I saw The Thing when it first came out in the theater back in 1982. After all this time, it’s still one of my favorite alien movies. The Antarctic background was the perfect setting for this movie because of the isolation factor.

In the very beginning, you see an alien space craft hurtling toward Earth. Millions of years later, it is discovered by a Norwegian science team, who dig up the remains and bring it back to their station. We don’t know what happened to them until after the survivors are shot down by American scientists, who think they have gone mad.

The American team thinks that they have saved a dog from an untimely death. What they couldn’t know is the terror that had seeded itself inside the dog. Mac (the head honcho of the team) and Cooper (the doctor) fly to the Norwegian station and discover an atrocity that they can’t fathom. What’s more, they find a journal that chronicles the discovery of an alien spacecraft with an occupant that is still alive. The doctor brings a piece of the carnage, a corpse with two heads, back to their station for an autopsy.

That night, the dog is put into the kennel with the other dogs. The scientists, who resemble and act more like truck drivers, resume their dull routine until the alien decides to mutate inside the dog. From this point on, the men fight for survival against each other as well as the alien.

This movie was one of the best of its era. Had it been made today, I think there would be a lot less gore and more focus on the psychological terror.

Father Lankester Merrin thinks that he has glimpsed the face of Evil. In the years following World War II, Merrin is relentlessly haunted by memories of the unspeakable brutality perpetrated against the innocent people of his parish during the War. In the wake of all the horror he has seen, both his faith in his fellow man and his faith in the Almighty have deserted him, and he can no longer honestly call himself a man of God. Merrin has traveled far from his native Holland in a desperate attempt to try to forget and escape all the evil that he had witnessed there. While currently in Cairo, Egypt, he is approached by a collector of rare antiquities and asked to participate in a British archeological excavation in the remote Turkana region of Kenya. They have unearthed something extraordinary and unusual…a Christian Byzantine church dating from the 5th century, long before Christianity arrived in East Africa, and in inexplicably perfect condition–like it had been buried immediately after it was completed. The collector wants Merrin, an Oxford-educated archeologist, to find an ancient relic hidden within the church before the British do. Interested, Merrin agrees to take the job. But beneath the church, something much older and malevolent sleeps, waiting to be awoken. When the archeologists start excavating, strange things begin occuring, and the local Turkana tribesmen who were hired to work refuse to enter the site. Things only get worse and worse, ultimately resulting in madness and death. Merrin watches helplessly as the atrocities of war are repeated against another innocent village–atrocities he had hoped and prayed never to see again. The blood of innocents flows freely on the East African plain, but the horror has only just begun. In the place where Evil was born, Merrin will finally see its true face.

Exorcist, The Beginning is an exceptional movie. It begins with a powerful scene of a battered 4th century priest walking through, and then finally viewing the massacre of a Christian army. Jump forward to 1949, the plot slows down for Merrin’s backstory and Sarah’s frustration with treating the mysterious illnesses that plague the village. These elements wove themselves into a great plot as history repeated itself in a gory and brutal fashion.

As the battle between the tribesmen and the British began, the ultimate battle between good and evil began in the bowels of the old church. While Sarah’s head didn’t spin around, her demon counterpart was just as terrifying and obscene as the 1973 classic. The cinematography was very good, as was the acting. Highly recommended.

This picture strikes me as something I would read about in a Stephen King novel. An eleven year-old boy shoots and kills a monster pig with a .50 caliber pistol, after a three hour chase which ended in a point-blank shot. If I didn’t see the picture, I wouldn’t have believed it. Visit monsterpig.com for more pics and details, including Jamison’s first movie part in the upcoming Legend of Hogzilla.

Stephen King drew from his classic stories to make this made-for-TV film. It begins with parapsychology teacher, Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis), giving a lecture to her students about Rose Red, a reputedly haunted mansion in Seattle. Just as she concludes this lecture, a student reporter challenges her about using university funds and equipment for her upcoming excursion, while her boss and arch nemesis, Professor Miller, watches from a room above the lecture hall.

The two professors get into a heated exchange before Steven Rimbauer, the last heir to the Rimbauer estate (Rose Red) and her lover, arrives. Knowing that Professor Miller is about to destroy her career, Reardon takes a gamble and continues with her project because she wants to prove to the faculty that the paranormal does exist. From the very beginning it is quite clear that she is obsessed with Rose Red, which she believes is the mother lode of haunted houses.

She hires six psychics to accompany her to this place to revive it from its “dead cell” state. One of them is autistic 15 year-old Annie Wheaton (Kimberly Brown), who is a powerhouse of telekinetic ability. Joyce is just as obsessed with the girl as she is with the house because she feels that Annie is the key to unlocking her proof and catapulting her into stardom. The professor is so blinded by her ambitions that she doesn’t see the danger until it is too late. What was supposed to be a weekend of catching spirits and voices on tape, turns out to be a fight for survival.

Rose Red is a very good movie on several levels, although it starts out slow. We’re forced to sit there and wait for Joyce Reardon to finish her lectures about the house and its owners. While interesting, it bordered on too much. I’d say that almost half of the first DVD was taken up by this.

Once the movie got going, I found myself riveted. The characters had a variety of psychic powers and quirks, plus their own motivations for embarking on this mission. It was their quirks that determined how they dealt with the environment they found themselves trapped in and if they survived.

The other qualm was the quality of the special effects, especially where the ghosts were concerned. In all my research about ghosts, I’ve never heard of an account where they appear as corpses. Solid or translucent versions of their former selves, yes, but not walking corpses. Because this was a made-for-TV movie, there isn’t a lot of gore, which is good because the movie had plenty of creepy elements, such as the way the house continued to change its geography.

While Rose Red is not all that original, it is definitely worth watching.