Nicolas Cage was always one of my top favorite actors. Highly talented and exceedingly prolific, it is an all time Hollywood favorite, and one of the most amazing actors active in the industry today. 

His objectively focused style of acting, and astounding prolificacy are probably his most ambitious trademarks. With practically seventy movies to his name, the fifty two years old veteran’s first movie was 1982 Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Since then, the actor hasn’t stopped, showing a great degree of focus, audacity, enthusiasm and energy, that has maintained him as one of the top actors of his generation, and a movie favorite among audiences.

Personally, my favorite Nicolas Cage movies are Rage, The Frozen Ground, Season of the Witch, Matchstick Men, Lord of War, The Wicker Man, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Seeking Justice, Stolen, Con Air and Vampire’s Kiss. 

Extremely compromised also in attending interviews, movie premieres, film festivals, press conferences and a lot of other movie-related publicity appointments, Nicolas Cage’s involvement on the movie industry has a great degree of compromise, passion and excitement, which is a great demonstration of commitment from a man that really loves his work, and has an immensurable sense of passion about it.

Okay, let’s be real and honest here, he has done his share of really bad movies, and has had a lot of awkward moments onscreen, as well as his fair share of scandals, but in Hollywood who hasn’t? He’s not perfect after all, he’s only human. But if you manage to see and appreciate his acting style, his committed sense of purpose and the vast amount of humanity that he puts into his characters, it is not possible to deny him the appreciation he deserves. His focus, sensibility, devotion and the capability to jump from one movie to the next certainly requires a lot of discipline and enthusiasm, and he has these qualities to such an extent that is impossible not to admire him as an actor, and an exceedingly good professional. 

This movie severely divided M. Night Shyamalan’s critics. While some movie commentators complimented the film as a proper return to form for the controversial director, others severely criticized the movie, in the worst way possible. But I have my own personal opinion about it. If I would criticize one thing in the movie, it would be the found footage style. I think this movie would be better suitable in the traditional form. I know it will probably result in another movie, but, regardless, I think that the conventional form would give the movie a more sinister and macabre tone. Nonetheless, the movie is in fact very scary, and have a lot of authentic frightening moments as well, but I can’t avoid thinking how this story would result, if shot in the traditional manner. 

​While I cannot exactly say I am a fan or a specialist in the moviemaking career of Mister Shyamalan, for me, this is certainly the best Shyamalan movie that I have seen so far. It’s good. It’s authentic. Despite being shot in the now tired and overused found footage style, you get a realistic presence and a true to life cinematic feel. The movie is filled with funny as well as scary scenes, being great and very well dosed the balance in between them. You get a real sense of strategy, reality, fear and commitment to ordinary life itself. True and very scary fearful moments. Tension, horror, desperation and expectation. Yes, this movie has it all, in a very thin, subtle, disguised manner. If you are a fan of genuine horror films, you have to see The Visit. If you do yourself the favor of ignoring completely the found footage style – that, forgive me for the heresy, but I have to say, Shyamalan handled very skillfully, decently complying with the standards, while at the same time, reinventing the limitations of the genre – you will have a very good horror piece. This movie is worth watching it! And by the time you’re reading this review, I’ve already seen the movie a second time!

Regardless of the competent direction of M. Night Shyamalan, the greatest triumph of the movie resides in the great skills of its two main actors, Australian teenagers Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould. Being very skilled, talented, playful, spontaneous, realistic, and confident, despite acting like real professional actors, they appear not to forget how to be true real life teenagers, in one of those “life imitates art” situations, that we hardly see coming spontaneously in movies these days. Both really handle very well their respective characters throughout the movie, giving life to sad teenagers that find difficult to go on with their lives, now that their father dismissed them for good. DeJonge and Oxenbould form a terrific duo, with great timing, synergy, in-depth ability to communicate, and a very convincing brother and sister relationship, to the point that this movie would not be the same, if they had not being cast. They are amazingly great together, and it is impossible not to like them both!     

Well, finally, The Visit turns out to be a very, very good movie! I think I never became so happy because of a movie before. A little more thriller than actual horror, The Visit is a groundbreaking genre twisting tension picture, that proves why Shyamalan hurts so badly “movie experts” and “movie critics” all the way through. He knows what he’s doing! He’s good at it! Well, what can I say? At least, it fits very well my personal taste! And certainly, if you like a very good, pretty functional, perfectly directed found footage mystery thriller film, The Visit is a safe choice. You will have the most wonderful time seeing it!  

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Wagner

The Original Night Stalker – called original to avoid confusion with the Night Stalker Richard Ramirez, who came after him – was a heinous serial killer and rapist who terrorized California for ten years, from 1976 to 1986. He was never apprehended, nor positively identified.

