studiotriggerfan397

Latest Posts by studiotriggerfan397

Fun Fact:

In Disney's Hercules, we see Zeus get immobilized by the Titans attacking Olympus. But did you know that actually happened in ancient Greek myth? Only instead of being entombed in fire and ice like the movie shows, he endures something MUCH more painful.

When the Earth goddess Gaia sent her youngest and most monstrous son Typhon to slaughter the Olympians as punishment for their treatment of the Titans, literally all of the gods fled to Egypt in fear besides Zeus (and sometimes Athena). Left to defend his kingdom alone, Zeus fought as hard as he could against the brobdingnagian beast. But Typhon overpowered the king of Olympus and tore out his sinews, leaving him limp and nearly lifeless on the ground. It wasn't until the god Pan stole back Zeus's strength that he could fight again and ultimately defeat Typhon. After which, he chained the monster underneath Mount Etna where he was never heard from again.

...Although he was known to cause the occasional disturbance.

Did you know that in Southeast Asian folklore there's a flying bat monkey hybrid that abducts children?

It's called the "Orang Bati" and it's described as being four to five feet tall with reddish skin, large black leathery wings and a long leathery tail. Said to inhabit the island of Seram in Indonesia, the Orang Bati is a nocturnal creature with a diet that mostly consists of small, adorable children who are easy to pick up and fly away with. It's raids take place in the darkness of night and before descending into the villages and cities that border it's territory, the airborne attacker will emit a shrill wail that warns any child who hears it that it's already too late to escape. The residents of Seram insist that the creature is a flying monkey, while outsiders have suggested it's more than likely a giant bat. However, some researchers have stated that physical descriptions (including the shrill wail it lets out before a hunt) match pterosaur physiology.

Fun Fact:

Archaeologists have found some of the oldest artistic depictions of domesticated dogs.

In recent years, archaeologists have uncovered more than 1400 rock carving panels in Northwestern Saudi Arabia depicting ancient hunting dogs. All of the dogs depicted are medium in size with upright ears, short snouts and curled tails. They look a lot like the modern Canaan breed, a largely feral breed that roamed the deserts, indicating these dogs were chosen based on their natural ability to navigate the surrounding terrain.

The carving showed dogs taking down animals like wild donkeys, ibexes and gazelles, and a few even depict them leashed to the humans they're hunting for. These carvings are an estimated eight thousand to nine thousand years old and may even be older than the Iranian pottery that was previously labeled as the oldest art of domesticated dogs. As the carvings are studied more, we should have a more concrete idea of the culture that left them behind.

Fun Fact:

Humans have been astral planing a LOT longer than we thought.

Researchers analyzed hair strands from a burial site in Menorca and detected scopolamine, ephedrine and atropine. Atropine and scopolamine are naturally occurring substances in the nightshade plant family that cause hallucinations and altered sensory perception, while ephedrine is a stimulant taken from certain shrubs and pines that boosts excitement and physical activity. Before this discovery, we'd only found indirect evidence of psychedelic use in ancient cultures. The cave that the analyzed hair strands were taken from was first occupied around 1600 BCE and featured a chamber that was used as a funeral space until around 800 BCE. It's estimated that 210 individuals were laid to rest here, but only certain people had their hair dyed red, placed in containers and sealed in a chamber further back in the cave. We don't know what made these individuals so special that their hair had to be preserved but we are certain that a major psychedelic discovery was just made in Spain.

Fun Fact:

If you thought Maui was a jerk for throwing Moana in the ocean, then I wouldn't dig deeper into the mythology. Because Maui kills Moana in the original myth.

Well, that's not totally true. Moana from the movie is a completely original character. However, she does share a name with a Polynesian water goddess called Moana-Nui-Ka-Lehua, who could take the form of a fish or mermaid.

