The Weekly Geek: Scary movies and babies on film

In case you didn’t know, the greatest, geekiest holiday of the year is nearly upon us. Yes, readers, it’s time to get dressed up as someone (or something), eat tons of candy and watch horror films. And while that may or may not describe my own personal daily routine, it’s actually socially acceptable for one day every year!

In spirit of the holiday, the Figit blog put out a list of the 15 cursed movie objects that you never want to own. Among the items listed is the puzzle box from Hellraiser, the cursed painting from Ghostbusters 2, the TV from Poltergeist and the videotape from The Ring. It’s basically a laundry list of all the supposedly inanimate objects that can terrorize, murder, torture, hypnotize and/or eat the souls of our beloved movie characters. Spooky!

I’m going to go ahead and add another scary object to the list: the ankh from The Hunger, one of the most popular lesbian vampire movies ever to grace the screen. If you have one of those; sure, you’ll get centuries of youth and beauty, but only at the cost of becoming an undead wraith at the end of your tenure. Not worth it, even if you do get to sleep with Catherine Deneuve!

On another, entirely scare-free note, I have a cool viral video to share.

One of the most popular phenomena on video-sharing sites has always been cute things. Babies, baby animals, small children — aside from people falling down, dancing, or doing mind-blowing things — prove cuteness is king.

So it warms my heart to highlight this stunning example of creativity, posted recently on boingboing: A music video in which the music is created entirely from internet baby videos. It’s a collection of plain old home movies, manipulated and edited so that all the adorable gurgles, giggles and sneezes form a funky, danceable beat.

The genius (I’m serious!) outfit behind this is eclecticmethod, a band best known for their audio-visual mash-ups featured by the Beastie Boys and U2. Remember the awesome video for “Intergalactic” back in 2002? That was EM.

So many people bag on the YouTube era for being creatively bankrupt. The haters all say that since video is easy and accessible, all folks do is post whatever crap they want — like baby videos. Artists like EM prove that there is so much power and creativity in the art of the remix — and that a little inspiration and talent can turn the mundane into something profoundly cool.

It doesn’t hurt that the results are incredibly, ridiculously cute, as well.