Blind Date With a Movie: Survival of the Dead

 

As I was clicking around on Etsy (the usual), I came across this really cute idea, "Blind date with..." I purchased my Blind Date With a Horror Movie here. (I also purchased a book version from a different seller, but I won't be posting about it.) The way this was packaged is adorable.

The package includes one movie (you don't know what you're getting, so it's like a mystery box which is not my favorite thing ever, but I thought the idea was really cute so I bought it anyway), skincare masks, tea, stickers, popcorn and flowers. It's a nice setup for a selfcare night. As far as the product itself goes, I would give this 5 stars. The seller did a nice job with the presentation, which is really why I bought it. So what I'm about to say is not a reflection on the seller in any way. It's about the movie.

I realize I don't always give horror movies a fair shot. So this time, I did everything I needed to do to get me in the horror spirit (which basically means I turned the lights off, burned some candles and made popcorn - not the microwave popcorn the movie came with). I would love to say that after all of that, I went into watching Survival of the Dead with an open mind, but I didn't. Zombie movies aren't usually my thing (with the exception of Train to Busan, Shaun of the Dead and My Boyfriend's Back). I figured, at least this one is only 90 minutes, that's short enough to not make me completely hate my life, right? Wrong.

Survival of the Dead was written and directed by George A. Romero...I'm confused. I know he made Night of the Living Dead, and while I personally don't care for that movie, I know a lot of people love it, it's generally regarded as a great horror film and probably considered to be the best zombie film by most people who have seen it. So...where did this movie come from? At least Night of the Living Dead is tolerable. This is not. (Neither was his script for Resident Evil. It may have been slightly better than Paul W.S. Anderson's film, but that doesn't make it good.) The zombie makeup is on par with House of the Dead. So is the acting. The whole thing looks like a Syfy movie, bad special FX and all. There's an introduction from George A. Romero where he says it's a horror movie, but "it has some funny moments, so don't forget to laugh." And listen, I'm going to be honest with you, I only made it through 16 minutes of this movie, but I didn't find a single second of it amusing. I feel horrible being so mean about it because he seems so happy in his intro.

From the little bit of this movie that I was able to get through, there are two clans. Families. Whatever. The O'Flynns, who want to kill all the zombies and the Muldoons, who want to protect them in case anyone ever discovers a cure. I immediately hated all of these people. Both sides. It doesn't even matter which side is right, they're all unlikable and I hope they all get eaten by the end of the movie (but I don't care enough to find out if they do). It seems like there's a Walking Dead situation where people are turning into zombies regardless of how they die. Which leads me to a question I hadn't thought of before, but I'm thinking about now...

These "Dead" movies aren't all in the same universe, right? Because if they are, it doesn't make any sense. In Night of the Living Dead, didn't everyone just claw their way out of their coffins one night? It wasn't like they were hit by a car, buried, and then came back to life because everyone on earth was already infected with the zombie virus. How many of these movies are there? Night, Day, Dawn, Land, Survival...Why haven't the zombies just eliminated the human race already? Can that be the next movie? So that no more can ever be made.

Some More Etsy Orders

 (I realize these items don't actually belong on a horror blog, but...I guess witchcraft is considered to be supernatural? So I feel like it sort of fits here. Plus, these items are really beautiful and I wanted to talk about them.)

I think I've already explained my feelings on this subject, but in case I haven't, I'll quickly do it again. In general, I don't really believe in anything (except aliens because we can't be the only intelligent life in the universe), but I do believe anything is possible. So while I'm skeptical about the properties certain crystals may have, I'm also hopeful that they'll do what they're supposed to do. If you think about something like aromatherapy, where different scents can bring out different reactions in people, why can't crystals do the same? Colors are also able to have an effect on us, right? If I'm wearing yellow (which rarely ever happens), I feel amazing, like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. So who knows? I'm not going to rule crystals out.

None of the items I bought can be used to harm anyone else, not intentionally. Hopefully not unintentionally either, I'm a little worried about a Monkey's Paw situation. I really just thought everything looked nice and if they do anything to help heal my traumas, even better.

The first shop I ordered from was AnitaApothecary. Shipping was extremely fast, I ordered on a Tuesday and everything arrived on Thursday.

I bought three candles, The Magick of Garnet (scented with balsam and cedar, and you can read the intentions on the label, but some include confidence, harmony and well-being), Season of the Witch (meant to connect to your ancestors during Samhain, but honestly, I just thought it looked beautiful) and The Shadow Worker (scented with berries and florals, meant to help you face your inner traumas and demons). As you can see, these candles are stunning. I don't ever want to burn them because of how gorgeous they are, they're a work of art.

I purchased the Autumn Spirit altar offering because I really wanted to use it as decor in a glass bottle. The scent is spiced apples, cider and pumpkin and for someone like me who loves every one of those scents, I had to buy this.

Lastly, I bought tea, Samhain Tisane (cinnamon, dried apple, orange peel - it sounded amazing) and Fuck Anxiety (don't we all feel that way?). Here's the thing though. I don't understand tea. I don't drink tea. I have no idea what to do with loose tea. So I haven't actually tried it yet, I'm intimidated by it. That sounds ridiculous, I know, but it's true. So I had to figure out what to do with loose tea and I went on ebay and bought two things...

