Ginger has been taking over my life even more than normal, but I did get to watch a movie the other day...The Limehouse Golem. Not sure about you, but I'm a fan of period pieces, especially late 1800s London, they don't necessarily have to be horror, but the grimier the better! Think From Hell, Penny Dreadful, Sweeny Todd, and Bram Stoker's Dracula. I watch them for the fashion mostly, but The Limehouse Golem was entertaining as well!

I don't want to give too much away because there is actually a plot twist unlike Hereditary, but I'll give you a summary.

As a viewer you are thrown into the movie starting at the end. There's the death of a husband named John Cree and Scotland Yard is investigating. Just like the audience steps into a murder mystery, Inspector Kildare, played by Bill Nighy, takes over this murder case. (I love him in Shaun of the Dead and Underworld). We are trying to figure out who killed Cree along with ~ possibly ~ linking it to the Limehouse Golem.

The story unfolds and the suspects are mounting. We see the history of the characters, and go behind-the-scenes of stage performers in music halls during that time period. There are so many shady things going on behind closed doors it's fascinating! Many of the characters are supposed to be real people too, i.e. Karl Marx and Dan Leno are the big names depicted.

In the final scene we get a plot twist. It makes sense with the most recent Jack the Ripper theory, but I'm not going to give it away. The acting is great and it's plenty gruesome and bloody. I give it 4 out of 5 blood stained gowns.

Here's the trailer...

Cat whiskers ~ or vibrissa ~ are cat radar! (Side note: The word "whisker" comes from the Middle English word "wisker" meaning to sweep or brush. Kitties have brushes on their face!) Whiskers can be found around their nose, above their eyes like eyebrows, chin, and on the back of front legs. They aren't like human whiskers or fur, they are embedded deep in the skin. The area around the whiskers has sensitive nerves and whiskers are important for cats to test their environment.

Whiskers help cats decipher the space around them even in the dark! They can brush up against an object and know the texture and location. The whiskers respond to changes in the air and vibrations even if your cat can't see them.

The muzzle whiskers are long and thick, usually there's twelve on each side of their face. They tend to correlate with girth, and will grow as long as your cat is wide. If their whiskers fit in a space, they know their body will fit in the space.

The eyebrow whiskers help your cat when they hunt outside and instinctively have them blink if something touches them.

The whiskers on the back of their front legs help them kill prey. Cats have terrible eye sight up close so once they catch their prey their carpal whiskers will let them know if it's still alive and where to kill. Plus they help with climbing.

Whiskers move around depending on your cat's mood. If they are just sticking out, your cat is calm. If they are pushed forward, they are excited, and if against their cheeks they are threatened.

Oh and DO NOT cut whiskers. It would be like cutting off your hand. It's disorienting and painful. Without whiskers cats can loose navigation skills, act dizzy, and it frightens them. Whiskers will shed naturally, let them do their thing! (Some people even collect their found cat whiskers for good luck.)

Since whiskers are so sensitive, be sure that their water dish and feeding bowl is flat and wide, so their whiskers don't touch the edges. If they pick their food out of the dish, dump their food over, or drink by sticking their paw in the bowl they could be experiencing "whisker fatigue". Yep, it's a real thing. Take care of those whiskers!

Ok, not everyone will agree with me and there's already a lot of theories out there regarding the plot of this movie, but I saw Hereditary (2018) ~ the super hyped up horror movie of this past season ~ and I have some things to say. Horror enthusiast friends that I talked to loved it, other people said it was boring and slow. I disagree with both and let me tell you why...

***Warning Spoilers Ahead***

The story starts pretty quick with a basic premise ~ grandma dies ~ and the immediate family slowly deteriorates. Hence why people may think it's slow, but there's a domino effect going on and the movie takes the time to show how the characters are effected ...and how a demon is jumping from body to body to land in it's final host. (More on that below.)