Details about this cruel and aggressive murderer are scarce, and to this day, the police agencies responsible for his capture know very little factual things about him. This occurred mainly because the Original Night Stalker was a ghost: he invaded homes quietly, silently attacked his victims during the night, blinded them with a flashlight, raped the woman, in some cases, next to her husband, killed both, and then he was gone, disappearing into the night, leaving without a single trace. His modus operandi made police believe that the criminal may have had some sort of military background, which fits perfectly with his meticulous nature, planning capacities, methodical abilities to attack, and sagacity to avoid capture. Another uncommon trait of him was the fact that he also tied his victims with a very intricate and complex knot, called Diamond Knot, which requires a great deal of agility and experience to tie. With such uncommon remarkable features, and a high degree of intelligent premeditation –
impossible to find in ordinary criminals –, the Original Night Stalker made himself quite an enigma to the law enforcement authorities responsible for his capture. 

Initially been a serial rapist, who raped approximately fifty women in Northern California, mostly in East Sacramento, from 1976 to 1979, the criminal was then dubbed The East Area Rapist. The killings of the Original Night Stalker from 1979 to 1986 were considered unrelated, until DNA evidence proved conclusively that this was the work of the same criminal. So investigators were astounded to discover that The East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker were exactly the same person. But what made him become a killer? Police theorized that his criminal life may have begun in a very elusive and increasing pattern. He probably at first started his illicit activities burglarizing homes. Upon doing it several times, he started to get urges that demanded more action, and very soon, burglary wasn’t satisfying him anymore. Then, seeing how easy it was to enter another person’s home, he became a rapist. Unpunished, he became reliant and self-confident, believing he would never be caught. Repeating the pattern over and over again, his behavior turned serial, and seeing how easy it was to subdue a victim, he started killing.    

The great feature of the Original Night Stalker was his remarkable ability to avoid capture. Even with the police forces intensifying the investigations, he never was more than a ghostly shadow, blending into the night, unforeseeable, unpredictable and mysterious, becoming a ghoul that made people in California go to sleep with fear for at least a decade. The very own definition of terror. 

Gun sales increased with the Original Night Stalker paranoia. Nevertheless, police continued the investigations, that were constantly plagued by unbearable dead ends. All that they could possibly say for a fact was that the Original Night Stalker was a man in great physical shape, being able to jump large fences, and run great distances, using a bicycle sometimes, that he abandoned, as soon as he could get to his car, that he probably kept in a nearby neighborhood. Police also believe that he used to observe the homes he was eager to enter prior to the invasions. He normally chose quiet upper to middle class suburbs, probably blending to the general neighborhood population during the daytime. Numerous times, law enforcement officials reported that people living in those areas said that a mysterious unrecognizable individual was watching their neighborhood or home in a very disturbing manner, but the man vanished as soon as he perceived his presence to become suspicious.

With such a high degree of scrupulous planning and meticulous execution, it became quite impossible for law enforcement agencies to catch the criminal. Now, thirty years after the end of his predatory activities, the investigation teams are still active in the case, hoping to bring a solution to the crimes of the Original Night Stalker.

There’s the chance of these crimes ever being solved? I don’t think so. This killer probably hasn’t stopped. As serial killers can cool off, but never stop, he may have simply changed location. Or perhaps, he is in prison, incarcerated on an unrelated crime. Since thirty years have passed since his last known attack, it is plausible to think that he just became too old, and now, being an elderly man, he is no longer able to kill. Or he may have died, after all. Who knows? Being a lot smart than the cops that he successfully eluded over a period of several years, what we will certainly never know is his true identity. After so much time, the most plausible conclusion is that the Original Night Stalker will always remain a mystery.                     

Howard Philips Lovecraft, better known as H.P. Lovecraft, was an American writer whose innovative, profound and eccentric creative genius in the literary field of horror, fantasy, science, weird and speculative fiction generated an entire literary genre of its own – now regarded as lovecraftian horror –, being posthumously considered one of the greatest writers on this genre of literature ever to exist, having exercised an everlasting influence in all subsequent generations of writers in the horror and fantasy genres.

A native of New England, Howard Philips Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on 20 August, 1890, and very early exhibited traces of unusual creativity, intellectual precociousness, restless curiosity and literary skills, that unfortunately, would hardly help him in his ordeals throughout life. In his childhood, his grandfather, Whipple Van Buren Phillips, a prominent New England businessman, was instrumental in encouraging the love for literature in the young Lovecraft. 

Having started his writing at a very early age, Lovecraft appeared to have been shy and introverted as a child, and as a young man had little to no social life. As he was growing up, his writing skills developed brightly, but the literary market, throughout his entire journey, would prove to be a cruel, hostile, unstable and difficult place.

Having tried a great deal of jobs and employments, despite being a theoretical genius in the intellectual level, Lovecraft had no skills nor ambitions in real life, which would be to him a source of constant problems, difficulties and deprivations. Always making efforts to support himself by literary means, Lovecraft worked constantly as a ghost writer, freelance editor, text reviser and proof reader, but the income generated badly covered his personal costs of living, which, for almost all of his life, was always below the necessary to survive decently.

