Spring-Heeled Jack

Ah, England. The land of Shakespeare, the land of fish and chips, and the land of Spring-Heeled Jack…who I’m sure you’ve heard of. You know the guy. Black cloak, glowing red eyes, point ears, claws like iron, breathed fire?

Spring-Heeled Jack is one of those urban legends I don’t quite understand. Kind of like the Chupacrabra. I don’t get the Chupacabra. I don’t get Big Foot either, come to think of it.

He wasn’t a super-villain in some comic book, believe it or not. He was a supposedly real figure who terrorized small towns throughout the early 19^th century, until he made his debut in London. That was when the stories really began to pick up. It became an almost weekly event for some sort of mention of him in one newspaper or another.

It’s believed that Spring-Heeled Jack could jump great heights, leaping in bounds over buildings with ease. Some witnesses described him as a cloaked man with springs in his boots. I suppose the idea was so convincing, Germany tried to implement the idea in WWII on their paratroopers. Unfortunately for them, the only results were badly broken ankles.

Spring-Heeled Jack’s favorite past-times were tearing women’s clothing, and slapping men on the face. Sometimes he’d even blind the occasional victim with his fire breath. He gave an original meaning to the term ‘Halitosis’, in that regard.

His most infamous sighting was in 1904, when he was spotted by over 100 witnesses in Liverpool. This was also the final time he would be seen in England for 70 years. Kind of sad when you think about it, as if everyone banded together to give their kinky bogey man a good send-off before retiring.

It's widely believed Spring-Heeled Jack was actually a young nobleman, the Marquess of Waterford, who didn't really get on well with police or women. He may very well have been the first Spring-Heeled Jack, having taken a bet with several friends. I suppose the bet was something along the lines of 'run about the city making an ass of yourself with slinkies in your shoes', or something along those lines. Regardless, sightings continued after the Marquess had married, and even after he died in 1859.

He would be spotted several more times in the 1970s and 80s, but the story had lost most of it’s punch. Or slap. Spring-Heeled Jack was a good example of an era monster, defined by the culture he originated from.

Campy Nightmares: 5 Horror Flicks To Hurt Your Brain

Sometimes, I find myself watching a movie and well aware before I even pop it into the vcr/dvd player/open it on vlc/etc. that I am about to watch something which may very well consume my immortal soul. I could actually make a top '100' list of all these many narrow escapes from ultimate self-destruction, but I decided to let my brain recover from a recent one, and just stop at five for now. So without further ado, leading from mildly 'well, there goes my comprehension of logic and reality' to 'I'm officially insane', I give you 5 HORROR FLICKS TO HURT YOUR BRAIN

5. Teenage Caveman (2002)

This is one of those movies you may stumble upon late at night, if you happen to be lucky (or unlucky) enough to have access to HBO, insomnia, and a desire to enjoy some good old-fashioned 'teen' porn without the legal consequences that may come with it.

4. Terror Vision (1986)

Despite the fact that this is...a bad movie...it's not bad. Let me rephrase that. This one defines camp, (deliberately exaggerated and theatrical in style, typically for humorous effect). So why is it even listed here? Well, it's vaguely like a movie for adults, then somewhat like a movie for kids as well, but it never really defines the actual side of the fence it wants to be on...unless you count the weird bedroom scene with all of the creature heads, but nothing is outright said about sexing there, so I think it's safe to assume it could be one of the adult jokes they always slip into a children's movie just so parents don't shoot themselves from boredom. Even with the fact that it looks like an 80s romp for the kiddies, the monster is just too scary. By an 8-year-old's standards, anyway. Maybe I'm just biased, from a distant memory of running out of the room crying because I couldn't handle the man-eating slime monster, and huddling under my bed until I knew the movie was over. Still, I think this has a well-deserved spot on my list, though it may be a bit more entertaining than the rest. Here's a trailer to give you a general idea of what the heck I mean.

3. Jack Frost (1996)

I know this may sound crazy, but given the choice between this...Christmas classic...and Child's Play, I'd pick the other one for a nursery school movie any time. Quality does come into play, based on budget, but so does actual content. There's so much damn cussing from this foul-mouthed snowman, and a bag of puns  than Freddy Kreuger on a bender. I'm not knocking the blade-man, so don't get too mad at me. I suppose the ultimate brain scorcher for me, though, would have to be the fact that it took everyone over an hour to figure out antifreeze might be a viable option for battling a block of talking ice...be warned, this movie does not feature a love-able Micheal Keaton. Not by mile-long icicle.

2. Teenage Space Vampires (1999)

I refuse to turn this into a list attacking the low budget field of cinema, nor even the poor-writing field, the bad directing field, crappy SFX field, and the terrible acting field. HOWEVER, this one kind of falls into every single one of those areas. There's only one memorable moment, the rest left me thinking to myself 'how can they be vampires, if they look like aliens? I think this movie is putting too much emphasis on the space part.' It honestly felt like one of those concepts translated to a language, and then back to the original, then maybe to a third for good measure, until nobody really knew what the monster was...so they just kinda went with it. Anyway, here's a pretty good example of one of the better moments in the movie. That's saying something, since it's not really much of a moment.

1. Ghost Fever (1987)

I feel sorry for this final one. Sherman Hemsley practically funneled a majority of his money into it, and you can really kind of almost somewhat not really see the potential here. Two ghosts try to keep the slave-owner father of one of them from leaving his grave, then the descendant of the other comes to the house they used to live in to throw two old women out, the two old women turn out to be beautiful and young, they've got a psychic...there's a dancing mummy ghost getting served by George Jefferson...Dracula...Rape machine, zombie surgery, boxing match, death, champagne and thunderstorm...I don't really know where I was going this. It feels more like a combination of as many terms as possible on a youtube video description, just to boost page views. Maybe that's what they were going for in the movie, too? I wish I could say this was another weird movie that charmed me to death in it's own poor existence, but Hemsley went bankrupt as a result of this ham. The director was so ashamed, he even took the 'Allen Smithee' name for it...which is a title usually only employed when nobody wants to acknowledge a picture as their own. I honestly hope some day this movie gets the attention 'The Room' and 'Troll 2' got, and audiences from miles around flock to worship it for the train wreck it turned out to be. It's on youtube in it's entirety, by the way, though Netflix completely dumped it. I wonder why?