Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Beyond Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper



Ripper press clippingPlayed Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper and want to know more about the crimes — or just see other interpretations pitting the World's Greatest Detective against the legendary killer? Here's a helpful guide.

Ripper Books
Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Philip Sugden
If you want to know everything about the Ripper murders, Sugden’s Complete History of Jack the Ripper is the book for you. While most Ripper books put forward their author’s prime suspect, Sugden focuses on the details of the crimes and their investigation (drawing heavily on primary sources) making this the go-to for factual history. Sugden does evaluate suspects in the back of the book and finds most of them wanting.

Jack the Ripper: The Casebook by Richard Jones
If you aren’t looking for a detailed study of the crimes, Jones’s Casebook is an interactive overview complete with facsimiles of police reports, newspaper articles and the infamous Ripper letters. A great layout and compelling visuals will pull you into the worst parts of 19th Century London

Ripper Website
Casebook: Jack the Ripper
Casebook is an utterly amazing repository of information, combining the best aspects of the two books mentioned above (primary sources and facsimiles) with the internet’s predilection for minutia. Truly the ultimate who’s who to anyone tangentially associated with the Ripper crimes, including unlikely suspects like Lewis Carroll, Casebook is also a great survey of all things Ripper and home to the Rippercast: The Whitechapel Murders Podcast.

Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper Books
Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson by Lyndsay Faye
One of the most recent Holmes versus Ripper novels and one of the most successful, Dust and Shadow plays with the fact that if Holmes and Watson were skulking around the East End trying to ferret out the Ripper, locals might wonder how involved in the killings they really were. Faye introduces Mary Ann Monk to the mix, a streetwalker hired by Holmes to investigate where he can’t and gets a lot of mileage out of the power of the press.

The Last Sherlock Holmes Story by Michael Dibdin
Easily the most controversial tale, Dibdin’s take is a relatively straightforward investigation until Holmes realizes that – plotted on a map – the sites of the murders would form a giant M over the East End of the London. But that detail alone won’t prepare you for the truly shocking conclusion.

The Whitechapel Horrors by Edward B. Hanna
Originally published in 1993 at a hefty 395 pages, the upcoming reprint is a slimmer 208 pages so caveat emptor. Hanna’s heavily researched mystery (complete with endnotes!) takes a more conventional and conspiratorial approach to the murders, placing Holmes on untenable ground in his pursuit for justice.

Chapel Noir and Castle Rouge by Carole Nelson Douglas
I’m not a fan of Carole Nelson Douglas’s Irene Adler novels, recasting the Scandal in Bohemia character as detective in her own right. In Chapel Noir, Adler investigates Ripper-like murders in a Parisian brothel. Castle Rogue, the follow-up, moves the hunt to Transylvania.

Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper: A Study in Terror by Ellery Queen
Hard to find novelization of the movie, which — according to Wikipedia — adds a framing device inserting Ellery Queen into the story and changes the identity of the murderer.

The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls by J. Robert King
This is cheat, but the entire book is kind of a cheat. Still Holmes does face off against Jack the Ripper in this supernaturally-charged adventure.

Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper Movies
A Study in Terror (1965)
I know I saw this on VHS years ago, but remember very little about it. Amazon has it listed for pre-order, but without a cover or release date. Reviews online paint this as a low budget exploitative entry, but with a decent cast and thrilling conclusion.

Murder by Decree (1979)
And this would be the high budget take with an all-star cast. As the title suggests this Ripper has ties to the royal family, complicating things for Holmes and Watson who must decipher secret Masonic rituals to crack the case.



Wednesday, May 19, 2010

American Scary



American ScaryAmerican Scary
Directed by John E. Hudgens
DVD released: Feb. 17, 2009
After watching American Scary, I want to be a horror host – which is probably the ultimate metric for judging a documentary.

King Kong (1933) aired on television in 1956 and demonstrated the viability of televised horror films. This led to a flood of TV releases, but gems like the classic Universal horror films came were packaged with B-movies or worse. You had to air the bad if you wanted the good, and horror hosts made even the worst films palatable.

Skipping ahead to the early 1980s and I was a young kid who hurried home from Palm Springs Elementary everyday to catch the 2:00 horror show aired on a pre-Fox WFLX. The Bat People (1974), Frankenstein: The True Story (1973), The Fly (1958), and Dracula (1979) are the only titles which come to mind – more memorable was the horror host.