I'm not going to bother linking either of these because I'm 99% positive that they are counterfeit Starbucks mugs and while that doesn't bother me because I didn't buy them as a collector, I don't want anyone who does collect their mugs to get scammed. I bought the tea cup for the tea, obviously. And because it's really cute. But I haven't used it yet. And then I bought the mug because I really wanted a cute Halloween mug and this one is adorable.

Lastly, with every order, you receive a little bag of extras, including a tarot card and candy, which is super nice. My experience ordering from this shop was great and I would absolutely place another order in the future.

The rest of my orders were for single items from several different shops, so let's go through them.

Different background for this one, sorry about that. I thought it would be easier to see it this way. This is a carnelian necklace from LanaMoonJewellry. If you look up the properties of carnelian, you're likely to find a lot of differing things. Personally, I bought it to help with my non-existent self esteem (I told you, I'm trying to heal my traumas). There's a dime in the picture for size reference, I was really surprised by how small it was when I first saw it. However, when I put it on, I realized it's the perfect size and I fell in love with it. It's dainty and so nice. I've been wearing it every day since I received it and I've gotten several compliments on it.

I bought another necklace, from The Twisted Forest. And if you saw my post about Crow Haven Corner, you'll know I bought a rose quartz wishing tree from them that was made by the same person who runs this shop. I love that wishing tree so much, I wanted to buy something else from them and I thought this silver acorn spell necklace was really cute. It's meant to be pink, but I don't think it actually looks that pink. The acorn is pretty large, I thought it would be a bit smaller, but I'm not bothered by it. I also really love this necklace and I've been wearing it layered with the carnelian necklace every day.

And finally, here's Jack, with a Banishing Heartbreak candle from Candle Intentions Shop. The scent is a combination of grapefruit, mango and sandalwood (I love the scent of sandalwood, it reminds me of the beach). Before anyone gets the wrong idea, this candle's intent is to promote self love and confidence and release traumas while giving you the courage to trust. I want to make it clear, I am not heartbroken over my ex. I have no lingering feelings for him, I don't want him back. Even if he came to me with a ring and begged me to take him back and then made a public apology for treating me (and everyone else he's ever come into contact with) badly, I wouldn't want him back. You can see by what I just said though, that I'm still dealing with some anger and bad feelings towards him, right? I also have trouble trusting men after what he did to me. The purpose of everything mentioned in this post is to help me heal so that when I decide to date again, I can do so in a healthy way.

That's all for this post! I'm extremely happy with everything I bought and hopefully everything does what it claims to do and I can live a happy life without feeling so annoyed all the time.

Coffin Letter Board

I want to start by saying I love Etsy. Too much. Sometimes on my days off I wake up and the first thing I do is check the Etsy app on my phone and then I'm in bed for an hour scrolling and looking at recommendations based on things I've purchased already. People are so creative and I like supporting smaller businesses when I can. I won't lie, there are times I buy things on Amazon because it's convenient and then I hate myself for it. But I've been buying a lot from Etsy over the past couple years. I have prints that I bought and have no room for. I bought cases for games I bought used at Gamestop that came with the ugly Gamestop cases. Masks. A ton of pins. A copy of Shivers 2. Some Fear Street books. Things you'll see in another post. So, yes. I have a problem when it comes to Etsy, I want to buy everything. Let's just put that out there right away.

One day, as I was browsing things the app wanted me to buy, I came across a coffin letter board and my first thought was, "I need that." And then I asked myself what I would even do with it. And the part of my brain that malfunctions when I see anything horror themed said, "I'll use it for my horror blog that I never advertise and no one knows about!" So I was kind of like, well...That's a waste of money then, isn't it? And I wasn't going to buy it. I was going to do the mature, responsible thing and control myself. Well. You can see how well that worked out, right?

I absolutely love this letter board. I want to use it to count down the days until Halloween. I want to put horror movie quotes on it. I bought accessories for it. It's going to be amazing, I'm going to make it worth the $34 I spent on it.

The letter board itself is really big. It comes with a...Thing (I know that's not the right word, but it's all I've got) on the back so you can hang it if you'd like to, but it also includes a stand that you can sit it on. There are so many letters. If you look at the quote on my coffin, you can see how many I used and how many repeating letters there are and I didn't run out, I still had a lot left over. You should absolutely have enough letters to write whatever you'd like on there. It's sturdy, I don't think it's something you'll need to worry about breaking (unless you drop it from your roof or something in which case...what are you expecting to happen?). The only issues I had with it are that the letters are really hard to remove from the plastic they come attached to. I had to use a pair of hair shears to cut them off because regular scissors weren't doing it. Three pieces also broke, two W's and one *. That's not terrible because you do get so many pieces, but it's worth noting.

I have more accessories coming, but the ones I'm using now are from HoneycombHeights. What's nice about these is that you're able to choose how big they are and the color. I chose pink, obviously, because it's the best color. I know it's not a Halloween color, but I'm not just using this for Halloween, so it's fine.