The legend goes that one day Maui was fishing in Moana's domain which she didn't appreciate and because she's a troublemaker like him, she tries to pull a prank on him by taking his magical fish hook and sticking it into a submerged rock. Well, after Maui realized what happened, he was furious and not one to be out pranked, he pursued Moana in revenge. After catching up to the goddess, he grabbed her by her tail and pulled her onto the shore where she slowly but surely suffocated and died.

Fun Fact:

Medusa the Gorgon had babies. Yep… 2 of ‘em.

Mere moments after Perseus cut her big ugly head off, her two children by Poseidon exploded out of her neck stump. One of them was Chrysaor, who went on to father the three-headed giant Geryon whom Heracles killed while completing his 10th labor. The other was the famous winged horse Pegasus. In myth, he assisted the hero Bellerophon in slaying the Chimera, a fire-breathing lion/goat/snake hybrid. By flying just out of range of the Chimera's attacks, Bellerophon was able to weaken it with his bow and arrows before brutally killing it with a spear down the throat. It was an epic battle and finding that his pride had grown 10 times the size, Bellerophon decided to ride Pegasus directly to Mount Olympus, an arrogant move that Zeus punished him for by sending a gadfly to bite Pegasus. This caused the horse to buck Bellerophon off, sending him crash landing into the Earth's surface, dead. Meanwhile, Pegasus was warmly welcomed into Zeus's home and given a constellation to honor him.

What a good boy.

Some of you have probably wondered "Where did the Easter Bunny come from and why does a rabbit give out eggs?"

The exact origins of the Easter Bunny are unclear, but it's believed to have originated in Germany during the Middle Ages. The tradition probably stems from the pagan festival of "Ēostre", which honored the goddess of the same name and was celebrated during the spring equinox in the form of feasting and fertility rituals. Ēostre was eventually co-opted by Christians and it was rebranded as a celebration of Jesus's rebirth.

Following this theme of new life, rabbits and hares (which have long been seen as symbols of fertility and new life, as they often give birth to large litters in the spring) became the holiday mascot. And as early as 1682, it became a tradition for the "Easter Hare" to make the rounds and judge whether children were good or bad, similar to Kris Kindle. If they were good, they'd be given gifts like toys and colored eggs, eggs being another symbol of new life. German immigrants brought the tradition to the United States in the 18th century, where it became popularized and eventually spread to other parts of the world.

True scary story:

In 1800s London, a surgeon named Robert Liston became somewhat of a local celebrity through his use of brute force and speed when performing operations, skills that were vital to the survival of a patient before anesthesia was discovered. Liston could remove your leg in less than 30 seconds and to keep both his hands free, he would hold the bloody knife between his teeth while working (tasty).

But just because Liston was good didn't mean he was perfect. One time, he accidentally sliced off his patient's bollock along with the leg he was amputating. Legends say his biggest mess up though happened when he worked so quickly, he cut off three of his assistant's fingers and while switching blades sliced through a spectator's coat. Both the assistant and the patient later died of gangrene and the unfortunate bystander died on the spot from fright. If the stories are true, that would mean this is the only surgery in history with reported 300% fatality rate.

So yeah, this surgeon killed three people in one operation.

Fun Fact:

As much as I admire the legends of merfolk and swan maidens, we ought to give some spotlight to the selkies.

Selkie folk, also known as "seal folk", come from Norse and Celtic folklore. They're what's known as "therianthropes", meaning they can transform from human to animal at will. In the case of the selkie, this is done by shedding their seal skin. When in their human form, selkies are super attractive. Both males and females have humans chasing after them, if they're lucky enough to see them naked on the beach.

The stories about male selkies are pretty hilarious and usually entail them being the object of desire for bored housewives (they were essentially medieval pool boys), but the female selkies always had it rougher. Men would steal their seal skin so they couldn't change back to their natural form, then coerce them into marriage. And what's really tragic is that even if the selkie does marry the thief, falls in love with him and has his children, the moment that she rediscovers her hidden selkie skin, she abandons her family and makes her escape back to the ocean, because that is where she's truly meant to be.

Werewolf traditions from cultures around the world...

