A conscience is a very important thing. Without it we would make bad decision after bad decision.
But unfortunately, not all of us are tuned into our conscience. Some of us just go about doing what we want without thinking of others.
Hopefully those people have someone who will help keep them in check. Someone willing to point out their errors and how best to fix them. Someone…well someone like Mr. Knightley.
Yes, Emma was one of those people who doesn’t think of others.
It’s not that she tries to be cruel, she was just raised getting whatever she wants so she only focuses on her needs and desires. This can cause issues as she doesn’t always behave the best way.
Luckily Mr. Knightley is on the case to bettering her, whether she likes it or not.
“Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them…”
Yep, Mr. Knightley is the only one making sure Emma doesn’t turn out to be a selfish person. While Emma may not like having her faults pointed out:
Mr. Knightley is only trying to do his duty as her friend. Yes, friends are there to support and encourage you:
But to also call us out on the stuff we are doing that’s not right as well.
A lot of people see this as mean, but it is just the Austen version of:
After all real friends are there to help you grow.
And whether it is tough love, supportive love, encouraging love, etc:
No joke this just happened the other day and I’m like
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
My friend told me that she hated Star Wars. I just cannot comprehend how that is even possible?
Yeah I don’t understand it either
I convinced her to give the original films a try. After all, if a person doesn’t like Star Wars they can still be your friend. I can’t imagine if that was someone I wanted to date. You don’t like Star Wars? Then see ya!
Or guy in my case
After all:
If your significant other doesn’t understand that simple concept, dump them. There are plenty more out there who understand the finer things in life.
“All three monsters – the Dracula, Wolf Man, and the Mummy – all the same critter, which means we need to catch this freak before he “Creature from the Black Lagoon’s” somebody.”
So I know that I have had quite a few TV episodes this October. I know that I went a little overboard, but I wanted to include this anyway. You see I have been wanting to review this episode for a while, but felt that I couldn’t do it until I had reviewed the original The Wolf Man film. As I finally did it this October, it allowed me to finally be able to talk about this episode. This is my all-time favorite episode because it has what I love! Monster Movies!!
Yep it parodies a series of Classic Horror Films: Dracula (1931), The Mummy (1932), Wolf Man (1941). In fact to further the homage to classic horror film, they even filmed the whole thing in black and white!
So Supernatural is a show that like Grimm, every episode could be done for Horrorfest. The show consists of two hunter brothers, Dean and Sam Winchester, who travel all over the U.S. hunting ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, etc. As the seasons progress they get more focused on the battle between angels and demons and stopping the end of the world. It’s an awesome show.
So this episode takes place in season 4. There have been a lot of angst and sadness
(I won’t go into detail in case you haven’t watched it and want to) and the two brothers have finally been reunited.
So Dean and San are driving into Pennsylvania on the trail of vampires. Sam is worried about the apocalypse, but Dean convinces him to stop off at an Oktoberfest to relax a bit. They find the Sheriff and introduce themselves as Agent Angus and Agent Young (homage to Angus Young of AC/DC).
There they are told to speak to the witness Ed Brewer, but the Sheriff doesn’t put much stock in his testimony. They run into the very beautiful waitress Jaimie, who points them toward Ed. There Ed describes the Vampire as being the one out of the 1931 Dracula film.
Yep, Dean and Sam are shocked, but Ed insists that it is true. The guy looked just like Bela Lugosi’s Dracula.
In fact the vampire even uses the Transylvanian accent.
Sam and Dean confer and determine that it is probably a twilight-esque fan and that it isn’t really strange enough for them to stick around.
The night however, things change.
A couple is making out in a car when a werewolf comes upon them and attacks.
The next day, Sam and Dean talk to the girl who survived the attack, Anne-Marie, and discover that the killer looked just like Lon Chaney Jr. in the 1941 Wolf Man film.
The sheriff also finds wolf hair on the dead body. Sam and Dean are confused as real werewolves don’t have wolf hair.
That night a guard discovered an Egyptian sarcophagus at the docks. As the guard is about to call to figure out what is going on, the mummy rises from its grave.
The Mummy attacks the guard, strangling him.
The Winchesters go down to investigate and try and figure out what is going on. There they discover the sarcophagus is actually a movie prop that has been laced with dry ice. Dean leaves Sam to figure out a theory, while he heads down to meet up with Jamie for their date.
Meanwhile, Jamie has been waiting for a while and decides that Dean is most likely standing her up. She starts to walk home, when she runs into Dracula.
Blood!
He calls her his reincarted love, and tries to kidnap her, but Jamie sprays him with pepper spray and then runs away…right into Dean. Dean gets a punch into Dracula
But then finds himself overpowered by the vampire
The vampire calls him “Harker” (reference to Jonathan Harker the fiancé of Mina [the woman Dracula tries to take]). Dracula tries to bite Dean, but he rips his ear off and a medallion. With his ear gone, Dracula runs away and jumps on his scooter.
Nope you heard my correctly
Back at the bar, Dean shows Sam the ear and medallion.
“Dean Winchester: I, uh, pulled it off during the fight. Look at the label on the ribbon.
Sam Winchester: It’s a costume rental.
Dean Winchester: All three monsters – the Dracula, Wolf Man, and the Mummy – all the same critter, which means we need to catch this freak before he “Creature from the Black Lagoon‘s” somebody.”
They determine that they are dealing with a shapeshifter obsessed with classic film. Now if you have been reading my posts posts, such as Phantom of the Megaplex, Scream, and An American Werewolf in London, you know probably realize another reason why I love this episode. Yep, I can relate to the shapeshifter. I love classic film (especially horror) and I can completely understand him.
Anyways, so Sam, being the scholar, recognizes the name Harker and figures that the shapeshifter is trying to recreate the 1931 film, Dean being Jonathan and Jamie being Mina. I guess that makes Sam, Van Helsing.
The two figure that it must be someone who knows Jamie and is obsessed with her. When they question her, Jamie can’t think of a person who is strange or crazy. Lucy, her best friend and coworker, mentions that Ed recentlly moved to town and is the projectionist for the old theater. Plus he has a crush on Jamie.
HIghly suspicious
Sam goes to investigate while Dean stays with Jamie. The two are drinking beer and having a deep conversation, when Lucy interrupts. She is on her way out the door, but Jamie invites her to stay and have a drink with them.
Back on the case, Sam has gone into the old theater and discovers Ed playing the pipe organ.
He pulls on Ed’s ear, but find it fast in place.
“Sam Winchester: [tries to tear out Ed’s ear] It’s supposed to come off.
Ed Brewer: No, it’s not!”
This means Ed is not the shapeshifter!!! But if he isn’t…who is?
Back at the bar, Dean and Jaimie are getting groggy and falling asleep. Dean punches Lucy in the face, and discovers that Lucy is not “Lucy” but the shapeshifter.
AAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And she has drugged the two of them. Dean tries to hold on, but faints.
Dean wakes up and finds himself in lederhosen.
Noooooooooo!!!!!!!
In a Frankenstein-esque dungeon.
Now I really like what Dracula has to say here. It’s so poetic. “Life is small, meager, messy. The movies are grand, simple, elegant. I have chosen elegance.”, it’s very Movie Mason from The Phantom of the Megaplex.
Anyways, Dracula is about to electrocute Dean and have a “movie” where the monster wins, when something interrupts him. The doorbell rings and the pizza delivery guy is there.
Pizza Delivery Guy: Uh, pizza delivery?
Dracula: Ah, you have brought a repast. Excellent. Continue to be of such service, and your life will be spared.
Pizza Delivery Guy: Uh-huh. That’ll be $15.50.
Dracula: Tell me…
Pizza Delivery Guy: Yeah?
Dracula: Is there garlic on this pizza?
Pizza Delivery Guy: I don’t know. Did you order garlic?
Dracula: No!
Pizza Delivery Guy: Then no. Look, mister, I’ve got four other deliveries to make. You want to just pay me the money so I can go?
Dracula: Of course. Yes. But I have a coupon.
And why not take a pizza break? Pizza is awesome.
I love Pizza
So now that Dracula has food for later, he prepares to finish Harker/Dean, but is interrupted by Jamie waking up.
Meanwhile back at the bar, Sam has figured out that with Jamie and Dean missing it must be Lucy. He sets out for her house.
Back in the dungeon, Dracula wants Jamie to dress in the gown he bought her and eat pizza with him.
Just like the Mummy, trying to dress his “reincarnated bride” in his old love’s clothes.
