Restoring the shine of your wooden cutting boards and butcher blocks is easy and affordable! There are many products on the market that you can use that come in fancy packaging, but it’s easy to make your own DIY product. Keeping cutting boards conditioned prolongs their life and keeps them hygienic, so it’s good to have some on hand for regular use. This article shares three very easy recipes to treat your butcher boards when they are drying out, in need of finishing or repair.

Will need:

Food grade mineral oil

Bee wax

Scale

container – Glass jars and old coffee cans work great.

Jar – to use as a bain-marie

Sanitized stirring rod – the wooden ones work very well

Forever start with a spotlessly clean and super dry butcher board. Wash it with vinegar the night before and let it air dry while you sleep. The next morning, condition your clean, dry board using one of the following methods.

the first method it’s not really a “recipe” at all. It is simply food grade mineral oil. There are a lot of different ideas about which oils go rancid and which oils are best to use. In general, food grade mineral oil is considered the best oil to use on wood cutting surfaces. It’s odorless, colorless, inexpensive, and definitely won’t go rancid. It can be easily found at your local hardware store or pharmacy. To treat your butcher board with mineral oil, gently rub warm oil on the wood and let it soak. Get your oil warm, not hot. If you’re like me and don’t have a nuker, just use a double boiler on the stove. Just be careful as the oil is obviously flammable. This is a great regular treatment to keep your board in condition.

the second recipe is for a creamy table oil or “Dream Cream” as I call it. This is a rich blend of mineral oil and beeswax. Adding beeswax to your oil increases its resistance to water and adds a very slight shine to the finish. Paraffin can also be used. It is odorless and much less expensive; however, I personally prefer beeswax. This is a great treatment for a board that has become very dry or has been sanded to restore it. The recipe calls for 9 parts food grade mineral oil to 1 part beeswax.

Measure 1 part wax to 9 parts oil. Wax beads available or you can scrape pieces of wax off a block like I did.

Heat the oil and wax slowly until the oil is warm and the wax has melted. Be sure to stir and incorporate the wax as it melts.

Put some of the melted product on your butcher board and rub it in making sure to get to all surfaces, especially cut edges. Let it absorb before using the board to prepare food. The consistency of this recipe is a bit like hair gel after it cools down a bit and gets firmer as it cools. It will melt into the board like butter as you apply it. Can be used warm or cold; However, I think it works better and faster when it’s hot.

the third recipe it is for a “board wax” style of paste. This is a rich, ultra-greasy blend of oil and beeswax. It is thick and waxy and offers a lot of resistance to water once the wax has hardened. It can be polished to a smooth shine and looks beautiful. Use this recipe as a polishing paste or as a crack filler. Keeping the occasional crack and knife mark filled extends the life of your board!

This recipe is 4 to 5 parts food grade mineral oil to 1 part beeswax. Heat the oil and incorporate the wax as indicated above. Rub it on the board. Allow the oil to penetrate and the wax to harden before polishing and preparing food on it. If used warm, this wax will spread a thinner layer. If used cold it is quite thick and pasty and will give you a thicker coating.

Your wood needs to be treated regularly to prevent it from drying out and cracking! The frequency of treatment and the type of butcher block oil you need to use depends on many variables; such as the weather and how often the board is used and washed. You will have to be the judge. These “recipes” will not only condition your butcher block beautifully, they will increase its lifespan. They will also keep indefinitely. Once you’ve whipped up a batch, it’s easy to grab off the shelf and use all year long!

By making wooden bowls, the turner enters a world of creation that is thousands of years old. People have been using bowls for a long time and making them just as long. The same design questions faced by the potter are also faced by the turner. One of these is how thin or thick the vessel walls should be made. It is necessary to answer some questions to give some guidelines.

First, there is the intended use of the bowl. Will it be functional like a salad bowl or is it intended to be visual like a work of art? Generally, a functional bowl will be thicker to give stability and a sense of security. Artistic twists can be extremely thin to give a sense of lightness and perhaps an ephemeral quality. On the other hand, a different artistic twist can be very thick and heavy to present other feelings and qualities to the viewer.

A third category may be a bowl made to impress and perhaps impress turners in particular. In that case, it can be so thin that it allows light to pass through the oiled wood. To make one of these, turners hang lights behind the turntable and slim the bowl to allow for even light distribution across the walls. It’s a good test of skill and a learning experience.

Functional bowls should have walls that are thin enough to work with the intent of the piece and thick enough to look just right. As a general rule of thumb, an eighth of an inch thick for every inch in diameter seems about right with a little more for six inches and under and a little less for bowls over sixteen inches. So an eight-inch bowl might be a quarter of an inch thick, while a six-inch bowl might be three-sixteenths and a sixteen-inch bowl might be three-eighths. Most of the time, the best thing to do is not to worry about the exact measurement as much as it does about the way you look.

Where the container is to be used is also a consideration. Restaurants may have a certain criteria they want to follow, while a converted bowl for the alfresco deck on a summer night may have one-inch-thick walls. The popcorn may fly, but the bowl will still be there.

Most of the time the best thing to do is sit back and make the bowl. If the lines look good and the bowl feels good, the design is probably good. Sometimes all the practice pays off and the bowl looks absolutely fabulous. The hunt makes the whole twist a little more special.

Custom sliding barn doors are a great decoration in luxury homes, whether in urban minimalist or farmhouse chic interiors. Functional art, using artisan carved panels and incorporating them into interior doors, closets, library or study, gives the house an old world character, connecting with its roots and learning from the past. Hand-carved, tree of life doors, carrying nature’s beautiful and amazingly healing energy, earthy and natural colors, create a dramatic design statement for exclusive million-dollar properties in Naples, Florida.

Barn doors are a popular interior design trend in Southwest Florida luxury condominiums as they are highly practical, functional, and versatile. Custom carved doors can be used almost anywhere in your space, the doorway between the master bedroom and bathroom being one of the most popular shapes. Old world carved doors make your space look spacious and unique, and optimize space utilization in a practical way for bathroom and bedroom. Custom reclaimed wood doors slide right into the wall giving you plenty of room on both sides as well as the artistic design element. You are looking at a beautiful and exceptional handmade design, as unique as the craftsman who carved it.

Rustic carved sliding doors offer lots of extra space when used as closet doors in a hallway or foyer. Guest room closets are also the perfect place for hand carved barn doors, so you can show off your character. Large rustic reclaimed wood barn doors can divide your rooms and give your waterfront home a more intimate feel.

Downtown Tampa condos, Miami luxury townhomes, handcrafted doors are improvements being incorporated into design as renters value the experience of unique art and modern interior design. Custom doors are made from old reclaimed doors, framed in such a way that the back of the door is visible with its grounding nails that remove harmful ions from the atmosphere and ground them through the old wood. Maintaining the character of the doors is of paramount importance and is an exclusive design created specifically in-house at Mogulinterior.

Open Floor Plans In modern farmhouses in urban Massachusetts or rural Virginia, rustic barn doors make the home airy and less compartmentalized. You can also use these doors as privacy shutters if you have a lot of sliders, as seen on most waterfront properties, that you like to keep open during the day and don’t mind using curtains. Hand carved barn doors can slide these windows open at night and open to the sides during the day giving your room an eclectic artistic temperament.

Our beautiful and unique hand carved barn doors can double as a custom media center design that covers the plasma TV on your wall when you’re not using it, making the room look more elegant for formal dinner guests. Impressive, unique, yet practical, hand carved, they are perfect for your home office. We can customize it according to your requirements, whether it is a commercial restaurant, a boutique hotel or a resort. Embrace the rustic chic art trend seen in the houses and apartments of Soho, New York.

Owned by Churchill Downs Incorporated, Churchill Downs is spread over an area of ​​147 acres and features a one-mile dirt oval and a seven furlong grass field. The racetrack hosts race meetings throughout the spring and fall during the months of May and October. The facility and the popular races it conducts have given Churchill Downs a ranking of five out of 65 racetracks in America by the North American Horse Players Association.