1) In Argentina, a family's seventh born child would sometimes be killed out of fear that it would be a werewolf, especially if they were male and their father was also a seventh child.

2) In French Canadian folklore, not confessing your sins on Easter was a surefire way of being cursed to transform into a werewolf.

3) In Norse mythology, there's a myth about a father and son who discover magical wolf pelts and after putting them on are forced to live as wolves for 10 days before they can turn human again.

4) In Greek mythology, the first ever man wolf hybrid was King Lycaon who was cursed for trying to trick Zeus into eating human meat.

5) In 1500s France, a man named Peter Stumpp was found guilty of killing and eating a dozen people while in werewolf form, including two pregnant women and his own son.

Fun Fact:

Did you know that if you grew up in Ireland, you were at risk of being kidnapped by faeries?

In Irish legend, a parent's greatest fear was that their child would get abducted and replaced with a look-alike called a "changeling" (also known as an "auf", "oaf" or "swapling") and there were a few ways for them to tell when this happened. Because in the beginning, the changeling looked very similar to their child, but over time, they would develop undeniable physical differences. Sometimes that meant looking sickly and not growing to a normal size, their teeth could turn long and pointy, and occasionally they'd grow a beard at a remarkably young age. According to folklorists, oftentimes when a parent realized their child had been swapped, they would kill the imposter, leading to awkward conversations with significant others on the occasions that they suspected wrong.

But what happened to the kids who were spirited away? It depends on the legend, but sometimes they were delivered to the devil himself, forced to become servants to the faeries, they could be eaten by faeries or even lovingly raised by them.

Keep an eye on your baby...if that really is your baby...

Fun Fact:

One of the scariest creatures in Celtic folklore has gotta be the Caorthannach. Also known as the "Celtic fire-spitter" and believed by some to be the mother of Lucifer himself, Caorthannach was the name of an old witch that was part human, part serpent. Whenever she would emerge from her watery abode, she would wreak havoc, murdering travelers, burning down homes with families trapped inside and the rare few who evaded her initial torment would still be caught and devoured later.

The Caorthannach's reign of terror ended thanks to Celtic hero Finn McCool. He and his band of warriors lit her up with arrows and she died right on the spot. Except, a year later, a little turd named Conan broke her thigh bone, allowing a worm to crawl out and escape into a lake. That worm was Caorthannach and when she emerged out of the same lake fully grown and ready to terrorize a nearby town, Conan let her swallow him whole. Then he cut her open from the inside, beheaded her and threw her head into the lake. Her blood then permanently turned the lake red, and it was called "Loch Derg" or the "Red Lake" from then on.

Well she sounds... lovely, doesn't she?

"This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel." - Horace Walpole, The Letters of Horace Walpole

"A movie that happens everywhere matters nowhere." - Alfred Hitchcock ("Blackmail" (1929); "Murder!" (1930))

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein

Parasite (Korean: 기생충) by Bong Joon-ho.

I have loved and respected Bong Joon-ho and his body of work since "Okja" and "Snowpiercer" and he never fails to surprise, delight, and move me every time. So it means a lot to me to be able to say this is his best film. It is.

A movie full of sadness, wit, and depth. Irreverent but benevolent. Amazing.

Fun Fact:

This scene from the 1992 film, Bram Stoker's Dracula adapts a real legend regarding the first wife of Vlad Ţepeş, the Wallachian Voivode also called "Dracula".

According to this legend, while Vlad was away from his fortress (Poenari Castle), an arrow message was shot into the chamber of the princess with news of the Ottoman army's attack on the castle the following morning. Rather than risking capture, the princess jumped from the castle tower into the river below. In the film however, she jumps after hearing false news of Dracula's death.

The river in this legend was later named "Râul Doamnei", meaning "The Lady's River". In a later scene in the film, Dracula names the river "Argeș, River Princess". But Argeș is actually the larger river that Râul Doamnei connects to.

