Lord Samper's Library

I really almost did... :o)  Reading has kind of stalled over the last few days (mostly work but I’ve also developed an annoying habit of falling asleep the second I turn my work laptop off…) I’ve got no plans for today so hopefully I’ll be able to do something about that, fingers crossed ;o) In the meantime? I’ve had better luck staying awake for movies over the last week (although I still managed to sleep through a good chunk of ‘Shin Godzilla’, dammit) so let me quickly tell you about some of those… ‘Rammbock: Berlin Undead’ (2010) For better or worse, I’ve never been what you’d call an ambitious man but I do have things that I want to do, one of those being to watch as many zombie movies as I possibly can. Not your ‘standard ambition’ but it gets me through the day ;o) Anyway… ‘Rammbock’ is a zombie movie that I seemed to keep finding in various ‘zombie movies you should watch’ YouTube videos but never managed to track down the film itself. That changed the other day when it su...

Yesterday ended up being a little bit of a bonus for this Graeme… :o) My daughters wanted to spend some time with their Mum and I had nothing urgent to take care of (or if I did, I’d totally forgotten what it was, that happens more often than it should) so… I slept in for as long as I could (I didn’t beat any records but it was a good attempt) and spent the rest of the day either reading, watching TV or prowling my flat, trying to satisfy a craving for a particular food that I still can’t quite identify. Tell me I’m not the only person who does that? Anyway… I settled for a couple of Bao Buns in the end (I had to eat something…) but that doesn’t really make for much of a blog post here so, let me tell you a little bit about some movies that I watched... ‘Thrash’ (2026) I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for ‘Shark’ and ‘Croc’ movies, at the moment, so when ‘Thrash’ popped up on Netflix, it was an easy decision to make for a little Saturday afternoon viewing. But… Is it just me or do most Ne...

My reading has kind of stalled over the last few days; there’s a few reasons for it but honestly, nothing that you’d be interested in hearing about. I’m just going to dust myself down and take another shot at it this week instead; that’s all you can do sometimes ;o) As is often the case here; when I’m not finishing books, I tend to watch more movies instead. That’s what happened over the last week and it ended up being a bit of a mixed bag. Let me tell you all about it… ‘Society’ (1989) A Beverley Hills teen feels increasingly alienated from his wealthy family but there’s far more to it than even he realizes. I love ‘body horror’ and I’ve been meaning to watch ‘Society’ for years now, so when I saw the movie was on ‘Shudder’, watching it was inevitable ;o) Now that I’ve seen it, I have to say… erm… You watch ‘body horror’ movies for the practical effects (well, I do) and ‘Society’ does not disappoint. I got what I came for, that’s the bottom line. Plot-wise though, that’s where the fi...

Last night, I turned off my work laptop and settled down in my chair, ready to get stuck into ‘Old Moon Quarterly Vol. 8’ and… The next thing I knew, I’d woken up and it was far too late to read anything, let alone post about it here. I should clarify, it wasn’t ‘Old Moon Quarterly’ that sent me to sleep, it had just been a really long day. I’m getting old... Luckily for today’s post, I’ve got a few more movies under my belt and they weren’t bad ones either. That made for a nice change ;o) ‘Dark Match’ (2024) A small time wrestling company accepts a well paying gig in a backwoods town, only to find that they’ve been hired by a mysterious cult leader with his own plans for their match… The other night, I was having one of those evenings where I really wanted to watch something but it was taking far too long to make my mind up so… I figured I’d give ‘Dark Match’ a go, otherwise I’d watch nothing at all. And… A few days later, I’m still not a hundred percent sure what the point of it was...

I spent a large chunk of yesterday trying not to fall asleep at my desk so I didn’t even try to read anything last night, know your limits and all that… ;o) Nope. I sat down, in the comfy chair, instead and watched a couple of movies; mostly because that was all I was good for but also because I’ve gone through a spell of watching disappointing films, just recently, and I really wanted to break that streak (it had gone on far too long). And you know what? You can consider the ‘Bad Movie Streak’ well and truly broken :o) A zombie movie is more or less guaranteed to always do that (apart from if it’s ‘Hard Rock Zombies’) but there was still room for another movie that I was pleasantly surprised by. Lets start with the zombie movie. ‘We Bury The Dead’ (2025) After an experimental EMP weapon is accidentally detonated off the coast of Tasmania, the populace of the island is utterly wiped out and the Australian government mounts a massive clear up operation with volunteers flown in to collec...