Jamie is really freaked out as she has been drugged, was betryed by her best friend (as Dracula was pretending to be “Lucy”) and is stuck with a killer. Dracula tries to apologize and tells Jamie his backstory. He was called a monster from the beginning of his life and beat by his father. He found solace in monster movies, and achieves strength and confidence when taking their form.
This part actually reminded me a lot of The Phantom of the Opera. Here is a man who is disfigured and mistreated because of it. He knows only how to hate as he has been so mistreated. It makes you wonder how things might have been different if one person had loved him.
While Dracula is reminiscing, unbeknownst to him Sam has slipped into the house and is skulking around the dungeon. Dracula knocks Jamie out and turns his attention to Sam and the freed Dean. They start fighting, with Sam being thrown through a fake door. Dean and Dracula are struggling to get the gun with silver bullets along with trying to knock the other out. Dean tries a groin attack and move for the gun, but Dracula throws him back. Before he can do anything else, Jamie, who has just woken up, grabs the gun and shoots him.
With Dracula conceding, that maybe this is how the “film” should end.
The next day Dean says good-bye to Jamie. The two brothers agree that’s it was nice doing some old-fashioned monster hunting, rather than the angels & demons stuff. They discuss what film they would want to live in as the episode ends.
We traced the call! It’s coming from inside the house! Do you hear me? It’s coming from inside the house! You need to get out!
So I love this movie so much! It came out during the period of remakes of 1970s horror films, you had Dracula 2000, The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), The Wicker Man (2006), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), Carrie (2002), The Omen (2006), The Hills Have Eyes (2006), Dawn of the Dead (2004), Halloween (2007), and Invasion (2007).
I thought it was a great remake, although I’ve never seen the original. And as the trailer revels the climatic ending I don’t feel bad about doing so either.
So the film starts off a police cleanup as a baby-sitter and the kids she had been watching were ripped to shreds.
Then we cut to out protagonist Jill who is practicing track. She is suffering from a supremo of bad days. Her times are all off and she needs to improve her speed. Part of the reason she is sucking so much is that she is distracted by her broken heart.
It turns out that her boyfriend and best friend hooked up! What jerks!
And she is grounded because she went over the mins on her phone. Remember, back in the day when every cellphone plan had min limits, and everyone was going over them all the time?
Oops!
She really wants to go to the bonfire party, but the only place she is allowed to go is to babysit.
Yep, the money from the job is supposed to be enough to cover the cost of the phone bill. They must be paying her an awful lot of money.
To further her punishment, she can’t have her own car but has to be dropped off by her dad and then dropped off by the couple when they return from their night. Now this is a pretty sweet baby-sitting job. It is for a rich family, who lets you eat anything in the house, watch things on their massive TV, getting paid lots of money, and you don’t even have to look after the kiddos as they’re sick.
Only one problem, she is in the freakin’ middle of nowhere. But it is a beautiful house!
It has a so many glass windows and such, it also has an inside garden/aviary thing.
Now my home has a whole wall of windows, so when I first watched this with my friends we were all freaked out during the…well I’ll save that for later.
So Jill doesn’t have much to do as the kids are sick and knocked out upstairs. The maid is there, but will be leaving shortly after she finishes her rounds. The couple have an older son who attends college and he may or may not be coming back to visit, but if he does he’ll crash in the guest house in their backyard.
Seems easy enough
So Jill gets ready for a night o’ fun. She eats popsicles and tries on jewelry and clothes.
Everything is fun and games until Jill begins to receive anonymous and annoying phone calls.
Voice of the Stranger: Have you checked the children?
Jill Johnson: What
[Stranger hangs up. Jill runs and checks on the children. Comes back downstairs]
Jill Johnson: [phone rings] Hello?
Voice of the Stranger: [pauses] How were the children?
At this point in the film if you look hard enough you can actually see him watching her through the window while she is walking around and talking to her on the phone.
In between she gets some creepy calls from her ex’s friends. She gets even more calls, but then one turns out to be her ex-friend Tiffany. Tiff the big, bad, boyfriend stealer.
Tiff comes and tries to fix things between them, with Jill feeling lukewarm about the whole thing. She kicks Tiff out, who tries to leave but can’t as a tree blocks her path. A tree that wasn’t there earlier. That means only one thing, bye-bye Tiff.
Goodbye now!
The calls continue getting even creepier.
Jill Johnson: Tiffany, I know it’s you. I can see your name on Caller ID, genius.
