Welcome to Some Cozy Horror

I recently finished reading Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynn’s Jones. I was familiar with the 2004 Hayao Miyazaki animated movie, but had never read the book. It was delightfully cozy - probably the coziest fantasy book I’d ever read. The book and the movie match maybe a third of the way through the beginning before both go off into their own adventures. Though, Calcifer does get the last word in about rain in both versions.

Typically, when I think of fantasy stories, I think of grand adventures, good versus evil, and epic battles (even when the stakes aren’t very high). Cozy fantasy was new for me and I loved it. Though, if I really think about it, a lot of Miyazaki films are fairly cozy in nature (like “My Neighbor Totoro” or “Ponyo”). Much the same could be said about Science Fiction, too, with the likes of “Castle in the Sky” or “Nausaicaä of the Valley of the Wind”. 

That got me thinking about other genres that occasionally have the cozy sub-genre attached to it.

 Mystery, is probably the best well-known genre to have a cozy sub-genre. There are a ton of cozy-mysteries out there (usually starring a middle aged female protagonist with a bookshop, a pet, and a cop boyfriend - though that’s not always the case).  My personal favorite was The Cat Who series by Lillian Jackson Braun (which starred a retired male newspaper columnist with his two cats 500 miles north of everywhere).

Romance might also have a lot of cozy sub-genre stories. I’m not super familiar with the romance genre, but I’d say that a lot of Jane Austin and the movie “The Princess Bride” are cozy romances. However, I’d probably have to ask an actual romance reader for their opinion on the genre.

Now horror seems like it shouldn’t have anything to do with the cozy sub-genre. Yet, I would argue there are several horror stories, films, and books that could count as being a part of the cozy horror sub-genre.

Gather around the campfire kids.

I’m not the first to ponder the cozy horror sub-genre. I’ve seen conversations on the-app-formerly-known-as-Twitter, posts on Instagram, and YouTube videos all discussing the idea. I identified a few children’s movies (mostly Disney or Disney Channel Original Movies) and books that could fit the bill. Think “Don’t Look Under the Bed”, “Phantom of the Megaplex”, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (the animated short), “Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman” (which has a lot of great callbacks to the original movie and Frankenstein book), “Over the Garden Wall”, R L Stein’s Goosebumps books, and Coraline (the movie and book). These stories may scare kids (and some adults), but they focus more on atmosphere rather than cheap jump scares.

A good balance of cozy mystery and spooky horror that usually spring boards kids into either adult versions of the genres would be Scooby Doo. Scooby Doo typically starts the mystery out with a spooky legend, curse, or ghost story that leads the gang on a merry chase looking for clues that culminates with the reveal that there wasn’t anything supernatural at all going on (minus movies like “Zombie Island” and “The Witch’s Ghost”).

During the Halloween season, “Hocus Pocus” and “Halloweentown” are fairly cozy movies - though, maybe, only “Hocus Pocus” could be considered a horror movie.

But what about the jump from children to adult horror. Sure adults can enjoy Scooby Doo and the animated or TV-movies of their youth, but are there any strictly adult cozy horror movies?

This Batman likes cozy horror.

Well, I think that depends on what we define as cozy. A quick Google search brought me to Kim Berkley’s 2022 blog post where she links readers to a 2021 Nightmare Magazine post by Jose Cruz where he lays out what defines cozy horror (I know that was convoluted, but it’s accurate to my search history). There are four basic components:

1. Familiarity

2. Sensuousness 

3. Distance

4. Fun

These four components, when applied to horror, allow people to have a safe space to explore all things spooky without causing true trauma. Much of this can be applied to children’s horror like the above named media. 

Cross stitch cozy horror!

It’s a lot harder to see how these apply to adult horror media.

