Saturday, December 24, 2011

Christmas Eve With Full Moon Entertainment 2011



Christmas Eve is here again! Right now I'm making cannolis and getting ready to wrap presents. This is a night of personal and family traditions, and I have several of my own. Now, continuing the Amazing RPG Fun Pad Christmas Eve Celebration tradition, I present to you the 2011 Full Moon Entertainment Christmas Eve Extravaganza! Here are some more trailers from one of my favorite B-Movie companies.

I've always wanted to run a game in this universe:



Jack Deth in a fantasy world. Cheesy brainless fun, these sequels were shot back to back:





A strange chiller set in Louisiana with a silly plot, but again some fun stuff to steal.



Back in the VHS Days (long, long ago...) each Full Moon video would have a VideoZone, a mix of making of shorts, coming attractions, and pure hucksterism.  Here is the VideoZone for Puppet Master 4. There may be spoilers, so be warned, but enjoy the early 90s flavor!



I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! And since it's Christmas Eve I love to give you a Christmas Carol so here is "Do You Hear What I Hear?" by the Spiraling . This classic song is merged with The Who classic "Baba O'Riley". You all enjoy yourselves!

Monday, December 19, 2011

B-Movie Monday: Monkey Ninja Pirate Robot Santa (with apologies to Chad Underkoffler)

Since I've got Christmas baking to do tonight and work was busy, B-Movie Monday is featuring a bunch of trailers featuring Monkeys, Ninjas, Pirates, Robots, and Santa! Yes this is based on the great game Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot (I added Santa for today) by Chad Underkoffler which you get here at RPGNow. Check it out!

Here we go!

Monkey!



Ninja!



Pirate!



Robot!



Santa!



Happy Holidays!

Friday, December 16, 2011

Deja Vu Blogfest: Yellow Rhapsody



Here's my entry for the Deja Vu Blogfest. A Tale of Terror I call Yellow Rhapsody...

This is yet more game material written when I was a member of All of the Above, the GURPS APA. Yellow Rhapsody is an adventure seed featuring The King In Yellow. It was written in the systemless style of Steve Hatherley's Tales of Terror. I first saw this format in Pagan Publishing's legendary Call of Cthulhu zine The Unspeakable Oath. Written in 1997, I consider Yellow Rhapsody one the best things I have ever created. The only changes made here are spelling and formatting. Enjoy.


Yellow Rhapsody
A Film by "Alan Smithee"



Excerpt:

Man in the Mask:
To what do you hold dear?
Robert:
Life, love, happiness, what all men hold dear.
M in M:
They mean nothing in the Tremors of the dance.
R:
Then why do you dance if you have no pleasure?
M in M:
There is no question in the dance, no why, no how. We dance for the king. That is enough.
R:
Who is the King?
M in M:
The name is all around you.
R:
I see nothing.
M in M:
That is his name.


The packaging is deceptive. It is a video box decorated by colorful computer generated art with the title Tales of the Weird set in garish red. The back has text that promises terrors from these three college films. The only film company mentioned on the cover in "Weird Press Films".

The first and second films are normal horror films. "Early for Dinner" is an EC Comics-style fable involving a grifter who attempts to con a beautiful gourmet cook. He gets his comeuppance when she makes him the meal for a family of ghouls. "Last Call" is a bizarre black and white blending of German Expressionistic film and Italian zombie films. Two couples spend a night in a deserted Midwest farm and stumble onto a devilish device that alters their reality.

"Yellow Rhapsody" is the highlight. It is an animated film done in a minimalist, Alex Toth-like style. The plot involves a young man named Robert Chambers who gets a strange book from his grandfather—The King in Yellow. As he reads the play, characters inspired by it begin to haunt him day and night. Helped by the mysterious Man in the Mask and the lovely Cassilda, he pierces the veil and walks the halls of Carcosa. After a surrealistic journey he meets the King, who envelopes him in voluminous cloaks of yellow. The film ends with Robert dancing with Cassilda in the King in Yellow's court. The Man in the Mask looks to the screen and pulls of his mask, revealing nothing but a starry field and a yellow rune where his left eye should be.


Tales of the Weird
has become a cult classic due to the amount of disappearances connected to it. According to the legend that has grown up around it. The legend claims that "Yellow Rhapsody" was animated by a recluse who slit his own throat over the original cells of animation. It is a challenge, they say, to watch the film the whole way through. Something about the colors and the sound has a tendency to lull the viewer asleep or blur his vision. The ones that do claim that the camera plunges in the starry field and the credits begin to roll. An evil looking little boy with milky white eyes grins insanely as the credits begin to blur and break up, becoming unreadable.

Police are starting to take this case seriously. The suicides and disappearances on college campuses are starting to mount. Most of the original print run of the film has been seized and/or destroyed. Weird Press Films cannot be reached for comment.


Possibilities


1. The film itself is not the problem. It is the spirit of the animator that is the cause of the disappearances. The Mythos references were unintentional; he simply liked the King in Yellow. "Alan Smithee" lives within the original print of Yellow Rhapsody. He can perceive anyone who watches the entire film. After each viewing he attempts to take over the watcher. If he succeeds, Smithee drains life force or implants commands to watch the movie again. The disappearances are caused by the eventual destruction Smithee can visit upon a victim by draining them until they turn to dust.

