmbop, dappa doowop, (O-oh!)
Dillyappa, doowop,
Dappadoo. (Oh yeah!)

Light 'Em Up by Hell.R.

The sound of their cries was like music to my ears.

The smell of bubbling flesh engulfed the room like the most delicious incense, exclusive to a particular ‘club’ of people.

It was currently only the two females on the bed who were creating such a spectacular sight, but that is only a temporary worry.

At first I hadn’t been sure if I’d doused them in enough gasoline, I should really scold myself for being so doubtful. The balance had to be just perfect, too little and it would be a rather lacklustre burning, too much however would burn too quickly.

I had managed to get it perfect this time around, it had only taken me four previous attempts. I’ll be sure to note this down when I get home.

A lick of flame caused me to step back to avoid being burned myself, I only wanted to watch, not be part of the show myself.

My gaze flicks to the male strapped to a chair beside the bed, tears ran down his cheeks as he struggled to release himself from the binds around his wrists and ankles.

The fire was slowly moving close to him and would soon draw him into its hug.

It had taken me weeks to find the perfect set of people for this spectacular view, I first had to learn everything about them.

I had followed them meticulously, stalking each for a week to get their daily routines, weird little habits and the ins and outs of their lives, even the dirty little secrets they don’t want anyone to find out about.

Such as affairs.

My eyes flickered to the blonde girl to my right, her eyes clenched tight as she screamed in pain, she wasn’t going to last much longer.

It had taken a lot of effort to kidnap that girl and keep her hidden until the opportune moment, neighbours can be surprisingly nosey when something is actually happening that you don’t want them to know, otherwise they’d just leave you to your mundane tasks whilst spying on you through cracks in their curtains.

My next victims were much easier to round up, they were a young couple and had recently moved in together, making my job all the more simpler.

Such a tragic beginning for the new couple, their first week in a new home and their lies have already been exposed, they clearly weren’t prepared for the cleanse.

The fire catches onto his leg and begins to char the fabric of his socks, perhaps teaching him for future references to not wear socks to bed.

His voice soon joins theirs in a chorus of pain and despair and I find myself once again in heaven.

As skin melts away from muscle and bone, the melody of their screams mixed with the fire alarm in the hall is like a symphony. One I wish I could stick around for to hear the encore, but as the distant sound of sirens become closer by the second, I know that the time has come for my portrait to be left for the spectators to find.

However, there is always time for one last bow.

Until the next show.

Hell Reviews: Silverhide

Synopsis: A group of conspiracy theorists are secretly watching a Top Secret military base in the desolate Welsh mountains. They are looking for experimental and highly classified test aircraft to report about in a magazine, when they suddenly discover a Top Secret and highly lethal creature, first discovered in the 1920's, which the military and Government are testing. The creature's fur has the ability to turn invisible in moonlight.

As the group are stalked by the creature, nicknamed "Silverhide" by the Army, they are also being hunted by the military who will stop at nothing to keep their classified specimen a secret.

 

I love werewolves.

Silverhide looked like a werewolf film.

Silverhide was not a werewolf film.

Silverhide is a terrible film, disguised as a good film with an eye catching cover.

 Thankfully, this is one B-movie I picked up really cheap at the local ASDA and only about £3 was wasted of the very little money I make in the first place.

When I get a selection of DVD’s that are piling up I like the stack them in order of which I’m more excited to watch, the ones I am eager to see the most I put at the bottom.
Silverhide was bought along with Starry Eyes and Fear Clinic and sat right between the two in my building pile of regret.
Now Fear Clinic was no masterpiece, but I still regret watching it before Silverhide. I’m sure with the former having Robert Englund in helped to be honest.

 Pros:

1: The cover -The cover has a definite draw to it, I love the colours it uses even if it is very cliché and simplistic for that kind of cover and the creature on the front really catches the eye. It definitely does its job well to sell the film from the shelf.