Fun Fact:

Appearances can be deceiving. So whatever you do, do NOT mess with a kelpie. You're not gonna want to pay the price to escape.

A long time ago in Scotland, there was a string of disappearances. Nine children went missing, and no one knew who to blame. One day, a little boy was playing by the water where the children were said to have vanished when he saw a black horse emerge from the water dripping with every step it took towards him and sporting a mane made of kelp. The boy was fascinated and wanted to take the horse out for a ride, but when he stroked its nose, he realized his mistake. His finger was stuck to the beast, meaning this horse was actually a kelpie, a creature known for drowning and devouring anyone who dares to ride it. The kelpie started to pull the boy back towards the lake, but he refused to become its snack. Left with no other choice, he took out his pocketknife and chopped off his finger, allowing him to escape a watery grave.

Fun Fact:

Bad news everyone. If you've seen a ghost recently, then there's a chance you have black mold poisoning. At least that's the theory that scientists at Clarkson University started studying in 2015.

Their hypothesis was that experiencing paranormal phenomenon at older homes could actually result from the presence of black mold, which is known to cause hallucinations, delusions, anxiety, depression and the feeling of impending doom. Rye ergot fungus is one culprit they're paying special attention to, because it can have a psychedelic effect when ingested and some even think that ergot growing on crops may have been what created the delusions and mass hysteria during the Salem Witch Trials.

Is black mold poisoning better or worse than being haunted?

Fun Fact:

God of War's Grýla was based on a real giantess from Norse mythology.

In myth, she's not actually related to Angerboda at all, but the game got a lot of other things right. Like how she's enormous, absolutely disgusting and she did still have a cauldron you didn't want to end up in. Sagas from 13th century Iceland describe Grýla as a parasitic beggar woman who wanders around town, asking peasant farmers to give her their disobedient children. The parents could easily turn her away, but if their kid had been a real tachrán lately, they might just give him/her up. When Grýla was given a child, she'd throw them in a sack attached to one of her 15 tails, then take them home, toss them in the cauldron and get a stew going. Legend says that the naughtier the kid, the better the stew tasted and that she never ever had a shortage of food.

In God of War, she's not exactly nice to Angerboda, but she's never so horrible as to try and eat her. Instead, she uses her cauldron to harvest the souls of animals she traps around Jotunheim.

Compared to her mythology, her God of War counterpart is actually kind of nice...

Fun Fact:

Before Victor Frankenstein created his infamous monster and sparked the debate over man's right to create artificial life, a 16th century Jewish mystic called the Maharal invoked the names of God to give life to clay. This created a golem with superhuman strength and loyalty that guarded the mystic's community from persecution in medieval Prague. The golem also wore an amulet that gave it the power to turn invisible and summon dead witnesses whose testimonies were considered totally valid in Prague's court and used to prove the innocence of people who judges were biased against. The problem with the golem is that although it was animated, it couldn't speak, had no free will and took instructions way too literally, causing it to do things like chop down entire forests when asked to get firewood. And one night, the golem was feeling lonely and neglected, so it rampaged through town, attacking the innocent people it was supposed to protect. This forced the mystic to remove one letter from the Hebrew inscription of "emét", changing the meaning from "truth" to "death" and rendering his creation lifeless.

The story started so positive too...

Fun Fact:

History's greatest hero deserved better...

The ending to Hercules' story is quite a downer. When Hercules was traveling with his new bride Deianeira, they came across a flooded river and the centaur Nessus offered to carry Deianeira across while Hercules swam in front of them. Only when Hercules got to the shore, he saw that Nessus had turned around and tried running off with his wife. So the hero took out one of his poisoned arrows and sent it ripping through Nessus' chest. Refusing to die unavenged, Nessus told Deianeira that she could use his bloody shirt to cast a love spell on Hercules if he ever got bored with her. And years later, she gave it a try, without realizing the shirt had also absorbed the poison from her husband's arrows and so the moment Hercules was tricked into putting the shirt on, his body cried out in pain. The poison entered his bloodstream, causing it to boil and hiss and the tunic grafted itself to his skin. So the only way to get it off was by ripping off his own flesh. Left with no other option, the immortal Heracles made a funeral pyre to burn away his physical form and soon after, his spirit was welcomed to Mt. Olympus.