2. The film is actually nested with subliminal messages put in by cultists at Weird Press Films. Throughout the video the Yellow Sign and other Mythos sigils and symbols are present. The other two short films also have references to the Mythos hidden within their narrative. The subliminals are a tool used by the cultists to recruit and identify. The curious ones are drawn to join the cult, while those who investigate the Mythos can by drawn out and eliminated. If innocents are driven to harm, that is not their concern.

3. "Yellow Rhapsody" is a cleverly disguised gate to Carcosa. If a person watches the film in its entirety (up to the grinning child), they become touched by the film. The viewer begins to watch the film over and over again and begins to see more detailed backgrounds. The sky forms into strange runes, the details in the clothes, and the characters' lines not heard before all become apparent. As the viewer becomes more drawn into the animation, the film becomes more nightmarish and surreal. The landscapes beyond the window become strange and alien, their inhabitants staring back. Screams of torture can be heard beneath the etherial music. Hallucinations begin to set in as the victim sees the characters come to life around him.

When sanity finally slips away, the Man in the Mask comes to snatch away the viewer, while Robert and Cassilda hold open the way to the city of Carcosa. The victim becomes one of the dancers whirling away to the dance of the Yellow King. A friend who watches the video might be lucky enough to see an old friend dancing for eternity in wild abandon as the Man in the Mask laughs mockingly.

Monday, December 12, 2011

B-Movie Monday: Low Budget Fun

I have respect for the really low budget film makers. I mean the guys and gals who make their own movies in their backyard with their family and friends. Yes special effects may be lacking and the acting questionable at best, but these folks at least made some movies. That's more than I've ever done...

I had a copy of this movie on VHS but I lost it. Took years for it to come out on DVD. An interesting and creepy dream monster movie:



A trailer from the legendary indie b-movie makers The Polonia Brothers:



Two trailers from the mind of Christopher R. Mihm, a Minnesota filmmaker who makes schlocky horror/sci-fi films. I love the classic 50s/60s retro feel to these movies.





A low budgeted horror comedy with an Ash Williams-esque character. Not a bad little film with fun characters.



A vampire movie by the late great Don Dohler. Dig the computer generated effects!



Enjoy!

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Seventh Sanctum Generator Fun: Weird Fantasy

These 4 entries were all generated by some of the fine random generators at the Seventh Sanctum website. The paragraph below each of them was genrated by me. Use them for your weird fantasy/pulp/horror campaigns.

The Fourth Sultanna Who Hates Possibility


In the lands of the Plutocracy, hidden in the shadows of the Pantheons is the veneration of the Sultannas. These ancestor goddesses are worshipped by the native peoples who asked for various intercession with the deities of the Land. They are not named fearing that those who know the true names of the Sultannas will bind them to the will of men. The Fourth Sultanna Who Hates Possibility is called upon when someone is threatened by the changing of the staus quo. If the Sultanna is placated strange things will happen until change is stopped or averted.

The Dark Emperor of the Garnet Arrow

The Symbol of the Dark Emperor
A demon lord of moderate power, this servitor of Demogorgon appears as handsome 9 foot tall human with iron infused skin and an ornate suit of garnet armor carved in swirling runes describing abhorrent deeds surrounding the Garnet Arrow. His only weapons are a demonforged morningstar and a longbow made of dinosaur bones. The Dark Emperor tempts rulers with promises of vast wealth and land. His abyssal demense Elazguro has pathways to all of the Realms the Dark Emperor has corrupted. He sits at the center of intrigue, watching as his minions plot and poison for his favor.

Ooze Children From Thognyia



Thognyia, the City of the Swamps,  is a remnant of the Fifth Planet that lies buried underneath the swamps of Lousiana. The once men that walked it's streets were infected by an ancient curse to become one with the land. Within three generations the once proud beings became caniballistic ooze creatures that soon sank in to the swamps to feed at their leisure. Thognyia soon sank into the swamps, but legends tell of strange beasts the shamble in the night to capture the unwary.




Subterranean Spiders Of Shaictha the Vermillion Blasphemy


Ancient tomes speak of Shaictha the Vermillion Blasphemy, one of the Lords of Beyond, entities of Malevolent Power. Many are the servants of Shaicatha, but the best known are the Spiders. Lurking underneath the Realms of Men, the Spiders plot ans plan to replace man as the true rulers of reality. In their true shape they appear as spiders the size of men, each with a deformity that marks them as not of this plane. The Blessed of Shaictha, some say, can change into the shape of man to walk among us to look, to listen, and to feed.

Monday, December 5, 2011

B-Movie Monday: The Deathstalker Tetralogy

Last week I planning on doing some B-Movie stuff but I just never got to it. The holiday season is quite busy for a grocery store worker like myself. But I'm back with more fun stuff for you all.

The Deathstalker movies were admittedly cheap Conan the Barbarian rip-offs that were mainly made in Argentina. The artwork for the movie posters and VHS were all paintings by Boris Vallejo. Stock footage was used throughout and they were threadbare plots at best. But I have fond memories of watching the first Deathstalker on basic cable late on a Saturday night.








I can't find the trailer to Deathstalker III: The Warriors From Hell




And here is the classic Corman pig-faced Orc that you've seen in a bunch of sword and sorcery epics!