News

Tsavo Man-Eaters: The Serial Killer Lions of African Legend

Published

4 years ago

April 2, 2020

We all know that humans can be serial killers, but there was a documented case in Tsavo East Africa in the late 1800s which tells of two man-eating lions leaving a deadly path of human carnage in their wake.

Some say although the lions made meals of most of their victims, they might have hunted for sport too because humans don’t fit into their normal dietary needs which calls for higher amounts of protein and larger bones.

The story was the basis of a movie starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer called The Ghost and the Darkness, which itself took artistic liberty with the written, terrifying eyewitness accounts by Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson in his book The Man-Eaters of Tsavo.

Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer in “The Ghost and the Darkness.”

Patterson, an engineer, was commissioned in 1898 to oversee the construction of a bridge that would span over the Tsavo River for the British railroad. But his mission was delayed several times by two male lions that had developed an odd taste for his staff.

Several thousand workers were employed by Patterson to build the bridge. They lived in an expansive makeshift town consisting of tents and structures which offered very little protection against the harsh savanna ecosystem.

The rogue lions were a part of this biotic community. Unlike their well-known Serengeti counterparts, Tsavo males can be identified by their maneless heads, a detail missing from the movie.

It wasn’t long before Patterson settled into his new surroundings when these bold felines began to attack his men. They would prowl around the encampment, taking turns pulling men from their tents ripping them apart from limb to limb. This went on for a while until the cats stopped showing up, only to return with a vengeance a few months later.

Upon their return, they increased their murderous rampage. The cats successfully traversed any traps, scare tactics or barbed fencing the men could come up with. What’s more, the cats were working in tandem now.

Scared for their lives construction workers abandoned the project bringing production to a stand still. Completely overwhelmed and sorely behind schedule, British officials were determined to get rid of these maneating pests.

Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas in “The Ghost and the Darkness.”

Enter about 20 Indian armed soldiers who did nothing but agitate the cats even further, it was Patterson they wanted and in their pursuit of him, managed to avoid the hired guns.

Which begs the question: Can animals hold a personal vendetta?

These two did according to Patterson. They had become angered at his constant meddling and gunfire. In defiance, he managed to shoot one cat in the leg. It ran off but despite its wound, returned with a thirst for Patterson’s blood.

It was man versus beast until Patterson got the upper hand, took aim and struck the lion in the heart with a bullet, killing it. The beast was over 9-feet-long and required the help of several men to carry it away.

The second lion met with the deadly end of Patterson’s rifle but like its brother also managed to survive, fleeing into the savanna wounded and angry. Eleven days later Patterson found it and shot it 6 more times, once fatally in the head.

Patterson said the cat, even while dying, pawed at a tree branch trying to reach him before taking its last breath.

In all, the cats managed to kill about 135 people, although scientists argue that the number is hyperbolic and lies somewhere in the dozens.

The two cats actually had help from a third, but it was killed before Patterson’s arrival and therefore undocumented.

The giant pelts of Patterson’s spoils would become his household throw rugs for many years before they were sold to the Field Museum in Chicago for $5,000. Curators eventually stuffed them to make a lifelike diorama.

As for why the big cats would hunt human flesh, one Tsavo cat researcher, Bruce Patterson (unrelated to John), said in an interview, they might have done so “because we are slower, weaker and more defenseless.”

You can read James Henry Patterson’s full account in his book, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo.

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Movies

‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

Published

8 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

^{High Desert Hell}

^{The Gemini Project}

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Movies

‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

Published

10 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

^{Happy Sad Confused}

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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News

Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

Published

12 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.