Except, sometimes I do crave a spooky movie that’s not meant for children, but also mind numbingly scary. These might be “Practical Magic” (granted this is a bit of a romance, too), “Sleepy Hollow” (the Tim Burton movie that was described like being on a Scooby Doo movie set), “House of Wax” (the Vincent Price version), “Crimson Peak”, “The Woods”, “Willy’s Wonderland” (don’t ask), many Hammer Horror movies, and (probably most odd) “The Ring”. All can be scary, especially for the younger audience, but overall are just delightfully spooky after multiple viewings.

Books might be a little more difficult, but I’d argue that Abram Stoker’s Dracula, Mexican Gothic, and Kingfisher’s What Moves the Dead are good examples of cozy horror (I also recognize that two of those books mentioned prominently feature mushrooms). Why Dracula, you may wonder? There are parts of Dracula that are oddly quaint - once you get past the first third of Jonathan’s “wacky fun times” in Transylvania (that quote is from Overly Sarcastic Production’s summary of the book).

The manga “Another” and video games like Silent Hill (at least the first one) and Luigi’s Mansion would also fall under cozy horror - in my not so humble opinion. They are atmospheric, spooky, and, most importantly, fun.

And remember these are my opinions. What I find cozy versus what someone else finds cozy in the horror genre might vary greatly. It’s all subjective and relative anyway.

If you enjoyed this post (or if it really pissed you off), please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y’all like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to Scooby Doo Meets Batman

 Guys, I have fallen down a rabbit hole and I do not want to dig myself out. I recently learned that DC has been writing comic books and mid-grade level books featuring the Scooby Doo meeting Batman and helping him solve crimes.

These are everything my inner child needs right now.

Cross overs are nothing new, in fact Scooby Doo first met Batman and Robin in the 1972 episode “The Dynamic Scooby Affair” from the show “The New Scooby Doo Movies”. This Scooby Doo series was nothing but crossover episodes with some of my favorite guests being the Addams Family and the Harlem Globetrotters. There were two Batman crossover episodes, but the first one (Dynamic) was the one most often replayed. 

Scooby Doo and Batman are nostalgic for me. Scooby Doo was a popular rerun block on the newish Cartoon Network in the 90s before getting a reboot run in the early 2000s. “What’s New Scooby Doo” was my jam in the 2000s and it coincided with the live action movies that came out in 2002 and 2004 respectively. I’ve somewhat kept up with the more recent Scooby Doo series - “Mystery Inc.” being the standout - and enjoyed watching the characters evolve over time. 

Batman was also an animated series in the early to mid 90s that shaped my understanding of the character. It was released shortly after the 1989 Batman movie. “Batman the Animated Series” along with a few other animated DC superhero (known by fans as the DCAU or DC Animated Universe) shows eventually became “Justice League” and “Justice League Unlimited” (or JLU). The DCAU also had a few cross over episode with my favorites being anytime Static Shock showed up - another standout early 2000s show.

However, Scooby Doo never made it to the DCAU. Though Warner Brothers owned both franchises by the 2000s, it wasn’t until a “Batman Brave and the Bold” movie that Scooby and the gang meet Batman and his friends again. A crossover movie that was released in 2018. That’s almost 50 years of them not interacting.

You may be thinking, but does Scooby Doo fit into the Batman and DC universe. The latest portrayals of the Dark Knight have been dark and edgy - way different from the more lighthearted Scooby Doo universe. Brave and the Bold doesn’t count because that series was for little kids, while The Animated Series and JLU were a lot darker with older teens in mind.

To which I counter: have y’all seen “Zombie Island” or “Witch’s Curse”? Those Scooby Doo movies have a very similar aesthetic as The Animated Series. Yes, Scooby Doo tends to err on the lighter side, but they are still dealing with criminals who dress up in costumes to do crime. Kind of like how super villains dress up in ridiculous costumes and do crimes in the DC universe.

In fact , I would argue that Scooby Doo’s villains fit in well with the villains running around in spandex of the DC universe (particularly the Flash’s Rogue Gallery, but that is neither here nor there). Why wouldn’t greedy land developers try to scare people away in silly costumes, if really bad guys are already terrorizing the general public in silly costumes.

