Halloween is coming...

 .... but there's still plenty of time to get decorations up, treats purchased, and costumes prepared, so Vampirella is spending this picture-perfect Wednesday playing with her favorite pet.

How about you? Are you taking your time getting ready for Halloween this year?

'Blood Highway' is a glimpse of something good

Blood Highway (2017)
Starring: Herlin Navarro, Kevin O. Peterson, Jack Shipley, Lily Rebecca Ramras, Kyla Geyer, Scott Sederquist, and Eddie Ascolillo
Director: Joseph Dwyer
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A pair of guns-for-hire (Peterson and Navarro) take revenge on a mad scientist (Shipley) and his psychotic hirelings (Sederquist and Ascolillo) as a zombie outbreak is spreading across the nation.

"Blood Highway" feels more like an excerpt from a longer movie than an actual short film. It seems to assume we have knowledge of the relationships between various characters, and there are stray references that are beyond what is reasonable even for an extreme in media res approach to story telling. Further, there's no discernable end to the story being told here; the encounter is resolved, but the main characters go stumbling off down the road with literal Hell at their heels,  three different subplots are begun during it, and there's one that seems left over from before the start of the film that remains open. Plus--the one highway in the film that doesn't seem particularly bloody.

All that said, what we have a sample of here looks like it could be a really good movie with a vibe that's best described as a cross between a gritty crime drama and horror film from the 1960s--as if Mario Bava had directed a George Romero-style zombie movie--with a John Carpenter/Goblins-esque electronic score. (That said, the film is clearly supposed to be set in modern day, since there are a couple kids posting pictures of themselves online using their smart phones.)

Sadly, although "Blood Highway" seems like a teaser for something yet to come that "something" does not appear to be anywhere in our future. (Even this webpage feels like there's more, but there isn't.) 

Take a few minutes to check out the film right now. It's bound to put you in the mood for more zombies!

Musical Monday with Tarzan, Baltimora & Adele

Tarzan first appeared in the pages of All-Story magazine in October of 1912. We're celebrating that historic event with "Tarzan and Rain" by The Reborn Identity, a mash-up video and song using clips from a Tarzan film and the works of Baltimora and Adele. (It also happens to be the 10th anniversary of the release of "Tarzan and Rain" this year.)

Bones Coffee's Caramel Apple

We now continue our journey through all the wonderful flavors Bones Coffee Company brings to us as we feed our caffeine addiction.

BONES COFFEE COMPANY: CARAMEL APPLE

Today's selection is another delicately flavored medium-roast that will provide lovers of smooth coffee with a pleasant experience whether they drink it with or without milk or creamer added, and whether its hot, cold, iced, or any state in-between. 

When it's brewing, this blend doesn't give off any particular aroma other than that of coffee. From the very first sip, though, the advertised flavors are front and center and in perfect balance. Some of the Bones blends the flavors are over-powering, wiping out the coffee flavor or coming on so strong that you'll reach for the milk not because the coffee is bitter but because you need to dial back the added flavor. Others, the flavoring is almost imperceptible at first, but builds in your mouth like a coating the more you drink. But with the Caramel Apple blend, you instantly get a full-bodied coffee taste, with its edge not so much blunted as augmented and transformed by the crisp taste of green apples and sweetened by a clear caramel flavor.

The above remains true no matter how you drink the Caramel Apple blend. Even adding unsweetened almond milk or sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream didn't weaken the flavor but instead seemed to accent and make it more pleasing. Whether you drink this blend hot, room temperature, or cold and iced, the coffee flavor mixed with green apples and caramel is steady and constant; it's bit more pronounced when the coffee is hot, but the flavors are always present and consistent where with some Bones blends they may shift dramatically. 

Frankly, I had no idea what to expect from the Caramel Apple blend; I couldn't quite picture what coffee and caramel-coated apple would taste like. I have been pleasantly surprised in every way. I think this is one of the better offerings from Bones Coffee Company, and I recommend it highly. 

 

"We're all in this together."

 

Invisible Man Chiller Theater Double Feature!

Here are reviews of a pair of films that are perfect Halloween viewing, since they feature liberal mixes of humor and horror. They're also classics that star horror movie legends!

The Invisible Man (1933)
Starring: Claude Rains, William Harrigan, Una O'Connor, Gloria Stuart, Forrester Harvey and Henry Travers
Director: James Whale
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Chemist Frank Griffin (Rains) develops a formula that turned him invisible. He goes on a homicidal rampage in rural Britain after it also drives him insane.
 

"The Invisible Man" is another true classic from the formative years of the horror genre. It's quite possibly the first horror comedy and it's black humor holds up nicely even today--arrogant scientists, simple country bumpkins and incompetent cops never go out of style!

