In this recent episode of Vsauce3, Jake Roper explores cryonics, vampirism, mummification, and other means of achieving eternal life. The sets from Showtime’s Penny Dreadful are used as a backdrop, which is a nice touch.

There are some suggestions for further reading at the YouTube link. The family of channels has some other interesting episodes, like a cultural history of ghosts and the history of cannibalism.

(via Laughing Squid)

Nata Metlukh’s graduation project for Vancouver Film School explores the upside of fearfulness.

In this short, thoughtful film by Iain Gardner, the ghosts of a fox and rabbit meet.

You can read about how the story was inspired by a spontaneously-combusting fur stole on Director’s Notes.

(via The Presurfer)

Black Angel is a short fantasy film which is semi-legendary among Star Wars fans; it was shown in theaters in Europe and Australia before The Empire Strikes Back, and was directed by ESB art director Roger Christian. It’s also got something of a following amongst fans of 80s sword-and-sorcery movies, because it was hugely influential on the look-and-feel of films like Legend and Excalibur. The film was also notable because it pioneered “step-printing,” a method of slowing down action scenes, which was used for the lightsaber duel in ESB.

The film was lost soon after its theatrical run and was presumed gone forever, but a print was recently discovered at Universal Studios. It’s been digitized and is being made available on YouTube until the end of this month.

Here’s the press release:

Black Angel, the short film attached to initial screenings of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, is to be made available for free on YouTube until the end of May 2015. It will be released on Tuesday, 12th May, accompanied by an exclusive introduction from director Roger Christian. A crucial part of the Star Wars legacy, Black Angel was commissioned by George Lucas, who chose it to accompany Empire in Europe and Australia. The 25-minute film was produced on a budget of £25,000, given to Christian by an Eady Scheme fund from the UK government.

An epic fantasy adventure, the script follows a knight (Tony Vogel) who returns from the Crusades, only to be transported to a fantasy world to rescue a princess from the clutches of a dark and mysterious character. Shot in the Scottish Highlands, the film highlights the beauty and majesty of the location. It was loved by fans and industry tastemakers the world over, with Steven Spielberg describing it as ‘one of the most enigmatic films I’ve ever seen.’

Following its release, all copies of the film were lost for over 30 years. That is, until December 2011, when an archivist at Universal Studios came across the negative. The prints had ended up in the US after the collapse of the UK studio Rank, which had stored the prints along with other film negatives in WWII bunkers. The film was restored frame by frame by a visual effects company, before having its ‘re-premiere’ in October 2013 as the closing film of the Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival. It was also screened at the Glasgow Film Festival in Scotland and released on iTunes in early 2014, where it quickly ranked as ‘#1 short film.’

Christian won an Academy Award for Art Direction for his work on the original Star Wars movie. He was also nominated for the same award for his work on Alien. Christian is widely acknowledged as a key part of the ‘Star Wars family’ of writers, directors, cinematographers and crew who have been involved in the billion-dollar franchise since day one. Black Angel was his directorial debut

And here’s the full movie. Ain’t technology grand?

Jonah is proud to be the loner at the teen mental health clinic. But when a new patient, Richard, is admitted and the boys are forced to share a room, Jonah finds himself forming a connection despite himself. But will their bond be strong enough to protect them from the darklings that hide in the night shadows?

It’s time for another bunch of random stuff I’ve found which I want to share but can’t hang a whole post on. Some of them have no attribution, so if you happen to know the source for any of these please leave a note in the comments. (Click to view larger.)

	Bats These squee-worthy bat sculptures are by artist Jessica Joslin. She has loads of other lovely critters in her gallery. (The bones she uses are either replica or ethically sourced.)
	Caesar Knife Block I was hoping this was an actual perfect-for-the-Ides-of-March product, but it seems to just be a ‘shopped version of this bust. (via pdq)
	Spiderweb Lamp No idea where this is from originally; there’s a similar image here, but it appears to be used as a placeholder for illustrative purposes. It’d be easy to make something similar; the simplest way would be to use spray adhesive on an existing lampshade and cover it with spooky paper. If you’d rather make your own, google “how to make a lampshade” to get lots of tutorials like this one.
	Skull Measuring Spoons These were a seasonal item at World Market, but don’t seem to be available now. Sigh.
	Nightmare Before Christmas Mobile All roads lead to Pinterest on this one, so I can’t credit an original source. The tentacle looks like painted plywood; I like how it’s hinged so it can swing back out of the way. The little hanging characters appear to be this set of plush figures. (via Tanya)
	Goth Steampunk Cake I don’t want to eat this thing as much as wear it. It’s by Sweetlake Cakes, and there are several other lovely cake photos as well.
	Octopus Chatelaine This gorgeous silver chatelaine is in the colleciton of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Collectors Weekly has a good article on the history of chatelaines.
	Skull Computer Mouse This functional mouse was made from a sheep skull by Ivan Mavrović. Be sure to check out the rest of his site for all kinds of steampunky designs.
	Spider Bedding Set This screen-printed duvet and pillow shams would be perfect for a guest room. They seem to have previously been available through Etsy but aren’t there now. There’s a listing for them on Wanelo, but they require registration to use their site so I don’t know if the item is actually still available.
	Bizarro This just made me giggle.

This lovely CGI short was produced by the 3D animation training school at ESMA.

(via The Presurfer)

This short thriller by Rod Blackhurst has done nothing to encourage me to go camping any time soon.

ALONE TIME from Rod Blackhurst on Vimeo.

What if you found out that everybody dreamed about you last night?

As io9 put it, this short film “plays like an ultra-violent Twilight Zone episode.”

Part of my blog analytics are search terms that bring people to this site, and occasionally I’ll browse through them and wonder about the motivation behind searches for “bed cthulhu” or “facehugger sex toy” (and also wonder whether the same person searched for both terms; they seem somehow squickily related). This one turned up the other day:

accidentally bought christmas wraith

The logical explanation, of course, is that somebody just misspelled “wreath” and wound up here entirely by accident. In this case, however, I am choosing to ignore logic in favor of the much more appealing image of somebody frantically googling for help whilst a holly-trimmed ghoul swooshes around their head.

You can almost hear the letter of complaint being written. “To whom it may concern: What I assumed was a typo on your order form….”

Hee.