Lord Samper's Library

  Run Time: 80 Minutes I had my youngest daughter over, for a chunk of yesterday, and followed that up with a quick game of ‘Uno’ and ‘Monopoly Deal’ with said daughter and my ex-partner. Turns out that playing to win (instead of playing to lose really quickly so I can get back to my book) can be fun after all, who would have thought it…? :o) What I didn’t do yesterday was pick up a book but I did manage to watch ‘XX’ when I got home. And… It was pretty good, all the more so as I’d managed to confuse it with ‘X’ (which I still need to watch) and my expectations were all over the place going into it. Regular visitors here will know that I have a real soft spot for ‘horror anthology’ movies, almost as much as I do for zombie movies ;o) If there’s more than one separate story collected in a horror movie, I’m watching it. That’s what ultimately encouraged me to keep going with ‘X’ and it proved to be worth sticking with. That’s not to say that there weren’t issues. There are four stori...

  I’ve had a pretty good run, just recently, with books and movies that I’ve really got into and enjoyed and I’ll be totally honest, that’s exactly how I planned it. If I’ve got a bit of free time, I want to spend it reading and/or watching stuff that I know I’ll enjoy; that’s how I recharge my batteries before jumping back into all the other stuff ;o) Every so often though, we all need to step outside our comfort zone and try something new. I’ve always been partial to a bit of body horror and any film with a title like ‘Septic Man’ is more or less guaranteed a viewing sooner rather than later. It’s a weakness and I’m not proud of it; I’m happy to live with it though ;o) Anyway… I’m not sure quite what brought ‘Septic Man’ to my attention but the clip I watched certainly caught my eye so I had to give it a go and last night, that’s exactly what I did. To be honest, I really wish that I'd watched something else instead. A sewage worker is trapped inside a septic tank, during a water...

Today is a day in the office and there’s a fair bit to get through (and by a ‘fair bit’, I mean… loads) so while I try and get my head round that, have some quick thoughts on some bits and pieces that I’ve been reading and watching. ‘Event Horizon: Dark Descent #1’ – Ward, Jones, Martin’ (ID Dark) In 2040, the Starship Event Horizon disappeared on its maiden voyage to Proxima Centauri. Seven years later, it reappeared, its crew all dead. This is the story of what happened… I love ‘Event Horizon’ (you knew that already though) and had more or less got used to the idea that not only will we never see the full directors cut, there’s pretty much no more story left to tell. The ending is pretty final ;o) Well, luckily, Christian Ward had other ideas and has taken the tale back to way before Dr. Weir boarded the ‘Lewis & Clark’ to go on a rescue mission. I had no idea this comic was a thing so when I saw it in Forbidden Planet, I was all over it. And… Famous last words, and all that, but...

Yesterday did its best to defeat me but I fought it to a standstill. Well, a ‘standstill’ being about half five in the evening when I turned my laptop off and ordered a pizza ;o) I wasn’t in much of a state for reading so I ignored my latest TBR pile and settled down for a spot of TV instead… ‘Predator: Killer of Killers’ (2025) A Viking raider, a Ninja from Feudal Japan and a WW2 fighter pilot must each face a Predator on safari before going on a journey of their own… I’ll be honest, I love all the ‘Predator’ movies (even ‘The Predator’) so don’t expect too much objectivity here ;o) With that out of the way, ‘Killer of Killers’ is beautifully animated and looked superb from where I was sat. More importantly though, ‘Killer of Killers’ absolutely granted a longstanding wish of mine to see how a Ninja would do when facing off against a Predator; the inclusion of a Viking Shield Maiden was a very welcome bonus. I don’t want to give too much away other than to say that we’re left in no do...

I hardly read anything over the weekend, 'Man of Iron' was the exception (plus a few pages here and there of 'Siege of Vraks') but I wasn't good for much, on Saturday, apart from watching movies and then on Sunday, I spent the day with my kids and that ended up being more about buying books than reading them. More on that another time ;o) For now, lets cycle back to the movies. Work is relentless right now so when I get to the weekend, the day where I don't have my girls is spent in front of the telly trying to make a dent in my watchlist. Let me take you through the films that I spent time with over the weekend... 'Howl' (2015) When a train breaks down in the middle of its last run of the day, the passengers are resigned to waiting for rescue. Their need is about to become desperate though, there is something in the woods outside and it's hungry... 'Night of the Living Dead' on a train, with werewolves instead of zombies. What's there t...

