Undead But Not Forgotten, Bill Hinzman R.I.P.

Over the last few weeks there have been several deaths in the movie industry from directors to producers to actors but this morning I was sad to read of the death of the legendary Bill Hinzman.
Who the hell is that? Your probably asking yourself. And who could blame you, after all throughout his long career he never managed to break free of the B-Movie Horror genre. In fact although his career spanned 5 decades he still only made a relatively small number of films. Back in the 80s he even managed to direct a couple of lame direct to Video horror films, The slasher film 'The Majorettes'and the zombie flick 'Flesheater' It was in this second film that he basically reprised his most famous roll, that of the iconic first Zombie in George A. Romeros classic 1968 'Night Of The Living Dead.'

Along with 'Night,' he also worked with Romero in 'Theres Always Vanilla,' and 'The Crazies,' and over the years he appeared in such legendary box office blockbusters?!?!?! as Santa Claws, The Drunken Dead Guy and It Came From Trafalgar, among others but he never got a roll that would match that of the first Zombie in 'Night Of The Living Dead.'

If you havent seen the movie then go watch it immediately, plus, where have you been for the last few decades hiding under a rock?

Any way, I digress. If you have seen it then I'm sure you remember the first zombie scene with the, oft' quoted line, "Hes coming to get you Babara!" Well Bill Hinzman was that zombie, brobably the most famous zombie to ever grace the screen.

The trailer for this classic can also be found here 'Trailer' (just how many times can they get the title of the film into a trailer. Dont you justy love old trailers?)

So ladies and gentelmen I give you Bill Hinzman, the most famouse flesh eater there ever was.

Bill Hinzman

1936 - 2012

Till next time....

The voice has spoken.

Something I Love

Looking through all the pictures on our Mac I was surprised to find myself drawn to this picture when looking for a picture of something I love. I passed over countless pictures of Kara and loads of pictures of Otilia all of which I love as much as I love them but this one jumped out at me as soon as I saw it. Its a picture of me and my wires family. Her parents - Mircea and Aurelia, her sister - Simina, Otilia and me. Its one of the very few pictures I have of all of us together. It was taken the year before Kara was born so no little Boogie but it shows all my new family whom I love dearly and am proud to be a member of.

So may I present to you The Pasolescu's (and me)

I am sharing this picture of something i love with Love all Blogs and Albelli.

The Watcher In The Woods (pic 5)

This weeks pic was taken once again in Toting Common (truth be told it was taken the other week as this week has been a busy one) Ive tweaked it a little in CS5 from the RAW data. Having been taken on a dull January morning I increased the colour and saturation in order to make it a little more colourful without making it look cartoony and un-natural.

Look closely and you will see there is someone looking back at you. This is the reason I took the picture, I tried a few shots but in this one the little guy is looking directly at me.

Hope you like it.

Till next time.....

The voice has spoken.

Fun In The Sun, A Holiday Memory

As the title says this post is about a memorable holiday in the sun. Unfortunately it was the winter sun and it was freezing outside. I say unfortunately but actually the weather put an edge on it that otherwise wouldn't have been there. So here goes, my memorable holiday in the sun. Cue Sex Pistols song.

Back in 2004 I ventured out down a long and lonely road with only the vaguest idea in which direction I would inevitably end up travelling. After a few memorable months on the roads of Europe I eventually ended up in Romania, where I met my lovely wife Otilia (AKA Romanianmuminlondon). You may have read her blog, if not then do so now.

We met in a club in Bucharest and pretty soon were spending every day together. After celebrating Christmas and New Year in Bucharest the girlfriend of one of my friends said she could get us a house in the mountains of Transylvania for a few days. We immediately jumped at the chance.

And so it was that a week later a group of us set out for the mountains surrounding Brasov.

At the bus station in Bucharest we got the first glimpse of our transport for the next couple of hours, a minibus that didn't look big enough for our small group never mind the cue of passengers that were waiting at the stand. But half an hour later all people were on board and the bus trundled its way down the cold and ice covered streets of Bucharest. It was cramped and it wasn't particularly warm in the bus but at least me and Otilia had managed to get a seat next to each other. For the next couple of hours we wound our way around narrow, pot hole filled country roads. Through small towns and tiny run down villages. All very beautifully covered in thick deep white fluffy snow.

Eventually we made it, shaken but alive, to Brasov. A beautiful place that I highly recommend (along with the rest of Romania) At Brasov we met up with some other people and piled our selves into a couple of cars for the short journey up the mountain to the house. By the time we were dropped off it was dark, even colder and very late. A short walk from the muddy mountain road we found our selves faced with a large white house. As we entered, the true nature of our accommodation became apparent. Minimal lighting, no water (not even in the toilets), constant power cuts and just wood in the cellar to heat the house with. Did this dampen our spirits, hell no, it just made us try even harder to have fun.