Before the twenties begun, Lovecraft started writing letters to magazines, criticizing, in one of them, the lack of content and consistency of some of the stories, as well as the opacity of some writers featured. Lovecraft’s constant letters and criticisms soon caught the attention of editors and writers in the market, and subsequently Lovecraft was introduced to the world of pulp fiction magazines.

Being able to sell stories, Weird Tales became the magazine which would feature most of Lovecraft’s work, and very soon, the unknown writer had developed a cult following, with a lot of the public buying the magazine just to read his stories. 

Unfortunately, this would not change his situation in life. The income generated with selling stories was mediocre, to say the least, and, although Lovecraft had developed a considerable fan-base with his work circulating in magazines, nobody expressed interest to publish him in book form. 

Nevertheless, Lovecraft’s prestige as a writer grew, especially among other writers, and soon he was being recognized by his peers as one of the most talented and innovative writers of his generation. Several friendships grew out of this, and Lovecraft started a lifelong correspondence with writers like Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Howard (a pioneer of the sword and sorcery genre, creator of Conan the Barbarian) and August Derleth (which would become Lovecraft’s literary executor, after his death), among others. They frequently exchanged ideas, and borrowed characters from one another. Several monsters and creatures from the lore of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos were borrowed by these authors, with Lovecraft’s happiness and approval. From lack of a better name, posterity would call this literary group “The Lovecraft Circle”, which would prove itself to be a rather peculiar set of friends, since most of them never met in real life, but corresponded frequently. In fact, letter writing was a major part in Lovecraft’s life, to the extent of having him being regarded today as the second most prolific letter writer in human history, staying only behind Voltaire (it is estimated today that Lovecraft wrote no less than 100.000 letters in his life). Soon, Lovecraft would become a mentor to other writers as well, like Frank Belknap Long. At this moment in life, Lovecraft would be surrounded constantly by a lot of other writers, that acknowledged him as friend, adviser, erudite and literary genius.

Mid-twenties brought to him a change in life, that Lovecraft believed was for the better, but soon proved to be for the worst. He married a woman seven years older, named Sonia Greene, and both exchanged Providence for New York City, a move that would cost Lovecraft a great deal of turmoil and difficulties. 

Although being a hard working woman, with attitude and energy, that treated Lovecraft well, the hardships of living in New York would be extenuating for both. A little less deprived than what he was used to (Lovecraft’s weight increased significantly because of Sonia’s meals), soon unemployment, lack of opportunities, robberies, burglaries and financial constraints would make life in New York exasperating for Lovecraft, that would divorce his wife, and return to Providence for good. His time in New York also hardened Lovecraft’s view on race and ethnicity. Being a proud anglophile and a pervasive WASP, which held in high regard British culture, having a fondness for everything 19th, 18th and 17th century related, a cosmopolitan city like New York, being a confluence of immigrants with no traits of its own, was seen by Lovecraft as a place of decay, degeneration and degradation, where all subhuman species mixed together. His racist points of view, as well as his partiality and favoritism towards everything Anglo-Saxon related, although a little subjective sometimes, is prominent in his fiction, and to this day remains controversial.       

Returning to Providence, Lovecraft would start the most creative and ambitious literary moment of his life (which, spanning the years from 1926 to 1937, would be his last decade), and probably his most daring and fascinating works were written during this period.

Towards the end of his life, Lovecraft endured a progressively hard situation. His last days were particularly difficult ones. Dying of cancer, having no money, no food, and little to no assistance, America’s soon-to-be greatest literary legend spent his last days in hunger, pain, solitude and suffering. Having lived a tough life with poor prospects, Lovecraft was dedicated and fully committed to literature for all his life, having had little – if any – in return. With no practical real skills to support himself in life, not being able to maintain any jobs – sometimes treating fine opportunities with apathy – and never capable to generate any substantial money through writing, creative literature seemed to be the only place where Howard Philips Lovecraft could find a little consolation from the grips of life, as well as a sense of purpose. Ironically, this poor, neglected and forgotten man would achieve great worldwide success after his death, being acclaimed as one of the most original, complex and complete horror and fantasy writers of his generation, acquiring a posthumous reputation that most authors would hardly achieve, being subsequently translated to all major languages spoken today. Nevertheless, his fame came through primarily as the working effort of Arkham House, a publishing company that started printing and publicizing Lovecraft’s work after his death, and whose co-owner, author August Derleth, had been a personal friend.

Having died being a nobody, 46 years old, on March 15, 1937, in his native Providence, Howard Philips Lovecraft became one of the greatest literary icons of 20th century world literature. With a vast and immense bibliography, Lovecraft was also one of the most prolific writers in history, having written hundreds of poems, and dozens of short stories, novelettes and essays, as well as ghost writings, collaborations and miscellanea, in addition to a hundred thousand letters, of which a small amount have been preserved and published. Today, his most read and famous works are At the Mountains of Madness, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Dunwich Horror, The Colour Out of Space, The Doom that Came to Sarnath, The Statement of Randolph Carter and The Horror at Red Hook, amongst others.