Ahhh public domain. What you get when a 1978 flick called "Buffalo Rider" becomes public domain and is picked up and narrated/sung by The Possum Party, you get an incredibly catchy tune! ...Incredibly catchy!! ...warning: it will get in your head. Check it out:  

What kinds of things could you do with public domain?

There are three other episodes of Guy on a Buffalo that you can listen to by clicking through to Youtube. Or, you can head on down to their website:

http://www.thepossumposse.com/

and pick up a guy on the buffalo shirt! 

"Guy on a bufffaaaallloooooo... break your gun on a stump." Ha!
It's in my head. Now it's in yours.

- Josh 

I want to start by saying, I was pleasantly surprised by the collected edition “Welcome to Lovecraft” of the Locke and Key series. Sure, I haven’t heard any bad reviews about this and have mostly been suggested to read it, but I still wasn’t sure I could get into a comic book about the supernatural. In fact, every time I hear the word “supernatural” as part of any series in any medium, I cringe a little and am reminded of the pop and pulp flavored supernatural that while sometimes is a guilty pleasure, is mostly disappointing.

When I want to get into supernatural, I want it dark (big surprise), I want mystery, tension, sense of fear, lingering creepiness, maybe some quirkiness... that kind of focus. Mostly, the delivery is on the action, the jump out at you scares, the gore and the special effects. 

I get that a lot of people like that other stuff and would argue what I’m looking for is in what they like, but it’s not enough of piece of the bigger picture for my taste.

Every once in a while, people get supernatural right (see: the way I like it). Twin Peaks did it as a T.V. series. Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez did it when they put together Locke and Key (at least they did for this first collected edition I read).

The gist is this: The Locke family are visited by a two men intent to do them harm if Mr. Locke doesn’t surrender a key he seems to know nothing about. Their bizarre request goes unmet and the family and visitors are forced into a tense showdown with tragic consequence. The mystery and grief are backdrop to uncovering the secrets of key house - a place the family moved to after the incident. Things become all the more strange when the youngest Locke boy, Bode stumbles across a woman stuck at the bottom of a well claiming to be his echo, but was his father’s before him. What wild things do the keys of key house unlock and what is the connection of the well woman to the visitors early on? ... see for yourself!  

At first I wasn’t a fan of the artwork. It’s not my style. What hooked me was the story telling which Joe Hill does an excellent job at. The story gives you room to wonder about different things and despite the lead into the next bit of the series at the end; it leaves you feeling satisfied with what you read and wanting more. Gabriel’s artwork will grow on you. the panels with the picture of the well house are appropriately spooky.

I will recommend this comic to anyone who likes a good horror/supernatural story. Pick this one up. I don’t regret it and am going to buy the second one shortly. 

- Josh

Cape Fear is a 1991 thriller starring Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte and Jessica Lange. It’s Directed by Martin Scorsese.

Disclaimer: I watched this movie on VHS with cheesy previews and in full screen format.   Because of this, it had a made for T.V feel with pumped up early 90’s/ late 80’s vibe (which it has regardless). While that may be how a lot of people watched it for their first time, I would suggest springing for the widescreen version for that proper cinematic feel - this movie’s got some interesting subtext about judgment that might be better highlighted in that case. 

The skinny is this (and the movie doesn’t waste any time getting into it): Max Caddy, a rapist, is released from jail and begins stalking his former lawyer, Sam Bowden (Nolte), who he believes did not represent him to the best of his ability during trial. Tension mounts as Max pushes boundaries and Sam tries to deal with the situation, with peaks of intense violence, an unnerving and frustrating school theatre meeting and wild ending at Cape Fear. 

It’s good. De Niro does a good job playing Max Caddy who I most enjoyed come out when coming up against a rough Claude Kerseck. The end too at Cape Fear was excellent in summarizing the crazy that was De Niro’s character.

Keep an eye out for that school Theatre scene. As silly a setup as it was to allow the characters privacy, Juliette Lewis did a great job in her role there and later with her father Sam (Nolte) when she couldn’t wipe that smile off her face.

Cape Fear is a good watch at 7/10. 

- Josh

For fun, Fredericton fans of Horror are challenged to walk the trails of Killarney Lake to find the above wood envelope. Inside you'll find a horror story account of an event observed on the lake itself from the shore where the envelope is planted. Also, you'll find a piece of paper and a pencil with which you can write your name and a small note saying you've found the envelope. And if you're lucky and the first to get to the shore where the above is hidden, then you can take the Tim's card that's hidden along with it. 

Take the Treasure, but leave the notes, your name, the pencil and the box.

Watch the Youtube video below for a hint for where to find the envelope (it's hidden at the base of the tree at the end of the video). Have some fun trying to find it. Enjoy the experience! 