The plan, for today, is still very much to get some reading done. It’s still early(ish), I can do it :o) But I’m also full of cold today so when I finally dragged myself out of bed, I went straight to my favourite chair and turned on the telly to see if anything on my Prime watchlist appealed. You know, something to blow the cobwebs away while I was having breakfast.. You know me, I love a good ‘creature feature’ and sometimes, even a bad one ;o) So when I saw that ‘Alligator’ was on Prime, that was my ‘breakfast telly’ sorted… ‘Alligator’ (1980) A pet baby alligator is flushed down the toilet but survives in the city sewers, growing to an enormous size on a diet of laboratory dogs injected with growth hormones. Twelve years later and sewer workers have begun to go missing. The police are looking for a killer but were not expecting to find anything quite like this… ‘Alligator’ is one of those movies that I’ve always meant to watch but never quite managed to because, well… There so many...

Because that's all I've really been good for just recently. Like I said yesterday, the new medication is giving me a bit of a kicking and there are some other things going on as well. It's all a little much so as much as I want to be reading books at the moment, all I can do after work is stick the TV on and try and make a dent in my watchlist(s) instead. I will try and get something bookish posted, there are books here and there that I have finished but not written about, but for now, lets take a look at some of those movies... 'Werewolves' (2024) One year ago, a supermoon event triggered a global outbreak, transforming anyone exposed to moonlight into bloodthirsty werewolves. A year has passed and another supermoon looms; while scientists work on a possible cure, the rest of the world is left to try and make it through the night... 'Werewolves' is more action than horror (despite what Prime Video might say) and you know what? When you're in a headspace...

I've been pretty wiped out just recently which has inevitably led to me trawling through my movie watchlists in search of anything that would either hold my attention or at worst, be on in the background while I played on my phone. What? Sometimes it's nice to have a bit of noise in the flat :o) A bit of a mixed bag this time round with a couple of films where I genuinely don't know why I stuck with them the whole way through (I guess I was really tired...) It's not the first film though... 'The Giant Spider Invasion' (1975) When a black hole strikes North Wisconsin, gigantic spiders emerge, craving human flesh and leaving NASA's top minds with a real problem on their hands. I don't I ever truly realized what the phrase 'so bad, it's good' really meant until I watched 'The Giant Spider Invasion' the other day. It really isn't good but the movie just says 'fuck it' and leans into it as far as it can go. The result is a lot ...

I've got a hospital appointment (another one) this afternoon and I'll be honest, this one has been playing on my mind a fair bit. I'm in a bit of a weird spot you see, the Doctor has said that something isn't quite right, they're just taking a little while to figure out what the issue actually is. Fingers crossed it's nothing too serious... :o) But anyway, you don't really want to know about all that. Lets just say that I couldn't concentrate on any books so I watched a load of telly instead, that worked a lot better for me :o) Let me quickly tell you about the movies I got through... 'The Day of the Triffids' (1963) After an unusual meteor shower leaves most of the human population blind, a merchant navy officer must find a way to conquer tall, aggressive walking plants that feed on people and animals. If the blurb wasn't enough of a clue, I'll tell you now that this isn't a particularly faithful retelling of the book. Actually, it...

I haven’t been good for a lot, these last few days, (work and so on) so have spent the last couple of evenings crashed out in front of the TV, trying to find something decent to watch. Okay, you’ll see in a second that I wasn’t too fussy about finding something decent… ;o) Quick thoughts on four movies then. One brilliant, one ‘not bad’ and the other two… Lets just say that they weren’t great (fun but...) I really will watch anything sometimes :o) ‘ Saint Maud’ (2019) A pious nurse becomes dangerously obsessed with saving the soul of her dying patient but is it her own soul that is in true peril? I’m not entirely sure what led me to watch ‘Saint Maud’ but I’m really glad that I did. It’s beautifully shot, Morfydd Clark is excellent in the title role and just when you think you know what’s going on, ‘Saint Maud’ delights in pulling the rug from under you and sending you in a different direction entirely. I’m thinking about certain bits of the movie and trying to puzzle out what real...

