The Believers
''The Believers'' is a 1987 Canadian-American crime thriller horror film directed by John Schlesinger, starring Martin Sheen, Robert Loggia and Helen Shaver. It is based on the 1982 novel ''The Religion'' by Nicholas Conde. Plot After his wife Lisa dies from an accidental electrocution, psychologist Cal Jamison relocates with his young son, Chris, from Minneapolis to New York City, where Cal begins working as a police psychologist for the New York City Police Department. The city has been plagued by a series of brutal, ritualistic child murders. The first victim is a young boy found murdered in an abandoned movie theater. A policeman named Tom Lopez frantically phones in the discovery of the body, and claims the crimes are being committed by members of a Hispanic cult practicing a malevolent version of brujería. Cal is appointed to examine Tom, who raves about the cult's powerful leader. A second victim is found eviscerated on a makeshift altar beneath a dock in Staten Islan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Schlesinger
John Richard Schlesinger (; 16 February 1926 – 25 July 2003) was an English film and stage director. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for ''Midnight Cowboy'', and was nominated for the same award for two other films ('' Darling'' and ''Sunday Bloody Sunday''). Early life Schlesinger was born and raised in Hampstead, London, in a Jewish family, the eldest of five children of distinguished Emmanuel College, Cambridge-educated paediatrician and physician Bernard Edward Schlesinger (1896–1984), OBE, FRCP, who had also served in the Royal Army Medical Corps as a brigadier, and his wife Winifred Henrietta, daughter of Hermann Regensburg, a stockbroker from Frankfurt. She had left school at 14 to study at the Trinity College of Music, and later studied languages at the University of Oxford for three years. Bernard Schlesinger's father Richard, a stockbroker, had come to England in the 1880s from Frankfurt. After St Edmund's School, Hindhead and Uppingham School (whe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Horror Film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apocalyptic events, and religious or folk beliefs. Cinematic techniques used in horror films have been shown to provoke psychological reactions in an audience. Horror films have existed for more than a century. Early inspirations from before the development of film include folklore, religious beliefs and superstitions of different cultures, and the Gothic and horror literature of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley. From origins in silent films and German Expressionism, horror only became a codified genre after the release of ''Dracula'' (1931). Many sub-genres emerged in subsequent decades, including body horror, comedy horror, slasher films, supernatural horror and psychological horror. The genre has been produ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rebar
Rebar (short for reinforcing bar), known when massed as reinforcing steel or reinforcement steel, is a steel bar used as a Tension (physics), tension device in reinforced concrete and reinforced masonry structures to strengthen and aid the concrete under tension. Concrete is strong under Compression (physics), compression, but has weak tensile strength. Rebar significantly increases the tensile strength of the structure. Rebar's surface features a continuous series of ribs, lugs or indentations to promote a better bond with the concrete and reduce the risk of slippage. The most common type of rebar is carbon steel, typically consisting of hot-rolled round bars with deformation patterns embossed into its surface. Steel and concrete have similar coefficient of thermal expansion, coefficients of thermal expansion, so a concrete structural member reinforced with steel will experience minimal differential stress (mechanics), stress as the temperature changes. Other readily available ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Graduate Student
Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree. The organization and structure of postgraduate education varies in different countries, as well as in different institutions within countries. While the term "graduate school" or "grad school" is typically used in North America, "postgraduate" is often used in countries such as ( Australia, Bangladesh, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, and the UK). Graduate degrees can include master's degrees, doctoral degrees, and other qualifications such as graduate certificates and professional degrees. A distinction is typically made between graduate schools (where courses of study vary in the degree to which they provide training for a particular profession) and professional schools, which can include medical school, law school, business school, an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Panic Attack
Panic attacks are sudden periods of intense fear and discomfort that may include palpitations, sweating, chest pain or chest discomfort, shortness of breath, trembling, dizziness, numbness, confusion, or a feeling of impending doom or of losing control. Typically, symptoms reach a peak within ten minutes of onset, and last for roughly 30 minutes, but the duration can vary from seconds to hours. Although they can be extremely frightening and distressing, panic attacks themselves are not physically dangerous. The essential features of panic attacks remain unchanged, although the complicated DSM-IV terminology for describing different types of panic attacks (i.e., situationally bound/cued, situationally predisposed, and unexpected/uncued) is replaced with the terms unexpected and expected panic attacks. Panic attacks function as a marker and prognostic factor for severity of diagnosis, course, and comorbidity across an array of disorders, including but not limited to anxiety disord ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Boil
