The Ultimate 3-D Xperience

For now you can get the 3-D T.V. and surround sound system to live the high life. Things will change though. Can you imagine if 3-D was right in front of you without the need for glasses? I know there's a plan to make something like that already but not with lasers. Using lasers you could do some cool shiznit. It could be cheap to build and effective too. Consumer laser products are not expensive by any means. This would be awesome, but only if the lasers don't ruin your eyesight. I'd hate to think of this as a laser pointer screwing up your eyes. When it's perfected it could be the future. People could use this technology for security too. If someone can't hire a person they could hire a hologram to do the job, like as a security guard. With motion sensors they could probably do a good job even. This could revolutionize theaters if they could make any movie 3-D by choice. I love the glasses but you know there are higher technologies available. Ever go to Disneyworld and watch a laser light show in the clouds at night? That stuff is way more advanced. And that was a long time ago. Theaters could become true entertainment experiences that could literally scare the Hell out of you or make you watch in awe. It's like having a laser light show in your living room but without all the lasers showing up in the dark.

Guest Commentator FLESHCRAWL says: "Those lasers just burst the capillaries in my eyes! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!"

Rambo Engineered

I predict, according to my study of many T.V. shows and movies (such as X-Files), that super soldiers are a definite future reality. The reason could be many things but the obvious reason would be to get soldiers, like you and I, off the battlefield. This is where it would get a bit creepy. The way they go about it would require engineering them probably, born in a petri dish. You know with the O.K. given on gene splicing that some scientists will fall off the map and do their own thing, legally even! I really don't like the idea myself because I always imagine them getting away and going rogue. You always see it happen in the movies, and sometimes in real life. That's a nightmare. They may not be super soldiers but they are well trained. Now just imagine this problem, but much worse! Of course, using lab made soldiers would cut down on the need to explain how someone died if nobody misses them. All you'd have to do is dispose of the bodies, no fuss no muss. In movies you see things like enhanced strength or lack of pain receptors. Technically, this reminds me of the man-droid in "Blade Runner". Kinda like a cyborg but not so humane. A man-droid is much more inhumane. If that sort of thing ever exists it would have to be hush hush. Prepare for the motherless soldiers! Could the future of war be disposable humans? If so then what's to keep us from going to war? A class of human bred to be soldiers, much like how ants have soldiers and servants. And imagine the carnage! This is sort of a sick idea on the part of humans. We are our own worst nightmare. That thick plate armor reminds me of those two guys in "Army Of Two" for the PS3. With soldiers like this we wouldn't have a need for "Rambo" types anymore, or would we? A real Rambo type could combat the engineered Rambo and save our asses. Think about it.

Guest Commentator THE GRAVEROBBER says: "I'll just start digging graves. You can bill me later!"

We're Still Screaming

Versus Movie #95. Time for a 5 o'clock in the morn' review of "Scream 4". Yes, it's time to scream again kids! If it weren't for the use of video cams to tape the murders then this wouldn't be very cyberpunk. But now it very loosely falls into it. The start of the movie was cool with the world within a world idea. Classic starting for a moving like that. Noticed Anna Paquin in there. Cool to see she made it. When the real world does finally start you can't really tell cause' of the "Stab 7" movie. Or is that "Stab 6"? You'll be quizzed on that later. It seems a lot like the other movies but it does add to the series without changing too much. People like the formula but don't want a cookie cutter copy. The old cast really make the movie even now. They fit their parts well. O.K., so the murders were a bit more intense than prior ones but most involve a knife, hence Stab. I liked how they used the obsessed ex-boyfriend as bait for movie go-ers to guess who's the killer. That would be a likely choice, lol. Then you got the rules. Everyone seems to think that slashers now days have different rules. I never really thought about it. Are there rules to killing someone that we don't know about? Maybe there are. Hayden Panettiere was definitely hot in this movie. Funny how she fell for the movie geek. Typical high schoolers. The murders actually made sense I must say so it all seemed to work. It wasn't random. So who's the killer? Well, that's a trick question.Who thought Neve Campbell was the killer? Raise your hand. It's funny how someone has to snap in order to keep this series going. People sometimes do snap like that in real life. Kick ass movie.

Guest Commentator SPUN BETTY says: "I guess it's true what they say, a knife really does do a body good!"

If She Looks Good In Leather...

Horror Girl #35. A horror girl should be hot in leather. This one is just that. Eliza Dushku. She'd make a good dominatrix. I always liked her but never thought of her as a horror girl before until now. Her movie work has led her into many a strange place and I've followed most of it. "Soul Survivors" was so strange that I couldn't quite figure it out. "Open Graves" was decent enough. That movie was about a voodoo game and it did entertain. Didn't know she was in "Buffy The Vampire Slayer". What role was she? I'm sure I'd recognize her if I saw her. "Tru Calling" was pretty cool but short lived. Wasn't that the T.V. show with talking dead people? Or was that another show? I forget. Good show though. You'll have to watch "The Alphabet Killer" just for her role. That movie was in that Redbox machine I love so much. All that was horror but I do remember her in "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back". Now if you don't think she's enough of a horror icon then maybe she should do something where she's running naked covered in blood. Oh yes, and who can forget "Wrong Turn" with those inbred bastards chasing after her. Good movie series. Can't say I remember her in "True Lies". Might have to re-watch that one. Stay with horror Eliza and we will all love you. Wasn't she in "The New Guy"? See, I do keep up with her stuff. This pic here to the left is from her cyberpunk show "Dollhouse" that apparently has suffered a similar fate as many a T.V. show these days with the one season treatment. As if that really helps anything? I don't understand that idea at all. T.V. shows will pay off when people buy them on DVD. And one can forget her nude work. Lookin' good.

Guest Commentator CHROMESHINE says: "Scanning document for future study. Oh my my my...!"

Magic's Mystery

If magic is an illusion then it's a darn good one. I love magic. More modern magicians like Criss Angel do some really wild things, like making huge vehicles disappear, or lying down on nails, etc. I give them credit where credit is due. I have no clue how they do that stuff. The only thing I could think up is smoke n' mirrors but I doubt that's all there is. I'd like to know how a guy walks off the ledge of a building rooftop and doesn't fall too! The question is could magic ever be real? This magician pictured here, Dan Birch, poses that question. He's been around a long time and even he thinks it could be for real so there must be something to that. Ironically, nobody would believe a magician theorizing something like that, which would be better for magicians I suppose. Now I theorize that if people could awaken the other 90% of their brain then we could in fact perform real magic. This idea has been hinted in a movie: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" but does anyone take the idea seriously? It reminds me of things like "Galerians", that PS1 game where people use psychic drugs to enhance brain function. I have no doubt this is true and maybe one of the best kept conspiracies is to keep us dumbed down by making us all think we'll turn into non-talking, psychic weirdos like in "Beneath The Planet Of The Apes" that only wish for imminent doom. Are super humans watching over us from a space station like creepy ass weirdos? Now I pose a new question. What if magic has a purpose that was kept a secret? Like in combat? In "The Cape" they use magic to thwart enemies and escape undetected. Could there be a secret history? Magic is so fascinating to me that I may have to learn it someday for myself.

Guest Commentator THE LUSTY NUN says: "Odd fellows with blue hair and burning hands really turn me on!"

The Root Of Corporate Evil

They say money is the root of all evil. What do you think? It seems that some things could be taking place that you would only imagine in a movie. When art imitates life it's fine, but when life imitates art then what are we supposed to think? When you look at the way the stock market has crashed and somewhat destabilized our economy are you really looking at something else? Was mass organized crime at work here? Was some top secret lab looking for funding? I've heard theories before that the F.B.I. used to stages "occurences" to get funding. What if some zombie making lab like Umbrella was looking for a surge of income? They say that some people may have been trying to make money as things went into a downward spiral. Why? My only guess is that some people don't care if they destroy the world to get what they want. They say it was a mortgage crisis but it sounds more like war costs. But even then it could be more than we think. What if the war was staged to destabilize us? It could have been planned. Some people would love it if they threw the rest of the world into a post-apocalyptic nightmare scenario as long as they get rich. This is all so out there but when life imitates art it takes us all off guard and people never know what to believe. Keep your eyes and ears alert cyberpunks!

Guest Commentator HARVESTER OF SORROW says: "Even in Hell we have money. It never ends!"

