That Girl is Poison

So if you have been following me for a while, you are quite aware of the fact that I am a huge Batman fan. For any superhero fan you have got to have a favorite villain. And mine is Poison Ivy.

I’ve always loved how she is this super stong feminist, girl-power; yet at the same time isn’t above using seduction and feminine wiles to get what she wants. Plus, I don’t know, she always seemed so cool. So back in April my friends and I were discussing Halloween costume ideas and that’s when I decided I was going to be Poison Ivy.

Go here to see who you are.

But then I ran into a few problems with the putting of the costume together. You see her original outfit is like a green sweetheart leotard, tights, and boots. Not a lot there and October is cold. I wasn’t going to do a leotard and tights. That’s crazy!

So I decided to reimagine her outfit. Instead of the tights and leotard I decided a corset top, shrug with a high villaness collar, green leggings, and my yellow 5 inch platform shoes.

But things didn’t quite turn out as I planned.

The corset and shrug looked awesome, it was the leggings that ran into some issues. You see I have a large butt.

And I do like it, but it can cause some problems. One of which being that leggings don’t always cover its ampleness like they should.

So then we had to change plans. I was going to go with a skirt and tights, although it wasn’t what I really wanted. I wanted pants because if I was an evil villian that is what I would wear. I would want to be able to kick somebody. Luckily my sister heard of my dilemma and told me she could make me some pants.

Everything was going according to plan. The only thing left to do was my hair. And we know how that usually goes.

But it went better than I thought it would. You see I had thought about using a wig, but they are so itchy I decided to dye it instead (temporarily). I went to the beauty store and was warned my hair was too dark of a color the red wouldn’t show. I told the workers I understood that, but I didn’t want bright Ariel hair, I was hoping for a more auburn-y color.

So I ask my sister to help me as she has died her hair multiple times. She went to work and the results were…well let me start that by saying my hair is unusual.

Yeah, it doesn’t do what most people’s hair does. Even my hairdresser has remarked on this. When you want it to be wet, it dries instantly. When you want it dry, it is resistant to the hairdryer. When you want it parted on one side, it flips to the other. When you want it pushed back, it wants to go forward.

So she was trying to slick my hair back to put the dye in, but it kept going forward. Luckily, I had read online that when you dye your hair you should put vaseline along the hairline to protect the dye from staining your skin. It was a good thing I had read that, or else I would have come out looking weird.

When my sister was done putting the dye in. She showed me her gloves and it looked like we had just murdered someone, the way the dye had gotten everywhere. It was like a Dexter episode.

Ayways, after I sat the most time allowed, we washed my hair. Sadly it looked like all the dye was running out into the tub and that my hair was the same color.

Noooooooooo!!!!!!!

But I figured, oh well. If nothing happens, then at least I have a great story to blog.

Well, I was wrong. Not all  the die did wash out. It still looked red!

I really liked how it came out. You see my hair is a golden brown with blond and copper natural highlights. The whole mane ranges in lights and darks. The dye came out really cool, witth some areas being a really dark brown, auburn, red. While others were much, much brighter. I actually really like it and am considering dying it permenantly. I could totally pull it off as I have the two thinngs needed to be a sucessful redhead. 1) I have light eyes-green. 2) I do not tan at all, but remain white year round. The only issue I face is money!

So here’s the pic of my costume and hair. My sis and friend went as Catwoman and Harley Quinn, making us the three tantilizing women of Gotham.

Yep you should join the dark side.

For more on Batman, go to I’m Batman!

For more strong, independent women; go to How to Catch a  Man

For more quizzes, go to You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

For more on Star Wars, go to Part IX: Adventures in Movie Lines

The Past of a Man: Under Capricorn (1949)

“The past of a man it is something.”

Now this is an Alfred Hitchcock film that is not as well known or talked about, for various reasons. A lot of people think the story is too melodramatic, and others don’t like it because certain elements resemble Rebecca and Gaslight. However, the reason why most people at the time hated it was it came out right after the news of Ingrid Bergman’s affair with Roberto Rossellini, the impeding divorce of her husband Dr. Petter Aron Lindström, and the birth of her twins by Rossellini. (To read more on that go here.) I on the other hand really liked this movie as I love:

1. Alfred Hitchcock
2. Ingrid Bergman
3. Joseph Cotten

Really now, how can you ever think this was horrible?

The title “Under Capricorn” references the Tropic of Capricorn, which bisects Australia. As you can tell now that I’ve explained the title, the film is set in Sydney, Australia during the 19th century.

