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It’s Alive! Blockbuster Video Still Lives Among Us

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If you grew up in the 1990’s you remember begging your parents to take you to the local Blockbuster Video every Friday night to rent a movie.  On nothing more than a wing and a prayer, and you’re allowance money, you hope that one special movie is still on the shelf.

Pacing down the aisles your laminated membership card is getting sweatier and sweatier by the second in your palm.  As you pray to everything holy there is a copy of that special movie left behind the Styrofoam stuffed VHS case you reach out to the shelf, hand trembling, you push the cardboard VHS case aside and… success!  One white, blue, and yellow clamshell video case remains!

Don’t you miss those memories of stalking the horror aisle, breathing in the scent of the plastic VHS cases and paying $4.99 for a three day rental?  Oh, and don’t forget that $0.99 charge for each day you’re late!  Well lament no longer, fellow thirty-somethings!  Your dreams of walking that royal blue musty carpet is just a hop, skip, and a jump away… in Alaska!

That’s right!  There is still a Blockbuster Video alive and well in the Last Frontier of Anchorage, Alaska!  While the franchise finished closing its doors to nearly 9,000 stores worldwide in 2013, franchise owner Alan Payne decided to keep his doors open.  In fact, he owns nine Blockbuster Video stores of the twelve that remain today.


While most movie lovers get their flicks from an automated machine or download it online, video store owner Payne offers the experience many younglings born after 2000 will never get to experience.  While the movies have no doubt moved over from VHS to DVD and Blu Ray, making the “Be Kind, Rewind” stickers obsolete, you can still physically browse the aisles and read the back of the cases to obtain the synopsis.

You can also enjoy the experience of candy, popcorn, and soda impulse buys in the line queue, as well as asking to keep the poster from the wall once it was taken down.  I can’t be the only one who did this… am I?  Not to mention embracing the feeling of disappointment when you find out they don’t have a copy of the movie you anticipated watching all day long.  Yet hope can be restored as you quickly walk to the front of the store and ask the clerk if a customer has recently returned said movie, and perhaps they just haven’t had the chance to return it to its proper home on the shelf yet.

All jokes aside, the video stores in Alaska are a very important corner stone to the community.  Unbeknownst to those who don’t reside in the snowy North, access to the Internet is quite expensive.  Even though the prices seem expensive in comparison to your local Red Box, they are reasonable in comparison to the prices of gigabytes.

Another benefit is, as odd as it sounds, the video store serves as a place of gathering.  In a place that has long, cold, and dark winters, it’s nice to have a place to go and socialize with other people.  In fact, this is something we have lost as a culture when looking for videos.  I can’t tell you how many times I spoke to other horror fans in the horror aisle and received great recommendations… as well as some not so great.  I don’t know where you are Blockbuster Video patron, but I Still Know What you Did Last Summer is not a scary movie!

 

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Another Creepy Spider Movie Hits Shudder This Month

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Good spider films are a theme this year. First, we had Sting and then there was Infested. The former is still in theaters and the latter is coming to Shudder starting April 26.

Infested has been getting some good reviews. People are saying that it’s not only a great creature feature but also a social commentary on racism in France.

According to IMDb: Writer/director Sébastien Vanicek was looking for ideas around the discrimination faced by black and Arab-looking people in France, and that led him to spiders, which are rarely welcome in homes; whenever they’re spotted, they’re swatted. As everyone in the story (people and spiders) is treated like vermin by society, the title came to him naturally.

Shudder has become the gold standard for streaming horror content. Since 2016, the service has been offering fans an expansive library of genre movies. in 2017, they began to stream exclusive content.

Since then Shudder has become a powerhouse in the film festival circuit, buying distribution rights to movies, or just producing some of their own. Just like Netflix, they give a film a short theatrical run before adding it to their library exclusively for subscribers.

Late Night With the Devil is a great example. It was released theatrically on March 22 and will begin streaming on the platform starting April 19.

While not getting the same buzz as Late Night, Infested is a festival favorite and many have said if you suffer from arachnophobia, you might want to take heed before watching it.

Infested

According to the synopsis, our main character, Kalib is turning 30 and dealing with some family issues. “He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.”

The film will be available to watch on Shudder starting April 26.

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Part Concert, Part Horror Movie M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Trap’ Trailer Released

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In true Shyamalan form, he sets his film Trap inside a social situation where we aren’t sure what is going on. Hopefully, there is a twist at the end. Furthermore, we hope it’s better than the one in his divisive 2021 movie Old.

The trailer seemingly gives away a lot, but, as in the past, you can’t rely on his trailers because they are often red herrings and you are being gaslit to think a certain way. For instance, his movie Knock at the Cabin was completely different than what the trailer implied and if you hadn’t read the book on which the film is based it was still like going in blind.

The plot for Trap is being dubbed an “experience” and we aren’t quite sure what that means. If we were to guess based on the trailer, it’s a concert movie wrapped around a horror mystery. There are original songs performed by Saleka, who plays Lady Raven, a kind of Taylor Swift/Lady Gaga hybrid. They have even set up a Lady Raven website to further the illusion.

Here is the fresh trailer:

According to the synopsis, a father takes his daughter to one of Lady Raven’s jam-packed concerts, “where they realize they’re at the center of a dark and sinister event.”

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Trap stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills and Allison Pill. The film is produced by Ashwin Rajan, Marc Bienstock and M. Night Shyamalan. The executive producer is Steven Schneider.

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Woman Brings Corpse Into Bank To Sign Loan Papers

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Warning: This is a disturbing story.

You have to be pretty desperate for money to do what this Brazilian woman did at the bank to get a loan. She wheeled in a fresh corpse to endorse the contract and she seemingly thought the bank employees wouldn’t notice. They did.

This weird and disturbing story comes via ScreenGeek an entertainment digital publication. They write that a woman identified as Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes pushed a man she identified as her uncle into the bank pleading with him to sign loan papers for $3,400. 

If you’re squeamish or easily triggered, be aware that the video captured of the situation is disturbing. 

Latin America’s largest commercial network, TV Globo, reported on the crime, and according to ScreenGeek this is what Nunes says in Portuguese during the attempted transaction. 

“Uncle, are you paying attention? You must sign [the loan contract]. If you don’t sign, there’s no way, as I cannot sign on your behalf!”

She then adds: “Sign so you can spare me further headaches; I can’t bear it any longer.” 

At first we thought this might be a hoax, but according to Brazilian police, the uncle, 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga had passed away earlier that day.

 “She attempted to feign his signature for the loan. He entered the bank already deceased,” Police Chief Fábio Luiz said in an interview with TV Globo. “Our priority is to continue investigating to identify other family members and gather more information regarding this loan.”

If convicted Nunes could be facing jail time on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and desecration of a corpse.

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