Best New Horror 21 Is Here

Versus Book #62. First thing first. Anthologies rock. I love em' and can't get enough of em'. Of course I love novels too so maybe it's just my attention span for literature. Anyhow this series here is one of the biggest out there. Here we have "The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror #21". The 21st in the series is full of creepy stories that should entertain if you're not too much of a critic. I've read a lot of great reviews on this book but there are always some out there that seem to differ. The story styles differ greatly on this outing more than others so you should find yourself with a gamut of scares. It's really hard to scare people these days in writing so when you judge horror it takes more than some gory patches here and there. Really good horror will make you think, or cringe, or wonder. Also, with anthologies you have to keep in mind that these are short stories, not novels, so that means they need to be heavy on mood, style, and atmosphere rather than other qualities. I like the huge introduction to horror from the previous year. It really tells you a lot. That alone is worth it. Then comes the goods. We got some good content here from a varied list of authors. Stephen King contributes with a story about a semi driver that harasses a motorcycle driver. Others include a guy that sees double in a hallway and can't tell where it's leading. Or a story about the fate of the girl that King Kong saved. The list goes on with very different angles. How good can you do with a short story in the horror genre? It's not as easy as you think. And the end of this book has a huge list of notable horror offerings in all facets of horror: book, CD, DVD, etc. I would highly recommend this book. These stories were chosen for a reason.

Guest Commentator THE DARK PRINCE says: "Every good horror should have some gristle I can sink my teeth into!"

Asylum Of Zombie Rejects

Versus Art #81. When it comes to fringe science I imagine there are many things that could go wrong. You always hear about what people wonder could be real or not but you never hear about what could be real in a very wrong way. For instance, resurrection. Sounds like a cool idea but what if you could bring back the dead even after rotting part way? Truth is it might be possible and it would be a true nightmare. Some things are better left alone. No doubt there are ways to do it that nobody has thought of before. Like with nanites. Nanites could reassemble the body. This of course leads to something more like a zombie. And if there was a way the military are probably working on it already, like in "Return Of The Living Dead 3". I love that movie. Or maybe it wouldn't lead to a zombie, who knows. In "The Fifth Element" they took a severed hand and rebuilt a whole body. Either one of these could be true. Even if nanites could bring people back it would be a long, long time till that is ever possible and we would never know. All you'd hear is how they've invented bacteria to clean up oil spills or something. The truth would be that we're more likely to want to create zombies now rather than prevent them. It's human nature. I have no doubt that it's gotta be possible somehow. It's mad science really. It's zombie science. What if some scientists accidentally come across a way. They'd probably want to keep it a secret. This pic makes me think of an asylum full of experiments gone wrong. Hey, wasn't that a movie? Maybe. The artist's name is Olan. If zombies can be real then they would do whatever it takes to keep it from the press.

Guest Commentator BRAINSUCKER says: "This could only lead somewhere bad... or tasty!"

Robotic Takeover

We draw cyborgs and robots now but someday they'll replace law enforcement. It'll be like "Robocop" for real. Except I doubt they'd make some freakshow Frankenstein guy with a human brain in a cyborg body. That's a bit mad, plausible, but mad. Instead they'll make mechs, which are essentially robots. There's no reason to think that robots won't be a part of everything someday. And badguys will be making cyborg baddies while the cops use mechs. It's a weird world to imagine but it may take human intervention out of battle. This is probably a good way to handle war too. No doubt they're working on unmanned tanks and jets. The thing is without all those casualties would anyone really take it seriously? When all you have to do is push a button then who's to stop you from wanting to go to war? It sort of numbs the idea of war when you imagine robots fighting your war for you. So how would that work? Our mechs destroy their mechs and then we win? You know those enemy mechs would be trying to kill humans though. And if cops aren't taking a risk on the field then it'll be all robots enforcing the law? Foreseeable events dictate that this would lead to good and bad. I imagine big companies would want mechs to guard their buildings. Then you think about all that could go wrong and it makes you really wonder. Something like what happened in "The Terminator" could be a form of future terrorism. Just like how we have people trying to destabilize our economy now the future may have worse threats to deal with. In the end I imagine there is no way out of this. Will we have a world like something out of "Armored Core" someday?

Guest Commentator BLUE FIEND says: "I'm gonna get me a robot to break me outta here!"

Rise Of The Cosplay Awards

Here we are at the 1st annual cosplay awards! Actually we don't have an award for that but we can pretend. They should have cosplay awards. What's your fave character from anime or video games or books or movies? Mine would be "Battle Angel Alita". The story is one we could all liken to "Weird Science" meets "Ghost In The Shell". A scientist finds a torn apart cyborg in a huge junkyard and takes her torso to rebuild her limbs and body. It turns out that the doctor had limbs but later on got a whole new body from a berserker made for war. She was now the battle droid! The rest is a bit wild and worth the read. I like the amount of detail this girl put into her costume. I could almost really believe it's her. Now granted it isn't totally perfect but darn close. Even the sword looks a lot like hers. The person to take on the role of Alita would have to be a petite girl, which this is, with dark hair and a cute face. She fits the criteria. She looks so good that I almost wonder if I'd be tempted to make love to her if I were the scientist that made her. In the comic you can see her walking around in skin tight clothes and even naked. If they make a movie of her then they better get the right girl for the part. There should be cosplay competitions of certain characters. What a festival they could make. They could call it the cos-con!

