Published on Nov 12, 2009
I nearly died this week. Shortly after coming home from a delightful holiday abroad, I nearly broke my back by launching into a thunderous gut laughing at all of the articles I’ve been seeing about the X Factor ‘losing its credibility’. We’re talking uncontrollable yelps of hysteria here. I laughed until my sides hurt, until my spine was sore and until my lungs were raw. It’s like someone putting a white coat and glasses on a dog and people being outraged when it turns out not to be a real scientist.
It felt a little unfair that after all of these years sat hopefully on the sidelines, screaming obscenities at the television, the bubble finally decides to burst when I was away. I missed it. So where could I possibly have been that was worth missing one of the country’s most hateful institutions unravelling? Disney World, of course.
Regular readers might think Disney World an odd place for the author of this often bilious column to recharge his batteries. They’d be right. It was quite a harrowing experience.
It’s all bright sugary colours and impossibly smiley people. Then there are the parades, soul sapping sexless dance routines performed by dim-witted failing actors who grin at you like they’re having the time of their lives, with only their eyes offering a glimpse of the truth – that they’re twirling and tap dancing their way towards a particularly grizzly suicide.
That’s not even mentioning the hideous little bastard children and their awful, dead-eyed parents, who will push, pull, kick, punch, threaten, stab or shoot anyone or anything that gets in the way of junior enjoying that magical Disney experience.
And then there was me, an unpleasant whinging bastard, the lone cynic in all of Disney World.
Universal Studios, on the other hand, was much more my pace. For a start, it’s basically for grown-ups. The staff seemed annoyed, which made sense to me, and the rides all appeared to be either ironic or sarcastic. The park isn’t as absolutely filled to the brim with hate as me, but it has a little bit of edge.
Whilst it seems a little late, I’ll take a moment to mention that Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights is incredible. It’s a must for any horror film enthusiast. The event consists of a some of the park’s regular attractions in a slightly altered state (the Jaws ride in the dark breathes some real life into the iconic but rather rickety and sad looking attraction) and themed ‘mazes’, which are essentially walk through haunted houses where you get tormented by some of your favourite horror villains, and some original creations too.
This year in particular I enjoyed the Saw maze (which is far better than the recent sixth film, more on that later) and the ‘Silver Screams’ maze, which was a compilation of characters from genre classics such as My Bloody Valentine, Evil Dead 3, The Thing and Shaun Of The Dead.
If you are going to go next year, take my advice and bring a ‘screamer’ with you. You know, the person who you watch horror films with that makes a real scene of their self and embarrasses you in the cinema. Because as scared as they are of the character on a screen, it’s something else when they’re face to face with them. It’s fucking funny. Plus, the actors are brilliant and they know exactly who to target.
Speaking of things that scared the shit out of me and my girlfriend whilst we were away, we were able to get to a cinema to see Paranormal Activity. I really liked it. It’s good old fashioned spooky fun.
The camcorder shooting style is actually part of the plot, and used to great effect. Without wishing to spoil anything, there’s one particular camera set-up which is used regularly to such impressive effect that I found myself wincing every time they cut to it.
The big problem I had with the film came really late in the day. Specifically, the last eight seconds of the film are really, really rubbish. Apparently, there is an alternative ending online, but one thing this column can never be accused of being is well researched, so I don’t know if that’s true. Sorry.
Good for Paranormal Activity for showing up Saw 6, though. I found watching the latest Saw to be a bit like watching an episode of a soap I haven’t been following.
The films rely too heavily on the specifics of the previous entry when none of them are good enough to rewatch. It’s been a full year since the last one and I couldn’t remember what had happened in it, who anyone was or why I was supposed to care.
I’m at a point with the series now where even the things I can understand in the plot, I don’t get. Like the main villain; what’s he all about then? And the wife of the chap who was in the other one, what’s her deal? Didn’t all of these people die in the last one?
It’s around here that I’m supposed to link how baffling I find the Saw films to how odd I find X Factor or Disney or something. And sure, all three of them are things other people like that I just don’t seem to be able to get along with. Will that do?
Some other cool mazes, from Team Of Monkeys .com and from InkBlotMazes.com (Free Web Content)
Maze Artist Yonatan Frimer who started drawing mazes when he broke his leg.

A Maze portrait of albert einstein created by Yonatan Frimer.
“I have always found einstein to be a fascinating person” says Frimer, “At some point he changed the course of history with his findings.”
Maze Portrait of Albert Einstein.

“Genius Maze” – By Y. Frimer
Mazes Celebrity Portraits Activity Booklet