Usually when something looks extremely cheesy and based on things that are so lame I cant understand how they became popular (like Pokémon and Power Rangers), I avoid it at all cost.
RL Stine wrote 87 Goosebumps stories between 1992 and 2000. The books were aimed at young teenagers and all had campy horror themes like famous movie monsters, ghosts, and other creepy things. I actually never read any of the books, but I do recognize the cover art. The books were everywhere when I was a kid.
Hollywood recently added a movie to the franchise (of course they did, no original ideas in Hollywood for the last 15 years). It looks awful. However, a friend of mine defended the recent Goosebumps movie as being a pretty good family comedy. I was skeptical, and the fact that it was made in 2015 and already streaming on Netflix is probably not a good sign. But I watched it the other day and I was pleasantly surprised.
The best part, obviously, were the evil gnomes! Definitely the best part of the movie. These critters are little terminators. We get to watch them get smashed, fed to a disposal, melted in an oven, caught in bear traps and still come out fighting. I recommend the movie for this alone.
Gnomes as the monster in horror stories isn't a new or fresh idea. I wrote about it before on this blog. In 2004 the creator of the failed Chaos Comics wrote a one shot comic for Avatar Press, about killer gnomes.
Brian Pulido founded Chaos! Comics in 1994 and helped jumpstart the "bad girl" comics era. His characters Lady Death, Chastity, and Jade were joined by London Night's Razor and Shi, Image Comics' Witchblade, Dawn, and Dark Chylde, Neil Gaiman's Angela, and IDW's Danger Girl in creating a new era of scantily clad, highly sexualized, exploitative femme fatales. The art style affected comics for the next 20 years.
After Chaos Comics went under in 2002, Brian Pulido began writing for other publishers, and dabbled in film. Killer Gnomes was one of these projects. The comic came first. But in 2009, he wrote and directed a short film called There's Something out There, which follows the plot of the comic book.
Killer Gnomes starts with the main character bringing home a garden gnome which comes to life and protects the garden with extreme murderous efficiency.
My last post was about the Little Buffalo State park in Perry County, and the decision to outlaw a man's gnome home building hobby.
However, it appears that a few more level headed fans who appreciate this homegrown tourist attraction have offered to install the homes on their properties instead. The link to an article all about it is below.
According to PennLive.com, nearby Duncannon and Millerstown have both offered to take the uprooted homes and welcome gnome resettlement in their parks. Also, the local Newport Public Library has offered to take some of the homes.
The article is about a state park in Newport, PA, and the park administration's terrible decision to shut down the culture of building and maintaining gnome homes on the premises. The title of the article, linked in The Sentinel masthead above, reads "Gnomes Evicted from Tiny Village". I picture dozens of gnomes tossed out into the snow, with bags of their possessions tied up on sticks.
It is pretty sad to watch bureaucrats shut down a small-time hobby that has grown into its own mini tourism site. But I guess because it "harms the ecology" it ought to go. Those gnomes don't deserve homes anyway. Freeloaders.
I appreciate a good pun, especially when it's a play on internet slang. Also I appreciate jokes about large animals eating everything indiscriminately.
Over at Big Mouth Inc they create tons of hilarious novelty gifts. They have an entire section just for gnomes too. This hungry tyrant is one of them. There are tons of outlets online that sell it, including Amazon. It runs for around $20.00.
In 1970, shortly after the Beatles broke up, George Harrison released his first solo record All Things Must Pass. It has become a classic. However, the most important part was the cover, obviously.
Yes, those are garden gnomes! How did this blog last this long without including George Harrison in Friar Park? The photographs were taken by Barry Feinstein. The gnomes were said to represent the members of Harrison's former band, who had just infamously broke up. There was a rumor that the cover image pissed off John Lennon, but he was probably just jealously angry over Harrison's remarkable music made without him.
I think we all know musical talent had nothing to do with it. This record did so well because of the gnomes on the cover.
Someone in Devonshire has just raised the bar on gnome related hijinx. This woman woke up to find 107 gnome figurines in her garden. They appeared overnight, no clues as to who left them or why, and no businesses in the area sold any gnomes in high volume, and there has not been a rash of reports of stolen gnomes. This almost looks like an Ottmar Hoerl art display.
The Surprise Gnome-Man's Land Baffles Homeowner in Devonshire headline from the Guardian proves that sometimes real life headlines can be funnier than the Onion. In fact this whole article reads like a satire news story. Aside from the clever pun in the headline, a Devonshire policeman is quoted as saying, "someone is playing a Game of Gnomes". Obviously British cops have a far better sense of humor than the American police force.
I have so many questions. Like, where did these pranksters get all these gnomes? How expensive was this prank? Why did the police feel the need to confiscate all 107 gnomes? Do they enjoy cataloging all that evidence? And seriously, how much fun must it have been to write this article?