Going back to the history of Churchill Downs, the track is named after Henry and John Churchill, who had leased a portion of the land from their nephew, Colonel Meriwether Clark Jr., president of the Louisville Jockey Club and Driving Park Association. He was introduced to horse racing by his father-in-law Richard Ten Broeck, who was an accomplished jockey for attending the English Derby on Epsom Downs near London. Churchill Downs filled the void that was caused by the closure of the Oakland and Woodlawn racetracks in the region. Clark, having trouble operating the race track due to race setups, sold the race track to a syndicate led by William Applegate in 1893.

Later in 1902, Applegate turned over the race track operation to then-Louisville Mayor Charles Grainger in an effort to keep Churchill Downs from becoming known primarily for gambling. Business was not going well when Col. Matt Winn of Louisville joined a new business union to acquire the facility. Under Winn’s leadership, Churchill Downs prospered, and the Kentucky Derby became a distinguished stake for three-year-old Thoroughbred racehorses.

Since then, there has been no turning back for Churchill Downs, the facility has undergone various renovations and upgrades that have made Churchill Downs not just a horse racing venue, but a full-fledged public entertainment venue. Modernization in recent years has increased seating capacity to nearly 52,000, 77 luxury suites, and new, integrated simulcast areas and other premium venues at the world’s most legendary race track. Churchill Downs also ventured into the music business by hosting the inaugural HullabaLOU Music Festival in July 2010. Other improvements to the racetrack in recent years have included the installation of permanent lights around its famous dark oval for racing. “Downs After Dark” nights that expanded in 2011 to include “Opening Night” of the Spring Meeting.

The other race track under discussion is Aqueduct Racetrack, which is in the New York City borough of Queens. This thoroughbred racecourse first opened in September 1894 and hosts races that generally meet from late October or early November through April. Since the racetrack opened in September 1894 by the Queens County Jockey Club, there have been several renovations and improvements to the facility that were taken over by the Greater New York Racing Association in 1955 along with Saratoga Race Course, Belmont Park, and Jamaica Racetrack.

The Aqueduct Racetrack closed in 1956 and reopened in 1959 after $33 million renovations designed by noted racetrack architect Arthur Froehlich. The racetrack surface also changed several times, the grass infield, which was known as the main grass field, having the grass torn up after the 1975 races to build the new dirt infield. After the new facility was built in 1959, off-track betting in New York City was encouraged to reduce the time the track would sit idle after the end of the racing season.

Aqueduct Racetrack hosts a mix of Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3, and non-grade races. There is a racing season that runs from the last Wednesday in October to the first Sunday in May. In recent years, races have been held on the Inner Dirt Track between the Wednesdays after Thanksgiving through the Wood Memorial. Aqueduct has also hosted the Breeders’ Cup, the Jockey Club Gold Cup and the prestigious Belmont Stakes on several occasions. Remsen and Cigar are important races that mark the beginning of winter competition; while the Wood Memorial culminates the winter meeting.

Aqueduct has made horse racing history by being the only site to have had the only triple tie to win a classic race. In the 1944 Carter Handicap race, Brownie, Bossuet and Wait A Bit all finished the line at the same time. In another rare event in an eleven-day race schedule at Aqueduct in April 2006, a tie occurred for each of the three “money” positions (Winner, Place and Spectacle) in three separate races.

In recent years, there have been reports indicating the closure of the Aqueduct race track due to facility operating losses and growth spurts of Churchill Downs and earmarked for designation as a National Historic Landmark. Are the two going in different directions?

When we put our children to bed at night and tell them fairy tales and nursery rhymes, we intend for them to fall asleep peacefully and have pleasant dreams. But how pleasant can their dreams be when their sleepy little heads are filled not with visions of sugar plums but with fear, violence and death?

Their little heads are destined to be filled with the same images as ours: blind mice running but unable to avoid having their tails amputated with a carving knife; a guy who kisses girls and makes them cry; an old woman who lives in a shoe and whips her hungry children for no reason; babies rocking in cradles and falling when branches break; Solomon Grundy, born on Monday, dies at the end of the week; Piper’s son Tom steals pigs; scary spiders scare girls in tuffets; Humpty Dumpty falls off a wall and can never be fixed; and monkeys that hunt weasels and bust them. How did this carnage start?