So before we get into the film, we need to touch on the background history. In the 18th-19th century, England tried to discover a better way to deal with the mass amount of criminal activity and overcrowding jail cells. One thing that England did was hanging. However, people began to get upset about that. Some of the crimes were not really all that bad, but yet people were being given the death penalty. In order to have a harsh punishment, less-crowded jails, and less death-transportation became the way to go. Originally convicts were sent America, but with our revolution in 1776, that option was no longer possible. In the 1780s they started sending people to New South Wales, but with the Napoleonic wars, more labor was needed and they stopped the transportation.

After the war, problems arose again and they turned their attention to Australia. Between 1788-1868, they estimate about 165,000 people were sent Australia from a sentence that was usually 3 years to life (average was 7-14 years). Most people who were sent over were guilty of poaching, arson, robbery, and murder.

They were usually sent to extremely remote areas to prevent escape and discourage any attempt at returning. While it was allowed for people to return after they served their sentence, most people wouldn’t. More often than not they would create a better life in Australia. Typically, criminals would change their names, get land, farm, and create a brand new life for themselves.

This ended in the 1860s, although it had started to drop off by the 1830s. Most of the areas that were for “convicts”, began to become real towns and attracted better emigrants. (Most of this info came from the Victorian Crime and Punishment website, if you would like to check it out)

Now back to the story.

So it is 1831 in Sydney, Australia. Sydney is still a frontier with most of the population being ex-convicts. The new Governor, Sir Richard arrives, bringing along his foppish, indolent, “rich boy” nephew, Charles Adare (Michael Wilding).

It’s one of those guys!

So Charles is hoping that he will make a fortune out here in Australia. While there he meets the gruff Samson Flusky. Samson is a convict that had been transported from Ireland out to Australia to serve his time, for murder.

But now he is a successful buisnessman. He owns a lot of land and makes a lot of dough. He is highly respected in the community.

Anyways, so Samson has now reached the legal limit of land he can purchase and needs to look to new ways in order to expand his business. He wants Charles to purchase the land and sell it to Samson, guaranteeing a good profit.

Charles is intrigued by the prospect and agree to the invitation of dining at Samson’s house. While there, he has a pleasant surprise. He knows Samson’s wife, Lady Henrietta (Ingrid Bergman).

She was friends with Charles’ sister but now has encountered a lot of problems. She is an alcoholic and shunned by society as she is seen to be crazy.

Sam decides to invite Charles to visit as much as he wants, hoping it will help bring his wife out of her current depression.

Now Charles has always had a crush on Henrietta and is confused at her crazed behavior and decline. He asks his uncle about what happened to her. Lady Henrietta was the daughter of one of the fine Irish gentry. To the surprise of everyone, she ran off with one of the handsome stable boys, Samson, to elope in England. Lady Henrietta’s brother went after them and was killed by Samson. Instead of the noose, Samson decided to go to Australia.

Lady Henrietta followed him to Australia and waited seven years for the term to end. After Samson served his years, he was different. He wanted to be rich and to buy everything, but that was never enough. Henrietta was extremely unhappy and began drinking.

Now unbeknownst to all, Samson’s housekeeper Milly has a crush on him.

She has been running the house and secretly feeding Lady Henrietta alcohol. She is hoping that Henrietta will kill herself, leaving Samson all to Milly.

Charles decides to help try and restore Henrietta’s confidence. At Sam’s urging, he moves into their home. But that’s not all he’s interested in. He has always found Henrietta to be attractive, and now she is vulnerable and needy. He begins to pursue her.

Charles’ work has been going great. In fact, Henrietta gains enough courage to try and take the power back from Milly and put her in her proper place as housekeeper, not wife. Milly turns things around and Henrietta runs up to her room and locks herself in. Charles goes in to talk to her and Milly sees them. She tries to use it to her advantage, telling Sam all kinds of lies about their behavior. This angers Sam, who kicks her right out of the house. (Sam you rock! I always had a soft spot for Sam. I don’t know if it was because he was played by Joseph Cotten or because he just seems like a great guy who has been mistreated.)

Henrietta is doing much better, and improving more and more each day. In fact she is doing so well, that when she receives an invitation to the Governor’s Ball, she is eager to go. They all get ready, but Sam decides to not go after all. He had purchased a ruby necklace for her, but after overhearing how Henrietta and Charles don’t consider ruby to be the right accessory, he decides not to give it to her. You see Sam has enjoyed having Charles there as he has helped his wife, but at the same time it has been upsetting. With the two together, it makes him realize just how different he and Henrietta are. He thought it could be different in Australia, but sees that moving to a new place hasn’t really changed societal rules.  Sam thinks the rest of the ball will be the same, and that he’ll be too out of his element or that he’ll embarrass himself. He decides to stay home.

Sad and lonely

At the ball, Henrietta stuns everyone as they all adore her. And more importantly, Henrietta has a great time.

Back at the house, Milly has returned.

