This is just plain creepy, and just when you thought it was crazy hillbillies (“Deliverance”) chasing the imbecilic group, it’s some kind of sci-fi, alien-hunting-people plot (“Predator”).

Still, this movie trailer for the upcoming “The Cabin in the Woods” is creepy!

The last time AOL gobbled up a big company–that would be its audacious grab of Time Warner in the 2000 merger of the century–it ended in tears.

Now, it will take all of CEO Tim Armstrong’s considerable sales skills and impressive cheekbones to pull off a definite longshot the struggling Internet icon is attempting.

That would be trying to convince someone with piles of money–a private equity firm or a cash-rich tech giant such as Microsoft–to help it snatch control of Yahoo and fold AOL into it.

The effort also includes a lot of other moving parts, such as an ability to convince Yahoo’s Asian affiliates to get on board, as well as competing with other predators, including powerful media giant News Corp.

But you have to give the moxie award to Armstrong for trying to take the ragged assets of AOL, which only add up to $2.65 billion in valuation and trade them for Yahoo’s powerful and impressive array of content and communications units. Yahoo’s valuation is $21.5 billion.

The former Google advertising sales head, who arrived at AOL in March of 2009, certainly has been trying to convince Wall Street–and anyone who will listen, in fact–on the idea that AOL is cool once again.

That included a splashy spin-off into a public company, compete with hiring Diddy to be at the party on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, an aggressive marketing campaign and rebranding of AOL, copious and extravagant industry sponsorships (including one with our D: All Things Digital conference last year, which included an appearance by singer Natasha Bedingfield).

And did I mention the AOL break-dancers out in force during the recent Advertising Week in New York?

As I told Armstrong during a recent conversation: If he puts any more lipstick on the AOL pig, it will have to come live with me in San Francisco.

All joking aside, he has to because, for all of Armstrong’s Don Draper-like smoothness, he is contending with a very serious turnaround in AOL.

Its core money-making business, the access part, is drying up fast, while the advertising part is still weak. A string of results in recent quarters bear out the rocky road.

Armstrong does point out–selling, always selling!–that since he took over, he has cut the employee base in half, has added $500 million to the balance sheet, struck a good search deal with Google, has launched new content sites and ad products and has hired a top-flight management team.

All true, but AOL is still huffing and puffing as a tiny player in world of giants.

But that has not stopped Armstrong from aggressively making the rounds to try to take advantage of the distress at Yahoo and the increasing pressure on CEO Carol Bartz.

According to many sources, he has deftly painted himself as the sensible and friendly alternative to her more abrasive style.

It is certainly working–big Yahoo investors love Armstrong and frequently tout him as the long sought after answer to Yahoo’s longtime woes.

Maybe so, but News Corp. also has a strong narrative of uniting Yahoo with a media giant. Frankly, it also has to somehow parlay its weak asset, MySpace, into another format.

Sources said CEO Rupert Murdoch and his digital head Jon Miller have been in touch with the Yahoo board in recent weeks, including former CEO and Co-founder Jerry Yang.

Whatever happens, it will certainly be entertaining to watch Armstrong go up against the wily Murdoch and many others.

The question is: Will the investors of AOL and Yahoo laugh or cry in the end?

Make no mistake–there are no definitive offers on the table to do a variety of takeover deals of Yahoo by either private equity moneybags or from big media giants such as News Corp. or smaller Web firms such as AOL.

But that does not mean that major players are not circling Yahoo (YHOO) and assessing the situation aggressively, a fact reflected in the rise in the Internet giant’s stock price today based on the many rumors swirling around it.

Despite being news to some, BoomTown had previously written about all these various scenarios, including interest from News Corp. and AOL, after the recent departure of a trio of top Yahoo media and sales execs brought into sharp relief the pressure that CEO Carol Bartz is under to turn around the company.

Yahoo shares were up almost six percent to close at $15.25, a high of late. It is up to $16.20 in after-hours trading.

According to sources close to the situation, that’s because big PE firms such as Silver Lake Partners, as well as News Corp. (NWS), AOL (AOL) and others, all have their PowerPoints and speadsheets opened up to try to figure out if there is a deal to be made to buy all or a piece of Yahoo in the wake of corporate turmoil, slow revenue growth and weak stock under the leadership of CEO Carol Bartz.

Sources said the key players in the growing soap opera are the execs who run Yahoo-affiliated companies in Japan and China. That would be Masayoshi Son of Yahoo Japan and Jack Ma of the Alibaba Group.

Yahoo owns big and lucrative stakes in both companies, assets which make up a big part of the company’s current valuation.

The sale of those stakes is what has some investors interested, since–if thorny tax issues can be solved–it would make the purchase of part or all of the well-known Silicon Valley company very inexpensive in relative terms.