A boil, also called a furuncle, is a deep folliculitis, which is an infection of the hair follicle. It is most commonly caused by infection by the bacterium ''Staphylococcus aureus'', resulting in a painful swollen area on the skin caused by an accumulation of pus and dead tissue. Boils which are expanded are basically pus-filled nodules. Individual boils clustered together are called carbuncles. Most human infections are caused by coagulase-positive ''S. aureus'' strains, notable for the bacteria's ability to produce coagulase, an enzyme that can clot blood. Almost any organ system can be infected by ''S. aureus''. Signs and symptoms Boils are bumpy, red, pus-filled lumps around a hair follicle that are tender, warm, and painful. They range from pea-sized to golf ball-sized. A yellow or white point at the center of the lump can be seen when the boil is ready to drain or discharge pus. In a severe infection, an individual may experience fever, swollen lymph nodes, and fatig ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Human Sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein a monarch's servants are killed in order for them to continue to serve their master in the next life. Closely related practices found in some tribal societies are cannibalism and headhunting. Human sacrifice was practiced in many human societies beginning in prehistoric times. By the Iron Age with the associated developments in religion (the Axial Age), human sacrifice was becoming less common throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia, and came to be looked down upon as barbaric during classical antiquity. In the Americas, however, human sacrifice continued to be practiced, by some, to varying degrees until the European colonization of the Americas. Today, human sacrifice has become extremely rare. Modern secular laws treat human sacrifices ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ritual Purification
Ritual purification is the ritual prescribed by a religion by which a person is considered to be free of ''uncleanliness'', especially prior to the worship of a deity, and ritual purity is a state of ritual cleanliness. Ritual purification may also apply to objects and places. Ritual uncleanliness is not identical with ordinary physical impurity, such as dirt stains; nevertheless, body fluids are generally considered ritually unclean. Most of these rituals existed long before the germ theory of disease, and figure prominently from the earliest known religious systems of the Ancient Near East. Some writers connect the rituals to taboos. Some have seen benefits of these practices as a point of health and preventing infections especially in areas where humans come in close contact with each other. While these practices came before the idea of the germ theory was public in areas that use daily cleaning, the destruction of infectious agents seems to be dramatic. Others have descri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Summer Solstice
The summer solstice, also called the estival solstice or midsummer, occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the summer solstice is the day with the longest period of daylight and shortest night of the year, when the Sun is at its highest position in the sky. Within the Arctic circle (for the Northern hemisphere) or Antarctic circle (for the Southern), there is continuous daylight around the summer solstice. The opposite event is the winter solstice. The summer solstice occurs during summer. This is the June solstice (usually 20 or 21 June) in the Northern hemisphere and the December solstice (usually 21 or 22 December) in the Southern. On the summer solstice, Earth's maximum axial tilt toward the Sun is 23.44°. Likewise, the Sun's declination from the celestial equator is 23.44°. Since prehistory, the summer solstice has been seen as a significant ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull and from the rest of New York by New York Bay. With a population of 495,747 in the 2020 Census, Staten Island is the least populated borough but the third largest in land area at . A home to the Lenape indigenous people, the island was settled by Dutch colonists in the 17th century. It was one of the 12 original counties of New York state. Staten Island was consolidated with New York City in 1898. It was formally known as the Borough of Richmond until 1975, when its name was changed to Borough of Staten Island. Staten Island has sometimes been called "the forgotten borough" by inhabitants who feel neglected by the city government. The North Shore—especially the neighborhoods of St. George, Tompkinsville, Clifton, and Stapleton—i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Brujería
Various types of witchcraft and occult religious practices exist in Latin American and Afro-Caribbean cultures, known in Spanish as (pronounced ). Influenced by indigenous religion, Catholicism, and European witchcraft, the purpose may range from white magic to black magic.Herrera-Sobek (2012), p175 A male practitioner is called a , a female practitioner is a . Concept Across the Afro-Latin diaspora, many forms of spiritual practices have emerged: Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santería, and Brazilian Candomblé and Umbanda. What sets the witches of Latin America apart from their European counterparts is the blend of religiosity and spirituality. The witches in Latin America's ‘magic’ are rooted in African magic, European spiritualism, and Indigenous practices, making them practice an integrated version of spirituality. . Isabelo Zenón Cruz made the assessment that Puerto Rican vernacular religions (and really any Afro-Latino religions) have been only studied by folklorists ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New York City Police Department
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in the United States. The NYPD headquarters is at 1 Police Plaza, located on Park Row in Lower Manhattan near City Hall. The NYPD's regulations are compiled in title 38 of the ''New York City Rules''. The NYC Transit Police and NYC Housing Authority Police Department were fully integrated into the NYPD in 1995. Dedicated units of the NYPD include the Emergency Service Unit, K9, harbor patrol, highway patrol, air support, bomb squad, counter-terrorism, criminal intelligence, anti-organized crime, narcotics, mounted patrol, public transportation, and public housing units. The NYPD employs over 50,000 people, including more than 35,000 uniformed officers. According to the official CompStat database, the NYPD responded to nearly 500,00 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |