A mom takes her son – which is sick in cancer – to a house in Connecticut, since the house is located close to the hospital where the kid gets some kind of super-duper-special-experimental treatment. The rest of the family follows.

However, there’s something wrong with the house. It has a history. A dark history. And the history is starting to show itself to the house’s new inhabitants.

The Haunting In Connecticut is based on a true story, a story which I haven’t bothered reading more into. I usually do that.

I liked this one. The sound design is excellent. Actors (most of them) do a great job, special effects are astonishing, and there isn’t too much scare-you-out-of-your-seat-by-sudden-sound-thingies (although there are some). The camera work and the visual design of scenes with the colours and lightning – it’s perfect.

The subtle horror in the first part of the film is excellent. It gets a bit flipped out towards the second half, which lingers on the borderline of being a bit too much funky-spunky. But in total this is a beautiful, sad ghost story which may move you more emotionally than scare you.

If you’re out of paper, well, what’cha gonna do…?

Hey dad, watch me while I puke ectoplasm!

Here you go!

Day Zero – Arlanda Hotellby

Maybe I should start by presenting who we were. It was me, my girlfriend Carina and our two friends Emma and Dennis. Since we were flying out early in the morning, we slept at Arlanda Hotellby the night before. Good parking space and not too expensive. Everything went smooth until we got on the plane, where we were told that the flight was delayed by 1 hour due to “no air space” or something like that. So, 1 hour later we set off for Egypt.

Day One – Arrival

The trip went pretty fast, just 4,5 hours. Hurghada airport sucked though. It took like an eternity to get through the passport control. When finally done we got transfered by bus to our hotel – Mövenpick in El Gouna. The bus driver looked like an old version of Eddie Murphy. Who didn’t find his way anywhere. I thought he traveled around almost the whole of El Gouna. As our guide said it would take us about 20 minutes to reach our destination, the truth was more like 1 hour and 20 minutes. But we got to see more pieces of Egypt, so who am I to complain?

As we got to our hotel it had already darkened, even though it wasn’t that late at night. El Gouna is like a little piece of paradise by the Red Sea. Everything is beautiful and clean. You don’t have that real middle eastern high-life in El Gouna; you’re at a tourist paradise.

We started our first night by having a great dinner buffet consisting of like everything imaginable. Really tasty. Had a romantic walk in the hotel area afterwards. And when I say hotel area it’s not like a small hotel with a backyard. It was a fuckin huge area. They had everything. 4 pool areas, spa, gym, health club, hair dresser, tennis & squash courts, 6 restaurants or something, diving/kite surfing/windsurfing stations, a bank, three shops, two cafeterias and lots of other stuff.

Day Two – Feeling It

Our first day we spent completely by the pool and the sea. Carina wasn’t really aware of the fact that we were in Egypt; when I tried waking her up she yelled at me not to wake her up since she thought I was going to work… hehe. Anyways. Pretty cold in the pool since it was not heated, and this is winter time. However, as the clock started to get close to 12-13 the temperature in the ocean was really nice. So we snorkeled a lot, seeing a bunch of stuff like fishes, rays, and other peculiar animals on the bottom of the sea.

Lot of kite-surfers too. I didn’t get the chance to try it, but it looked like fun!

The evening we spent in Downtown El Gouna. Really nice place with maybe not so much stuff to do, but enough for us who just wanted to have a relaxing week not filled with parties. The sun set already around 17 in the afternoon, and after that it was almost completely pitch black. Of course we bought some stuff (mostly the girls, but it was we men who got to haggle for the stuff. Quite fun the first 3 times, but gets tiresome pretty quick). Ate some good food and said hello to the crocodile Oscar (which I also held – pictures are coming later).

Day Three – Quadbikes in Sahara Safari

First half of the day was spent sunbathing and splashing in the pool (this pool was heated). Around 14.30 we got picked up to ride Quadbikes with Alex Safari in the Sahara desert. One of the most fascinating and exciting things I have done in my life, ever! The spread of sand, dust, stones and mountains in every direction is a view that can’t be described – it must be experienced. And the feeling of racing through these enourmos steppeland on these bikes doing around 50 km/h is a fantastic feeling.

Our guide was great and learned us a lot of interesting stuff about the Bedouin life and the desert. We got to see how the Bedouines live, tasted some tea and bread, smoked Argile (water pipe) and got information about their herbal medicines. We got to see a man-made well, tested the sound of echoes in the valleys and finally rounded of with a trip back to the garage in pitch black darkness under the stars. At our final destination we had a BBQ with delicious food and also bought a DVD which they compiled the day after.

As we got home to our hotel we had a chill night on our balcony. A balcony with a great view, I must add.

Day Four – Abo Tig Marina

This day we tried the third pool area. We had breakfast at another place in the hotel (the hotel was so huge – as I mentioned earlier – that they had to split the breakfast area into two places. Same food, but your choice depends on which one you are closest to). More snorkeling this day too.

When the sun went down we went with a cab to the Marina. Lots of big, expensive yachts layed there and waited for me to claim them. I didn’t.  We ate at a place called Papas Bar, Papas Island or something. That was perhaps the worst place ever. Looked pretty neat but the food took an eternity to cook, and Carina even got the wrong food. They served her something she hadn’t ordered, and the thing she ordered wasn’t available. Couldn’t they have mentioned that when she ordered her food? Anyways. Dennis and I played two games of pool, and the result was even. Carina found a pair of shoes with her name on it, but they were too expensive and not good looking enough to buy. (Yeah, I tried to hassle the shop owner but she didn’t lower the price enough).

Day Five – Spa Massage

First part of day = sun and snorkeling and just laying there like lazy bastards as always. Between 14-16 we went to the Spa for some really really good massage. Full body massage + face massage, Thai style. I think I fell asleep a couple of times, and some times it felt as my mind left my body. THE best massage I’ve ever had. No question about that.

During the evening Emma and Dennis went into Hurghada. Me and Carina stayed at the hotel area to enjoy some great Thai food and taking it easy. (I wasn’t feeling all too well in my stomach and a feverish feeling swept over me, so I think we did the right thing to stay relaxed this evening). Emma and Dennis had a both terrible and at the same time kind of interesting experience in Hurghada. I’m just glad I didn’t go there. I’ve already had my fair share of crazy towns, and this vacation I wanted to have as little stress as possible.

Day Six – Swedish?

All day was spent on the beach, playing beach tennis, card games and mostly not doing anything special. A very nice feeling I don’t get so often these days! We went to El Gouna Downtown in the evening, and found a restaurant which was owned by a Swedish family. They even had a swedish head waiter which showed us around. Really classy place and great service. Delicious food to, and this time I got my Bea-sauce (!). Oh yes! Carina bought some stuff which I managed to bargain for some better prices, but I think I could have done a better job on those things.

We went to bed early since Day Seven would bring a lot of adventures out on the Red Sea…

Day Seven – Dolphins and Snorkeling in Coral Reef

Early in the morning we went out with a boat into the Red Sea to an area called the Dolphin House. There we got to see quite a lot of dolphins swimming around, surfacing from time to time, and playing around the boats. Really nice  to see these animals out in the wild – especially for Carina, who loves dolphins so much. I was very happy for her sake.

We went further away to a really big coral reef. There we snorkeled about one hour, and that qualifies in the same league as the quad bike tour in the desert. The water was crystal clear, you got see all 15 meters down to the bottom. It was like a whole new world when you looked down. no sounds, just your own breathing. And a lot of fishes in all various colors. Purple, yellow, green, red, flaming orange – everything on one and the same fish! And the coral reefs; it was magical. We swam around for an hour, and then had lunch on the boat.

Proceeding with the boat to our second snorkeling spot, we had another hour to spend in the sea. And this time there was a lot of fish. Fantastic looking fish in serious large quantities. And jellyfishes too. I touched some jellyfishes, but the fish was impossible to manage to touch. Don’t worry, we weren’t attacked by sharks either.

