i'm kael's ghost

Once upon a time, there was a Mexican director with a passion for mythology and a knack for writing a very particular type of emotionally charged, supernatural horror that burrows into your brain and chews its way into your subconscious. If someone had mentioned his name to you in the early 90's, you'd have turned to them, blank-faced, and asked, "Who?" Now, a decade later, you'd say, "Oh!  Guillermo del Toro , he directed Hellboy ! I love him." Jump across the ocean to Spain and you'll hear a nearly identical tale - one that ends with, "Oh!  Jaume Balaguero , he directed the [REC] series! I love him." Granted, if we're being honest here, the [REC] movies may be popular  but, they aren't even close to being on the same globally successful (or globally known) level as any  of del Toro's movies. Which is a shame because Balaguero can be as good a writer and  a director as del Toro. Here's my $.25 on the handful o...

When I'm not watching movies, I'm reading about movies. I stumble across all kinds of articles, blog posts, book excerpts, etc. in my quest to absorb as much movie knowledge as possible. Now, I'm snotty and loud-mouthed and opinionated but I'd never begrudge another human their opinion. Seriously. You're absolutely welcome to have any opinion about any thing you want. However, I must warn you, if I think your opinion is stupid, I'm absolutely going to say so. I've recently stumbled on an article completely  brimming with so many idiotic opinions that I'm actually compelled to craft a response. Here's the gist of the original article: there are some horror movies out there that are so disturbing , you'll only ever want to watch them once. I've have taken her original list and refuted her claims without pulling her entire article over. You can read the original article here . Let's start at the beginning, with her opening statement...

Vampirism and puberty, like peanut butter and jelly. Turning into a vampire is a disconcerting, possibly confusing, at times painful, generally unpleasant transformation - if you're to believe the legends and lore. This is not at all dissimilar to puberty, as you probably know. Your body changes. Your status in society changes. You becomes an entirely new being. Thus, the proliferation of coming of age vampire stories floating around out there comes as no surprise. I feel I must pause here to write this: I'm a cranky old lady who will write  absolutely nothing  about the Twilight movies, save that statement. Okay. Moving on. The 80's were this fantastic heyday for coming of age movies; John Hughes was huge and while the basics of coming of age stories never changes, the details of the shiny world Hughes (and the majority of Hollywood) portrayed simply didn't ring true for everyone. Thus, we should offer a heart-felt thank you to the late 80's fo...