Each room had in it a masonry heater. You place wood in the bottom, let it burn and it heats up the bricks creating a large heater. We quickly got these heating the rooms, something my wife is very adept at, and then got on with the business of having fun.

With the dawn of the next day the true beauty of the surrounding area could be seen. The trees were bare of leaves, the ground white with thick snow and the lake just a little down from the house was completely frozen over. Otilia and I headed out for an early morning walk to blast the cobwebs from our heads, needed after the drinks of the previous night. From the other side of the lake the cold and dominant house looked like something you would see in a horror movie. Think Evil Dead by a frozen lake.

After our walk we got back to the house and began chopping more wood for the heaters and the barbecue, after all people have to eat. As I mentioned at the start this house had no water what so ever (thank god for beer) so the toilet was, well, where ever you wanted it to be. You get the idea. After all we were in a secluded house in the mountains. After another walk in the woods we stayed in the house listening to music until the sun went down. Or should I say dropped as it seemed to disappear very fast and needless to say the real mountain coldness came back with a vengeance. Once the sun fell we collected wood from the cellar, piled it on the barbecue and lit a fire to be proud off. Cooked Romanian sausages were eaten, songs were sung and beer was drunk. The evening was tremendous. The woods looked fantastic in the moonlight and the soft glow of the fire and the sky was a brilliant mass of shining stars.

The following day was much the same as the one before, after all were in Evil Dead Vampire country. What else are you gonna do?? The evening was once again filled with great food, a hot fire, singing and drinking.

The next day, we packed our things and headed back on the road to Bucharest, stopping briefly to see the church that one of the girls was re-painting the murals in. Stunning work.

The journey back was much the same as the journey there and after a couple of days in the mountains Bucharest just didn't seem that cold any more.

Was this the best holiday I have ever had? No. Was this the best memory from my year bumming it around the bars of Europe? No. So why have I chosen to write about this particular memory? Simple really, it was the first time I holidayed with my wife. And lets face it, no water, power cuts, wood heaters, food and beer.
What better way to spend a few days with friends.

I would have provided a few pictures but unfortunately they are all on a CD in a pile of CD's and it would take me a week to find them. Maybe next time.



The voice has spoken.

This was our entry to the Tots100/ Al Fresco Holidays competition. Their sites look amazing and we would totally love to visit one someday, for now it’s a muddy camp site in Norfolk for us! There’s still time to enter the competition – take a look here.

A Skeleton From The Closet

Ive found myself thinking of friends recently, I don't know why but its been on my mind for a few weeks now. I thought it was time I shared a ghost from my past with you. Bared my soul so to speak, share the burden of secrecy, tragedy, betrayal and sadness that has been lurking in the darker corners of my mind for a few years now. Let the darkness unfold......

How many friends do you have? Before you answer that let me just clarify what I mean by friend. Forget the fake, pretend, un-real friends that many people gather on face book, twitter and the like. I'm not talking about some person you happen to chat to every now and then on the Internet but have never actually met. Not even the people you work with whom you may refer to as friends but if you quit work wouldn't miss at all. When I say friends I mean friends, true friends. People you would do anything for, people who you don't even have to see or speak to for months and yet if you suddenly needed them or they you, you would travel any distance to be with. People you would trust no matter what. That is what I mean by friend.

I am lucky enough to have a few of these friends, not too many (I don't believe any one has) but a hand full. That's all a person needs really, not too many but we all need one or two.The last time I added to this my list was 7 years ago when I was lucky enough to be able to add 2 people to my true friend list. Little did I know that only a few months after adding these 2 I would be scratching 1 from the list forever.

How well do you truly know a person?

I will ask this question again at the end, please don't take it to heart. I still trust impeccably those that remain on my list, but how well do any of us know any one else?

Some of you will know, some of you won't, but Ive been married before. I don't usually mention this but its relevance here is important so there you have it. At my wedding I chose one of my friends, as we all do, to be my best man. That is the true measure of friendship, to ask this of a person you must have a place in your heart for them. this man accepted of course. I had been the best man at his wedding a year earlier so it was no surprise really. This is usually a bond that cements a friendship forever. Usually!

We had been friends since we met when I was 16 and by the time I got married at 28 our friendship had grown very close. When he met his wife we (my wife included) went on holiday together, we drank together, we laughed together, we bared our wounds and healed together. Within a few years I had separated from my wife and moved to London. I still called in from time to time to see my friend and his family. They had 2 children, from a previous relationship of hers, that he had taken on and treated as his own. A young boy and his older sister.

After been in London for a few years with nothing happening in my life I left the country and bummed around Europe for a year. It was on this trip that I met Yiu Chi and Stef, 2 people that to this day I consider family. It was while in Turkey, camping on the southern coast of Turkey (Datca) that I received a call from my brother.

