Above Average Joe Blogs

Kinder very surprised  On the 6th of December 1979, John Hurt got a little bit too friendly with a randy space spider resulting in one of the most awkward dinner scenes in movie history. Whilst the tag line promised that in space no one can hear you scream, the crew of the Nostromo, including the iconic Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), certainly did scream, as did, I imagine, the majority of moviegoers when they saw the Chestburster rip and tear through John Hurt's chest and skitter off into the darkness of the vessel to grow and torment the crew. If you are this close to an Alien you are in trouble. The alien, or to give it its technical term "Xenomorph, boarded the Nostromo when Kane (John Hurt) decided to enjoy his space Easter a little bit too eagerly, opening an oozing egg, and got a face full of legs and other unsavoury parts down the gullet. Ash, the not at all suspicious science officer, overrides Ripley's orders to maintain quarantine and keep Kane and t...

Loving Lovecraft So life gets in the way every so often and the again planned review of Under the Shadow has fallen by the wayside again (I will not promise to make it the next blog entry's topic as I can't seem to keep it!) but in its place is something I hope you will find equally entertaining.  He looks friendly... When I was around 14 or 15 a video game for Xbox came out call Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. I was instantly intrigued a) by the fact that this was touted as a horror game without zombies or ghosts and goblins but instead about unknowable horrors for the depths of space and the ocean, and b) how on earth to pronounce its title (try Cu-thu-lu). Good luck When I finally got my hands on the game I was not disappointed. The game was set in the early 1900s, following a private investigator investigating (as private investigators a want to do) the disappearance of a boy in the seaside town of Innsmouth. Naturally when he goes looking for the...