The characters include: Annie the mom that's a miniature artist, dad Steve, and two kids Peter the pothead high schooler and Charlie the 13 y.o. awkward creepy budding artist girl. They all live in this large isolated arts-and-crafts-Frank-Lloyd-Wright looking house with beautiful stained glass partitions and hard wood throughout. On the outside is a pretty large oddly undecorated and empty tree house except for space heaters. In short, it's a chapel perfect for worshipping a demon.

Giant house. I know very few artists that could afford a house like this. 

Unless her wealth came from worshipping King Paimon?

Big 'ol Demon Chapel Tree House. Looks like they're firing up the grill.

The first problem I see is BAD feng shui. NEVER have your back or furniture to a window. Both Peter and Charlie's headboards are against the window of their rooms. Oh hell no. That's how things fly though your windows without you seeing them and monsters rip your head off. There's also carvings in some of the rooms of the house, most of them are indistinguishable and they are not explained in the movie. Why would you ruin beautiful wood walls and floors like that?!

Headboard against the bottom of the window.

At grandma's funeral Annie makes a speech and it's clear she didn't like her mother, she felt she was manipulative, and her mother kept secrets from her... or did she? Both ladies are wearing matching gold pendant necklaces with the sigil for King Paimon, which we come to find out is one of the eight Kings of Hell. (Side note: the symbol used is actually the symbol for Paimon.) Here we also learn that Charlie is troubled, allergic to nuts, makes clicking sounds, was the favorite child of grandma that wanted her to be a boy. Hence her boy's name? Charlie foreshadows her parents death when she asks "Who will take care of me when you're gone?" We never find out if she's mentally disabled or has a mental illness. Oh and she wasn't breastfed by her mother, but by dead grandma! Yep, you read that correctly. Grandma is grooming Charlie to be a King of Hell. Her manipulation has been going on for decades, BUT Annie let her do it.

Dead gram with Paimon necklace.

Annie records grandma's breastfeeding in miniature form. 

Annie begins to go through her mother's belongings and comes across a note in a Spiritualism book from her mother saying that they will be "sacrificed". Ok so now we know everyone is going to die in the first few minutes of the movie.

Charlie is at school and cuts off the head of a dead bird and has visions of her grandmother. Why does she cut off the head? I don't know, foreshadowing again of her being decapitated? Her mother forces her to go to a party with her brother where she has a reaction to eating walnuts in cake. Couldn't she tell there was nuts after one bite of the cake? I feel like being 13 is old enough to check about food you're allergic to before eating it, unless the demon is already in her trying to kill her body. Anyway, her throat starts to close so she grabs her stoner brother to drive her to the ER. On the way she sticks her head out of the window for air and gets decapitated. Peter comes home and just goes to bed. What the actual hell?! This family def has a problem with communication. Annie discovers her daughter's body when she goes to use the car. Later in the movie Annie says, "My daughter was killed." Which makes it sound like murder, maybe that's just me. Seems like Annie knows there are other forces at work.

Charlie with bird head.

There's a phone call that grandma's grave has been desecrated, but Steve doesn't tell his wife and she lies and says she's going to a movie when she's really going to a support group for Loosing a Loved One. The family doesn't communicate and they are breaking down. Both parents are on prescription meds too. We find out Annie has a family history of mental illness. But do they really or is it all just the satanic demon trying to possess them and they purposefully kill themselves so he doesn't? Or are they doing it in sacrifice to him? Are they just passing down grandma's mental illness? We don't know. She makes a friend in the group named Joanie that is awfully friendly and pushy. In my mind, she's immediately a suspicious character and forces Annie to be part of a seance. Joanie then gives Annie instructions on how to conjure her daughter through ritual seance, but it's all in a foreign language that even Joanie admits to not knowing...supposedly. Later we find out she was part of grandma's cult all along! Not surprising.

After Charlie dies Peter starts having visions and Annie's dreams are even stronger. She sees Peter dead and admits she wanted to abort him, but grandma forced her to have him. I'm feeling a Rosemary's Baby vibe about this. Did grandma know that Peter would end up being the demon's vessel?