Therefore, Scooby Doo and the Mystery Gang are a logical addition to the DC universe. 

The Scooby gang just doesn’t need to dress up because they don’t have the same tragic backstory Batman does.

Anyway, I bought both volumes of the recently released Batman & Scooby Doo Mysteries along with a mid grade novel that is very easy to solve if you are even fair-weather fan of Batman. They’re a lot of fun and feature a lot of the Batfamily, including Red Hood, Spoiler, Bluewing, Nightwing, Batwoman, and Ace the Batdog. 

However, the timeline is a little confusing. I’m not certain which Robin is in most of the stories. If there’s pants on the Robin it’s Tim or Damian, no pants and it’s either Dick or Jason. I’m pretty sure Jason is the Robin at one point, but it’s hard to tell. Also, there’s a fun “Pup Named Scooby Doo” issue that establishes that the Scooby gang is about five years younger than Batman (even Red Herring gets a mention), but this timeline is tossed out the window because I totally spotted Duke in the Batfamily reunion. Bruce is around 40 when Duke shows up in the current DC timeline, which would make Scooby one really old dog (maybe he too took a dip in the Lazarus Pits or he learned the secret of immortality from Alfred). 

Maybe it doesn’t really matter. Scooby was already an old dog in “Zombie Island”, so I can’t really complain. He’s also a talking dog - magic has got to be involved somehow.

The crossover comic series is a lot of fun and I can’t help but hear Adam West’s voice (despite my preference for Kevin Conroy) in Batman. The latest TV crossover did happen on the Scooby Doo series “Guess Who” in the episode: “What a Night for a Dark Knight” which was the final time Kevin Conroy would play my favorite version of Batman opposite my favorite Joker, Mark Hamel. Sadly, Mr. Conroy passed away in November 2022.

It was Mr. Conroy’s death that prompted me to return to the DC universe. Scoobytopia may have bought my attention to the latest Scooby Doo and Batman crossovers with his YouTube video “When Scooby Doo! Met Batman”, but it was Matt Baume’s video “The Gay Actor Who Bought Batman to Life: Remembering Kevin Conroy” that brought me back to Batman. 

For an entire generation of kids, myself included, Kevin Conroy was Batman. I still have a hard time accepting a different voice actor. We lost him too soon.

Scooby Doo and Batman are a part of American culture. Each decade seems to have a new series on TV or direct to consumer movies to watch. Both have their graphic novel universes and their live action movies. I’m happy that these s characters continue to grow and evolve for the next generation.

And most importantly, that a talking dog is still alive solving mysteries well past the point any dog should still be alive.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y’all like hearing from me.

Welcome to the Many Adaptations of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

 Did y'all know that there's a musical version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde starring David Hasselhoff and can be found on YouTube (link here)? Well there is and it's as ridiculous as you think it is. Go check it out if you want to spend two and a half hours of your time watching a man angst about his life and commit murder while drinking a special potion that makes him look like something out of the uncanny valley (at least that's the impression the book gives). 

If you'd rather watch the twenty-two minute summary from Musical Hell on YouTube, you're welcome to do that instead.

What I find interesting about this version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde isn't it's misstep in stunt casting, but how far it deviates from the original source material.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a compact novella by Robert Louis Stevenson. The same guy who famously wrote Treasure Island. Mr. Stevenson is probably one of my favorite late Victorian writers (along with Stoker, Carroll and Doyle). His prose are, for the most part, are easy to read for modern audiences. The one exception I'm familiar with is the short story "Thrawn Janet", which is written entirely in Scots. (I internally screamed the entire time I tried to read this one.) 

Most people know of Stevenson's work. Treasure Island has had many adaptations and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has become well intertwined with horror pop culture. My first introduction to both stories was through children's media. The Muppets did fantastic adaptation of Treasure Island, while Scooby and the Gang met Jekyll and Hyde in the episode "Nowhere to Hyde". Interestingly enough, The Scooby Doo episode is actually somewhat closer to the original mechanics and motivations of the story than that musical adaptation I mentioned at the start of this post.