Some of these tales have been around for a long time, and generally date back to the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries as one of England’s most enduring forms of oral culture. Apparently, most children’s songs were originally composed for the entertainment of adults, originating as ballads and folk songs.

The earliest published collection of nursery rhymes was Tommy Thumb’s (Pretty) Song Book (London, 1744). It included “Little Tom Tucker”, “Sing a Song of Sixpence” and “Who Killed Cock Robin?” The most influential was “Mother Goose’s Melody: Sonnets for the Cradle,” published by John Newberry in 1781. Among its 51 rhymes were “Jack and Jill,” “Ding Dong Bell,” and “Hush-a-bye baby on the tree.” . top.”

Hush-a-bye Baby, in the treetop,

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.

When the bug breaks, the cradle will fall,

And the baby will come down, with crib and everything.

According to “The Origin of Nursery Rhymes & Mother Goose” (1997) by Vikki Harris, regardless of their dirty words, nursery rhymes that were popular years ago, and still are today, can be classified into three categories. First there are the lullabies, the songs and melodies that most of us are familiar with. These were far from soothing, but are said to have been sung to intimidate the child and/or used as an outlet for the emotions of the parent or nurse:

Goodbye, bunting baby,

Dad has gone hunting

Gone to get a rabbit skin

To wrap the baby pennants.

-1784

Goodbye, townie

Where is Tony Lumpkin?

My lady is on her deathbed,

By eating half a pumpkin.

-1842

A second reason for the development of nursery rhymes was for children’s entertainment. Counting rhymes and alphabet rhymes fit into this category and are generally non-violent.

One Two Three Four Five,

I once caught a live fish,

Six seven eight nine ten,

So I let him go again.

-1888

Here are A, B, C, D, E, F and G,

H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V,

W, X, Y and Z-

And oh dear me,

When will I learn?

My A, B, C?

1869

Tickling games were easily used for the amusement of infants and toddlers. Perhaps the two best known are:

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker,

Make me a cake as fast as you can;

Pat it and prod it, and mark it with B,

And put it in the oven for baby and me

-1698

This little pig went to the market,

This little pig stayed at home,

This little pig had roast beef,

This little pig had none,

And this little pig was crying,

wee, wee, wee

All the way home.

-1728

“It is also possible that the credit for preservation must go to the nursery itself,” explains Henry Bett in “Nursery Rhymes and Tales – Their Origin and History (1968).” amazing persistence of popular tradition, reinforced by the characteristic conservatism of childhood that insists that rhymes are always repeated in the same way”.

In the circular game Ring-around-the-rosie, links have been made to the Great Plague of London and Edinburgh. The lines “Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down” or “Hush! Hush! Hush! Hush! We all have collapsed” refers to the death of people.

Ring-a-round a rosie,

A pocket full of poetry,

Mortal ashes! Mortal ashes!

We all fall.

*******

three blind mice

three blind mice,

Look how they run!

They all ran after a farmer’s wife,

Who cut off their tails with a carving knife.

Have you ever seen something like this in your life,

Like three blind mice?

************

All around the mulberry bush

The monkey chased the weasel.

The monkey thought it was all fun.

Pop music! the weasel goes.

****************

Georgie Porgie, pudding and cake,

He kissed the girls and made them cry.

When the children went out to play,

Georgie Porgie ran away.

(This rhyme refers to the loving and amoral Prince Regent who became George IV during the Regency era in England)

********

jack and jill

I went up the hill

To bring a bucket of water.

cat fell

And broke his crown

And Jill came tumbling after.

******

Little Miss Muffet, sitting on a tuffet,

eating its curds and whey;

A spider came

who sat next to him

And it scared Miss Muffet.