Annie performs the seance and Charlie enters her body, but the cult knows that Charlie needs to be in a male vessel. Annie wants to "fix" things and feels by burning Charlie's sketchbook her spirit will go away, but in burning it, it incinerates Steve, not before he accuses her of digging up her mother. Is this the plot twist? Annie really is part of the cult and her personality has split and the part the audience sees is her not wanting to be part of the cult? Then why is she wearing the Paimon necklace in the beginning of the movie?

The husband is hot stuff.

To find answers she goes through more of her mom's things and opens the attic only to find the decapitated body of her mother surrounded by candles in a vigil. How did she know to go in the attic? How could they not hear people in the attic dragging a dead body up there? Was it the King of Hell that put her there? With all those candles that's a huge fire hazard! Is Annie really the one doing all these things? Does she not know she's doing them? Is she doing them while sleepwalking?

By the end Annie is fully possessed, climbing on the ceiling, pounding her head against the attic trap door, and sawing off her own head. What's with the heads?

Charlie's demon spirit is now in Peter because she had to be in a man to claim the throne as one of the eight Kings of Hell, Paimon. Gram was in a cult that worshipped Paimon and she manipulated her whole family to resurrect him, plot sort of explained. Then the movie ends with cheerful music. I thought this was an odd choice.

Hereditary doesn't feel like a horror movie. It feels like a family drama with creepy miniatures. A SUPER drama. Mom is completely unhinged and there's a lot of extreme over acting, she's a complete husband fire...er dumpster fire. I guess Toni Collette is a good actress? It was entertaining, visually pretty, but some parts took themselves too seriously and were laughable. I laughed and the rest of the audience laughed. I give this three severed heads out of five. Maiden, mother, and crone and a big loud groan. Maybe I need to watch it again, but not anytime soon.

Mom needs to chill. After all she knows her family will be dead soon.

p.s. The family dog dies, but they don't show how.

Here's the trailer...

Hi everyone, I've been laying low the past week because my cat Ginger is very sick. We took her in last weekend to the emergency vet because she stopped eating and drinking and didn't move from her bed overnight. When we picked her up she peed on herself. Ginger has NEVER peed outside her litter box in the time we've had her, so we knew something was up. They diagnosed her with acute pancreatitis. They kept her for three days and wanted her to stay longer.  We refused to leave her there, she looked miserable and depressed, so we signed release forms against the vet's orders. She's been seeing her normal vet everyday this week for a fluid injection. We've been syringe feeding her, and she's on anti-nausea pills, steroids, pain meds...

I'm happy to announce today ~ for the first time since this bout ~ she's been drinking water and eating on her own. But we aren't out of the woods yet. So my house is a mess, and I opted not to do an unboxing video for the latest Puzzle Box Creeper Crate, however it didn't disappoint. Here is the packing list with pictures.

1. "It's just a Puzzle Box" Pin from Demonic Pinfestation. Haha, you think it's just a puzzle box.

 2. Julia wine bottle stopper by Demonic Pinfestation. Ok I love this. "All we need is skin"...and wine.

 3. "Demons to Some" Corpse Cream from Ghoulish Delights. This cream is thick and smells like vanilla. I can't wait to try it. (Ghoulish Delights also have a Buffy inspired line too!)

4. Puzzle Box Necklace by Subkulture Designs. Surprise! I have a matching puzzle box bracelet that a friend gave me for my birthday a few years back. And you know I'm matchy-matchy. Plus the necklace came in a nice box. Creeper Crate is thoughtful about presentation and it shows that they care. This was my fav item in the box this time around.

 

5. "In Hell" Drink Coasters from Creeper Crate go nicely with the wine stopper. This box was well thought out.

Someday I'm going to be the Hell Priest for Halloween. I've been thinking about it for several years now.  Muhahaha.

I can't wait for the Vincent Price July Creeper Crate. You can read about my thoughts on Mr. Price here.

Hopefully I'll get back to posting blogs on a regular basis. Until then, wish us luck with little Ginger. She's my baby and blowing though her college fund right now! Be sure to kiss and hug your pet, you never know when it might be their time to leave you.