'Alien: Romulus' deserved to have a post all to itself but I have been watching other movies over the last few days. This is a quick post where I can get them all in one place and say a little bit about them all. You know, like all the other movie posts here ;o) Here goes... 'Final Days' (2020) As the world crumbles outside, Aidan barricades himself inside his flat. With the infected at his door, Aidan finds that it's the loneliness that is the greatest threat to his sanity. Until one day, he looks out of his window to see a fellow survivor in the flat opposite... 'Final Days' has been sat in my queue for far too long so the other day, I took the plunge and gave it a watch. It's not a bad movie, a little lightweight and straightforward but tense in all the right places and an interesting study in loneliness. What I really got the most out of though was taking the time to listen to what the infected were screaming as they did their thing, it added an int...

I somehow never got round to watching ‘Alien: Romulus’ at my local cinema (and there’s a big question over whether anyone will watch anything there ever again but that’s another story) but after a few weeks of waiting for the price, on Prime Video, to come down, ‘Romulus’ suddenly became affordable and that was my cue to grab a copy, order a pizza in and give it a watch. I’ll be honest, I’m more of a ‘Predator’ fan myself but I’ll never pass up the chance of watching an ‘Alien’ movie and the prospect of an ‘Alien’ movie directed by the same guy who directed the ‘Evil Dead’ remake was an intriguing one to me. So, slice of pizza in hand, I started watching and… While scavenging a derelict space station, a group of young colonists looking for a better life find the most terrifying life form in the universe instead. And there may well be something even more terrifying on board… As I’ve got older, I’ve found that my natural ‘movie run-time tolerance’ peters out at about an hour and half. An...

I should have done this earlier in the week but then everything else took over and now, here we are ;o) Which reminds me, I really need to stop making rash promises about catching up with my reading over any given weekend. I want it to happen but it never does; these days, I'm not any good for much more than a Saturday afternoon in front of the telly. And I wouldn't mind so much if the films I watched were any good... Actually, it wasn't too bad last weekend, nothing amazing but nothing truly horrendous either. I'm counting that as a win ;o) Let me tell you about what I watched... 'Wishmaster' (1997) An ancient hidden opal is found by Alexandra, a gemologist. Unknowingly, she releases an evil Djinn from within, who wishes to take over the world but is restricted until his owner makes three wishes. Is 'gemologist' a real word? It doesn't feel like it should be but that's what I got when I googled 'Wishmaster' so I'm sticking with it :o...

By the time you read this, I'll be knee deep in emails and 'catch-up' calls; that'll teach me to take a few days off... To be fair, I needed the time and, evil cat to one side, it was time well spent. Time for one last push before Christmas ;o) In the meantime... I rounded off my little break with a couple of movies that I'd planned on watching and one that I'd been meaning to show my daughters for a long time. It's pretty easy to guess which ones are which ;o) 'Airplane!' (1980) I needed a few laughs and my two daughters (just back from a week away and absolutely knackered) definitely needed a few laughs so... 'Airplane!' was the logical choice, especially as they've already seen 'The Naked Gun'. I'm not going to go into it too much here, we've all seen the movie. If you haven't then really, really, consider doing something about that very soon. Me and my kids got exactly the number of laughs that I was looking for, j...

I did it, I finally did it... I made it through a hellish 'one more day of work' and now I've got four days of leave to do pretty much whatever I want with. Which will be mostly reading but also a little 'making sure the cat doesn't loose it and kill the rabbit'. Yep, I'm pet sitting and I'll be counting it as a win if I can get through the week without calling out the emergency vet again. I'm really looking forward to just lying on the sofa and reading though; the plan is to finish off a couple of books (that I really should have finished off by now...) and fill in the gaps with some short stories and comic books. In the meantime, work had a couple of surprises for me yesterday so all I was good for last night was re-watching a couple of movies. One that's still worth a watch, the other... Maybe not as much. 'Deathgasm' (2015) Two teenage heavy metal fans seek to escape mundanity through music but get a lot more than they bargained for w...