- Josh

Before I get into some of today's posts (keep your eyes on the site for some news, challenges and competitions), I wanted to throw a little recognition your way. Yes, you. Thank you for a being a part of the journey. The site's come a long way since its creation. It's been great fun, hard work, and quite the learning experience but frankly, it wouldn't be still going without your support. So thank you, for your support, in whatever shape or form - Be it following me on twitter or giving a 'like' to the Facebook Page. Be it having come by the site the one time or many. Maybe you bought my book, "Counting the dead" or simply threw down a comment on one of my posts. All of that is what keeps a site like mine or anyone else's really going. So Thanks.

- Josh

The movie Prometheus started in the right direction and had a lot going for it, painting a massive universe with mysterious engineers and monstrous trilobites. The challenge is to come up with a draft for what the follow up to Prometheus would look like. You could go in any direction you choose (Do a prequel with more on Weyland, explore the connection with Alien or follow Shaw's adventure. You pick). 

Come up with and post your draft here in the Dark opera Marquee or send it to me via e-mail. I am going to do one too. Deadline's the end of July! Let's have fun!

- Josh

I give Prometheus a hard time, but only because it has so many things going for it. It feels so large that it’s almost like the slice of life we saw in the movie got lost in its grandness. My good friend and editor of the site and I went to go see Prometheus together (having waited many months to see it) and got to talking after the movie was done. Here are some of the things we thought were great as well as some of the things we thought needed work, were weak or just plain horrible. Feel free to chime in to give us your explanation as to why you think something we think is bad works. It’s all for fun!

SPOILER: THIS POST DISCUSSES PROMETHEUS PLOT. SKIP IT IF YOU DON'T WANT ANYTHING RUINED. CLICK ON THE POST FOR MORE!!

Prometheus is more of a summer blockbuster than a satisfying, thought provoking modern sci-fi classic. Could it have been both? For certain the elements that make this a blockbuster blocked it from becoming a classic... and what a shame.... what a shiny, awesome, special effects filled shame.

This flawed adventure is an 8/10 on scale which is as confusing as its character motivations and storyline progression scenarios. It's great to watch, but you’ll feel disappointed when you trip over a plot hole - of which there are plenty - and many will mistake as smart story pieces that were meant to get you thinking.

Here’s a good exercise: If you’ve watched the movie, try and recount all of what happened. Jam packed? Yes, prometheus is filled to the brim and has a steady pace that picks up half way through and rockets you to the end where some bits are too fast.

Very much a big part of everything is that ponderous question about our origins to which the movie throws countless examples of parent/child type relationships in such directionless fashion that you’ll come back to Prometheus’ opening lesson about beliefs. That is that everyone’s got a belief about our origins and we all think ours is right ((Subtext warning!)... and that's what divides us). Look, if I wanted to wonder about life and make connections with the abstract, then I’d have stayed home and re-watched Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life”

The Prometheus plus here is that there’s good acting but only on the surface as most of the characters are weak or broken at their foundation. Both Fassbender and Rapace shine especially, but performances are undermined by this movies fatal flaw at plot and character ground level.

Like Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” panel on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, if only Adam (and Prometheus) might have tightened form and have confidently extended in one direction, there might have been an awesome connection... but there wasn’t.

-Josh 

I posted about Criterion style game covers in the past and have been thinking about them now and gain ever since. Recently I googled it again and discovered that there are a lot more... A LOT MORE!!

That’s a good thing. Bad thing is that I can’t seem to access the entries on neogaf.com where they are supposedly stored. I did see that there’s thegafcollection.com is coming soon so that’s something to look out for. 

Here’s some of the great entries I saw:

Great stuff. What's your favourite? see any good criterion style game covers that aren't on here? post a link to them below.

Why can't there be some company that acquires the rights to old games to create a criterion type edition to em? 

- Josh 

Comic Books are something that I don’t have a lot of exposure to. At one time I got into “The Darkness” and loved it. I really enjoyed Silvestri's work. My experience with comic books though has mostly been that they are pretty to look at but are lacking in content. 

and I mean, have you ever been in a comic shop? There is a hell of a lot of different comic books in there. Just thinking about navigating those titles is exhausting. Thing is, you hit too many crappy comic books and it might turn you off to em completely.

Here’s “Comic Book girl 19” to help out. Heard of her? She recently did a piece on the Avengers and  “How to start reading Comic books” that got pretty popular. I’ve included a bit from her youtube called “Batman Night of Owls. Critical Comic Book Reviews”

There's swearing but she's enthusiastic, comes off as really being into comics and wanting to share some of the cool stuff out there. Take a look:

great, eh?! So what I loved most about this piece and why I wanted to post about it is A) she mentions what sounds to be an awesome twist in artwork at  3:52 when she talks about Batman getting drugged and the panels start to go in different directions... That’s awesome! That somebody felt that they could be creative about it and do that is just awesome. 

Bonus points for the Batman voice at 5:36

And B) enjoyed at 6:05 when she talked about the emotional and character development aspect of that comic book. THAT’s the content that’s missing from a lot of other comic books.

Check out some of her other videos, especially the two I had mentioned earlier.

Click through to Youtube to subscribe to her channel. I did. 

- Josh