The B-Masters Cabal

8 Comments

• #1 by lyzard on November 28, 2016 - 6:24 pm

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  …and now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go and have a quiet nervous breakdown…

  • #2 by Braineater on December 1, 2016 - 8:28 pm

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    A few years ago, I was in a second-hand store, and I caught sight of a doll that disturbed me deeply. I think it was a blank doll that somebody customized… and in hindsight I can think of a dozen heart-warming reasons why somebody might make such a doll to give to a kid. However, sitting on a shelf, unwanted, unloved and devoid of context, it was pure nightmare fuel. I certainly didn’t buy it — I refused to even touch it: I’m not exactly superstitious, but I’m also not an idiot. Still, I did take a picture of it:

    

    Just imagine THAT sitting on your bedroom dresser as you turn out the light, and then just wait for the little dragging footsteps to start… getting closer… and closer…

    Of course, for sheer horror, it’s difficult to surpass this actual ad for replacement parts for surrogate-baby dolls, the dolls people treat as though they were real infants:

    

    It’s the casual n-apostrophe in “Eyeball Removin’ Tool” that really gets under my skin.

• #3 by lyzard on December 1, 2016 - 9:10 pm

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  I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t put THAT on a banner—that is appalling! (And, yes, why the apostrophe!?)

• #4 by ronald on December 2, 2016 - 10:25 pm

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  The franchise does us the disservice of AFAIK never delving further into what I consider one of the most interesting aspects of Charles Lee Ray’s story: John: What’s His Deal? Was there some kind of “Shawshank Redemption” scenario where John and Charles met in prison and Charles learned voodoo from John just to pass the time OSLT, the cliché of the old black guy and the young white guy (Andrew Vachss’s Burke novels have that too)? In the film, John behaves as if Charles/Chucky has “abused” his teachings but, really, what are the practical day-to-day applications of being able to transfer one’s soul into a doll, anyway?

  Too bad John didn’t return as Chucky’s nemesis by transferring HIS soul into a doll, as well…a voodoo doll.

  • #5 by lyzard on December 3, 2016 - 7:18 pm

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    I guess there’s no actual requirement for them to hang out somewhere “exotic” (or even just warm), but a voodoo master in Chicago in winter did seem a bit incongruous.

    All sorts of stuff is hinted at here (some that just didn’t make the final cut)that could have served the franchise going forward, though it’s been long enough I can’t remember if it actually does.

    • #6 by ronald on December 3, 2016 - 9:31 pm

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      Well, I’m sure in real life there are voodoo practitioners in most very large cities; in real life, it’s just another religion. It was the connection to a serial killer part that struck me. Oh well.

• #7 by ronald on December 3, 2016 - 10:16 am

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  “I wish people in films like this would stop sticking their faces under the furniture, though. Seriously.”

  Well, that’s the thing, people in films like this don’t KNOW they’re in films like this, so they don’t behave accordingly.

  That’s the problem with lots of horror films right there, we keep having to wait for the characters to figure out the stuff WE’VE already seen a thousand times. Serial killer risen from the grave, you say? Inbred cannibalistic family? Centuries-old curse? Little town up ahead where they kill all outsiders? Wow, I’ve never heard of anything like THAT happening before!

  Watching horror films, it’s often so easy to see how they could’ve changed just one or two little details and accidentally done something groundbreaking. Oh well.

  • #8 by lyzard on December 3, 2016 - 7:15 pm

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    Most of them know there’s a killer doll / puppet / dummy on the loose, though; at the least they know there’s something potentially dangerous; but they still keep sticking their faces under there, and looking surprised when they end up dead…