The snorkeling tour was fantastic; the experience, the scenery under the ocean, the great guides, the funny cameraman who sold us a DVD for practically no money at all, and like… yeah, everything. You will get to see the pictures later, I think they will speak for themselves. I just hope that the underwater pictures will be any good when we process them.

Back at the hotel, Carina got a haircut with a really good result. She looks incredibly cute in her new cut. While she was at the hair dresser, Emma and Dennis and myself played a set of tennis for an hour. Really fun!

Finished of the night by eating at El Sayadin, a fish/oriental restaurant of a higher class (which was noted on the bill…).

Packed our stuff to leave the day after, a trip not so funny since nobody of us was looking forward to return to cold Sweden…

Retrospective

This vacation was one of my best ever. The only bad thing was that it was too short, and that I had some minor issues with my stomach. I wish I could have stayed longer. Much longer. I really enjoyed myself, and seeing that Carina thrived perfectly well I concluded that this gift to her was a good one. I hope she agrees.

Now I have like over 800 pictures I have to sort and publish. I will post them here on my blog, on Flickr and on Facebook as usual. In addition to that there are Emma’s, Dennis’ and Carina’s cameras too. With like a shitload of pictures and movies. But they will come in due time, I promise.

I am browner than I have ever been in November, and I’m filled with positive energy and exciting, thrilling memories from the best vacation ever. I am really grateful for this trip, and if I got the opportunity to do it again I would. I can really recommend El Gouna, and especially the Mövenpick Resort Hotel. There’s so much more I really want to tell you and write, but then this article would never end.

I love you Carina, thanks for spending this wonderful week with me. Emma, Dennis: you are two wonderful friends who I am really grateful to have. Big thanks to mom for taking care of my apartment while I was gone, love you!

This trip was pure euphoria.

A man awaits death by hanging with a snare around his neck in the wild west. He is saved by a scientist in the future (present time) who has invented a time machine. So the episode basically circles around this wild western dude trying to cope with the modern environment, and then shit happening in the end.

Not good, not bad, but an okay episode. Nothing more.

God damn it, space adventures again! (And they always seem to crash somewhere too…). Anyhooooooo, this time they crash on Mars, and discovers that there are actually people living there. However, as friendly they may seem there’s something fishy about their business…

Good plot twist in the end, but in all other cases pretty weak episode.

About this Walter dude who has eternal life. Finally destiny bites him in the ass and he’s turned to dust. Thank you so much for immortality…

Weak episode.

One dude thinking he is a real person, but it seems more like the character he plays has come to “real” life. Or is it the other way around? This theme has been touched upon earlier in a movie starring Jim Carrey, but this is of a bit more paranormal nature. Interesting story nevertheless, and should be watched.

Theme: Paranoia. A comet flies through the sky and suddenly all electricity is malfunctioning. Neighbours start to suspect each others, and the result is that nobody trust anybody. Finally people are getting hurt and mayhem occur. Classical theme and quite interesting story that is told. My thumbs up.

Boring episode with the notion of parallell universes with the ‘other you’ drafting over to ‘your’ universe. Strange things happening at a bus station involving a woman and her twin soul in that other universe.

Meh.

OMG why did I accept to join this episode of The Twilight Zone…

Spaceship lost in space (once again with the space stuff…) and the crew make an emergency landing on some kind of asteroid or something. There seem to be people there. People standing completely still, not moving an inch. Definitely something strange, and the surprise seem to be fatal…

Pretty good episode with an overall dark atmosphere. I liked it.

Please. Could somebody answer this simple question for me: Why did they have to make all the fucking space ships look like saucers back in the fifties?

Comparing this original version with the new remake (starring Keanu Reeves), the newer version from 2008 contains a way much more cool space ship as well as a Gort-robot-dude-helper-thingy. For the acting though, Michael Rennie is leagues better than Keanu. But I don’t think that will strike anyone with surprise.

You can’t escape the fact that the special effects are so much better in the 2008 version compared to this one. People say that it isn’t the special effects that make the movie. For a gay drama movie starring Hugh Grant perhaps. They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. Sci-Fi is all about special effects. Don’t gimme that “look to the story and not the effects” bullshit. I don’t buy it. Not for this genre. Fuck you.

But, as I also stated in my review for the new movie; the ending sucked. Really, really sucked. It left you hanging there with a big WHAT THE FUCK in your face. Here you have been waiting for some kickass space war or something going out blasting all over the whole fucking earth, causing mayhem, destruction, killing people and killing whales and killing llamas and like exterminating every last inch of life on our sorry planet. But then the movie goes apeshit on you and nothing happens. Nothing. NOTHING. Not even a tiny bit of blood. What about the laser eyes the robot has, you might ask? Well, that was just some crappy shit meling weapons and stuff. Not harming anything at all.

Really, there’s nothing happening in the end. I’m not shitting you. I was like “Alright. So let’s get to the second part of the movie“. But there wasn’t any second part. I felt raped.

Avoid this piece of uninteresting crap. I can’t see how it would benefit you in any way by watching it.

If these would be the aliens landing on planet earth today I would die laughing at their clothes.

“Never pick up strangers”. Yeah, that’s something the two teenagers would have learned from participating as characters in The Hitcher. Actually, this is a remake of an old movie from 1986 with the same name.

Basically one dude and his girl picks up this guy, our hitchhiker (Sean Bean), and then shit starts to hit the fan piece by piece as he first threatens the couple with a knife and then frames then for more and more murders he commits on his killing spree along the road. Sean Bean is not nearly as sympathic as he was in Silent Hill. He’s perfect for this kind of role.

While we’re talking about actors, I must mention that we have that dude playing Bison in that shitty Legend Of Chun Li movie, playing a badass sheriff. This is also a case of an actor fitting a role perfectly well. In The Hitcher, I mean. It sucked having him in that Street Fighter Chun Li movie.

I have also a lot of praise to give for the awesome car chases and gore scenes. This is no splatter movie, but some scenes makes you think in those terms anyway. There’s for example a really badass scene involving the boyfriend, two trucks and a lot of chains. You know what I mean when you see it.

Sean Bean is really f-king badass and he like made the whole movie go beyond epic awesomeness. I loved the film. I know you will too.

Oh, and by the way. As I write this text I realize I have 1234 posts published on my blog. That’s pretty neat.

Lisey’s story has been credited with words like “literally beautiful”. I’d call that kind of outblasts literally bullshitful. Lisey’s Story is a hard book to read. The language used is kind of strange, and there’s a lot of randomness among the sentences and words, making you feel like you’re reading a scrambled dream of some sort. If this is an attempt to be pseudointellectual, then I don’t like it.

As for the story itself, I have not much to complain about. This is decent King fiction, but nothing spectacular. Lisey’s Story is the story of Lisey Landon, who is the widow of a famous and wildly successful novelist, Scott Landon (say, how seldom are King’s stories circling around other authors?). The book actually tells two stories – Lisey’s story in the present, and the story of her dead husband’s life, as remembered by Lisey during the course of the novel. Add some supernatural elements and you have yourself a mystery novel. A mystery novel that is intense but not frightening.

If you want something more challenging then have a look at this book.

…yep, they are online now too. 35 clips of an almost empty dancefloor but fucking kickass music. Watch if ya want to.

… for some liquid culture. Me and Dennis, around 20 hours of adventure through pitch black roads and too many people at the destination. For real.

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I think the girls were pretty happy when they found out where they were going this winter. Have a look at the pictures from the ‘treasure hunt’, and the video too of course…

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…are finally online. Jesus, it took like an eternity to get my thumb out of my ass to get this done. But anyways, here they are. Enjoy.

I’ve been away for one week in El Gouna, Egypt, together with my girlfriend and Emma and Dennis. Had a fabulous time with a lot of sun, bathing, snorkeling, and eating. And beer drinking. And adventures in the Sahara desert.

It was one week in paradise and I wish I could have stayed longer. Way too cold here in Sweden for me to really thrive. I’ll write more about my trip and post pictures (after I’ve gone through my 800+ pics…) later on.

The Abyss. I don’t even know if I’ve seen the movie before when I was kid, but I probably have. Either way I saw it once again the other day.

What we have here is a movie that really circles around the fear of nuclear warfare, but is portrayed by some dudes deep down under the ocean’s surface going for a search-and-rescue mission after a submarine had crashed. A professional diving team and a team of Navy S.E.A.L soldiers – both with different agendas – are sent to accomplish this task.

It’s quite nice to see so many well-known actors having one of their first performances in this movie. For example, Ken Jenkins (Bob Kelso from Scrubs) plays a role in this movie – as a turd once again. Several faces I recognized, but couldn’t remember their names. Then we have Ed Harris who plays a badass motherfucker.

As you probably already know there are these extraterrestial beings down at the bottom of the sea which they encounter a couple of times in the movie. That is cool, but it is way to little of them. I would have loved some more (violent) encounters with these creatures. What we get here is in fact almost E.T under water.

The ending were graphically fascinating, so I can’t hate it too much. If they only would have restrained themselves from being so apparent about the morality of the story then it would have earned two thumbs up. Now it only gets one thumb up.

I’m pretty sure this is a direct continuation of the previous movie, although it was quite some time ago I saw that movie. In any case the intro is quite gross where we get to see a cuffed, ugly and smelly (yes she smells, you can almost sense that from your screen) giving birth to a freaky kid.

As there are scientists trying to set up video surveillance all over the place where the kids got their asses mutilated in the first movie, shit hits the fan and like everything goes to hell and people die.

Then we have our national guard. They are of course ordered to bring some stuff to these scientists. Of course they will find an empty camp. This is where the fun starts. As time goes they encounter these retarded inbreed fuckers up in the hills in the desert landscape. You know who I mean if you’ve seen the other movies. And you must have.

Getting to characters there are two things I’d like to point out. First: Flex Alexander playing Sarge is fucking badass. Too bad he dies all to early in the movie. Second: Jessica Stroup plays a major part in the movie. She’s hot. Thumbs up for that. At least there’s some beauty among those vile fucking retarded monsters.

Yes, you get your awesome gore scenes and no, there aren’t a too many one-liners of dudes trying to be funny when they instead just should have a nice cup of shut the hell up. Thank you for that, Mr. Director. I like you.

So let’s get down to the thing that really bothers me and why I was annoyed while watching the whole thing. These national guard dudes, are like a minor army with rifles, ammo, and kickass gear. The Hills-people are mutated freaks that shouldn’t be alive at all. How the HELL can the national guard be wiped out like a bunch of scouts? It’s like Alien, except they’re in the desert hills instead of being on a space ship, and the Aliens are radioactive inbreed hillbillies (i.e. damn more ugly than those alien motherfuckers). The majority of the troppers are so fucking stupid that they deserve to die. I feel like it’s the Darwin awards once again, but it’s a tie – both parties loose.

Annoying but graphically entertaining.

“Who was he?”
“Shitman the Barbarian, I have no idea!”

As you see these are excellent examples of the species butt-fuck-ugly.

I’ll make this short for you. White Noise 2 in a djungle/warfare setting. There you are.

If it was any good? Hell yeah! Probably better than White Noise 2 actually. Except that there isn’t as many fancy special effects and shit like that. I hate when there aren’t many fancy special effects.

A World War I British fighter pilot lands at an American air force base in France 42 years in the future. ‘Nuff said. Time complex again and to be honest not especially interesting since we’ve seen this shit like ten times before. The Last Flight would perhaps be The Last Episode of the Twilight Zone if you weren’t as forgiving as I am.

Holy shit that’s and incredibly ancient airplane. (That little sucker. The big one is only really freakin’ old).

The Fever refers to the gamling fever. An old couple goes to Vegas ’cause the lady had won a trip and stay in a hotel/casino in some kind of contest. The man hates gambling (like all old farts do since they consider it a sin. How the hell did ‘gambling’ ever make it to the list of sins? That’s fucking retarded! Anybody giving me a reasonable argument why gambling is morally bad and I’ll be more than happy!)