Voice of the Stranger: This isn’t Tiffany.
Jill Johnson: Who is this?
Voice of the Stranger: [pause] Who is this?
Jill Johnson: Cody?
Voice of the Stranger: Who’s Cody?
Jill Johnson: You better cut this out!
[stranger hangs up]
Now for the most part Jill is pretty smart girl. She calls the police and tries to get them to trace the call and get rid of her stalker. She keeps the security system on at all times. When she sees a light go on in the guest house, she thinks it might be the son and tries to get him to come back with her to help.
She turns the security system off and runs down to the guest house to get the son. When she gets in there, she discovers that there is no one there.
Jill concludes that it must have been the maid, going over here to clean and then left after she completed the job. She runs back to the house, causing the security system to go off. She gets a call from the company, but tells them that it is only her. She must have only thought she turned the system off.
She continues to get more calls from “the Stranger”, telling her that he can see her.
Oh Crap!
Jill Johnson: He can see me!
Officer Burroughs: Sorry?
Jill Johnson: It’s Jill, the girl who called before about the man who keeps on calling.
Officer Burroughs: What’s going on?
Jill Johnson: He called me again.
Officer Burroughs: What did he say?
Jill Johnson: He’s out there, he’s outside, he’s watching me through the windows.
Officer Burroughs: Did you see him?
Jill Johnson: No, but I know he can see me, because I went upstairs…
Officer Burroughs: Okay, take a deep breath, where’s the house keeper?
Jill Johnson: I don’t know, I saw her purse and the keys but I can’t find her.
Officer Burroughs: The house locked up?
Jill Johnson: Yes.
Officer Burroughs: Alarm system?
Jill Johnson: It’s on.
Officer Burroughs: Okay, you’re safe inside that house. If he wanted to break in, he wouldn’t be calling.
Jill Johnson: But he must want something!
Officer Burroughs: Listen to me, Miss, it’s just some a****** trying to hassle you.
So when my friends and I were watching this film, we were in the living room which has a whole wall made entirely out of windows, similar to the house in the film. There is also a window behind the TV. As we were watching this part, something hit our window.
AAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our cat had jumped up on the fence outside and hit the window with her tail. We were just so into the film that we were creeped out.
So back to the film. So Jill keeps trying to talk to “the Stranger” so the police can trace the calls. It is so creepy, it was like when that crazy girl kept calling/texting me last spring.
Jill Johnson: [On phone] You really scared me, if that’s what you wanted. Is that what you wanted?
Besides Tiff, Jill also finds the body of the housemaid. She tries to help save the children, but end up getting in a deadly fight with “the Stranger”.
Save the Children!!!!
Jill is awesome how she takes down the stranger, totally kicking butt.
Kudos for carrying the crowbar
The cops come and capture the killer and cart him off, taking Jill with them to be looked at.
The ending is great, with its nod to Friday the 13th. Check it out, it is an amazing film!
The creepiest thing about this film is how the guy watches her and how he gets in the house and does the whole cat and mouse game. It is such a creeptastic film.
![Count Dracula: Van Helsing. [Van Helsing turns to face Count Dracula] Count Dracula: Now that you have learned what you have learned, it would be well for you to return to your own country. Van Helsing: I prefer to remain and protect those whom you would destroy. Count Dracula: You are too late. My blood now flows through her veins. She will live through the centuries to come, as I have lived. Van Helsing: Should you escape us, Dracula. We know how to save Miss Mina's soul if not her life. Count Dracula: If she dies by day. But I shall see that she dies by night. Van Helsing: And I will have Carfax Abbey torn down, stone by stone, excavated a mile around. I will find your earth-box and drive that stake through your heart. Count Dracula: Come here. [Dracula raises his hand to hypnotise Van Helsing] Count Dracula: Come here...Your will is strong, Van Helsing. [Van Helsing reaches out for his crucifix as Dracula looms toward him] Count Dracula: More wolfbane? Van Helsing: More effective than wolfbane, Count. Count Dracula: Indeed. [Dracula lunges towards Van Helsing. Van Helsing holds up the crucifix. Dracula snarls and turns away. Van Helsing, in triumph, puts away the crucifix]](https://janeaustenrunsmylife.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/images21.jpeg)
![Oh Crap! [Note: Pic from When a Stranger Calls not Phantoms]](https://janeaustenrunsmylife.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/unknown1.jpeg)
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