Clowns are fun to have at a birthday party, maudlin when they’ve had too much to drink, and downright terrifying when they pop out from around the corner wielding a massive wooden mallet!
DM Pranks knows how to create a scenario that will scar people for life- start with a lonely parking structure late at night, add some unsuspecting people walking through said structure, a dummy body with an exploding head, and a clown willing to go the extra mile for a scare and you’ve got a recipe for big-top inspired terror!
Horror movie baddies come in all shapes and sizes, but there’s one form of monster that nobody ever seems to see for what it really is, one unassuming structure that lies in wait for its next victim to move in.
The monster house is one of the most underrated villains in the horror genre, and movies like the House series and Monster House have used the spooky domicile with horrifically comedic effect, bringing the dark nature of horror home.
Vienna Waits For You is a horror comedy short by Glaciar Films, directed by Dominik Hartl, that shows why you should always have a priest on hand when you move into a new house!
Bruce Lee statue in Hong Kong (Image Credit: Inti [Flickr]) Can a dead person star in a movie? Well, if a star unexpectedly dies before film production is complete, what's the studio supposed to do - pass up a great opportunity for free publicity? Not a chance.
Big Time
In 1970 a filmmaker named Raymond Chow quit his job at Shaw Brothers Studio, Hong Kong's largest film studio at the time, and formed Golden Harvest Studios. Not long afterward he signed an up-and-coming young martial artist to play the lead in his first movie. The actor was Bruce Lee and the movie, The Big Boss, was his first feature-length kung fu film. The Big Boss shattered Hong Kong box-office records when it premiered in 1971. Lee's follow up film, Fist of Fury, was even more successful.
His third film, The Way of the Dragon, did better still when it was released in 1972. These three blockbusters put Golden Harvest on the map and helped introduce the Hong Kong film industry to the international market. In 1973 Golden Harvest became the first Hong Kong studio to partner with a major Hollywood studio when it collaborated with Warner Bros. on Lee's fourth and "final" film, Enter the Dragon. Today Golden Harvest is Hong Kong's largest and most successful movie studio. They owe much of their success to Bruce Lee.
The Clone Wars
When Lee died suddenly in July 1973, only four weeks before Enter the Dragon debuted on the silver screen, how did the studio honor him? By cashing in on the publicity surrounding his death, of course. And they weren't the only ones: Hong Kong studios flooded the market with Bruce Lee knock-off films as fast as they could make them - movies with titles like New Fist of Fury, Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave, Exit the Dragon, Re-Enter the Dragon, Enter Another Dragon, and Enter the Fat Dragon, starring kung fu copycats like Bruce Le, Bruce Li, Bruce Liang, and Dragon Lee.
Unfinished Business
Game of Death (1978)
But by far the strangest of these films was Game of Death, which Lee started but did not live to finish. The only parts that he completed were the fight scenes, including one with pro basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. There was no plot line in any of the finished scenes, but Golden Harvest plowed ahead anyway, taking just 11 minutes of the original fight footage and creating an entirely new movie around it, using a body double to play Bruce Lee's character Billy Lo, a movie star who refused to submit to gangsters who control the Hong Kong film industry.
Problem Solving
How do you make a movie using a dead actor? Golden Harvest tackled the problem in a number of different ways:
Lee's double was filmed in wide angle shots, from behind, or in the dark whenever possible.
Reaction shots of the real Bruce Lee, recycled from his earlier films, were spliced into the scenes with Lee's double.
In one scene they literally cut out a still photograph of Bruce Lee's head and pasted it on the screen over the double's head.
In scenes where the double does show his face, he wears a large pair of dark sunglasses and sometimes even a fake moustache and beard. In other scenes he wears a motorcycle helmet with the darkened visor pulled down.
The plot was written to explain the character's changed appearance: Early in the film a gangster tried to kill Billy Lo by shooting him in the face. Lo survives, but undergoes plastic surgery to repair the damage, and emerges from the hospital literally a new man.
Some Thanks
Had Golden Harvest left it at that, Game of Death would hardly be worth anyone's while. But they didn't. When Billy Lo gets shot and is rushed to the hospital, he decides to fake his own death and even arranges his funeral, so that his assailants won't know he's still alive and coming after them. Golden Harvest added this element to the plot to give them an excuse to incorporate footage of Bruce Lee's actual funeral, including close-up shots of the open casket as mourners file past. For a brief moment the camera even peeks inside the coffin, showing Lee's embalmed face - probably the only time in history that a movie star's cadaver appears in his own feature film.
Tragic Coincidence
When the gangster shoot Bruce Lee's character Billy Lo, they do it by sneaking onto the movie set where he's filming a gun battle and fill the gun with real bullets instead of blanks. Moments later, Billy is "accidentally" shot while filming the scene. Fifteen years after Game of Death premiered, in March 1993, Bruce Lee's only son, 28-year-old Brandon Lee, died on the set of the movie The Crow.
While filming a scene in which his character is shot and killed, the prop gun, supposed to be loaded only with blanks, was loaded with a real .44-caliber slug. Police concluded it was an accident resulting from the film crew's negligence: Sometimes "dummy" bullets - real bullets with the gunpowder and primer removed - are used to make it look like a gun contains real bullets. On this occasion one of the dummy bullets apparently came apart inside the gun, and a slug remained lodged in the barrel. Nobody bothered to make sure the barrel was clear before blanks were loaded into the gun. When the gun was fired at Lee, the slug shot out and struck him in the lower abdomen. He died in surgery 12 hours later.
Lesson Learned
Game of Death was unfinished when Bruce Lee died and was later finished without him. Similarly, The Crow was unfinished when Brandon Lee died and was later finished without him, using computer-generated special effects. This time the Lee family approved, believing that Brandon would have wanted the film to be completed. The footage of him being shot was left out. In fact, mindful of the way Bruce Lee's death had been exploited in Game of Death, the family had the footage destroyed. As a family spokesperson put it, "they didn't want it to fall into the wrong hands."
The grave site of Bruce and Brandon Lee in Lakeview Cemetery, Seattle, Washington. (Image Credit: dwyatt1 [Flickr]) "If you love life, don't waste time - for time is what life is made of" - Bruce Lee
The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader, a fantastic book by the Bathroom Readers' Institute. The 17th book in this the Bathroom Reader series is filled to the brim with facts, fun, and fascination, including articles about the Origin of Kung Fu, How to Kill a Zombie, Women in Space and more!
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!
This kid has it all: He can change his shape like a Transformer, and travel through time like Doctor Who in his TARDIS. It’s a mashup anyone can appreciate! Redditor toolofthedevil posted this picture he took at SakuraCon. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Inanimate objects have been imbued with a sinister energy thanks to the horror genre, and some of the scariest stories and movies of all time involve characters being terrorized by inanimate objects such as creepy dolls, haunted TV sets and mirrors that trap people’s souls.
Here’s a collection of the most terrifying inanimate objects in movie history, three of which are Stephen King’s creations, and although it’s far from exhaustive the collection of movies chosen for this list would make for a really fun movie marathon!
Tony Stark may not have had much use for cardboard when he was building suit after suit of super shiny Iron Man armor, but Tony would definitely admire the craftsmanship and skill shown by Kai-Xiang Xhong when he built this wearable cardboard Iron Man armor.
The included video finds Kai-Xiang showing off a bunch of his other models, including an Alien xenomorph made out of straws and a giant cardboard T-Rex skull that is really freakin' cool!
Kai-Xiang decided to keep the suit natural cardboard color 'cause that's his style, and it looks like the feet were formed around a pair of Spongebob slippers, so his feet stay warm when he slips this bad boy on to grab the mail.
The Simpsons, and all the cartoony folks that populate the imaginary city of Springfield, may look cute and colorful on the small screen, but in real life they'd look downright freaky!
This depiction of Marge Simpson in real life called "Flower Marge" was created by photographer Alexander Khokhlov, with the help of makeup artist Veronica Ershova and stylist Mikhail Kravchenko.
Marge's hair gets its textural look from the hundreds of chrysanthemums which were glued to the frame that forms her signature hairstyle, and when the model closes her eyes the transformation into cartoon superstar is complete.
The included video shows the making of Flower Marge, but you may want to mute the sound before you tune in.
Ah, The Addams Family! Although this show lasted only two years -- 1964 through 1966 -- it has endured as a pop culture phenomenon, spawning movies, cartoons, revivals, and comics. Let's take a look at some things you might not know about that show.
1. The show was preceded by the one-panel cartoons of Charles Addams, which made their debut in The New Yorker in 1937. These works of dark humor featured the same characters that would later grace the show. Addams was known as a man of ghoulish if playful interests, and his house was filled with instruments of torture and medieval weapons, particularly crossbows. He hoped to someday put his crossbow collection to practical use:
“I have this fantasy,” he said, smiling, “A robber breaks into my apartment and just as he comes through the door, I get him -- right through the neck. Always through the neck.”
2. John Astin, who played Gomez Addams, was initially offeredthe role of Lurch.
3. Astin’s crazed, maniacal look as Gomez Addams had prior service. While living in a rough neighborhood of New York City, he would get between his apartment and the subway station safely by acting a bit deranged. No one bothered him.
4. Fans sometimes stop Astin, speak French to him, and expect him to react as Gomez did when Morticia spoke the language of love. Ringo Starr from The Beatles once grabbed Astin’s arm and started kissing up its length before Astin stopped him from going past his elbow.
5. Ted Cassidy released a 45 rpm single consisting of a dance song called “The Lurch”. Here he is demonstrating it on a 1965 episode of the variety show Shindig!
Robots can build cars, take a spin on Mars and generally do some pretty cool stuff, but are we already running out of ideas for uses?
You might assume that if you saw this gyrating robot dancer doing her hypnotic hip sway for them and didn’t know the back story, but this scary robo-gal is an art installation created strictly for entertainment purposes by Jordan Wolfson in conjunction with special effects studio Spectral Motion, and not necessarily the next step in robotic evolution.
So maybe she isn't the future of robo-tech, but it looks like Chuck E. Cheese is about to get a sexy new stripper to add to his animatronic band!
Coulrophobes had better steer clear of Staten Island for a while, until the local authorities take care of a certain creepy clown they’ve got lurking around the city streets.
He has become a bit of a local legend in the few short weeks he’s been clowning around the streets of S.I., because people claim he’s an elusive clown, appearing with a wave then disappearing back into the city before most of them can snap a pic.
Is this the same clown faced freak that has been haunting Northampton, England, or is this one of the British clown’s disciples? Whatever IT is, if you see the Staten Island clown prepare to laugh your head off!
Mica Bethea attended MegaCon in Orlando this past weekend cosplaying as Tyrion Lanister from Game of Thrones in this awesomely clever getup. He turned his wheelchair into an Iron Throne, and put boots on his knees, while his lower legs were hidden underneath. I hope he entered the costume contest! See more pictures at Bethea’s Instagram gallery. -via Geeks Are Sexy
People made some bad style choices in the 1970s- leisure suits, Earth shoes, zippered and belted jumpsuits, and lemon yellow polyester slacks all come to mind as fairly common fashions that were fairly hideous.
But whether you escaped the decade fashionably unscathed, or you have a hideous Disco phase among the skeletons in your closet, chances are bad 70s style affected your look in one way- a bad hairstyle. We've all had our share of bad hair, but guys really got the short end of the stick during the 70s when it came to coiffures.
Seeing these bad hair pics will either make you appreciate your own hairstyle, or give you an idea for a new direction to take with your hairdo.
Cosplayers are creating the most amazingly realistic costumes these days- with 3D printed accessories, handmade replica weapons that look better than the animated versions, and intricate costumes created with foam and friendly plastics that combine sculpting and sewing in an amazing ode to their favorite characters.
But what if you want to have some cosplay fun but lack the sculpting/sewing skills and don't feel like leaving the house?
You do like Thai cosplayer Anucha “Cha” Saengchart and create some Lowcost Cosplay. You can tell Cha loves three things- dressing up, hanging out at home, and coming up with creative ways to incorporate common household objects into his costumes.
Carsten Riewe built an awesome costume for the Karneval Parade based on the Caterpillar P5000 exoskeleton power loader in the movie Aliens. His 13-month-old daughter was the "driver."
The arms and legs are full moveable and the top-light and LED were powered by an 12 Volt battery pack stored in the backpack. The on/off switch is in the left arm. Also in the backpack a Bluetooth boombox ist installed to play mechanical robot sound fx or music if preferred. It took 100 working hours to finnish the costume and I built it for the "Karneval"-Parade in my hometown in Germany February 2014 .
And this thing can dance, too! A good time was had by all. -via Uproxx
It’s the job of the make-up artist to turn ordinary people into extraordinary creations that both bring the artist's vision to life and please the directors behind the scenes.
But making soft skin look like it’s made out of wood is quite a challenge, and if the facial appliance is too bulky or rubbery, and/or the paintjob isn’t really selling the feel of natural wood, you’ve got a mighty obvious rubber mask thing going on and the director probably won’t be happy.
This wooden doll makeup, which was put together by make-up artist Stephanie Hernandez using prosthetics and makeup from The Scream Team, has definitely achieved a realistically wooden effect which makes her friend Laura Jones look like both a knotty girl and a total stiff!
