It's Alive

Last night I was watching a 1974 movie called It's Alive, directed by Larry Cohen, which I had taped from the TV. The film concerns a man whose wife gives birth to a giant mutant baby who has large sharp claws and vampire-like fangs, can run very fast and leap very high. After slaughtering the whole staff in the delivery room, the baby breaks out and goes on a murderous rampage through Los Angeles. Unusually for this kind of movie, the film focuses less on the creature and it's murders, or even the search for it, and more on the effects on the personal lives of the people involved. Like many of Larry Cohen's monster movies this one is quite savagely satirical with a strong vein of dark humour.

I was also reading both of the volumes of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novels written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill. They are kind of like parodies of popular Victorian literature in which several famous fictional heroes of the period band together to fight various threats to Britain. They are pretty dark but very funny. The graphic novels also include text stories by Moore, board games, Victorian magazine style adverts and a poem about complaining readers. There was a film based on the series, which I haven't seen but it's famously bad. The graphic novels are great though. Apparently they are very popular with students and researchers of Victorian literature due to their numerous references to Victorian fiction.

Today was a very dull day at work. I thought I would go back on to Facebook, but I found out that it doesn't actually delete the previous account, just removes it from the public feed. Due to all the drama and bad memories of a year ago (long story) I wanted to completely delete it and start afresh, but it turns out it takes two weeks to delete so I have to wait until that is done to go back on it again.