I’ve been more about the books just recently but at the same time, the flat has been a little quiet as well so in the evenings, I’ve had a few movies playing, just for a bit of background noise (and also to drown out the singing from the pub over the road…) The movies weren’t brilliant but that’s ok; I wasn’t after ‘brilliant’, just something to occupy my eyes when I wasn’t reading ;o) Even so, I still managed to find a movie that I really shouldn’t have bothered with. Lets start with that one first… ‘Evilution’ (2008) When an alien life form resurrects the dead and turns them on the human race, a young scientist must fight to contain the catastrophe and eradicate the alien menace. One of those films where I wish I’d paid a little more attention, just so I knew what was going on, but at the same time, it was so dull that my attention kept sliding. That will teach me for insisting on watching every single zombie movie I find… :o) All I’ll say is… If the young scientist really wanted to ...

Well, maybe not that positive, one of these films wasn’t actually that great, but the next week and a bit is (hopefully) going to be a pretty big deal for me so I wanted to start it off on the right note. Well, try any anyway ;o) Anyway… I did manage to get a little reading done over the weekend, there’s nothing like a long bus ride to make some headway in a ‘Siege of Terra’ book, but I started things off with a movie and ended up just continuing from there :o) And here’s what I watched… ‘Predator – Badlands’ (2025) In which a young Yautja warrior (I believe they answer to ‘Predator’ as well) is cast out from his clan but finds a new family on his journey to confront the ultimate adversary… I’ve got to admit, I was a little wary of what I think is the first ‘Predator’ movie to carry a ‘12’ certificate; I mean without the horror, gore and flayed bodies hanging in the jungle, is it really a ‘Predator’ movie at all? On the other hand though, my eldest daughter and I love to hang out and...

After my first full week back at work, in a good three months, yesterday was always going to be one of those days where it wasn’t even worth trying to make solid plans; just wing it and anything achieved counts as a win. So that’s exactly what I did, just got through the day (with my kids so not exactly a chore) and rounded things off with a couple of movies before bed ;o) I’ve tried to focus a little more on reading, just recently, but that was never going to happen yesterday, and I did have a couple of movies in mind. The title, of the post, probably gave the game away but neither movie was that bad to be fair. Not every film has to be a winner (unless you invested in it, of course), so long as they do their job, that’s the main thing. And with that said… ‘The Evil in Us’ (2016) Run time: 90 mins. Six friends celebrate July 4th on a small island but by July 5th, only one of them will be left alive after some recreational cocaine has some unexpected side affects… This was a re-watch a...

I’ll be honest, I did an awful lot of ‘re-watching’ over the holidays and it was just what this Graeme needed, a large dose of ‘comfort’ movies and TV shows. I wasn’t a lot of good for much else anyway but it was nice to have something on in the background while I did things like wrap presents and so on ;o) I did manage to watch some stuff that I hadn’t seen before though, and because my reading plans absolutely went down the drain over the weekend, this post (right here!) is where I’ll tell you about it. Lets start with the obvious one… ;o) ‘Stranger Things’ (Season 5) My eldest daughter and I have been working our way through the series, over the last few years, and while I wasn’t too bothered about watching ‘Stranger Things’ back in the day, watching it with my daughter has been brilliant fun. Now, we really need to finish watching ‘The Walking Dead’ :o) Anyway, there was never any question that we wouldn’t finish it and… I’m not going to go into it loads (the internet has done that...

I’m now officially into the last week and a half of my sick leave and it has done me a lot of good; I didn’t expect to be off this long but I’m glad that I made that appointment with my GP back in September :o) Just one more meeting with Occupational Health and, fingers crossed, I should be good to go back to work next month. All of which is a round about way of saying that once again, I did very little yesterday; literally just what the doctor ordered. I did watch a couple of movies though, and read a couple of short stories, because well, of course I did ;o) Let me tell you all about it, movies first… ‘Good Boy’ (2025) Not to be confused with the 2022 horror movie of the same name (not a bad movie at all, just a whole different relationship between a man and his ‘dog’…) but to be honest, there’s very little danger of that happening. Everyone (and their dog) has been talking about ‘Good Boy’, this year, and I finally got the chance to watch it yesterday morning. Todd suffers from a ch...

I read absolutely nothing yesterday, it ended up being a mix of ‘Warhammer 40K’ with my youngest (her Tyranids rolled over my Space Marines, repeatedly…) and ‘Walking Dead’ night with my eldest. I regret nothing though; well… apart from some truly atrocious dice rolls that is… Anyway :o) I spent this morning with a couple of movies that are worth mentioning here. Let me quickly tell you about them. ‘The Hitcher’ (1986) Jim Halsey is delivering a car, from Chicago to San Diego, and thinks that picking up a hitcher will help him stay awake on the long drive. Staying awake will soon be the last thing on Jim’s mind however. Once the hitcher makes his plans known, all Jim wants to do is stay alive… It has been such a long time since I watched this movie (roughly thirty years) so when I saw it was available on ‘Shudder’, it was definitely time to give it another go :o) It had been long enough, since that last viewing, that I thought it would be like going into it fresh but it ended up being ...

