Is it the original cheap Canadian horror movie? I don't know. But it should evoke memories of a simpler, clumsier time in Canadian cinema, when artists such as Leslie Nielsen and George Touliatos were moodily listening to sullen voiceovers as a cheap drama unfolded around them.

“Prom Night” (1980) also has the young Jamie Lee Curtis, here rather two-dimensional, as the role seems to dictate. It's literally a very dark film: every scene is in almost total darkness, relieved by glimpses of torn blouses and people's knife-wielding arms and, of course, disco lights. There's even a sequence of some sort of vehicle spinning around in the darkness somewhere. Then it plunges over a thing, turning into a fireball, and you can see: aha, it's a van. Two more victims for the mysterious killer, who might be the disfigured maniac known to be on the loose, but more probably somebody's best friend.

It's really not bad.

Labels: Maniacs, Motion Pictures

I have two books on my desk that need to fight each other in a televised wrestling match:

The Dublin Dissector vs Advanced Mandarin.

(The Dublin Dissector is a book on anatomy which comprises “a description of the bones, muscles, vessels, nerves and viscera” by Robert Harrison and published in Dublin in the 1840s.)

Labels: Maniacs

On CNN today at 8:16 am EST: most popular news videos.

1. Inside the execution chamber (2:00)
An amateur video shows the final moments of Saddam Hussein's execution. CNN's Carol Lin reports (December 30)
2. Hussein in hangman's noose (1:26)
Watch masked executioners place noose around the neck of Saddam Hussein. (December 30)
3. Hussein's body wrapped in shroud (1:34)
Video captured by cell phone contains graphic content. Viewer discretion is advised. (December 30)
4. Monster python found in home (2:16)
A 13-16 foot Albino Python was found inside a Florida woman's bedroom. (December 30)
More most watched video. Updated every 2 hours.

“Watch masked executioners place noose” ... what is this, some kind of death porn offer? No, I checked, it's good old CNN. The news is, Saddam Hussein executed. There's not much more story to it than that. Yesterday they already had a lovely photograph of Hussein with his head in the noose, which ought to have been enough to satisfy any healthy death nut. But the demand seems to have grown quite a bit.

A normal news story might be, for example, “Man Dies in Fiery Crash”, which then relates the how and the where and so on, and then stops. But when editors go and say, as it were, “No, no—check out these AWESOME pictures. And we have more. Look. Videos, you can hear the guy screaming. All kinds. And here's one where you can almost smell that burning flesh,” then, I think, you're getting into a weird area normally haunted by troubled adolescents and perverts. Or is that normal now?

Labels: Assorted Antichrists, CNN, Maniacs