Milly asks for forgiveness and her job back but also starts talking smack about Henrietta. She tells Samson exaggerated stories of what has been going on between Henrietta and Charles. The two had shared only one kiss, and everything had been instigated by Charles. Milly, on the other hand, insists that Henrietta is the one that has been carrying on and that it has gone much, much further. To further push the issue and him, she tells him that Henrietta is of a different class than her and Samson, and those people do things non-aristocrats could never get away with.

I mean seriously this girl is a major jerk.

You just need to understand that he loves his wife and back the heck away from him. You- you-

At first Samson shrugs it off. Charles is younger than Henrietta and more concerned about clothing than anything else. But that evil woman Milly keeps pushing him, and when she mentions the differation in classes, that’s where he snaps.

Sam goes to the ball, makes a scene, and humiliates Henrietta in front of everyone

She returns home, weeping and half-crazed.

Sad and lonely

Charles runs after her and tries to help her. He tells her to leave Sam, but Henrietta can’t. She tells Charles that she deeply loves her husband and is bound to him. You see, Sam didn’t shoot her brother, she did.

Yep, that’s right. Sam has never killed anyone. Henrietta fell in love with Sam as he was kind and handsome. Can you blame her? He’s one attractive man.

The two wanted to marry, but it was impossible as Samson was a much lower class than Henrietta. So the ran off to England, but her brother followed them. Her brother tried to kill Samson, but missed and the two struggled. Henrietta took the gun and shot her brother so he wouldn’t kill Samson. Samson took the blame as he didn’t want her to suffer in  jail.

Unfortunately, that didm’t actually help. Henrietta couldn’t stay at home, and couldn’t leave Samson by himself so she followed him to Australia. Not only has she been dealing with the guilt of killing her brother, but the guilt of allowing Samson to rot in prison for her deeds. To further this, when Samson came out of prison he was a changed person. This lead to even greater guilt and drove Henrietta to the bottle. No wonder she’s been going crazy.

Now even though Henrietta admits this to him, Charles doesn’t really believe her. He thinks it is just her way of trying to protect the man she loves.

When Samson sees Charles in his house with Henrietta, he becomes incensed  for the betrayal and kicks Charles out.

Charles steals Sam’s horse and takes off. While riding, the horse breaks its leg, causing Charles to have s a really bad fall. He reluctantly returns to the house and relays the news. Samson goes for his gun to “shoot the horse”, but Charles believes he is going to kill him, as he has “killed” before. The two struggle over the gun and during the conflict, Charles is shot.

With Samson’s past, he is immediately thrown into prison, to either rot for good or be hanged. Henrietta tries to save him and tells the Attorney General the truth. That Samson has never killed anyone, she did it. This presents a serious problem for Samson. The only way he can get out of his predicament is if he corroborates Henrietta’s story, but then she will be sent back to Ireland to stand trial and imprisonment. If he says his wife is lying, then he will be killed. The Governor is really pushing a conviction as he wants someone to be punished for trying to harm his nephew. The AG gives Samson twenty-four hours to decide.

A no win situation

Back at the house the evil Milly sees the perfect oppurtunity to get Sam. She tries to poison Henrietta and plants a shrunken head on her bed to further scare her. Fortunately, she is discovered and ousted.

Good-bye

Meanwhile Charles has recovered from his wound and vouches for Samson, telling everyone that it was an accident.

Charles is put on a ship back to Ireland, and Samson and Henrietta are now happy. Henrietta has been freed from the poisonous Milly and finally from the guilt of what she did to her brother and Samson. Samson is better as he finally knows that Henrietta truly loves him and that he didn’t destroy her life.

All in all, this film really teaches you one thing:

Yep, sometimes you just need to move on.

To start Horrorfest III from the beginning, go to Even a Man Pure of Heart

For to the previous post, go to Werewolves Roam Among Us.

For more on Alfred Hitchcock, go to Horrorfest III: The Revenge

For more on Joseph Cotten, go to You Think You Know Something, Don’t You?

For more on Ingrid Bergman, go to I’ll Always Be There When You Need Me

For more on the Victorian Period, go to Redone Done Right

It’s Coming From Inside the House: When A Stranger Calls (2006)

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.

Jill Johnson: [phone rings] Hello? [no answer] [sighs] Mandrakis Residence.

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?

Voice of the Stranger: No.

Jill Johnson: What do you want?

Voice of the Stranger: Your blood all over me.

As gross and creepy and Nightmare in Elm Street’s Freddy Kreugar.

EW!

That’s when everything starts to fall apart.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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.

To start Horrorfest III from the beginning, go to Even a Man Pure of Heart

For more on When a Stranger Calls, go to Do You Know Where Alex Is?

For more on psychopathic killers, go to Everyone’s Entitled to One Good Scare

For more great remakes, go to Redone Done Right