If you carefully reread Hansel and Gretel, you may never repeat it to your children again:

Near a large forest lived a poor woodcutter with his wife

and their two children. The boy was called Hansel and the

Gretel girl. She had little to bite and break, and once when

a great scarcity fell on the earth, he could no longer procure even his daily bread. Now when he thought of this at night in his bed, and shook in his anxiety, he groaned and said to his wife, what shall she become of us? How are we going to feed our poor children, when we no longer have anything even for ourselves? I’ll tell you one thing, husband, answered the woman, early tomorrow morning

will take the children to the forest where the

thicker

There we will light a fire for them and give each of them

we’ll give them one more piece of bread, and then we’ll go to our work and

leave them alone. They will never find their way home again, and we

will get rid of them. No, wife, said the man, I will not do that.

How can I bear to leave my children alone in the woods? Wild animals would soon come and rip them apart. Oh fool, she said, then the four of us must starve, you can also plan the plans for our coffins, and she didn’t leave him alone until he consented. But I’m so sorry for the poor kids, anyway, said the man.

The two children had not been able to sleep either because of hunger, and

he had heard what his stepmother had told his father. Gretel

he cried bitter tears and said to Hansel, now it’s all over for us.

*********

In “The Truth Behind Goldilocks”, Mental Floss – Volume 2, Richard Zachs writes that we are reading watered-down versions of the fairy tales and that the originals were much more graphic and brutal.

In the first known version (1831) of Goldilocks, discovered in Toronto, the author, one Eleanor Mure, a 32-year-old maiden aunt, created “The Story of the Three Bears” for her nephew, Horace Broke.

The original “Goldilocks” was an “angry old lady” who breaks into the bears’ house because they snubbed her during a recent social call. Once the three bears catch the old lady, they try to figure out what to do with her. This is what they came up with:

They throw it into the fire, but they couldn’t burn it;

In the water they put her, but she would not drown there;

They seize it before all the astonished People,

And throw it high in the steeple of St. Paul’s Cemetery;

And if she’s still there, when you look seriously,

You will see it very clearly, my dear Little Horbook!

No other version has Goldilocks impaled on a church steeple. The gray-haired old woman did not become a golden-haired girl until 1918.

The tales we remember so fondly from our childhoods will be passed down to our children and spawn another generation of childhood traditions.

Who killed Cock Robin? I did mom. It was fun.

Composting toilets are an excellent solution for use in a variety of locations, particularly where it is difficult or impossible to install a septic system or connect to a traditional sewer line. There are a myriad of potential applications for composting toilets, but in this article we’ll take a look at five of the most common places these eco-friendly fixtures are used.

1. Ships
Marine grade composting toilets are a great option aboard a houseboat or yacht. Traditional bathroom fixtures on ships require plugging and draining, an unpleasant and cumbersome process that requires the ship to be docked regularly. For vacationers who want to spend several weeks aboard their ships, without having to return to port on a regular schedule, a composting toilet is a great option because it’s clean, odorless, and efficient. More importantly, these systems are also self-contained, giving boat owners a lot of independence.

2. Mobile homes and recreational vehicles
RVs and RVs are another great application. Like boats, motorhomes have a waste tank that must be emptied regularly through a pumping station. For most RV owners, this is often the most unpleasant part of owning the vehicle. With a composting toilet, the need to empty the water is completely eliminated, allowing RVs to stop freely overnight without worrying about emptying a waste tank.

3. Pool houses
Families building a pool house soon find that running sewer lines into the building can be very expensive. The other traditional alternative, installing a septic system, is also expensive and can sometimes cost more than $10,000. Composting toilets are a good option in pool houses because they require no plumbing, making them very simple and inexpensive to install. Also, having a bathroom installed in the pool house will prevent soaked children from running in and out of your main house to use the bathroom.

4. Barns and Outbuildings
In rural areas where large barns and other outbuildings are common, installing a toilet in these buildings often requires a secondary septic system, which is typically more than most families can afford. Again, a composting toilet is a great alternative because it is comparatively much less expensive and it is very easy to install. Other dependency applications may also include installations in workshops, horse stables, and remote offices.

5. Cabins and Cabins
For homeowners dreaming of building a remote country home or cabin in the woods, the realities and costs of running common utilities like electricity, water, and sewer lines can often crush your hopes for a vacation home. Composting toilets are an excellent alternative. With its ventilation systems, a composting toilet is completely odorless and many have been approved and certified for use in residential settings. If you only live in your vacation home part of the year, the composting toilet can easily be left out of season and then restarted again the following year with a few simple maintenance procedures.