Don't believe me? 

I could tell you to read the book, but that takes a lot more time than you probably want to spend (though you should read the book because it is excellent). Instead, you can watch the wonderfully sarcastic summary by Overly Sarcastic Productions on YouTube (click here). 

Yes, the big twist at the end has been spoiled by pop culture. However, that's not what makes the book so interesting. It's the suspense. We know Hyde is bad news, but what evil will he do next? Will he ever be caught? And will Dr. Jekyll put an end to Hyde for good?

It's also a little more complicated than a split personality (or Dissociative Identity Disorder as is the mental illness's proper name). 

However, this fore knowledge of the main twist somewhat necessitates the changes to the plot. Most people know going in what the connection between Jekyll and Hyde is (I'm not going to outright type it out because you might be the 0.0001% of my readers who aren't familiar with the story). So, adaptions need to keep the audience interested in the story another way.

Insert the love interest(s).

The original novella has very few female characters. The two most important are a little girl and a maid - neither of these characters have a name. 

Thus adaptations love to add a lady or two - usually as a love interest (or two) - to add some drama to the plot. This has been done in a lot of movie adaptations, the previously mentioned hilarious musical, and some cartoon adaptations. The Scooby Doo episode included a maid character who is a suspect in the mystery. In Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman, their school is putting on a stage version of the story that includes a love interest.

These love dramas are not in the original story at all. The main drama starts out as a mystery that eventually leads to the questioning of human nature. The question drifts from who Mr. Hyde is and becomes what makes a person evil and can that part be carved out. Dr. Jekyll struggles with personal issues (that are left incredibly vague in the novella). 

I find that most adaptations drift from this theme to focus more on the added love drama. Which is a shame because the original theme is much more interesting.

Recently, I read a graphic novel adaptation of Stevenson's novella. Klimowski and Schejbal collaborated to create hauntingly beautiful drawings (which is the reason I brought the book in the first place). It's an extremely faithful adaptation, including characters who are typically left out such as Mr. Enfield and Dr. Lanyon. It even has one of my favorite lines ("if he be Mr. Hyde, then I shall be Mr. Seek"). However, the novella in its original state doesn't seem to take well to a visual adaptation and the narrative felt a little too streamlined.

They also made (in my opinion) the mistake of showing Dr. Jekyll's struggles...and they aren't all that shocking.

Okay, they're shocking by Victorian standards (maybe). But one of the most creepy aspects of Stevenson's original work is how vague he is about the evil being committed. The author leaves it up to the reader to fill in the gaps and that makes for a more interesting experience while reading the text. 

The graphic novel decided to just show their readers this "evil" and I didn't find it all that "evil". If they had left it vague, my imagination would have definitely come up with something a lot worse (especially with the creepy charcoal drawings to go off of). Instead they chose something pretty generic - even for the Victorian standards of the time. 

Which brings me back to why any adaptations of this novella need to have some narrative changes to keep the reader interested. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a very internally driven narrative. It's a fight between the good and evil within a person rather than an external one. Any visual medium has to add an external drama element to draw out the story.

The original novella on its own is really good and I do recommend y'all check it out if you haven't yet. If you have read the novella, let me know what you think of it. Also let me know if you enjoyed Mr. Hasselhoff on Broadway. I can assure you that I was entertained. 

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y'all like hearing from me.

Welcome to the Patterns in Hindsight

How many TV shows or movies have you guys watched and known exactly which characters aren't going to make it to the end? Or what about the crime shows that have you figuring out who the killer is in the first 15 minutes?

I've been watching a lot of Murder, She Wrote lately, and it has a fairly formulaic structure. Within the first few minutes a problem is introduced and the wacky group of characters are introduced. It's in these moments that I can usually pin point whose murder J B Fletcher is going to be solving. It takes me another twenty minutes or so to figure out who did it. 