2: The…well that’s just it…that’s all there is.

Cons:

 1: The acting - In this kind of film you don’t expect the acting to be Oscar worthy by any means, but anything would have been better than what we got. Over the years I’ve seen some terrible films that at least had some form of decent acting going for it, as surprising as that may be, this one however had nothing.

All the acting was wooden and stilted, if you weren’t looking at the actors when they were talking then I’d pretty much guarantee that you’d believe they were just reading straight from the script. Hell, I still believe they had cue cards held up by the camera.
I can’t even tell if it was an actor/actress problem or a directing problem as I wouldn’t recognise any of these people if I saw them in anything else, so there’s no way I could even compare their performances.

2: The story - The synopsis sure did its job in sounding promising, too bad the execution didn’t live up to it. Nothing seems to lead anywhere, you’re just being dragged along at a painfully slow pace before all of a sudden it just ends and you’re left feeling a little bit betrayed and unsatisfied.
There is nothing note worthy that happens, even the creature’s appearances are lacklustre and scarce despite being the whole point of the film. I’m not one of these people that needs a deep story that I have to unravel to keep me entertained, I don’t exactly shut off when watching these things but I can still enjoy a mindless movie, but all I ask is that you offer me something.
The only way I can sum this up is with this one scene that led to nowhere, for about ten minutes you’re watching these two girls in completely different locations talking via walkie talkie and I, for the life of me, can’t remember a single thing that was said.

3: The creature – By far the thing I am most disappointed with in this film.

Now the creature on the cover isn’t the best looking beast I’ve seen, maybe I’ll make a top ten kind of thing for that one day, but it’s by far not the worst (I’m sure we’ve seen enough asylum films to know what I mean.) The beast is appealing enough to get you hyped up to see this thing in action.
Then you get a shot of a mask with someone’s hand controlling it.
Don’t get me wrong, budget is always a big factor when it comes to these things, but I’ve seen all kinds of short films on Youtube with less budget than this film used and they turned out better than the entire thing.
When going into something like this you don’t expect amazing effects or fantastic CGI, but you expect something. The way they dodge around budget for this is by making the creature invisible by moonlight and then shooting over 90% of the film in the dark, unfortunately very little else is offered for the periods where no creature is visible or even stalking around.
This led to me feeling amazingly cheated.

Would I recommend it?

No.
Unless you wish to admire a lot of grassland and a woman in a tent, then go right ahead.

All in all, it’s not worth throwing any money at.

If you can watch it for free and have nothing better to do then maybe it’d be worth checking out, but don’t expect to be entertained or even awake by the end of it.
Let’s just say that there’s a reason there’s thirteen one star reviews on the UK side of Amazon and a 3.9 on IMDB.

Broken by Hell.R.

I’m broken.

Don’t look too closely, you won’t be able to see it.

I can pass people in the street easily and they would think of me no differently than anyone else they have passed that day.

I’ve heard countless times how I look fine, how there doesn’t seem to be an issue.

My problems have been passed over because I don’t look like I’d have problems getting around by myself, eating, drinking or dressing.

I’ve had a medical professional tell me I was a typical young adult when I expressed that I would struggle to get out of bed, I was dismissed as being ‘lazy’ despite my underlying condition.

It’s in the human nature to judge on first appearance, I firmly believe anyone who claims they don’t is a liar. Everyone has at one point and denying it won’t make it any less true, you can feel ashamed for doing it and it doesn’t have to be a regular occurrence, but it happens to us all.

People have given me disapproving looks, or ones of dismissal, when I say in basic conversations that I can understand or at least sympathise with them a little. I’ve lost count of the amount of times people try to joke it off because of my age.

“But you’re so young,” is a common comment.

Usually I try to laugh it off and joke around about how I don’t feel it sometimes, but I always regret not correcting them. I sometimes wonder if they think I’m being pandering or condescending, perhaps I’ve even insulted some.

