When Death Comes to Town

Greetings and condolences my fellow travelers. My journeys have indeed taken me from the might banks of the great Styx for a prolonged spell, but it is good to return. Here in the darkness little dramatic happens and passers by are not overly common, but that is not the case everywhere. In my recent journeys I have had the pleasure to observe comings and goings in two otherwise small communities. Insignificant as these locations are to the greater preoccupations of the living, it is somewhat ironic that the fates would choose these hamlets to play out the greatest of dramas, between good and evil, life and death.

The first of these would be the little town of Little Tall, a fictitious coastal community located just of the shore of Maine. It was this setting that legendary author, Stephen King, would base his story "Storm of the Century". In a three part television miniseries first aired in 1999, residents of Little Tall find themselves at the mercy of a great storm threatening their quiet island home.

While for many an author such a reckoning would be enough to build a story on. King himself has used storm stayed inhabitants successfully in his tales of horror before in "Misery" and the iconic "The Shining", but here it is simply background for a greater trial. Evil descends on the town in the form of a mysterious stranger by the name of Linoge who brings with him murder death and an unprecedented demand for the inhabitants. Before he will actually tell them of his demands, Linoge first chooses to torture, and literally as well as physically manipulate the residents to commit horrific murders. In a small town idle gossip is cheap and plentiful, thus one's wardrobe-skeletons are dear and well hidden. Naturally the mysterious Linoge mater-of-factly shares the towns peoples past transgressions and darkest secrets in the most public venues he can find, illustrating that innocence is lost as childhood is left behind. The implications are left obscure and presented for the most part as a vehicle for Linoge to demonstrate his supernatural omnipotence, but to an attentive and thoughtful these indiscretions make the story's eventual outcome more poignant and meaningful as King exposes this is as much a morality tale as it is a simple supernatural horror.

I myself have never been a big follower of Stephen King's novels, and even less so the eventual film treatments, but in this format really allows King's tale to be told as it should be and the viewer to digest all the nuances that studio executives tend to lack enough appreciation of the genre to see. Undoubtedly if you are a Stephen King fan, this is preaching to the choir, however if you are not familiar with this work "Storm of the Century" is a must see.



Not more than four of five hours away and a bit north from Little Tall Maine, is another fictitious community called Shuckton Ontario. Now in gaudy electric neon contrast to the events that occurred South of the border, infamous Canadian comedy troupe Kids In The Hall, tell this hamlet's tale of what happens when "Death Comes to Town". Here in series of eight half hour episodes, a Reaper is stuck on this the shittiest of routes with a job to do and a personal grudge (and a thing for chubby red-heads).

Like the townsfolk in Little Tall, the citizens of Shucton too have their secrets. Alcoholism, infidelity, lust, greed, as in Little Tall it's all there, but where other than Canadian television could one explore homosexual necrophilia and get by the network sensors.

Now I'll admit that I was hoping this little gem would have a bit more bloodshed and mayhem, but the subtle comedic jabs and the outlandish characterizations and situations that The Kids in the Hall are known for are extremely entertaining and satisfying to watch in this macabre tale of what happens when Death comes to town.





G. Macabre

A light hearted post for a New Year

Happiest of New Years to you my fellow travelers. As much as I thought that my online access was limited before in barracks, it seems my access while on holidays visiting in laws was worse. Honestly I didn't' know there was internet connections that slow and virtually unusable in first wold nation is the living world. Will be taking my laptop if that ever occurs again. Well before I go off ranting and get too far side tracked, here is a favourite macabre little ditty I have long forgotten. Nothing like sociopathic murderers in the guise of family entertainment. Long before there were shows like Greg the Bunny and Puppets Who Kill, or even movies like Puppet Master, there was the Muppet Show!

Battlestar Galactica: It has happened all before (answers revealed)

Blog Macabre going sci-fi??? well we'll indulge just this once shall we. So The New Battlestar Galactica has come to an end and fans are in a divided tizzy. Did the ending suck or was it epic, was it a bold conclusion to a bold series or was it a cop out just to try and tie up as many loose ends as they could? Well folks the greatest surprise of all is that BSG (as it has become known) was actually just another of the multitudes of unique incarnations of the Douglas Adams epic The Hitchhikers' guide to the Galaxy. Although much of the story from day one was a dramatic departure from Adams' tale, the writers finally played their hand and revealed in the final episode that this was indeed the case. It had happened all before in fact it happened first in 1979 with the BBC radio series and then the books in which apparently no two publishing's are alike, the 1981 TV series, a later DC comic book adaptation and a multimillion dollar Hollywood flop. In fact the greater the BSG story strayed from the source the more consistent with the HHG omnibus the show became until the final culmination of events where the cast finally arrive at Earth mark2 to start all over again.

With this secret now revealed with the series finale, fans can now look to Adams' works to fill in the gaps that the BSG writers left with somewhat unsatisfactory conclusions...

What of Kara's final fate?
As it turns out, she is inexplicably reunited with the Cylons at a chance meeting at the restaurant at the end of the universe.

What's with Hera? All that for a postscript about being the mitochondrial Eve?
Well there is a bit more to it than that, but that is the gist of it. It would seem that being the last offspring of both the colonists and the Cylons, locked in her primitive brain was the question to the answer of life the universe and everything that the mice wanted so dearly And by mice I mean the pan dimensional beings or "angels" represented by Head Baltar and Head Six.

What of all the dream sequences at the opera house leading up to a rather pedestrian conclusion in reality?
The simplest answer here is that it all took place when the series reached an improbability factor of 2*310888005:1 against which interestingly is Tom Desanto's phone number in Hollywood.

What happened to the Centurions?
Their home planet and in fact their entire solar system was destroyed at the conclusion of a Disaster Area concert which was the first and coincidentally last stop on their short lived "Ultimate Armageddon"tour.

Who was God? why did he hate being called that? and was it the Cylon God or the Human God?
We know they are now colonizing earth mark2 created by the Magratheans commissioned by the mice/angels/pan dimensional beings/the colour blue and designed by the semi-omniscient computer Deep Thought (the Cylon god it would seem). Problem solved.

So there you have it fans, until the next time (and the one after that, and the one following that...)
Gary D. Macabre