Other potential applications may include campgrounds, boathouses, cabins, garden sheds, dormitories, classrooms, security posts and gatehouses. They are an inexpensive and effective waste management solution when you don’t want to go through the hassle and expense of installing a septic system or running new sewer lines. As you can see, composting toilets are a great green solution and can be used pretty much anywhere, anytime.

There are several ways to protect your outdoor umbrella that can extend its life for years. If an outdoor patio umbrella is left outside, exposed to elements like sun, wind, rain, and dust, they can really damage your outdoor shade. By following these simple steps, you will be able to use your market umbrella for several more seasons than if you didn’t. Most of them are free and once you get into the habit of doing them, they will become second nature.

The first thing you can do to protect your outdoor patio umbrellas is to simply close them when you’re not using them. Closing your small or large umbrella when you’re not using it will prevent the breeze from catching it, which can cause costly damage. Market umbrella ribs can bend or break, or umbrella poles can snap with just an unexpected gust of wind caught by an open umbrella. Therefore, it is never a good idea to keep an umbrella open unless it is in use and you can see if it is being stressed by the wind. If you see that your outdoor market umbrella is stressed by the wind, your best option is to close it to avoid damage. Many people sit under their umbrella while being stressed to the limit and then realize that the stress has twisted an arm from the rib. Therefore, it is important to close the umbrella when it is not in use and to close it if you notice that it is being pressed by the wind.

Not only is it very important to close the market umbrella and umbrella when not in use, but it is also important to use a feature that comes with almost all umbrellas. This very important feature is a draw. This feature is there for a reason and not just because the manufacturer had a little extra fabric to use. The reason we want to not only close our outdoor patio umbrellas, but also tie them down is because the right wind can catch even a closed umbrella and cause damage. By tying down your closed market umbrella, you can be sure that a sneaky gust of wind won’t catch your umbrella and break it.

The third most important thing to remember that will help you extend the life of your umbrella is to purchase a protective umbrella cover. An umbrella cover may cost a few dollars, but they will be among the smartest dollars you’ll spend. Many people spend hundreds of dollars on their umbrellas, so spending a little more on an umbrella cover is a really smart investment. Patio umbrella covers keep your umbrella protected from sun, rain, wind and dust. They keep your umbrella comfortable and dry, which keeps them clean and free of mold and mildew. An important tip: if your umbrella gets wet, make sure it is completely dry before putting the cover on it to prevent mold and mildew.

The final tip for prolonging the life of your umbrella is to take it to your garage or shed if you are in an area that gets very cold in the winter months. This will help extend the life of the fabric, which can be damaged by ice and snow. Even if you have a cover, it’s a good idea to bring your market umbrella indoors when winter arrives. These tips should help you enjoy your market umbrella for years to come and allow you to use it season after season.

For anyone thinking of writing in the horror genre, there are certain situations that, over the years, have been done so frequently that audiences know exactly what to expect. Using either of these is fine if you’re being postmodern and tongue-in-cheek like in the Scream series, because you can make the audience laugh as they jump. But if you’re trying to give yourself a big scare, here are some situations to avoid and alternative scenarios to consider.

The woman alone in the old dark house

She is usually blonde, with large breasts and not very bright. She yells things like “Who’s there?” or “Are you Joe?” She then goes into dark rooms to see what is in them. Tippi Hedren plays a good example in The Birds, as does Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween. This scene has been lampooned so successfully by the Scream series that it will be hard for anyone to do it again; but if necessary, you will have to find a new way to increase the tension. Women have been blinded, as a man has been made to be stalked by a woman. But what if the stalker exists inside the mirrors and can only be reached at arm’s length? What if he gets a knife?

The child who is a mother is no longer a mother

The child says, “That’s not my mom.” A cocky doctor says, “It’s all in your mind, kid: Mommy takes the kid, and the next day both mommy and kid give the doctors distant stars. This was a staple in paranoia movies.” from 1950’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Invaders from Mars, and given a new lease on life in Dark Skies. It takes some serious thinking to give it a new perspective. What if it’s the pets that are taking over? And only the children notice?