The film's special effects also hold up surprisingly well, with simple techniques employed here that were used over and over until CGI came fully into its own but rarely used as well as they were here. (Yes, there are a few places where one can see the matting, but the "invisible action" here is depicted better than it is in many films made with much more sophisticated special effects technology.)

And finally, the film has a literate, finely honed script with loads of tension that effectively translates the mood of H.G. Wells' original novel to the screen. The characters seem well-rounded and believable, and this, even more than the special effects, make the movie such a pleasure to watch even now. The film even manages to capture the point about loss of identity resulting in loss of connection with the world around you and ultimately insanity (even if the movie attributes Griffin's madness first and foremost to the chemical concoction he's created).

Lovers of classy horror and sci-fi films owe it to themselves to check this one out. The same is true if you have an appreciation for dark comedies.

 


The Invisible Man Returns (1940)
Starring: Vincent Price, Cedric Hardwicke, Nan Grey, Cecil Kellaway, John Sutton and Alan Napier
Director: Joe May
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A wrongly convicted man (Price) uses an invisibility serum to escape execution and find the murderer who framed him. But, even with the help of his loving fiance (Grey) and his loyal best friend (Sutton), can he track the killer before he is driven mad by the substance that renders him invisible?
 

"The Return of the Invisible Man" is a well-conceived sequel. It's got significant ties to the original, retains some of the same basic themes, but presents a completely different and unique story. Too often, sequels either shoehorn connections to the film into the story in an artificial manner or have so little to do with the original that one wonders why a connection was even drawn (well, aside from naked greedy attempts to ride on the coat-tails of another film's success).

A well-scripted mystery is added to the invisible man shenanigans... and although it's a bit slow in getting started, it is a gripping tale once it gets going. The mystery isn't terribly hard to solve for those who like playing along--there really is only one suspect and the film never launches any serious attempt to divert the audience's attention from that villain. However, plenty of suspense arises from watching the invisible man start to lose his mind even as he identifies his prey.

The great cast of the film is also to be credited with its success. Most noteworthy among the actors are Vincent Price lends his distinctive voice to the film's unseen protagonist, and Cecil Kellaway who appears in a rare dramatic role as the inscrutable Inspector Sampson of Scotland Yard.

The only complaint I have with the film are the invisibility effects. Whether due to a lack of budget or creativity on the part of the director and special effects crew, there is nothing here as impressive as the cinematic tricks used to sell the presence of an invisible character on screen as was found in the original "Invisible Man" nor in the "Invisible Woman", a comedy dating from the same year yet featuring far more impressive effects. (Nothing in "The Invisible Man Returns" comes close to the bicycle stunt in "The Invisible Man" or the stockings scene in "The Invisible Woman".)

However, the solid story and excellent cast make up for the shortcomings in the special effects department.

Halloween is coming...

 ... and, to help everyone get in the mood, Vampirella is making her traditional weekly appearances here at Shades of Gray! Look for her every Wednesday between now and Halloween!

This year, as an extra treat, this year, half of the featured portraits of our favorite alien blood-drinker are by the great Tim Vigil. So if you only stop by once a week this month, make sure it's on Wednesdays!

It's International Blasphemy Day...

 ... and we're celebrating it with an appearance from Jesus and Mo.

Click here to read about the origins of International Blasphemy Day. 

Click here to see why this blog is banned in Pakistan (along with more from "Jesus and Mo").

The Avengers: A Touch of Brimstone

A Touch of Brimstone (1966)
Starring: Diana Rigg, Patrick Macnee, Peter Wyngarde, Carol Cleveland, Michael Latimer, and Colin Jeavons
Director: James Hill
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

The charismatic leader of a modern-day Hellfire Club (Wyngarde) intends to topple the British government through a mass-assassination plot, and only secret agents John Steed (Macnee) and Emma Peel (Rigg) can infiltrate his group and stop them.

This is an episode of "The Avengers" that people who were reading "X-Men" comics in the early 1980s is familiar with in a round-about way, even if they didn't even know there was such a thing as a television series called "The Avengers. In the early 1980s, Writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne based the look and nature of a group of evil mutants on the Hellfire Club in this episode--in particular a the Black Queen. That character's look and outfit was inspired by one sported by Emma Peel in this episode... even if the Black Queen was even more skimpily clad than Peel was. 

Although Peel was only dressed in the costume for a few minutes--including the climactic battle where she fights for her life against the villainous leader of the Hellfire Club--it caused quite a stir back in 1965. The episode was edited by censors for its original broadcast in Great Britain, broadcasters in continental Europe and in Australia fielded complaints from viewers, and the whole thing was deemed to risque to even air in the United States. One interesting tidbit about the outfit is that actress Diana Rigg had issues with some of costumes she had to wear as Emma Peel, but this is one she designed herself.

