Blackmoor Vituperative

The Shout! Factory blu-ray for “The Devil Rides Out” (1968) is quite well done. The print is clean and bright, and the extra features are fascinating.

This movie was part of a trend of 1960s “satanic” films, and while it’s not my favourite of that genre, I have a great deal of affection for it, in no small part due to Christopher Lee’s magnetic presence which anchors the film.

Watching “Pirates Of Blood River” (1962). What a great cast! Christopher Lee, Kerwin Matthews, Glenn Corbett, and a young Oliver Reed (yes, sadly the few female characters are little more than set dressing and prizes to be fought over… it irks me, but such was the era).

This movie is an example of a particular genre, which one sees more often in horror movies: a group of people (usually criminals) is betrayed by their greed, which leads them into a cul-de-sac of betrayal and death. If you haven’t noticed this before, keep an eye out for it: you’ll start seeing this plot everywhere once you start looking for it.

One of the things that irks me about this particular movie are the religious zealots who are so blinded by their hatred and superstition that they happily cause death and destruction to the people around them, because they are servants of “god” and they get a free pass. You see it a lot in movies set in the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly horror movies (maybe I just watch a lot of horror movies). You also see it a lot in places like Alabama and Washington, D.C. The word “evangelical” has become a synonym for “sneering hypocrite”.

But I digress.

I am amazed at what marksmen these Huguenots and pirates are with unrifled muskets and blunderbusses. You rarely see people in movies who are this accurate with actual rifles.

“Pirates Of Blood River” (1962) is a cool movie, worth watching. Do so, if you get the chance. The ending is rather abrupt and not entirely satisfying, but again, such was the era.

Here are some animated GIFs I made for Cinema Insomnia.

Two days until Christmas! Here is a classic Christmas song written (as so many were) by Jewish composers, Joan Javits and Philip Springer: “Santa Baby” (1953). It was written specifically for Eartha Kitt, for whom it was an instant hit. Kitt, at 26, was a star on Broadway and considered (by Springer, at least) the “sexiest woman in the world”.

Even Lovecraftian cultists love Christmas!

It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind. It was the Yuletide, and I had come at last to the ancient sea town where my people had dwelt and kept festival in the elder time when festival was forbidden; where also they had commanded their sons to keep festival once every century, that the memory of primal secrets might not be forgotten.

— “The Festival” (Originally published in Weird Tales, January 1925)

On this day in 1997, the world learned about Festivus, the Seinfeld Christmas alternative. Let the airing of grievances begin!

I use a lot of found images in my online RPGs, to help set the scene. Sometimes, the image is almost, but not quite, what I want. Cropping, healing brush, and clone stamp solve most of those problems, but once in a while I find the perfect image… but it needs something more complex to make it what I want.

In this case, I found this illustration of a Pathfinder alchemist goblin, but I wanted the background to be black instead of white. So I looked for a tutorial on changing this in Photoshop, and found this one on StackExchange. The basic technique is to use the original image as its own layer mask. I’ll create a duplicate of the layer, desaturate and invert it, pasting the greyscale result into the original layer’s layer mask.

I start with my flattened image.

I then Desaturate the image.

I then duplicate this layer, Invert it, then select and fill white areas until everything I’d like to be opaque is white, and everything I want fully transparent is black. This was tricky, because I want the smoke translucent, but the goblin itself to be opaque.

Now I press CTRL+A to select the entire image, and CTRL+C to copy the combined greyscale result.

I then selected the layer with my original image, made sure nothing was selected in my image, and selected Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All to create a layer mask on my original layer.

I then ALT+Clicked in the layer mask icon to enter direct edit mode, then pasted the greyscale image I had just copied into there.

I then clicked on my original layer to exit the layer mask direct edit, and tada, I have my semi-transparent goblin.

Now I just add a black background layer, and I am done. It’s not perfect, but it will do for my purposes.

It irks me that people so consistently misunderstand the world “soul“. A whole psuedo-religion has grown up around this misunderstanding.

Finally sat down to watch “Henchman: The Al Leong Story“. I really wanted to pay attention to this, so I didn’t just play it while I work (which is usually what I do). That’s why it has taken me so long to view it.

I really enjoyed this documentary. It gave a good overview of his career, and I learned some things that even I, the founder of (as far as I know) the first and only Al Leong Fan Club, The Golden Horde, did not know.

I wish the background music were not so loud during the interviews, though. More than once, I wanted to shout at the screen, “TURN THE MUSIC DOWN!”

Even so, I suspect that I will watch this DVD again. 🙂

Also, I really should start updating the fan club web site again.

Just finished watching the final episode of “Z Nation” on Netflix (5 seasons total). Considering how many shows I haven’t even bothered to watch the entire first season of (Cloak & Dagger, Evil Sabrina, Star Trek Discovery, Game Of Thrones, etc.), that’s pretty high praise. “Z Nation” combines humour, action, tragedy, gruesome effects, and an appealing cast. It’s a damned good show.

What’s most surprising is that it was made by Asylum. Asylum making a show worth watching is like finding great sushi in a gas station bathroom.