If I did explain would it even matter? Would they continue to believe I can’t understand because I don’t look like someone who could sympathise with the situation?

Perhaps I’m just making excuses.

Being broken isn’t always a physical break, you won’t always see my cracks but I can assure you they’re there. I’ve just mastered a way to hide my struggles; I keep to myself and don’t make it a point to constantly push my problem in people’s faces.

If it’s ever felt to anyone that I have then I apologise, it was never my intention.

I tire of having to reserve myself so much at times.

I wish I could keep up with other people.

I’ve come to learn to deal with the fact that I won’t.

But I live a good life and get the support I need when I need it.
I can smile and be perfectly fine whilst worrying that my cracks will get larger and no one will understand because I look fine.

I don’t want pity.

I just want people to understand that I’m broken.

And there’s nothing wrong with that

You.Just.Made.the.List...

...Of worse film I've watched this week.

I just finished watching Krampus: The Christmas Devil.
....Don't....don't watch Krampus: The Christmas Devil, wait to watch the big budget one for the sake of yourselves.
There's a reason it's only got a 1.9 on IMDB.

The Ragdoll by Hell.R.

I’m sat in pure darkness; the only source of light is coming from the space underneath the thick wooden door across from me, the smallest slither that barely shone onto the wooden floor.

My back is slumped against the wall as my hands lie lifelessly by my sides, I want to move them but I can’t, I am no longer in control of my own body.

My head is slumped against my right shoulder, I don’t have the strength to hold it up by sheer will power, I tried for so long but gave up a while ago.

My legs are sprawled out in front of me, the limbs covered by long striped socks that do nothing to keep my feet from getting cold.

My dark eyes remain fixed on the door, only half open, waiting for any sign of movement from the other side.

Time means nothing here, I can’t even estimate how long I’ve been in here, days and weeks mean nothing anymore, it has all just become one big blur. The only way to tell the passing of night to day is when the light under the door disappears; it took a while to even figure that out.

I hadn’t seen any of my friends for so long, when had I become so useless to them?

When I couldn’t move to my own accord?

When I lost all free will and could only sit in a room?

Lifeless like a ragdoll.

No one wants to be around someone who can’t keep up with them, who offers no fun and who can only listen and respond when their throat was strong enough to allow this person to speak for a few sentences, before withering away into nothing but a rasp and that all still depended on if their mouth would move to form actual words.

If my voice worked I would be calling out for help, it gets so lonely in here. The only source of entertainment is my imagination but even that runs thin after a while, eventually you simply revert back to your memories of how everything used to be.

The further into the memories you get the more you begin to imagine all the ‘what ifs’, how life could have been had you never become like this. The restrictions of your new life as a ragdoll hit you full force and you begin to miss things you never realised you cared about before, the things you took for granted for years.

I can hear voices on the other side of the door now, gradually getting louder.

Images flashed into my mind of the last visit I had, a group of people in white and blue scrubs had come in and prominently opened my chest up. Something had been removed as a man reassured me that everything would be alright, the whole world was so blurry that I barely remember what happened but I know these people in white visited me often.

A loud click resounds around the room, there’s nothing to cushion the sound as I’m the only thing in this room. There are no decorations, ornaments or any form of personality in the room, just white walls and a dark wood floor.

Light soon floods inside, it’s blinding at first until blurry shadowed figures take up space in the doorway. At first the sudden brightness is blinding and causes my eyes to ache, it’s only a matter of seconds before they adjust to the light and see all too familiar faces decorate the blankness of the shadows.

I feel the corners of my mouth try to twitch into a smile as I stare at my family, my parents and my brothers, each giving me a reassuring smile themselves. Tears visibly pricked at my mum’s eyes as they roamed over my form, slumped against the floor.

In a few large strides my dad and eldest brother had come to either side of me, eagerly pulling me up to stand. They lifted me by the arms and held me there, so my feet lightly touched the floor but I didn’t have to put any weight on my weak legs, for now standing by myself was impossible.