The killer and the person killed are nearly always introduced at the very start of the show.

This formula can be seen in a lot of other crime or mystery based dramas. Heck, even my beloved Scooby Doo uses it. It's rare when we have no idea who's under the mask. 

It's even easier to pick up these hints when watching multiple episodes at a time. Until I actually started binge watching Murder She Wrote, I almost never picked up on the subtle clues that were peppered throughout, but once you know what to look for (usually a throw away line about some important piece of information that the character in question shouldn't know about) that leads to picking out the killer way before the big reveal. 

Horror movies follow a similar patter that has now been deconstructed to death (let's conclude that this pun was intended). Cabin in the Woods is the most famous modern example. The iconic Scream even has a scene where the character Randy lists all of the rules that keep you alive in movies. Since Randy follows the rules, he gets to live to the sequel.

Re-watching these movies, I start to pick up on the hints of what led to a person dying. Either they broke one of the cardinal rules of horror movies ("don't have sex, don't drink or do drugs, and never, ever say you'll be right back") or they made a mistake that led them right to the killer.

Real life isn't entirely like horror movies or 60 minute mystery shows. The hero isn't always around to stumble across a dead body and piece together the clues like a prefect puzzle. Real life is messy, chaotic, and even senseless.

However, that doesn't mean that there aren't patterns that don't emerge when horrible events do occur. Humans like patterns, our brains are built to recognize them (even when they aren't there, but that's another blog post). It could be a person's search history, the posts they tweet on Twitter, the groups they like on Facebook, or if they're on an FBI watch list. 

These patterns that our brains detect have helped our species survive and thrive. It's why some people are extremely intuitive and know when to listen to their "gut". It's why we sometimes get a creepy feeling that tells us that danger is around in an otherwise perfectly normal setting.

I sometimes feel like Sid and the cameraman trying to tell Randy, who's screaming at movie Jamie Lee Curtis that Michael Myers is right behind her in a movie, that Ghost Face is behind him with a knife. I can see the danger, but there's nothing I can do about it. I can't change a story that's already been written.

But isn't that how some of us who watch scary movies or murder mysteries feel when we know what's about to happen? We've figured out who and where the killer is and can do nothing to help the victim. We're just watching events unfold on a screen, wishing, praying that our favorite characters will survive. 

We know the patterns and unless we're willing to do something about them, the horror movie killer will keep coming back.

If you liked this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y'all like hearing from me. 

Until next week.

Welcome to the Iconic Part 2: The Cartoon Icons of my Childhood

When I asked on Twitter what people found to be "iconic", the one response I got was about classic cartoons. I then did a Google search for "iconic cartoons" and every image that popped up I recognized. From Homer Simpson and SpongeBob SquarePants to Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and Scooby Doo, there was a wide variety of cartoon characters that seemed to fit Google's definition of iconic.

My childhood afternoons in a nut shell...

But I guess that's what it means for something to be "iconic". It's an image that represents something and I can easily picture an image of Scooby or Bugs representing some of my favorite cartoons as a kid. In fact, I bet if you showed any child in the United States a picture of Scooby, Mickey, or Bugs, they'd be able to identify them. These characters seem timeless and appeal to a wide variety of people.

Heck, every few years there seems to be a new incarnation of these iconic characters. I think I've seen at least 6 different versions of Scooby Doo (including A Pup Named Scooby Doo and The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo) and Disney has been making new shorts with Mickey for a few years now.

Which leads me to a new question. How do we know when a character from our childhood becomes iconic?

Is it when we start seeing reboots being made (such as the new Ducktales or Powerpuff Girls)? Is it when they jump from the small screen and get their own movie made (like the three Rugrats or Transformer movies)? Is it just because they still have a huge fan base that won't go away even after nearly a decade being off the air (the original Teen Titans show - I don't know what this "Go!" nonsense is). Or is it when the children who grew up with these characters have become adults with children themselves and want to share their happy memories with their kids?