Our horror host was a mad scientist and his sidekick, who spent the movie slowly simmering in a cauldron. Thinking back now, it seems likely that the sidekick was probably a prop, not a person. Introduced with Napoleon XIV’s “They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!,” the horror host was the right mixture of cheese and creepiness whose intros, outros, sketches and asides both set the tone for movie and took its edge off.

Penny DreadfulPenny Dreadful
Let me explain how I watched horror movies. I sat an arm’s length away from my small, black and white TV with my hand on the volume. The secret to watching horror movies – especially ones late at night – was to have the sound just loud enough for me to hear and the ability to silence any screams which might draw my mother’s attention.

So this became a ritual – but one that faded as we got cable and a VCR – events happening on a larger scale across America.

American Scary is a documentary about this phenomenon starting with “Lights Out” on the radio and reaching to the Internet horror hosts of today. It’s a talking heads documentary about talking heads, but the heads who talk, know what they’re saying. Vampira, Zacherley, Ghoulardi, Svengoolie and many other horror hosts are covered – and you get a great sense of the role they played as local celebrities (sadly, Barb Billens Program Director for WFLX tells me ours was syndicated).

Sir Graves GhastlySir Graves Ghastly
Providing context are the likes of Leonard Maltin, Joe Bob Briggs, and Neil Gaiman (who talks about his horror hosting of FX’s 13 Nights of Fright). American Scary also connects horror hosts to MST3K, so Joel Hodgson appears leading to fun moments like Tom Savini gushing over the show.

So I asked Barb if WFLX was interested in restarting this and was told that “with all the cable channels and other movie services, we air very few movies on our schedule” which is the case all over. However, if another local station is interested, I’m ready to be your horror host.



Saturday, May 8, 2010

Pitfall



I picked up Pitfall for Game Room on Tuesday and have been swearing at my TV ever since. Seriously, it has to be one of the hardest games ever, dating back to an era where people had pixel-perfect accuracy and cocaine-fueled reflexes.

Anyway, looking for information online I came across this commercial featuring a pre-Crisis Jack Black.

If anyone's still doing something with their Game Room, send me a Challenge!



Yard Sale



Updated: May 5, 2010

Game Couch is having a yard sale! Please bookmark this page as new games/swag will be added from time to time.

How this works
Below are a list of games and their selling prices ($US). If you see something you want, email me. Shipping is free for the US and I am willing to ship internationally at the going rate.

After confirming your order, I'll ask for payment through Game Couch's PayPal link.

The Bold Print
These are all games I know to be in working order. If you have trouble running the game, you may need to consult one of the many retro gaming sites out there. In extreme cases, I may be willing to accept returns, but you shouldn't count on it for general purchases.

My one guarantee is that if I'm selling something as “Disc only” and I find the manual later on, I will send it at no extra cost.

The Games

Adventure

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

Bad Mojo: Redux (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

Black Dahlia (Win 95)
Description
All eight discs in newspaper foldout sleeve and manual, $10

CSI (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

King's Quest V (DOS)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

King's Quest: Mask of Eternity (Win)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Lighthouse: The Dark Being (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

Omikron: The Nomad Soul
Description
Discs only, $10

Robot City (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective (DOS)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Mummy (Win)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Shivers 2 (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

S.P.Q.R.
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Torin's Passage (Win 95)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Action

Conan (Win)
Description
Disc and manual in original keep case (UK import), $15

Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures (Win)
Description
3.5″ floppy only, $6

Shooter

Deus Ex: Invisible War (Win)
Description
Discs and manual in original keep case, $10

Strategy/Simulation

Bad Day LA (Win)
Description
Mint in Box, $8

Evil Genius (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

Gangsters: Organized Crime (Win)
Description
Disc only, $6

The Godfather: The Game (PC DVD-ROM)
Description
Disc, manual, map in original keep case, $6

Mob Rule (Win 95/98)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Shogun: Total War (Win)
Description
Discs and manual, $6

SOA: Soldiers of Anarchy (Win)
Description
Disc (jewel case) and manual in original box, $10

Tropico: Mucho Macho Edition (Win)
Description
Discs only, $6

Star Trek

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Fallen (Win)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Star Trek: Armada (Win 95/98)
Description
Game and manual, $6

Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force (Win 95/98/NT/2000)
Description
Game and manual, $15

Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force II (Win 98/ME/2000 XP)
Description
Game and manual, $15

Star Wars

Star Wars: Republic Commando (Win)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D (Win 95/98)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Star Wars: Monopoly (Win 95)
Description
Disc and manual, $6

Star Wars: Dark Forces (DOS)
Description
Disc only, $6