Good golly Miss Molly, but there’s an awful lot of free downloadable avant-garde films available at UbuWeb. Beckett, Borges, Bu

Kristin Thompson analyzes the Internet-fan-driven PR campaign for and interaction with Snakes on a Plane versus the Internet-fan-driven PR campaign for and interaction with Borat and the relative successes thereof, touching on the Internet-fan-driven PR campaigns for and interaction with The Blair Witch Project and The Lord of the Rings on the way. Besides a great deal of insight in terms of the key differences between the phenomena surrounding each of those films, the piece offers another exciting tidbit that I, at least, wasn’t aware of: Thompson is writing a book about the Rings films and fandom called The Frodo Franchise. Hot.

Downtown Austin was shut down after dozens of dead birds were discovered. Probably just something they ate.

Remember those mystery smells that periodically enveloped a city or two a while back? There’s currently a gas-like odor of unknown origin blanketing Manhattan, and I’ve received first-hand (first-nose?) reports from friends who say they can smell it in Jersey City, too. Oh well, I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. You can go about your business. Move along.

“So many babies, not all of them dead, are being dumped in the bush that hyenas have developed a taste for human flesh.”

–anonymous Zimbabwean game ranger, “Zimbabwe, the land of dying children; Mugabe has ruined his country with policies that are killing thousands, writes RW Johnson in Harare,” The Sunday Times

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.)

But apparently there is a certain type of African fungus that reproduces by driving a certain type of African ant insane. Once the ant inhales the fungus, it infects the bug’s brain, causing it to crawl out of its jungle-floor habitat, climb a tree or vine, latch on with its mandibles, and wait to die. The fungus then consumes the ant from the inside out, then shoots a spike-like appendage out of the dead insect’s brain, which then lets loose spores that fall to the ground and begin the cycle anew.

Video found at Random Good Stuff, courtesy of the great Bryan Alexander at Infocult, who has more information about the process and about the equally gruesome Alien-style life cycle of the ichneumon wasp. Nightmare material all.

Courtesy of the great cartoonist and editor Sammy Harkham comes this old essay on David Lynch and his film Lost Highway by David Foster Wallace. Provided you can stomach Wallace’s almost superhumanly grating tics and have already seen Twin Peaks because THE DUMB BASTARD REVEALS WHO KILLED LAURA PALMER WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A WARNING, it’s worth a read. It’s part of Mike Hartmann’s City of Absurdity, an almost superhumanly exhaustive Lynch fan site, which you should probably also check out. I wrote about Lost Highway here, if you’re interested.

Posting this was inspired by flipping through the channels and discovering that Kyle MacLachlan is a cast member of Desperate Housewives. He also maintains an almost superhumanly adorable website for his dogs Mookie and Sam, did you know that?

“In the last week more Americans have died in New Orleans than in Iraq. Since Dec. 29, there have been eight military deaths. In the Big Easy, there have been 14 murders.”

–Martin Savidge, “Homicides on the rise in New Orleans; City’s murder rate is 30 percent higher than any other U.S. city,” MSNBC.com

Learn what my most anticipated horror event of the year is at this week’s Horror Roundtable!

Learn what I thought of yesterday’s issues of Civil War, 52, Scalped, All Star Superman, Amazing Spider-Man, and Punisher War Journal at this week’s Thursday Friday Morning Quarterback!

“They

Courtesy of Loren Coleman comes a report that a “very fast and aggressive” eight-foot American Crocodile has been captured in the Cayman Islands. The only problem? Crocs have been extinct in the Caymans for two centuries.

Real-life water monsters RULE.

I’ve been hostile to Hostel‘s (and similar films’) attempts to dress up their splatter in the clothing of social critique–I’ve been doing this without having seen them, granted, but it just seems to me like anyone could watch The American Nightmare and say “yeah, me too.”

These photos by Clinton Fein, on the other hand, are another story.

I still feel there’s a certain narcissim posing as bravery in only speaking to evil when it’s going on in your own backyard, but regardless, another story entirely.

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.)

I recently interviewed Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, who shared all sorts of juicy info on the remainder of Season 3. Go read it!

Now go look at some skeletons having sex.

(Hat tip: Strange Ink.)