Guest Commentator TOUGH GUY says: "I've died and gone to Heaven. Does she have night vision?!"

Re-Animating The Corpse

Which came first, "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" or H.P. Lovecraft's "Herbert West-Reanimator"? Frankenstein was written in 1816 and Reanimator was written in 1921 so Frankie wins it! The two never knew each other but the similarities between these stories is uncanny. And these days we have movies like 2008's "X-Files: I Want To Believe" with a Frankenstein type doctor, or is it Reanimator type doctor? You could actually say either or in this case. There is no distinction to be made except that a doctor was trying to bring people back to life. Except one... the doctor was trying to use someone else's brain in a different body. This could be compared to Frankenstein but more to Reanimator, so it's sort of both. That X-Files sequel was decent too. I was thinking they should remake that movie "Re-Animator" from 1985. That would be so cool Jeffrey Combs is of course in "Dark House", so catch him there folks! If they remade that they could do it so over the top with insane effects. Or maybe I'm just dreaming. It seems people have always been curious about whether we could bring the dead back to life. Well, perhaps the newly dead, but the partly dessicated deceased? That would be real horror, more so than maybe even a zombie! Talking heads? Yeah, that's a bit freaky. Could it be possible I wonder?

Guest Commentator FLESHCRAWL says: "Hey wait... nothing is scarier than a zombie!"

Desensitize Your Mind

Versus Art #80. Here we got some art by Brian Viveros and Dan Quintana. It's called "Desensitized". This is a really cool painting in the abstract realm of modern art. Abstract is so weird that way but it gets a message across. I like trying to pull out my own message from such renderings. The cool thing about this particular painting is that they also made a 3-D sculpture of the same person's face. How can you make a 3-D rendering of a painting I wonder? I don't know but it sure sounds like a damn great idea if I do say so myself. Wish I thought of that one! More artists should make 3-D versions of their art. It must be computer generated but I wouldn't know where to begin. I'm not sure if the artist is trying to tell us something with all these pictures of women with a cigarette or cigar in their mouth and mascara running. What is it about these women with cigarettes and running make-up that makes them so cool? Who knows, but it works right? Yeah. Modern abstract keeps changing ya know. Art these days is going to be nothing like the art of yesteryear with portraits of people done in silkscreen block art. Things must get more advanced. Yet how advanced can painting get? Maybe more technical or detailed. The tattoos in some of these photos might refer to our desensitized culture getting art on our skin, while cigarettes are numbing in their own way. We know they're full of deadly chemicals but often people don't care. The images of war in some of these pics could tell us how despondent we are to thoughts of war. The images of violence in religion? Or is it something more? Pull out your own meaning and I'm sure you'll like it that much more.

Guest Commentator GOODBYE KITTY says: "I've been meaning to start smoking cigars again!"

Comic Blood By The Bucketful

A while back it seems that censorship was changing. I noticed this after watching "Freddy Vs. Jason". That film was the beginning of the end of censorship. It shocked me at the time but after that films have become increasingly more violent or pushing boundaries. What other boundaries are there you ask? Well, for instance, how about a film with a young girl killing people. "Kick-Ass" comes to mind. This is not a film review but I got the idea after that movie. That movie indeed must have come from a comic because those sort of things can be really cool in comic form. In movie form it was cool too but a bit of a shock to see kids killing. It just wasn't advertised like that sort of movie so it could take you off guard. It was totally entertaining though. And those movies, among others, only end up becoming a floodgate for other movies. Things are changing to a point I never thought I'd see in my lifetime. It seems they can make anything look cool in comics and now movies are starting to catch on to the hardcore stylings of a lot of comics. Even "30 Days Of Night" was a comic. That movie was quite the bloody vampire flick. I've read other really violent comics so this makes me wonder about the future. Are we becoming numbed and desensitized? Maybe we just accepted that we can't control kids, lol.

Guest Commentator THE GRAVEROBBER says: "This really reminds me of 'Children Of The Corn' somehow!"