My mum walked over and briskly brushed off the collected dust and dirt with her hand, looking up at me every now and then with a look of relief.

“Don’t worry, everything will be okay,” she said softly, soothingly.

And I knew it would be, with the love and help of my family and friends, I knew that eventually I could become more than a worthless, lifeless ragdoll and could become a real girl again.

Ragdoll Disease

Keeping in tune with the ragdoll theme that started with my review of a book called The Ragdoll yesterday, I feel like posting my own short story of the same name.
Before I do that I will give it a little background in the shortest way I can, it's a rather long story with all the details.
So the short version is that when I was twelve I caught a chest infection that developed into pneumonia and this eventually brought out a recessive neuromuscular condition I was diagnosed with called Myasthenia Gravis.
This is essentially a condition that affects the muscles and weakens them, it's rare that it effects women under the age of forty but anyone can have it and not realise until something brings it out. Some people have a lesser case where it'll just affect their face, others have it more severe where it can affect their whole body.
Unfortunately I had the latter.
Anyway many Prednisolone and Pyridostigmine  doses (among many other medication trials, an operation and a shock test) later my MG went into remission, I was about fourteen or fifteen at the time and I'm doing much better with very few slip ups.
Now Myasthenia Gravis is also known as The Ragdoll disease due to how it affects the muscles, and I always had this penchant for drawing and writing, not meaning I was great at it or anything but I just enjoyed it.
Usually I focus more on horror, myths and legends from around the world (and...Supernatural fanfiction...) but I wanted to do something that was kind of fairytale like but still a general account of my experience, and thus I came up with an idea to write a short story and drew a small picture to go with it.
This eventually led to a longer version with no picture, and I will share both here.
The picture and original story will go on here and I'll make a new post with the new, updated story.

The original ragdoll picture created in 2011:

 

 

The original story (as I know my handwriting is not all that readable!) :

 



There once was a young girl who was loved by many.
Young and innocent, she didn't have a care in the world, but innocence blinded her to the act fate was about to bestow on her.
With a cruel spell the young girl was turned into a ragdoll, although now eternally youthful she had lost all strength and relied on others.
Slowly people began to leave her, finding no use for something that could barely move.
As people left her behind there was nothing she could do but to stay in the dark room they had pushed her into, sitting alone she waits in the dark for someone else to come and play with her once more.

Dismembear of the Week

A few years ago for Halloween I tried my hardest to find a weird frankenbear to go with my costume, but couldn't find one I liked for the life of me.
So I made my own.
I went to the local charity shop, bought a few bears, cut them up and then stitched them back together, adding make-up, safety pins and other bits and pieces for added Halloween spookiness.
I called him Patches.
Needless to say he got a few comments that night, so I decided to make some more!
I called them Dismembears.
A few have sold over the years but I have one left over and I'm currently working on another.

So my Dismembear of the week has to go to Patches, my first creation who was sold to a lovely little girl about three years ago.

Fancy Some Crime?

If you're a fan of crime and psychological thriller, then I suggest checking out this place:

http://nickislifeofcrime.blogspot.co.uk/

A wonderful mixture of coloured pictures, cross stitch patterns and plenty of crime book reviews!

Book Review: The Ragdoll

The Ragdoll by Brenda Bailey.


Synopsis: Life hasn't been easy for the fiery-haired nurse, Jessica Newman. When her beloved grandmother dies, she is left with nothing but an old trailer park, and just the clothes on her back...or so she thinks. After inheriting the trailer park, Jessica is thrown into a world she never knew existed. Her aunt, a sex-mad gold digger, who is on the search for money she thinks is hidden on the park grounds. Her lover Dr. Daniel Newman, not only shares her last name, but pulls Jessica into a secret world of heated sex, mutilated cadavers and undermining a scheming medical director for his own purposes. Dr. William Brooks, her employer, who drowns her in sea of blackmail and betrayal. Now follow that with two punk rock renters, an old woman that delves in the dark world of illegal surgeries and an Oriental hooker that stalks Jessica long after she's dead and buried and you have a crazy world filled with suspense, love and sex and plenty of defaced corpses.