Sources added that any approach would have to be nonhostile, since Yahoo still has some stringent antitakeover provisions in place from a hostile attempt a few years ago by Microsoft (MSFT).

But alternate CEOs to Bartz are part of the ruminations:

As I wrote two weeks ago, which was again reported today:

Most frequently mentioned by big investors in Yahoo: AOL (AOL) and its CEO Tim Armstrong.

Armstrong, said sources, has not shied away from the idea of Yahoo acquiring AOL and installing him as CEO with Bartz as chairman. AOL’s valuation is just $2.65 billion.

Although AOL has also been trying to turn itself around and is in a much less powerful position than Yahoo, Wall Street likes Armstrong’s story for AOL as a modern-day media and media distribution company.

“At least he has a narrative that is believable,” said one big investor in both companies. “Bartz has no vision.”

Among the other credible candidates most mentioned: News Corp. digital head Jon Miller, if the media giant were part of any deal, and Juniper Networks (JNPR) CEO Kevin Johnson, who was the architect of the failed acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft.

What’s interesting here is what the board–and, most specifically, co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang–is doing now.

For certain, it is receiving an incoming flood of negative communications from big shareholders, most of whom are unhappy with Bartz’s management. One big investor recently told board members that their continued inaction in the face of all the trouble was unsettling.

One big event coming up is the third-quarter earnings report by Yahoo on Tuesday, after the market closes.

If Yahoo’s sales remain as flat as they were in the second quarter, even with improved earnings, there will be even more scrutiny of Bartz to find growth.

And if Yahoo misses? Watch out.

One way might be via a big acquisition. Yahoo has recently been contemplating the local space, especially social discounting phenom Groupon. But the price would have to be high, sources said–well above $2 billion in cash and stock.

Would such a bold move be enough to keep the predators of Yahoo at bay? We’ll see, as the purple world turns.

A Yahoo PR person declined to comment on the stock rise.

Of course, rising on speculation, a higher stock is a problem for acquirers, as it makes Yahoo more expensive. Still, sources said a Yahoo deal of about $20 a share is entirely “doable.”

This video on Kelvington’s Parody Channel on YouTube just cracks me up.

It uses one simple line from Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs: “Take my finger and slide it across.”

The video maker notes that Molly Wood of CNET’s “Buzz Out Loud” podcast “issued a challenge today to make an Apple vs. Predator video.”

Mission accomplished, but with litigation to come apparently.

The social network today said it has identified and ousted 90,000 sex offenders–40,000 more than it first reported last year when it was subpoenaed by the Connecticut Attorney General’s office as part of an effort to protect minors on social-networking sites. “This shocking revelation–resulting from our subpoena–provides compelling proof that social-networking sites remain rife with sexual predators,” Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in a statement. “Nearly 100,000 convicted sex offenders with MySpace profiles powerfully refutes the recent task force report–based on outdated and incomplete data–falsely downplaying the threat of predators on social-networking sites.”

Now, 90,000 individuals is a pittance, considering MySpace had 124.9 million unique visitors in December, according to comScore. But it is unsettling nonetheless since the MySpace profiles removed were those of registered sex offenders dim enough to use their real names. Surely there are many, many more at large using aliases. Ultimately, MySpace has absolutely no idea how many registered sex offenders it’s harboring; nor does it have an effective means of prohibiting those it has identified and ousted from returning.

Consider this: In July 2007, MySpace made a big deal of locating and deleting the profiles of 29,000 registered sex offenders from its site. Not two years later, it’s deleting triple that number.

The social network today said it has identified and ousted 90,000 sex offenders–40,000 more than it first reported last year when it was subpoenaed by the Connecticut Attorney General’s office as part of an effort to protect minors on social-networking sites. “This shocking revelation–resulting from our subpoena–provides compelling proof that social-networking sites remain rife with sexual predators,” Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in a statement. “Nearly 100,000 convicted sex offenders with MySpace profiles powerfully refutes the recent task force report–based on outdated and incomplete data–falsely downplaying the threat of predators on social-networking sites.”

Now, 90,000 individuals is a pittance, considering MySpace had 124.9 million unique visitors in December, according to comScore. But it is unsettling nonetheless since the MySpace profiles removed were those of registered sex offenders dim enough to use their real names. Surely there are many, many more at large using aliases. Ultimately, MySpace has absolutely no idea how many registered sex offenders it’s harboring; nor does it have an effective means of prohibiting those it has identified and ousted from returning.

Consider this: In July 2007, MySpace made a big deal of locating and deleting the profiles of 29,000 registered sex offenders from its site. Not two years later, it’s deleting triple that number.