High Rise Steel

Some things sound really good about high rise cities while others sound really, really bad. Could it be that our love of evolution could make us addicted to evolution? I mean everything keeps upgrading and newer versions of things keep coming out so we're never satisfied. With high rises would come the death of trees and grass eventually. Did you ever see any grass or trees in the background in movies like "The Fifth Element" or "Star Wars"? No you didn't. Yet plants are what create clean air. Without them we would need huge air purifiers just to survive. It sounds ludicrous but don't put it past man to go down this path. An all steel world would pave the way for a cyborg take-over eventually and we would be helpless in a high evolved world. So far things have never really taken a turn like in the movies but someday things could end up like one of those dystopian movies we all love, if only because our world isn't like that. If our world was then we'd hate those cyberpunk films. So this is the time for cyberpunk to flourish if you ask me. It's a cool time because the future may be much more different than we think. They may not even have movies anymore. I can't imagine a world without movies or my PS3 or real books. A high tech future sounds fun but at what cost? Maybe it's just the time we've grown up in but I've grown an appreciation for it. That is the way it goes I suppose. You have to like the world you're in. And where there's high rises there's corporations. Welcome to the overcrowded future.

Guest Commentator CHROMESHINE says: "Your world is nice but I must go back to the far cooler future now. Adios!"

Evil Comics To Keep You Up At Night

The new thing now is iPad comics. And why do we not capitolize the "I" in iPad? I really like this iPad concept but why did it have to be Apple? I have nothing against Apple but Macs never seemed to be my thing. When it comes to books I like real books much better but we have to be aware that with inventions like the iPad we're going to see books become touchscreen. Kids in this generation are now reading books and turning the pages with their fingers on a screen. I dread the thought of the end of books. Dare it be because of cutting down trees or something like that. That's like seeing an end to wood products. Hard to imagine. Someday everything will be all steel to save the planet. Meanwhile trees will disappear and steel towers rise everywhere, therefore making our efforts to stop tree cutting seem pointless. Books should stick around I say. Books are not the real threat. It's the steel future of corporate rule and its tyrannical fist. Save your books people. Wow, that was weird... so as I was saying... iPad comics are the new big thing. I like the sound of these a lot ya know. Comics in HD with full color art and touch screen could be cool. I still like real comics better but if you don't have room for all those comics then you can store them on your computer right? Right. Here we got "Eternal Descent" and "Silent Hill". Eternal Descent reminds me of "Lady Death" but it's a vampire, starring "Atreyu". Wasn't Atreyu that kid in "The Never Ending Story"? LOL. Anything Silent Hill should be made into film. The comics must be stranger. Just look at the cover. Need I say more? Naked chics with knives and skeletons and blood always work for me. I have no doubt you could make a sequel using these comics. The movie rocked. It even had that triangle head guy from the second game on the Xbox. So Atreyu are in a comic about a vampire. Does this remind anyone of "Jennifer's Body"? Maybe Atreyu is an evil band! Now I'm yearning for the return of "Evil Ernie" but I don't think it's gonna happen soon. I wonder how many comic companies offer online comics now? Support real comics as well as online ones. We need all the paper literature we can handle.

Guest Commentator CHROMESHINE says: "My laser eyes can read every page of a comic in mere nanoseconds!"

Synthetic Lifeforms Will Eat Us

Ever since "Resident Evil" came out I've seen containers with that DNA shaped glass full of fluid in the middle. This time they're full of DNA, literally! They're not monster zombie viruses but it's creepy enough to me that real DNA would be stored in containers that look just like those from Resident Evil. The big secret behind what's in them is that it's synthetic life. Meaning man created it. Microbes or more. Living things that weren't alive to begin with. How is this possible? I've always thought that synthetics have been behind the times since they can't create food and plants and materials out of nowhere. That may someday happen though. Making something out of nothing is a tricky thing too let me tell you. Why is it that synthetic food is never as good as the real thing? I constantly wonder why we can't make a synthetic substitute for food products that's just as good if not better. Remember in "The Matrix" when they ate that goop that looked like oatmeal with corn in it? They said it was full of protein or something. That would be a synthetic food of the future right there. I bet it was just as good or better than real food too. That's really ahead of our time though. On the scary side this could also be used to make something like in "The Mask 2" where they created a DNA bomb. What is that anyways? Don't wanna know. New life forms ready to grow to maturity inside our own bodies maybe? Too scary. I like the good application ideas much better.

X-RAY SALLY says: "Did I ever tell you that I'm a synthetic lifeform? Wait, come back!"