This was a self published book that I bought on Amazon, I will admit this was mostly due to the draw of the cover.
I know it may seem like an odd book to start off with, but hey it was a funny bit of horrorotica and one of the first books in that kind of genre that I have read.
Why did I pick it up?
Honestly? The cover really caught my eye.
Anyone that knows me knows that I have a real thing for Frankenstein style stories from Dead Romance to Frankenweenie, heck my love of stitches and pieced together parts almost made it tempting to watch American Horror Story: Coven....almost.
I know they say don't judge a book by its cover, but sometimes you just can't help it.
The summary of the book seemed promising and I was more than certain that I was going to love it.
So did I?
Let's see.

Pros -

1: The cover - I would scream up and down about the cover, I love it. It instantly draws the eye and it's something that has stuck with me, despite it being years since I finished the book. Now I would share an image of the cover, but seeing as it's a copyrighted image and I'm just starting on this blogging thing I don't wish to get into trouble on my first post for adding something without full consent.
2: The synopsis - There was so much to this story that it could have become a self published masterpiece, there's a depth and darkness in the description that pulls you in and certainly does its job of convincing you to purchase the book.
3: The stitches - I'm a stickler for stitches, so naturally that's going to be a plus for me.

Cons -

1: The story - Sadly for me I can't say that the story lived up to its potential. Despite being offered so much in the summary it doesn't fully deliver, you get little pieces here and there that seem to be leading somewhere promising but then it sadly falls short.
2: The horror - That's just it...there isn't any, at least not in my opinion. Everyone has a different opinion on what makes horror, some believe it's the psychological aspect, others it's the gore and despite being a horrorotica book this didn't offer either in enough quantity to keep me satisfied.
3: The ragdoll - The ragdoll itself isn't there enough for me, the whole premise seemed to be focusing on this ragdoll but there was too much filler and time building up to the reveal that ultimately left me feeling let down.
4: The erotica - Not that it's a reason I bought the book, I would have bought it anyway without the promise of heated passion, but there wasn't much to it.
5: Errors - As to be expected with self published works, this book has its fair share of errors that could have easily been avoided with a little re-read, but it's not something you can't look over. I read fanfiction, this is nothing compared to some of them.

Despite feeling unfulfilled by this book I would say it was a tolerable read, it wasn't fully to my taste but I can see why it may be to someone else's as there are parts there that keep you hooked in.
Would I recommend it to a friend?
Possibly, if they were looking for a paranormal quick read I'd give it a mention, but it wouldn't be the top of my list.

Hell Reviews Grand Opening!

Hey there, wide world of blogging!
I'm Hell and I am here to review.
Please bear with me, I'm a new puppy to this and it may take some time to get used to.
My plan is to review films and books that have taken up my time over the years and will continue to do so.
I'll probably mostly be reviewing B-movies as I love B-horror...I like to torture myself it seems.
So what's the plan?
My idea is as follows:

Monday - Movies!
Movie Mondays, what else? I'll do a variety of terrible B films to the more large budget, Hollywood ones. I'll try and give as much of an insight into why I liked it and didn't like it as I can, but sometimes...well...it may just not be doable.

Wednesday: Books!
Good or bad, I will take a look at some of the series I have delved into, both ones I've enjoyed and ones I haven't. Give pros and cons, varying opinions and if I'd recommend it.

Other days: Who knows!
I'll pop in sporadically and maybe drop in random lists like 'Top ten foods' or something, maybe if something interesting happened in my day I'd come and share that. I'll post my own short stories from time to time. The possibilities are endless!

Well...that's all for now, I hope to see some people around!