Merry Little Batman by Mike Roth.

Saw it and loved it!

The Ronald Searle-esque art style is amazing!!

An animated superhero film full of personality and genuine invention!!

Favorite Tim Burton movies:

Batman (1989)

Beetlejuice

Edward Scissorhands

Ed Wood

Mars Attacks

Batman Returns

(Contrary to popular opinion) Alice in Wonderland

Tokyo Godfathers (東京ゴッドファーザーズ) by Satoshi Kon.

A masterwork by the late storytelling master, Satoshi Kon.

For those who don't know, Satoshi Kon is the same director who worked on films like Paprika, Perfect Blue, and the mystery/psychological thriller/supernatural anime masterpiece Paranoia Agent. Unfortunately, on August 24, 2010, we lost this creative mind to terminal pancreatic cancer. If you ask me, we're probably never gonna get anything close to the creepy works this guy managed to craft ever again.

Tokyo Godfathers is a really good example of a tragicomedy, and it is one of the most disturbing Christmas films you'll ever encounter (without relying on pure shock value) solely because of the subject matter. While animated, it really focuses on making the setting as realistic and as gritty as a wacky story like this can be, leading to this unsettling, off tone in a familiar, yet urban setting that really made me feel uncomfortable. What makes this movie disturbing is how realistically the developed characters and setting are. These are just average, everyday people - the kind you may have encountered or known in real life - dealing with a stressful/unfortunate situation, while also dealing with the preconceived notions about who they are from the people around them and each other. There are fantastical elements to this movie, to be sure. But I'd say that the grounded nature and focus on mental health and identity are just downright heartbreaking and genuinely hard for me to watch.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what background you come from, what horrible thing has happened in the past or what society says about who you are. The things that make us truly human is the empathy we can have for one another. This isn't your traditional Christmas film, but it's most certainly one of the best I've ever seen. It's not only disturbing, heartwarming and more than earned the right to be labelled as a modern classic, I think it's one of Satoshi Kon's greatest projects that he's ever worked on. To me, this film exemplifies his filmography the best and shows how an artist really can create something that is stunning, beautiful and eerie all at the same time. He has a perfect filmography. Let us never forget.

The biggest mistake is that anime, in general, is often misunderstood. It has created timeless adult masterpieces.

"Unable to discern the form of You,

I see Your presence all around.

Filling my eyes with the love of You,

my heart is humbled,

for You are everywhere."

- Sana'i Ghaznavi, The Book of Everything: Journey of the Heart’s Desire: Hakim Sanai’s Walled Garden of the Truth

Ed Wood by Tim Burton.

One of my favorite Tim Burton movies. A film about a man whose name is synonymous with bad filmmaking.

If you want to talk about the father and pioneer of bad cinema, Ed Wood is your guy. He directed such "classic" films like "Plan 9 From Outer Space", "Glen or Glenda", and "Bride of the Monster".

His films were notoriously known for their poor and sloppy direction, their terrible and cheap production value and (even worse) acting, even when compared to the films of his time.

But ironically enough, this man and his poor films are more celebrated and liked today than they were when they originally came out. Not because everyone was blind to the fact that these were great films. No, no, they're liked in the more ironic way of being so bad that they're hilariously good. If I wanted to have a good laugh at a creatively bad film, "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is one of the films I would watch.

In my opinion, this is not only one of Burton's best films and a long-lasting meditation on art and commitment, but a great piece of cinema writing. Johnny Depp and Martin Landau are utterly perfect, as is Rick Baker's make up effects.

Little known fact: Johnny Depp's delivery of Ed Wood's enthusiastic speech pattern was partially based on Casey Kasem.

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing." - Oscar Wilde

"All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril." - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray