Bathroom Monologue: The Do's and Don't's of Being a Host

NO: "I'm sorry the house is a mess."

YES: "Thank you for coming so late!"

NO: "I'm sorry I'm turning again. It's a full moon."

YES: "Thank you for gathering the rags that were once my clothes."

NO: "I'm sorry that I'm devouring you."

YES: "Thank you for being delicious."

The Halloween List: Dog Soldiers and Area 51

Area 51 (2015)

This is the part of October where I defend Found Footage movies. This is a niche of Horror that I continue to enjoy. Sometimes one is truly awful (see: The Pyramid), but somewhere amid making the camera part of a character, letting us see the environment in ways we otherwise couldn’t, and the tease of where antagonism will come from, this approach to filmmaking gets past my defenses in ways even excellent traditional film can’t. Googling around, it seems Area 51 is universally reviled. But I had a surprisingly good time.

Yup. It’s another case of John liking an unpopular Found Footage flick!

Bathroom Monologue: Leave the Silver Bullets

"Don't bother with the silver bullets. That can't be true."

"You don't believe in the curse of the werewolf?"

"I don't know, but I've never seen a monster that shrugged off having its heart blown up just because the pellets were tungsten. And leave your Bible. "

"Oh, you don't believe in Christ now?"

"I believe in not pissing him off because you dropped his book in the swamp because you were fumbling for your gun."

"Fine. But I'm taking the wolfsbane and the silver bullets."

“Well, good luck.”

“You believe in luck?”

“I believe in a lot of things. Luck helps keep some of them away.”

Bathroom Monologue: Werewolves on the Moon

If it is a curse from God, then it is for humanity to forgive. We can give them a better and brighter future, and they can send down a ladder so that we may climb up after them.

It's been their antagonist for millennia. Yet wolfsbane cannot grow there, and most of its surface is absent of silver deposits. Our engineers suggest there is no real moonrise in space, and so they ought not to turn, especially not in a shuttle without windows.

The bounty will arrive upon landing, for once a werewolf stands on the moon, he will not ever again see it rise or set in full. There will be no further changes or demonic impulses. They are cursed to live eternal, but they will live eternal as men and women. There is no howling on the moon itself.

If their immortality is so great that they cannot take their own lives, then can they suffocate? If not, then they can live on the surface as they erect our way stations. If they can, then we will support them, sending as much air as they will need for years.

Despite their legendary appetite, we know werewolves cannot starve themselves to death. Too many wretched souls have tried. Thus they will require no food as they become the explorers, the miners, and the maintenance crews for the stations that will erect our shuttles to Mars and beyond. They'll never have to leave the moon, and play a hand in the culture that grows there as it becomes the first stop in interplanetary travel.

One great experiment, too: to see what changes in the breast of man when he sees a full in earth his sky.

And for the dissenting opinion...

Bathroom Monologue: The Other Place Sam Went, Redux

"Don't cry, honey. Your friend is in two places now, rather than just here. When a werewolf dies he splits.

"Sam has gone to wherever humans go - I don't know where that is, but it's probably a nicer place than around here with everyone persecuting him.

"The wolf side, though, goes straight up. See the moon? That's the source of his wolfish side. See the dark blotch up there? How it forks on the right, like the ears of a bunny? You can kind of see his arm, and back there are his legs mid-stride. That's the rabbit in the moon. He's running from the great pack of werewolves.

"All the wolfish ghosts to ever die ascend to the moon, to chase that rabbit. They're ghosts, so they don't hunger. They don't need to catch him, so it's okay that they still haven't. They just chase him forever, with thousands of their own kind. All those thousands running are why the moon revolves, making it spin under the scampering of their invisible paws.

"Sam's wolf-self is up there helping the moon spin now. If you ever miss him, you can look up and cheer him on to catch that blasted bunny."

Bathroom Monologue: Like a Silver Bullet?

The official story was that the priest simply lost his mind. While there’s no science to support, it’s long been believed that people are more likely to act violent, to commit crimes, and to go mad at the full of the moon. It’s why “luna” is in our word “lunatic.”

Police arrived to find what the children had described to 911. The priest was dead on their living room floor, near the shattered window. He had wounds on his abdomen consistent with their story that he’d broken in through it. The wounds were graver because he was only wearing the ragged remains of a pair of pants. They were stretched to odd proportions. Forensics found traces of feces, swamp mud and dog or wolf hairs on them, and presumed he had been out in the swamp for a long time before the attack.

The children’s uncle confirmed their story and handed over the revolver that killed him. There were no bullets in the revolver, which was registered to the uncle. The suspect had a single bullet wound, and autopsy retrieved smashed remains of the bullet from his skull. Retrieval was difficult because the bullet was not made from typical armament metals, but rather silver. The uncle said the children had it forged as part of a game for Halloween. Tragic they had to use it. Doubtless the holiday will not have any joy for them.

Their uncle was treated for a concussion and related injuries. He had been thrown through a cabinet, where he dislocated his shoulder and sustained several gruesome diagonal scrapes on his chest. Officers on the scene did not feel the need to photograph them.

On full moons, one of those officers will occasionally wish he photographed the injuries. If you get him drunk, he will paw at his own chest, and if you get him especially drunk, he will explain how much they looked like the claws of a giant paw. But you’ll have to get him especially drunk. Otherwise, the officer will conclude what everyone else did – that the priest simply losing his mind one full moon is the only rational explanation. The poor lunatic didn’t even have a history of mental illness, but it can happen to anyone.