It's probably a combination of all these things. I know I wouldn't have any idea who Rocky and Bullwinkle are if my mom hadn't loved the show so much. I wouldn't have found a love of mysteries without my dad introducing me to Scooby Doo.

We're starting to see a resurgence of cartoons from the 1980s and 1990s being remade or having a reboot. A lot of people my age are really excited to see these characters come back and some of the new shows are really good, maybe even better than the original (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is so much better than the 80s version and it doesn't feel like they are just trying to sell toys). Though not all of the reboots have been successful, it's still so much fun to see fans react to hearing that their favorite shows might get a modern update.

I wonder what cartoons will be considered iconic in the future. Will we see a Phineas and Ferb or Gravity Falls reboot in 20 years? Will we ever get a live action Steven Universe movie?

Iconic cartoons often fill us with nostalgia. They bring back fond memories of happy, carefree times. And we want to share those happy feelings with those we are closest to.

What are some of your iconic childhood cartoon characters? Let me know in the comments or on my Facebook.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome to the Halloween Special

It's the Spookiest Time of the Year...

It's almost Halloween everyone and you guys know what that means: scary movies galore! I've seen many of the old black and white movies I love (with the exception of Abbott and Costello) and a lot of the more modern ones. We can of course than ABC Family for all the kids movies, AMC and Spike for blood guts and gore and TCM for all of the classics.

The groups I follow online (you guys are very familiar with my obsession with  love of Nostalgia Critic) have also had holiday specials all October long. Plenty of zombies, vampires, and possessed trucks (wait possessed trucks?) too keep me entertained.

I do confess, I've been in front of the TV all day watching every Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror ever made. It hasn't been the productive Sunday I had hoped it would have been.

However I have noticed that there are several Halloween specials that I haven't seen. The majority of them were from the Disney Channel original movies collection. At least Halloweentown and Hocus Pocus is still shown every year, but what about Don't Look Under the Bed or Tower of Terror. I at least hoped that they would show Phantom of the Megaplex since Mickey Rooney died this year.

So here are the top five movies/specials I wish I could get, but can't.

1) Phantom of the Megaplex - a great little mystery loosely based off of Phantom of the Opera. Someoen is trying to ruin the premier of a horror movie at a local movie complex. Can three kids solve the mystery or will the phantom succeed? Mickey Rooney plays an older gentleman whose family used to own the theater, but has since moved into the basement.

2) Don't Look Under the Bed - What happens to an imaginary friend when a child stops believing too soon? They become the boogyman who lives under the bed. This movie was a great story about having an imagination and not growing up too fast.

3) The Scream Team - The grandfather of two kids passes away just before Halloween. The Scream Team (three banished ghosts who guide the souls of the dead to the next life) try to help him, but the grandfather is kidnapped by an angry spirit hell bent on getting his revenge. It's up to the two kids and three ghosts to rescue the trapped souls and solve the mystery of the angry spirit.

4) Tiny Toon: Night Ghoulery - If you don't know who the Tiny Toons are you didn't grow up in the 90s. Babs and Buster Bunny (no relation) take you through several mini episodes, each with it's own introduction. They are set up like a Treehouse of Horror episode and got a lot of laughs out of me.

5) Scooby Doo on Zombie Island - (I'm slightly cheating as it can be brought on Amazon) Scooby and the gang and invited to Zombie Island which is cursed by the spirits who wander the island. It seems like a normal mystery for the gang, until its relieved that the zombies aren't guys in masks.

I hope you guys have a happy Halloween on Friday. I'll be hiding under a blanket trying to defeat the zombies of Resident Evil.

Anyway here's a picture of a cute pumpkin my mom gave me.

If you enjoyed this post (or you really hated it) please like, share or leave a comment. If there was special that you remember seeing that I didn't include let me know in the comments. I love hearing from my readers and hope you enjoy my posts. Until next week.