As for the bulk of the episode, instead of just the costume that launched a thousand trips to the fainting couch and jump-started a thousand puberites via comics or the airwaves, it also ranks as one of the stronger in the series due to its very well-paced action, well-developed supporting characters (with the leader of group, John Cartney played by Peter Wynngarde, being one of the most palatably evil characters to even appear on the series), and great banter between John Steed, Emma Peel, and just about anyone they encounter during their investigation. This is also another episode where Diana Rigg gets to shine as an actress, due to the variety of situations that her character Emma Peel must navigate as the story unfolds. The final fight scenes between the bad guys and our heroes is also among the best of the series.

Whether you just want to see one of the better episodes in the series; whether you want to watch Diana Rigg parade around in not a lot of clothes (while carrying a snake); or whether you are the modern-day pearl-clutching type who wants to be outraged and feel like your spiritual ancestors in the 1960s felt, this is the episode to check out.

Here are a few more images and publicity stills from "A Touch of Brimstone", just because.

Starbucks Coffee's Pike Place Roast

It's National Coffee Day, so here's a bonus coffee review! (You can see other ones I've done recently by clicking here.)

STARBUCKS CORPORATION: PIKE PLACE ROAST

I have never considered myself a coffee snob, nor anyone who cared all that much about what was in my cup. Recently, I have discovered that is not true. At least not anymore.

I think my transition away from "so long as it has caffeine, I'll drink it with as much milk or creamer added as needed" began when a friend brought me Costa Rican coffee that had been roasted in Costa Rica; it was literally the best coffee I'd ever had.

Lately, I've been drinking a lot of coffee from the Bones Coffee Company, including their Costa Rica blend. While it wasn't quite as good as what my friend brought me, it reminded me of the coffee that was literally Costa Rican in every way.

I have known for years that my preferred coffee is a medium roast. My favorite used to be a couple varieties from Seattle's Best--one with vanilla flavoring and one that was straight. When they got absorbed by Starbucks and those were no longer easily available, I have regularly gotten Starbucks' Pike Place Roast and was quite happy with it... so long as I loaded it up with creamers and/or almond milk of various stripes.

Today, September 29, it's National Coffee Day, and Starbucks was giving away free cups of Pike Place Roast if you brought your own reusable mug into the store. So I did, they filled it, and I walked away happy. I hadn't really intended to do a review of the Pike Place Roast... until I tried it, for the first time since my experience with the Costa Rican medium roasts from some mountain-top roaster from Costa Rica and the Bones Coffee Company (not to mention the various flavored varieties which are mostly based on medium roasts).

Visiting the Starbucks Mascot at home (with Milo Manara)

I took my travel mug full of hot Pike Place Roast and added some sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer--roughly the same amount I added to the Costa Rican blends mentioned above, and what I've been putting in the flavored coffees I've been posting about. I would like to say that I enjoyed my free beverage, but I can't say that I did. At least not as much as I've been enjoying the Bones Coffee Costa Rica blend... or the Sumatra blend for that matter, which was a dark roast.

Until today, I've often been insulted on behalf of Starbucks' roasters when coffee snobs complained about their coffee tasting bitter or burnt. To me, their coffee tasted great... or at least better than some of the stuff I'd get at 7-Eleven and gas stations. The bags I would get of Pike Place Roast for home brewing purposes generally also turned out tasting better than whatever random grocery store roast I picked up to try (barring that lovely Seattle's Best Vanilla whenever I'd spot it on the shelves). But, since I've been brewing and drinking Bones Coffee blends at home pretty much exclusively since mid-May, maybe my tastes have... changed? Become more refined? I now know EXACTLY what the coffee snobs meant when they said that Starbucks coffee tastes burnt.

The Pike Place Roast I drank today was the very definition of burnt. Unlike some of the subtly flavored Bones Coffee blends, and VERY unlike their Costa Rican blend, this coffee tasted bitter and burnt. For the first time ever, after being shocked at how bad I thought this tasted, I looked up what Starbucks says the Pike Place Roast should taste. They say it's supposed to be a smooth, well-balanced medium roast that carries flavors of chocolate and nuts. I've never really noticed any such thing, and I certainly did not notice it in the cut I drank today.

Bottom-line, I find that I am unable to recommend the coffee that used to be one I described as my favorite. Maybe I just got a bad batch--I went in around 2pm, so maybe it had been sitting there simmering all day?--but given that I now can identify with the coffee snobs out there who always dumped on Starbucks, maybe I've just outgrown my one-time favorite?

I will still occasionally end up at Starbucks, but I'll probably stick to the Chai Lattes. Maybe, in the not too distant future, I will get myself a bag of Pike Place Roast and brew up a pot for old time's sake... and to see if it's the coffee that's terrible or just the way they make it at my local Starbucks store.