Tag Archives: Creature

After Shock

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I’m an addict, I’m addicted to tv-series. Not the regular ones and no comedy, the ones that intrigue me, the ones that make me think about subjects. Monday night was the start of a new season of this show I’ve watched for years now. I remember seeing the first episode and I was shocked by the horror of the creatures that are a threat to mankind. I’m talking about The Walking Dead. At first these zombies creeped me out but after watching the show for a while you start to get used to the gore that’s being displayed. Deep down you realise it’s all fake and I must say that the make-up artists did an extremely good job at making things so realistic. Still everyone watching the show is aware of the fact that these creatures aren’t real.

I have a love hate relationship with this show. The storyline is often thrilling and the suspense is killing me just like the cliffhangers. I’m not the faint-hearted type and I enjoy a tacky horror movie at times but it’s different with this show. The people are ‘real’, the situation is ‘real’, it’s a new world with a new enemy, the zombies. Mankind needs to find ways to deal with them and new ways to survive. Through each season the protagonists were able to, made new friends and although there is a constant threat, they would find ways to pick up the pieces, move on and start building again. So far -watching six seasons- it has been shocking at times, people died in horrid ways, but the bad guys were always defeated by the good guys.

Last night I watched the start of the seventh season and was appalled by what was shown. It was not the gore, it was the interaction between the whole group of protagonists and the peronality called ‘Negan’ leader of a gang, who had taken them into captivity. It was the behaviour of this one manipulative, cruel, sadistic and ruthless person, an inhumane dictator, and even that doesn’t cover it. What was shown was some of the most upsetting images I’ve ever watched on TV. Negan hit one of the protagonists on the head with a baseball bat, so hard that his eye pops out. A few moments later he completely bashes his skull until nothing is left but a bloody mess. This was his second victim shown in extreme outrageously grotesque detail.

When the show was over I was left in shock, going over things again and again. I didn’t want to watch this show anymore, they’ve crossed that line to me and I really don’t understand how it’s possible that they show this on TV when other less cruel, less violent images are banned or censored straight away. I’ve looked up reviews to see how other people feel about this -as at first I thought it was just me- but most of them share my sentiments and thoughts. I’m left with a bleak overall feeling not sure what to make of it…

Japanese Sea Dragons

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These pictures below are one of many reasons why I only swim in an ‘artificially maintained area of water’… I was only five years old and in awe of nature’s wonders: constantly looking for bugs, plants or baby animals. I could walk a square metre for hours, up and down with my eyes focused on the ground in search of the tiniest plant or insect. I remember I was wandering around a forest near where my grandmother lived. There where ducklings swimming in the ditch and I was running across the wooden bridge from one side to the other and back, trying to get a good look at the tiny ducks.
At some point, one of the ducklings stayed a bit behind and out of mums sight and care, and I tried to chase it back to the group when a huge pike [Esox lucius] rose from the water with its great big jaws wide open. I had the perfect view on the row of immense teeth that snatched the little duck from the water surface in seconds, to drag it down into the deep empty black darkness of the ditch. I stood there terror-stricken, blaming myself for what just had happened to the little duck. I ran back to my grandmother’s house, screaming and crying my eyes out. I have this picture stuck in my head ever since; The Teeth of Terror…
So I relived that memory when I saw these pictures and made the same vow again as I did years ago, not to ever swim in ponds, rivers or even seas; I’m glad Japan is miles away from here…
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Flaring the gills that give the species its name, a frilled shark swims at Japan’s Awashima Marine Park on Sunday, January 21, 2007. Sightings of living frilled sharks are rare, because the fish generally remain thousands of feet beneath the water’s surface.
Spotted by a fisher on January 21, this 5.3-foot (160-centimeter) shark was transferred to the marine park, where it was placed in a seawater pool.
“We think it may have come to the surface because it was sick, or else it was weakened because it was in shallow waters,” a park official told the Reuters news service. But the truth may never be known, since the “living fossil” died hours after it was caught.
This serpentine specimen may look like a large eel, but its six slitlike gills help mark it as a cousin of the great white, the hammerhead, and other sharks. But this isn’t your average fish.
Believed to have changed little since prehistoric times, the frilled shark is linked to long-extinct species by its slinky shape and by an upper jaw that is part of its skull. Most living sharks have hinged top jaws.
With a mouthful of three-pointed teeth, the frilled shark may be a fearsome hunter, but it’s considered harmless to humans. Those needle-like choppers are better suited to fleshier forms found in the deep sea, such as squid and other sharks.
© National Geographic
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