I managed to get a fair bit read this last week, mostly related to the last couple of books of the ‘Siege of Terra’ series. Yep, I’m reading ‘Era of Ruin’ now but that’s just mopping up the last little bits of story; the main feature is well and truly done now (I still have some gaps to fill in but, you know what I mean) and even though I knew the broad strokes of the tale, I’m not quite sure how I feel about the whole thing. I’ll see if I can get my thoughts in order for a post tomorrow. In the meantime, this has also been a week of watching movies (sick-leave is doing me so much good…) and that’s what I’m here to talk about right now. I’m hoping the title of the post has you a little intrigued but, I’m going to start with something completely different ;o) This last week, I watched… Every Single ‘Scream’ movie. Apparently, ‘Scream 7’ isn’t too far away so I thought that this last week was as good a time as any to have go through the franchise again, ‘Scream 6’ being a first time view...

My ability to focus on written words continues to drift in and out of... erm… focus, so I’ve been watching a lot more movies just recently. And here is where we catch up on a few of those movies, funnily enough while I try and figure out what book I’m reading next ;o) As always, ‘movies of varying quality’ is the order of the day so, lets have a little chat about what I’ve been watching. ‘The Long Walk’ (2025) In a near future America, fifty young men must compete for a huge cash prize (and one wish granted) by walking, across the country, until one person is left standing. But once you start walking, there is only one way you can drop out, and it’s permanent. I’ve got nothing against older Stephen King adaptations (ok, maybe ‘The Tommyknockers’) but I’m currently living in a golden age of Stephen King adaptations that are consistently great (ok, not the TV show of ‘The Mist’…); and I think that ‘The Long Walk’ might well be the best of them. I absolutely couldn’t take my eyes off this...

Bit of an odd day yesterday… I had a day all to myself which was cool (natural loner and all that ) but also awkward, at the same time, as I can be pretty bad at spending time in my own company (because apparently, I’m that much of a loner...) I’ll get there but yesterday, all I was good for was sitting in front of the telly and watching horror movies. I’ve got a couple of books on the go, at the moment, but nothing close enough to finishing that I can post about. While I try and solve that, let me quickly tell you about those movies… ‘Brain Dead’ (2007) No, not that ‘Brain Dead’ or the ‘Brain Dead’ that sometimes goes by ‘Dead Alive’; this is the ‘Brain Dead’ where two students, a pastor and his assistant are held hostage by two escaped convicts in a cabin, while murderous zombies prowl outside. ‘Brain Dead’ very much sits in the ‘low budget movie’ end of the scale but is still a hell of a lot of fun, staying well clear of creating any suspense and going full on with the practical eff...

It has been a bit of a week, what with one thing and another, and one of those things was having to have my kids pet rabbit put down on Friday afternoon. I’m a ‘dog person’ normally but Cupcake was the closest you could get to a dog in rabbit form :o) She was always up for having a fuss made of her and when I looked after my ex partner’s house, Cupcake would come and sit by my feet all day while I was working. She wouldn’t take any nonsense from the cat either. Until the arthritis got too much that is. She wasn’t really my pet but I’ll miss her anyway. Anyway… Yesterday wasn’t really a day for reading; more a day for sitting in front of the telly and letting movies happen to me :o) Actually, so was Friday night, come to think of it. Let me tell you about some of the movies that I watched… ‘Empire of the Ants’ (1977) A shady land-developer takes prospective investors on a tour of her latest business opportunity, unaware that radioactive waste has leaked and caused the local ant populati...

I’m having a tooth out tomorrow so don’t be too surprised if you don’t see anything posted here; I’ve blocked some time out especially for the purpose of feeling all sorry for myself ;o) In the meantime… I’ve spent the weekend trying to work my way through ‘The End and the Death: Volume 1’ and catching up with a few movies. One of these activities was way more successful than the other… Yep, ‘The End and the Death’ has a lot to like about it but has to be one of the most unwieldy books I’ve read in a long time (and there are two more books to follow…) More on that when I finally finish it. For now, lets have a quick chat about a couple of movies that I finally got round to watching this weekend. ‘All Hallows Eve 2’ (2015) A woman is stalked by a mysterious figure, wearing a Jack o’ Lantern mask, who leaves a VHS tape on her doorstep. Does she… A) Lock all the doors and windows, call the police and put the tape to one side as evidence? B) Settle down, with a large glass of red wine, and...