My friend had been arrested.

He stood accused of molesting his stepdaughter.

I was shocked, I couldn't believe it. It couldn't be true. But it was.

When I returned to England I visited the old factory I used to work at, the place where I first met my friend. After speaking with my old mates the full extent of what had been happening became known.

The following is what I have been told by those who knew him at the time. I have seen no official report on the matter but have no reason to doubt any of it.
His wife become pregnant. They were both overjoyed as you would expect. Shortly after announcing it to the kids the daughter asked my friend in private what he was hoping for. He answered that he would like a girl......... as he had finished with her!!! The following day at school she broke down in class and it all came flooding out. The following few days the true depth of his crimes became known. When the police arrested him they searched his car and found, hidden in the boot, child pornography. They searched his computer and found the same, there were even movies that he had filmed of his daughter by using cameras hidden in her bedroom and bathroom.

He was sentenced to 5 years (only!!!) due to a glowing character reference by his mother. Well she's not going to give him a bad one is she. 5 years for destroying an innocents life.

To say I was shocked is an understatement. This was a man whom I loved like a brother, he was kin, I trusted him implicitly. I felt unclean because I had cared so much for him, I felt betrayed because I had trusted him. I even felt a touch of guilt for not knowing what he was capable of. It made me think of an event that happened years earlier. I don't know for how many years he had been doing what he was doing but around 6 years earlier he and his wife were at my house and we were just making small talk as friends do. When they told me a story. At the time it seemed humorous, an innocent statement that could easily have been taken the wrong way.

One evening he had gone into the girls bedroom to kiss her goodnight. He thought she was asleep and she never made it known to him that she wasn't. The following day she came down and told her mother that he had touched her. He laughed and said he had stroked her hair as she was asleep and didn't want to wake her by kissing her. They laughed, the girl went on getting ready for school. When they told me this I too laughed as I, along with his wife, would never have believed it could have been anything else. Were we wrong, was that the first instance of the horror to come. Could we have, together, stopped him from doing anything else. I will never know.

I haven't seen his wife since this happened, slightly through fear. Right or wrong I simply wouldn't know what to say, how do you even begin to approach a subject like this. I have tried in the last couple of years to find her but, I trust, she now goes by her maiden name as I haven't been able to locate her through her married name and unfortunately I can't remember what her maiden name was. Shame on me.

I have no idea why this has all come to mind recently or why I felt I needed to share it with you but it does feel good to right it down. Maybe its a delayed reaction to a friend request I got on Facebook a few months back. It was from him. Why he would think I would want to know him now I have no idea, especially since I have a, soon to be, 3 year old daughter.

To finish off, I ask you once again. How well do you truly know a person?

Think about it, but don't give yourself nightmares.

Till next time....

The voice has spoken.

Home Of The Windy Miller (pic 4)

So this Sunday I headed out (at the behest of my lovely wife. OK it was more like, 'Get out from under my feet and take some pictures!' Bless her you gotta love her) to try and find something to photograph. I got into the car and started driving south. After about half an hour I took a slip road off the A23 and headed to Gatwick another 5 minutes and I found this......

This is Lowfield Heath Windmill situated just outside of Charlwood village and has been almost fully restored to working condition. It was closed when I got there as it only opens a few Sundays a year but as I was photographing the outside some of the members of the Trust in charge of the site came to do some work on it and were kind enough to let me go inside. Below are just a few of the many pictures I took that morning.

These were all taken on the first floor just using the light of the sun shining in through a small side hatch. I think they are lit beautifully.

What struck me about this windmill was the skill and care that has gone into the restoration. As you can see from the picture above a lot of new woodwork has been put into place and it impressed me how beautiful it all looked. There's something about wood that you just don't get from modern building materials. All the glass, steel and concrete mausoleums that they throw up in every city could do with more natural materials like wood and stone. Which leads me to the my next pic...

The centre column is an original piece (can't remember if they said from this windmill or not but certainly from an old relic of a windmill) and the cross beam that you can see in the lower left corner that supports the whole thing was an old timber that was originally going to be used in York minster after the fire back in 1984, but ended up not being used. Years later it was secured for use in the restoration of this Windmill. A well travelled bit of wood, big bit of wood.

This is some of the old metal work form another windmill that is on display in the grounds. The picture was taken from the small side hatch that allowed the light to enter for pictures 2 & 3.

So there you have it, the Lowfield Heath Windmill in all its restored glory. The grounds are open all the time so any one can take a close up look when ever they like, or you can go on one of the open days to get a look inside and maybe talk to some of the guys involved in its restoration. I fully recommend it.

http://www.ockleywindmill.co.uk/lowfieldheathwindmill.htm

Till next time...

