Running the Asylum: The Land That Time Forgot

While I have a special place in my heart for the 1975 Doug McClure romp co-penned by Michael Moorcock, it wasn't as close to the novel as I was hoping. As with a certain other adaptation of great pulp source material, however, it seems the earlier iteration will still be the most faithful in comparison to their modern counterparts.



Caspak 90210. How utterly depressing. Any dinosaur worth their salt would've chomped those idiots within the first minute of their landing.

It Is The End Of All Hope

When Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer were announced as scriptwriters, I tried to be positive: perhaps they just didn't have their break yet. When Kickinger was rumoured, I was optimistic: it was just a rumour. When Nispel was attached, I looked on the bright side: Pathfinder was fairly nice visually, perhaps a good script and supporting crew will balance it out.

I mean, with Nispel directing, Donnelheimer writing and the insistence on an origin story, there was no chance it would be a good Robert E. Howard movie. It probably wouldn't even be a good Conan movie. I had no hopes for the film to be anything like the film REH and his fans deserved. Still, I was interested in seeing how it turned out.

No more. The movie holds no further interest to me, save to criticize and decry.

Triangulation: "And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by..."

Following on Karl Edward Wagner day, the Cimmerian has led the charge in a celebration of 25th October, a day of blood and thunder if ever there was on.

I extol the Thin Red Line, Deuce commemorates Agincourt, and Barbara imparts a magnificent three-part odyssey on the famous Charge of the Light Brigade.

October has one last day of fame and infamy: Samhain itself, 31st October. One wonders what horrors and wonders will come that day...

Triangulation: The Terror of the Absurd: Karl Edward Wagner's "Sticks"

On this day fifteen years ago, Karl Edward Wagner passed away. Deuce shares his reflections, while I contribute with a look at my favourite of his stories.

Karl Edward Wagner is one of those authors I'm eating my heart out to read more of. To date, I've only read precious little of his work: "Sticks," "Beyond Any Measure," "The River of Night's Dreaming" and a few others. I hope to rectify that.

Triangulation: Things are Looking Up

My first triangulation post with The Cimmerian discusses Pixar's Up.

While I adored the film, that's not to say it was perfect. Spoilers ahead!

Van Helsing 2 1/2

I've been following a very talented film editor's work: Dan Oles, going by the handle "bloodrunsclear" on youtube. He's made some very impressive "fake" trailers for films that will never come out, but you wish would: a more faithful Neverending Story, a brilliant conception of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and a truly extraordinary teaser for Fallout that I can see as a genuine article. He also made a nice trailer for a computer animated Conan, using footage from various game cutscenes.

Then he made this.



This doesn't exactly help with the Solomon Kane/Van Helsing comparisons, but it's scary how easily the two films bind together. It's slick and professionally done, but it kind of makes my skin crawl at the same time.

Barack the Barbarian

Oh Yes.



"Know, O Prince, that between the years when economics drowned the Soviets and, and the years of the rise of the Sons of the Fallout, there was an age Undreamed Of, when shining cities lay spread across the world like scattered diamonds beneath the stars. Germany, France, Great Britain, The Russian Federation, Brazil with its dark-haired women and towers of industry, India that bordered on the mountainous land of Pakistan, Japan with its shadow-guarded tomes, China with its accountants of steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was America, reigning supreme in the Dreaming West. Hither came Barack, the barbarian, black-skinned, solemn-eyed, axe in hand: an attorney, a senator, a slayer, with gigantic economic trials and gigantic promises of reforms, to tread the old ways of the US under his shined size-11 shoes..."

Taranaich's Top Ten Dinosaurs

Why? Why not? I like dinosaurs.

Fantastic Beards

What is it with fantasy authors and beards?

Van Helsing 2

The film Van Helsing was released in May of 2004. The hero, Gabriel Van Helsing, is not the same character as Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula character Abraham Van Helsing, the character whose name and role as Dracula's foe - and nothing else - inspired the former.

Kyūketsuki Hantā Dī, or Vampire Hunter D, was first published in 1983, predating Van Helsing by twenty-one years.

Solomon Kane first appeared in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales, in the story "Red Shadows," one of the first Sword-and-Sorcery tales. It predates Vampire Hunter D by fifty-five years, and Van Helsing by seventy-six years.

The next person who says Solomon Kane is a Vampire Hunter D ripoff or unofficial sequel to Van Helsing, is going to get shot by a cannon.