May, 2016 | The Plaid Pladd Blog

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Terrifying Don Bluth Films: Ranked

May 12th, 2016 by pladd

Don Bluth left Disney to pursue his own dream: to scar children for life. But which Don Bluth film is the most terrifying? To decide, I chose to rank them entirely based on my unreliable memory from whenever they last terrified me as a child.

9. The Pebble and the Penguin (1995)

The bad guy in this movie was a weightlifting bro-penguin rapist named Drake.

Voiced by Tim Curry

But honestly the scariest part is how they try to distinguish between the penguin sexes by giving the girl penguins ludicrous human curves:

Why would penguins need boobs???

8. A Troll in Central Park (1994)

I mean, yes, this movie was scary-bad, so it automatically ranks higher, but the scariest part is honestly that these two infants are left to wander around New York City alone:

Do you HAVE parents??

Honestly I’m thinking the trolls they meet in central park are a childish imagining to block out their real abductors and the trauma that ensues.

7. Thumbelina (1994)

I don’t remember a ton about Thumbelina (besides this annoying-ass song) but there were at least two terrifying parts. When Prince Cornelius is frozen in ice:

How does this even HAPPEN?

I remember it really bothered me that his finger was still sticking out. That shit is going to turn black and snap off, Cornelius. Of course, even scarier is when Thumbelina is roped into marrying Mr. Mole, who hates sunlight and probably smells like mildew:

And you do NOT want to see what’s under that cumberbund

6. An American Tail (1986)

Besides the countless times someone almost gets stepped on or worse, you have this:

Which I think speaks for itself

5. Anastasia (1997)

Granted, I was a little older when this one came out, which I think is the only reason this guy doesn’t rank higher on the list:

He’s like a creepy demon zombie sorcerer

4. Rock-a-Doodle (1992)

I don’t have as clear a memory of this one, besides that it included live-action footage of bad flooding, which hit pretty close to home.

Also this thing

3. The Land Before Time (1988)

Yeah, sure, kids love dinosaurs. They also love tons of violence and the worst on-screen parent death until Mufasa.

I’LL HAUNT YOUR NIGHTMARES UNTIL JURASSIC PARK MAKES ME ALL THE MORE REAL

Kids love them some emotional trauma

2. All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)

What the fuck is this movie

There is literally a dog hell

And even if the protagonists don’t end up there

THEY STILL END UP DEAD WTF WTF WTF

1. The Secret of NIMH (1982)

It is impossible to find a screencap of this movie that ISN’T fucking terrifying.

Creepy

Is that a good guy? What the hell?

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT

STOP

IT JUST GETS WORSE

In conclusion, this movie still haunts my nightmares.

Previously: Disney Villains Ranked by Scariness

Tagged: list, movies

Posted in lists |

Hate Book Club: Interview with the Vampire

May 9th, 2016 by pladd

Brian and I read this book for Hate Book Club and then kind of forgot about it. For all the hype I’ve heard about it over the years, it’s a surprisingly forgettable book. Read his review here!

And it has this shitty cover

As always, I’ll begin by thinking of 3 compliments for the book.

1. It was published in 1976, but didn’t feel particularly dated.
2. It failed to scare me even a little bit at all so I had no nightmares while reading. Which I guess means it failed at being horror, but I think we all know this book is gothic romance.
3. This amazing description of a vampire:

The smooth white substance of his face moved with the infinitely flexible but minimal lines of a cartoon.(4)

I therefore pictured this whole book as a live-action/animation hybrid a la Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.

Here is a plot breakdown:

Lestat gets in a fight with his vampire boyfriend Louis and they end up turning a 5-year-old girl into a vampire despite the fact that we all know how Vampire Child Drama ends:

BADLY

Louis and Child-Vamp Claudia kill Lestat and it’s weird. Then they go on a Vampire Journey of Self-Discovery through Europe, eventually ending up in Paris where they meet a group of older vampires led by Armand. Louis and Armand are in love, but SURPRISE Lestat isn’t dead and leads the other vampires to kill Claudia because she’s an abomination and also HOW COULD YOU LOVE YOUR CHILD BRIDE MORE THAN ME, LOUIS??? Louis escapes, The End.

The movie HAS to be better

Claudia was definitely the weirdest part of this book. Turned into a vampire as a five-year-old plague victim, she keeps the body of a child, but supposedly her mind matures into a woman in a child’s body. Louis is clearly in love with her, and everyone is creeped out by it forever. Especially me.

I was interested to see how popular this pairing was with fans, since a good portion of the book was Louis angsting on and on about how THEIR LOVE COULD NEVER BE BUT I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT HER. So I took a sample of around 80 Interview with the Vampire fanfics and recorded the pairing(s):

More than half of the works in fan literature feature the Louis/Lestat pairing, probably helped along by the fact that these Whiny McAssholes were played by Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in the 1994 movie. Louis/Armand was the second most popular pairing, but it had only about a quarter of the fics Louis/Lestat had. Louis/Claudia was third most popular, featured in 11% of fics, some of which I noticed made disclaimers like “In my version Claudia is magically an adult.” Okay, if that helps you sleep at night. Lestat remains the most popular character for whatever reason (???people are big fans of fiery vengeance???) so the fourth most popular pairing was Lestat/Original Character (read: Author Insert). Three percent of fics featured Lestat/Claudia, and I found one fic each that featuered Lestat/Armand, Armand/Original Character, Lestat/Edward Cullen, and Lestat/Thomas Jefferson.

Let me repeat, the “TJ” in that graph stands for third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. I hope that fact made your day like it made mine.

In conclusion, this book was pretty atmospheric, kind of gory, and not at all scary. So to sum up in gif form:

Don’t forget to read Brian’s review!
Previously: Hate Book Club: The Art of the Deal

Tagged: Book Reviews, hate book club

Posted in Hate Book Club |

New Bern!!

May 6th, 2016 by pladd

Steven and I went to New Bern for a weekend! It was the original capital of North Carolina back when it was a royal colony, so there was lots of historical things to do with people in period costume!

Tryon Palace!

Fancy period gardens!

Tryon Palace’s back lawn

And then there’s this nerd

We stayed at a bed and breakfast that ratcheted the fancy up to 11! This was our room:

The King George III room!

Here’s King George III preparing to watch me sleep

Look at this fancy-ass bathroom

SERIOUSLY LOOK

Honestly it was hard not to spend the whole weekend in the bathtub. But I made other plans. Like a tour of town in a Model A Ford!

So rickety!

Of course there were costumes

New Bern was an important port city back in the day because it lies at the confluence of the Trent and Neuse rivers that lead out to sea.

Selfies by the water!

One of the best parts about bed and breakfasts are the elaborate breakfast, and this place did not disappoint! Every morning there was a fruit-crumble-like appetizer followed by a choice of 3 entrees. I was usually all about the pancakes:

PANCAKES

The menu changed every day.

BUT NOPE MORE PANCAKES

Steven’s French toast was good too

New Bern is also the birthplace of Pepsi! I talked Steven into going in. It was WAY less fancy and ridiculous than The World of Coke we went to in Atlanta. Basically just a soda fountain.

Steven begrudgingly experiencing history

But the best thing about New Bern are the bears!!!! They were decorated and put up all over town to celebrate the town’s 300th anniversary in 2010. I tried to get my picture with all the ones we passed, but there are way more: