Viewed: DVD

This movie holds a special place in my heart. I asked for and received it as a birthday gift back in 2004 (it wasn’t easy to find), and that very night I watched it for the first time in 24 years. I’ve watched it about once a year since then, and it never fails to give me a happy by letting me remember the days when sword and sorcery fantasy was new to me. Watching it now brings back memories of first playing Basic Dungeons & Dragons with my friends, all of us around 13 years old, sitting at a kitchen table.

This was the first fantasy film I saw (on Showtime) after starting to play D&D in 1980. (It’s the first fantasy film I have any memory of.) It has a weak script, uninspired acting, cheap effects, etc., but it was like Dungeons & Dragons on TV! Heck, our D&D play was “written,” “performed,” and “described” by barely teenaged boys –- the movie’s quality matched our own game play quality.

(The official Dungeons & Dragons movie, released in 2000 is utter crap – it’s nothing like the D&D game.)

“Hawk the Slayer” is an awesome name for a sword-wielding fantasy hero, but there was nothing hawkish (or even bird related) about this main hero. And although he did kill several bad guys in battle during the movie (as did all the other characters), calling him a “slayer” is stretching the adjective.

Hawk the Slayer has a party of adventurers: the human hero, an elf, a dwarf, a giant (all of 6’3″), and a witch. It has a magic sword, a scary forest, a chest full of gold, and Jack Palance as the big bad guy. Just like in a D&D adventure, the hero team works together to stop the evil bad guy. Just like with our early D&D games, the plot is simple, the characters are simple (and poorly played), and not every character survives the story.

And although I could rag on this film mercilessly for its low quality in most all areas, it better represents what I like about sword and sorcery fantasy than many other films of its day, and of today. Lord of the Rings may be epic and fancy, but Hawk the Slayer is more D&Dish.

This is one of those movies that unless you have fond memories of it from your youth, I really don’t recommend watching it. Only warm nostalgia can make this enjoyable. But watching it makes me happy – in the same way that playing with old Matchbox cars and a GI Joe action figure can make me happy.

Bullgrit

I was in my office fooling around on the computer, and Cowgrit was in the den watching television. She came and got me to go sit down with her and watch something: Ghost Hunters.

We’ve both watched a few episodes of this show over the past year or so, and we both came to the agreement that it’s a waste of time. The teaser commercials make it look like the episode will show something scary or at least definitive, but the actual episode rarely catches anything truly interesting.

But this episode she happen to catch turned up having several bits of possible ghost activity on video. I sat with her and watched the rest of the show, but ironically, the good stuff had already been shown, so I saw nothing but them talking about the stuff they recorded. Then another episode of GH came on, and we sat together and watched it, too.

This second episode had the TAPS team in Tombstone, Arizona — a place we visited together many years ago. This location is the only thing that tempted me to continue watching.

While watching this show, we had all the lights in the house off (the boys were in bed, asleep). This show, even when nothing happens, can be creepy and scary as hell. Especially when you’re sitting in a dark house, yourself. The team members are hanging around in a dark place, shadows playing about the walls, and the show plays eerie music and effects. (Usually the show audio and editing is much more scary than what the TAPS team finds.)

We got to talking about the TAPS team, and other paranormal investigators. They must all either have nerves of steel, or they have absolutely no imagination.

I could never stay overnight in a suspected haunted location. My imagination is far stronger than my nerves. I may be in a perfectly safe place, but my mind can create all sorts of Really Bad Things out of thin air. I’d imagine hearing or seeing something, soil myself, and end up running screaming from the house like a little girl.

I’d love to ask these paranormal investigators how they’re able to keep their calm in a haunting situation. If they believe in the paranormal, how can it not scare the crap out of them? I think I’d rather spend an hour in a live battlefield than spend an hour in a suspected haunted house. I can deal with real stuff, but the maybe-real stuff squigs me out.

Bullgrit

In one of the bunkrooms on the Coast Guard cutter Ingham (museum ship, next to the Yorktown aircraft carrier):

I wonder if that was written (and used) during or after the ship’s life at sea.

In a strip mall (no pun intended) near my work office:

Tantalizing though the name is, it’s only a Chinese restaurant.

Bullgrit

I’ve never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I hear about this as some kind of rite of passage among some folks — I heard more about it in the 80s and 90s — but I’ve never been even remotely interested in it.

I’ve never been to a Star Wars convention; dress up as a Star Wars character. Although I’ve had some slight interest in visiting a Star Wars convention (mostly to see the fans dressed up as characters), I’ve just never put forward the effort to even look up a convention.  As for dressing up as a character myself (for Halloween or a convention), I’d want to go as Boba Fett, and sadly I just don’t have the knowledge or skill to build a good suit.

I’ve never been to the Gen Con gaming convention. This I have wanted to do for a couple or three decades. I would love to have gone to this convention back in the 80s, with AD&D1, or in the 00s, with D&D3, but now I’m not as interested. I’d still like go just to mark it off the list of things I want to do before I die, but I’m not as excited about it now that D&D4 is the current main fair. I would love to have met Gary Gygax and shook his hand, but sadly he’s passed now.

I’ve never been to a computer gaming convention. The idea of seeing and getting to play a bunch of new (or old) computer games sounds fun, but really, if I can’t take the best of the games home with me (purchasing), it would feel too much like a big tease. And computers games (at least the ones I tend to play) are usually very lone activities. Playing table-top games are social activities with people around you, but playing a computer game doesn’t require anyone else at all. So going to a convention to play such seems kind of unnecessary.

I’ve never LARPed. I’ve met and played table-top games with a few people who are LARPers, and they sometimes tell interesting stories about their experiences LARPing. But actually going through with the live-action role playing just sounds too weird for my tastes. I’m not an actor, I’m not a performer, I don’t like acting or performing for an audience of any type — even an audience that is also part of the theater. Of all geeky activities I haven’t done, this is the only one that I’m actually repulsed by (would be totally uncomfortable trying).

Bullgrit