Anyways. He is convinced to try to gamble a little bit. Then he’s stuck. The machines are calling his name and shit and in the end he dies. So there I spoiled it for you. But it wasn’t especially interesting anyways. See it like this: I saved you 25 minutes of your life you would never get back!

“For christ sake, you annoying, nagging, bitch. Can’t you see I’m playing here and having a roll? GTFO!”

In The Hitch-Hiker, a young woman driving cross country becomes frantic when she keeps passing the same man on the side of the road. No matter how fast she drives the man is always up ahead, hitching her for a ride.

Classic kind of story with a creepy old hitch-hiker and a creepy ending. Creepy endings are good. Creepy hitch-hikers too. Unless they bother me, of course. Then I’d hit them in their faces. Both of them.

For once though I must say that the leading female character is kind of good-looking. You don’t see that too often in these shit-old movies or TV-series.

“I’d like to sleep with you. Would you like to sleep with me? Yes you do.”

This episode leaves me with a quite important question: How stupid are the American astronauts, really? (you know what I mean when you see the ending…).

The ‘arrow’ in this case is a rocket. Astronauts fly into space but shit hits the fan and they crash in a desert area. Where they have crashed? Nobody knows. Stupid but in some way intruiging ending, making you think what kind of retards NASA sent out into space in the 60’s should this be real. But it isn’t. Thank God for that.

Now, you see here Billy; Either you can get the fuck out of my sight, or you can let big Papa Joe here beat the shit out of you. Your choice.

This episode has some fucking awesome storytelling. Circles around two families who know there will be an outbreak of nuclear warfare, fearing the end of the planet. So they try to flee into space. I’ll say no more, but this may be the best episode ever considering the way the story is told.

The Four Of Us Are Dying. About a dude who can change his face to anything he like. Too bad he is too greedy and a dumbfuck. Greedy dumbfucks always loose in the end, they always get into trouble getting them killed.

Not one of the better episodes I must say.

In What You Need there’s this old man who can foresee people’s future. So he walks around with this kind of case where he holds a lot of random junk. Then he gives away the stuff that people need. Of course there’s this evil dude who tries to take advantage of him. But as usual, it will probably just backfire and shit will hit the fan.

Decent episode with a happy ending in a kind of bizarre way. I like bizarre ways.

He got a pair of shoes and still he’s ungrateful. What a dipshit.

Three U.S. astronauts blast off from Earth on an initial test flight in an experimental rocket-ship, but during the flight into space the ship disappears from radar, then reappears. On return, the rocket-ship is hangared and put under a tarp, pending an investigation. One crewman (Jim Hutton) is hospitalized for a leg broken on landing, and is visited by the other two. Next the pair go for a drink, and then one crewman (Charles Aidman) phones his parents from a bar phone-booth – but they say they have no son! The astronaut immediately disappears, and no one in the bar remembers him, except the other astronaut in the bar, the Captain (Rod Taylor).

Great episode. My thumbs up!

Military dude to bitch: “Shut up. Buy me a drink and then let me sleep with you.”

Other dude: “OMGZZZZZ NO DON’T DO IT!!!11!!1 WAAAAAHHHH!”

Mediocre drama/comedy starring Michael Douglas as a dad (Charlie)  with some loose screws. He is discharged from a mental hospital, and from there on a hunt for some (imaginary?) old spanish gold in California is initiated. At first the daughter tries to stop him, convincing him that he just has a fucked up brain and imagining things. But as Charlie continues the treasure hunt she gets more and more involved.

I guess it is an okay movie if you like that kind of shit. Don’t expect to laugh your ass off; it is not that funny. You may smile, but not laugh. It works alright for a movie to watch with your girlfriend or something.

I miss my zombies, my blood & gore, my wild car chases or aliens destroying planet earth. I miss my naked sexy ladies and shooting action.

But if you’re content with watching a lunatic hunt for gold, then King of California is for you.