Sorry that was a terrible pun, I must have been temporarily possessed by
the evil spirit of tabloid journalism. Anyway as this post follows hot on the
heels of yesterday's I thought I’d make it a little more light hearted and give
you a round up of all the GI related Halloween fun that’s been flying around out
there (there is a surprising amount).
No this isn’t a sequel to Event
Horizon (thankfully they never made one) but Esri’s effort to map the
geolocation of the top 200 horror films of all time. They are filtered by
decade which adds an interesting insight in to how horror tastes and indeed the
strength of cinema has changed globally. Unsurprisingly given the dominance of
Hollywood the vast majority of films are set in North America and Europe although
this was less the case pre 1960. Despite the presence of Egypt and related
tried and tested trope of Mummys and creepy tombs very few horror films have
been shot in Africa. The same goes for South America (surely the rainforest or
a ruined Inca city would have been a great backdrop). Apparently communists
weren’t too keen on horror either with no films set in the former USSR pre
1990.
As anyone who has seen the Ring
(or the much less well known but excellent R-Point)
can attest South East Asia has held its own against Europe and North America
especially in recent years. Finally points for whoever can name the one film
set in Antarctica on the list (without looking).
Pumpkin Cartography:
There seem to be a few carto geeks out there with some serious pumpkin
carving skills but this
one is particularly impressive. From twitter it looks like he might be
attempting a London street map this year, looking forward to the results of
that.
Mapping Halloween:
On a more practical level ThinkWhere have mapped all of National Trust
Scotland’s Halloween
events and RGS have got a creepy cemetery walk up for
you. (If you’re in London I recommend that one, it’s pretty interesting
Halloween aside).
Less practically Esri are at it again with an interesting use of their
web mapping application to map locations from Ghostbusters
(1&2). Those Americans really do love Halloween, and cheesy (but
awesome) films.
The Fear of Place:
Not wanting to be left out OS have compiled a list of the scariest
place names in the UK. Apparently there are over 80 places in the UK that ‘belong’
to the devil including the ludicrously named Devil’s Beef Tub which sounds like
some kind of super hot curry challenge. Maybe they could produce a heat map to
show us where the most devilish places in the UK are...
No comments:
Post a Comment