The experiment went wrong

They say things like “Morality is for lesser mortals” and “The end justifies the means.” Then their creation jumps up and bites them. Think of all the movie versions of Frankenstein or Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and you can’t go wrong. A more recent example was Beau Bridges in Sandkings, the pilot of the modern Outer Limits. Anyone planning to use this scenario should really meet some scientists. Many of them are stranger than their fictional counterparts and provide excellent story material.

the crowd of villagers

Sometimes there is a ringleader, like an old woman whose grandson has been killed. Other times there’s just an angry mob yelling “rhubarb” and waving torches. Perhaps the best example is actually in a parody, Young Frankenstein. How about trying a quiet peat? I can’t think of a new way to do this that would be scary, but maybe you can do better.

The priest who has lost faith

There are two ways this can go. The creature says “Your weak god means nothing to me” and kills the priest in a particularly bloody manner. Or the creature says “Your weak god means nothing to me” and the priest climbs onto the base and drives the creature away. There are good examples of the former in Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot and John Carpenter’s The Fog. Could you try to get the creature to banish the priest to hell? I haven’t seen that…yet.

Running through the woods in the dark

People run in the dark, yelling things like “Mulder, where are you?” and waving lanterns, followed all the while by a malevolent presence in the trees. This is also known as The Blair Witch Project. The idea was taken to the extreme in Pitch Black, where there was not even hope for dawn to come. A variation would be to do it in daylight, but Big Arnie covered that in Predator. How about having the monster as an urban creature that is actually afraid of the forest when being chased? Time for that angry mob again, maybe?

Playing with the dark forces

Someone says, “Let’s play with Grandma’s Ouija board.” Next thing you know, a planchette is flying across the room on its own. This idea has come up a lot on TV recently and usually involves scantily clad girls, on shows like Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. How about a character who mouths the words as he reads them, thus calling the beast by accident?

The love of a good woman.

The monster meets an ignominious death and someone says: “It was beauty that killed the beast.” Our caveman ancestors probably told this around campfires. In the movie it goes back to at least 1933 and King Kong. More recently, there was a variation on the TV series Beauty and the Beast and even the Disney movie of the same name. Why not try to make the beauty fall in love first while the beast never succumbs? You’d need to find a good resolution for the story, but then again, you’re a writer, so it’ll be easy 🙂

let’s split

Everyone knows the monster is somewhere, but someone says, “We’re off to explore that dark place. Go the other way and we’ll meet up later.” Why does everyone always think it’s a great idea? Just watch Buffy TVS and count how often the gang gets lost. Or she goes back to the original Scooby gang and watches Shaggy and Scooby drift apart every episode. Why not have them stay together for a change? Or maybe they keep in touch through cell phones to fool the bad guys. Or, better yet, what about a monster that can split and be in two places at once?

I am free

The monster has been defeated, the victor turns to the other survivors to receive the cheer, and is bitten to pieces by the suddenly resurfacing monster. There are good examples in Starship Troopers and Deep Rising. Would one way to subvert this be to have another monster save your victim? Or how about doing something brave and making your monster die on the first try?

Conclution

I’m going to write my new script “Chomp!” It begins when a mob of angry villagers storm the lab of a mad scientist who has been dabbling in powers that man is not meant to understand. The priest with the mob is killed by a “creature” that escapes into the woods.

A year later, 10 nubile teenagers are shipwrecked on the island. They split up to search the area and found themselves being chased by a mutated, half-man, half-Komodo dragon beast-man. Soon there is a lot of racing through the woods at night and a tense scene where a blonde gets trapped in the ruins of the lab.

The big climax comes when the last two teenagers face the monster. The boy believes he has killed him and turns around in triumph, only for the beast to rise up and tear him to pieces.

In a touching final scene, the last girl cradles the monster’s head in her lap and cries as it dies.

Do you think it will sell? If your answer is “No”, what would you do to make it work?