The voice has spoken

Apes, Aliens and Porn Stars

Well its time to look over the past weeks viewing. Films that is, TV is only just worthy smalltalk and that's been generous. Lets face it most of us could knock out the reality trash that we are fed daily from the airwaves these days. But less of the complaining and more of the films.
There are 3 films that I'll talk about here, one that Ive mentioned before (as I saw it at the cinema) and 2 that I saw for the first time.
First up, the film I had seen already.

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011) (Blu-Ray)

Whats left to say about this that I haven't said before? Not much I think. Great film, definitely the start of a franchise re-birth. Plenty of clues to a re-make of the classic and a nice lead into how the apes managed to overthrow humanity. Lets face it, if it was just a fight between apes and man then we would wipe them out fairly quickly due to us having lots (and I mean LOTS) of weapons, while they have sticks and maybe a few guns that they nicked. Not to mention the ape army being maybe a few 100 strong while we have more soldiers in the pensioners home guard at Prestatyn. The Hollywood grape vine has been rife with rumours that a sequel will be a second part to Rise and not a remake of the original. Time will tell but there is definitely room for another film between the two.
One final note about this film. I think the Academy needs to change its thinking on motion capture, as Andy Serkis' motion capture performance of Caesar is definitely worthy of a nomination at least.

Film number 2 is a SCI-FI affair known as....

SKYLINE (2010) (sky movies)
This was a bit of an odd one. Filmed almost entirely in a single apartment with the rest of the scenes all in and around the one apartment block,  only an early scene in a plane and the last scene in an alien craft to break the trend.  The film follows a couple who travel to LA to meet up with some friends for a birthday party. Of course as soon as the party winds up some uninvited guests turn up. The aliens seem hell bent on harvesting all the humans for their brains. Yup you read that right, brains. You would think, in a universe this big they could find a more intelligent species to steal brains from but never mind.
The film moves along at a fair pace with a few well set out set pieces on the way. Playing out like an alien version of Night Of The Living Dead the tension builds up between the small bunch of people who are held up in the apartment but never really reaches any kind of fatal breaking point, as the aliens manage to pluck someone out of the bunch just in time to break the tension of the group.
The film obviously didn't have the budget of say ID4 or War Of The Worlds but what they had suited the makers well as this is definitely better that the Spielberg/Cruise atrocity and is a nice change to the, 'We will beat the bad guys because we have god and guns on our side,' type of SCI-FI. There's no big speech before the final battle or spiritual enlightenment to be had, it's just a bunch of relatively normal people trapped in a totally abnormal situation.
The film isn't perfect by any means but as a break from the Hollywood norm its certainly worth a viewing.
Starring no one special and a budget to make most block buster laugh this film has nothing to be ashamed of and everything to be proud of. My congratulations to all involved.
One warning. (spoiler) If you like to see the hero get the girl, save the day and ride of into the sunset in a blaze of glory then go watch the Spielberg/Cruise abortion, avoid this at all costs.

My final film is a controversial movie from Serbia. Available in only a heavily edited form in most countries of the world I had to download it in order to be able to give it a fair review. Be warned, what follows may shock.

A SERBIAN FILM (20111) (download/torrent)

Where to start with this film? Well, here goes.
The story involves a retired porn star who is given the chance to star in a new form of Serbian porn, Art Porn. Offered a sum of money that he and his wife find too much to refuse, he accepts. What follows is a slow and terrorising descent into hell for both the porn star and the viewer, as the film he's making quickly turns into a necrophilia, pedophiliac, violent snuff film. This film does have something to say. The obscenity of art and what constitutes art these days, the power of those who have over those who have not, the corruption of government and its view of its people. This film says it all. The director/star/co-writer himself (Srdjan Spasojevic) has stated that it represents how the government fucks us all. I think it succeeds in saying this and a lot more.

The film reminded me of 'Salo, or 120 days of Sodom' by Pier Palo Pasolini. A film he made with the sole purpose of shocking the audience.  It succeeded on all levels. Cinema audiences are becoming desensitised by the constant stream of torture porn films like the Hostel and Saw movies. Ive seen people laugh at the most violent scenes (a showing of Straw Dogs in 1990 at the Leeds Film Festival) I found this to be more shocking than any scene from that or any movie since including this one. Audiences need to be knocked back and sickened again as Pasolini did and this film does just that. Should it be banned? probably. Should it be watched? If you can stomach it then yes. Will you remember it? For the rest of your life.
The movie going public needs to be reminded that horrifying movies are horrifying and that just because its a movie doesn't mean that you should laugh or even enjoy graphically violent scenes or violent sexual scenes. If this film or the idea of watching this film makes you nauseous then congratulations, you're still a good human being. If it doesn't then I suggest you see a shrink.

Till next time....

The voice has spoken.