Welcome to Summerween

July is nearly over. We've already had several days over 100F (38C) in my area and two named storms in the Atlantic. I've been harvesting cherry tomatoes from my small tomato plant. Back to school sales are wrapping up and cute Halloween decor is popping up in all the home goods stores.

Well, some of it is Halloween decor. In between the (far too early) traditional spooky things that give my brain a dopamine hit are a few items where ghosts and skeletons are enjoying the sun with fruity drinks. I even saw a piece with a ghost riding a flamingo. The flamingo wasn't even a skeleton.

This mashup of summer fun and Halloween aesthetic is what is known as Summerween. 

You might have started hearing it on booktok (the book side of TikTok) or booktube (the book side of YouTube) where influencers are recommending horror books with a summer vibe. You might have seen art of ghosts hanging out on the beach or a watermelon carved to look like a jack-o-lantern on Instagram.  

Basically, it's a social media thing for people who want it to be Halloween. In the US, this time period seems to start shortly before or right after Independence Day (July 4th) and eventually transitions into regular Halloween. I particularly like the people who have a ton of skeleton decorations and pose them for non-Halloween related holidays and seasons.

You, dear reader, might be wondering how this new invasion of a holiday in the wrong season started. I mean, Christmas in July has been around for as long I can remember and is the halfway point for Halloween. People aren't celebrating Halloween around Easter, they're celebrating in the middle of summer. 

Well, the history of Summerween (or "lore" for those of you with children under the age of 18) is very recent. It started as an episode of the animated Disney show Gravity Falls. That's right, an animated Disney show is why we have Summerween.  

The 12th episode of the 1st season of Gravity Falls, titled "Summerween", exists because the show creators wanted to create a Halloween episode, but had to get creative when the show takes place over the course of one summer.. The town in Oregon, where the show takes place, has a ton of weird and spooky things happening all the time. The locals accept this (for the most part) and (per the show's explication) love Halloween so much, that they decided to have a second one in the Summer. This "Summerween" includes trick or treating, carving watermelons, and a cursed creature that will eat you if you displease it and can't get into the spirit of Summerween. 

This cursed creature, the Summerween Trickster, is loosely based off of No Face from the Miyazaki movie Spirited Away. The two main characters accidently upset it for various reasons and they end up needing to bring it 500 pieces of candy by the time the jack-o'-melons (get it?) in town go out or he'll eat them. The episode is really funny and I recommend the show in general. It's one of the few Disney animated shows that actually gets to the end of it's overarching story. But as a stand alone episode, it also works.

This is the origin of Summerween. 

Do I think Summerween will continue to be a thing? I have no idea. My theory on why this concept has recently gained traction (the show is over ten years old as of writing this post) is a mix of nostalgia (the kids who watch Gravity Falls now have grown up money), the increasing popularity of the horror genre, and the fact that it's too hot outside and people are over it. Most of the Summerween influencers are bookish young women and often include music from Hocus Pocus or Practical Magic while doing their influencer videos. 

I'm not knocking the demographic. I appreciate their passion. 

However, I am unlikely to participate in the consumer side of Summerween. I think the designs are cute (though there's a lot of AI being used) and I'm enjoying the movie and book recommendations. I don't foresee myself buying any of these unnecessary items (though I would accept them as gifts), though I might create my own art for the mashup season. It is also a fair point that I do leave out my regular Halloween decorations year round.

And that is Summerween. 

You might not have heard of it at all prior to this blog post or you might have seen ghosts and skeletons doing cute, yet random summer things on dishtowels. Maybe you already knew all of this and scrolled through the above to see if I had any media suggestions (for movies check out Midsommar or the original Wickerman from the 70s; for books I enjoyed "Meddling Kids" and there's witches running around in "Witchcraft for Wayward Girls").

Would you like to celebrate Summerween? Do you enjoy a spooky summer mashup? Let me know in the comments. 

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 Wayward Girls

Happy first day of fall! I’m looking forward to crisp weather, apple cider, and pumpkin spice everything! It’s also the oficial start to spooky season - August is too early corporate America!

Now that all my excitement and exclamation points are out of the way. I want to tell you about my first spooky book of the season. Well, I guess I really read it in August (it takes place in the summer so it’s fine), but it is a good creepy read for anytime of year. That book is Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix. 

Let’s be real, I picked up this book because of the cool cover art.

Hendrix is primarily known for being a comedy horror writer. His first book (and the first one I read earlier this year), Horrorstör, is about a group of coworkers spending the night in a knock-off IKEA with ghosts and it volleys between horrifying and hilarious. I enjoyed it, though I felt the ending didn’t hit it out of the park (plus a case of too many characters).

An interesting fact about Hendrix’s books, many of them are written with the main point of view character being women. Hendrix is a guy. So when I saw he had written a horror story about pregnant girls in the South, pre Rowe v. Wade, practicing witchcraft, I was a little skeptical.

But Hendrix knocks it out of the park. He doesn’t shy away from the horrible ways these girls are mentally and physically mistreated. He graphically describes giving birth in the 1970s. And this is the none supernatural parts of the book.

In fact, witchcraft doesn't show up for the first 100 pages of the book. It’s a slow burn of real life historical horror that then gets ramped up by creepy witches.

Part of why I think Hendrix was able to pull off this story was because at least two of his relatives were put into these homes to have babies because they were “unwed” mothers. These babies were then spirited away to (most likely) never have contact with their birth mother ever again - regardless of what the mother wanted.

Sometimes, young children were just straight up kidnapped from their mothers under false promises of government help. Georgia Tann was a famous social worker who kidnapped over 5,000 children in Tennessee and sold them to adoption agencies for a fee. This practice still goes on, especially in poor communities around the world. Mothers will think that they are sending their child to a “school” or “government program” only to have their child disappear and end up with an adopted family. This is why it can be difficult and expensive to adopt children period. 

Side note: the American foster system is overflowing with kids who need loving families to look after them. Though many may not be up for adoption, they still need a safe place to call home. 

Hendrix makes sure to include some of his research at the end of the book. He includes stats (where they can be found) and notes that these places the girls were disappeared to largely disappeared after Rowe v. Wade was decided.

I do have to wonder if these homes will start to pop up again in the wake of the Dobbs decision. 

Hendrix captured the horror, heartache, and trauma that these girls were put through. All of the blame was put on these girls. They are stripped of their names, hometowns, and autonomy. Their stories include the fathers of their children, but the home won’t let them speak of their “real” lives, so only the girls are at fault. And as soon as they were no longer pregnant, things could “go back to normal.” 

Except for one girl, a 14 year old who became pregnant by an authority figure in her life. In the book, the 14 year old’s baby is going to be adopted by that authority figure and neither will ever escape him.

That’s why they turn to witchcraft.

The supernatural gives them power that they’d never had even before they were stripped of their identities. But this power comes at a cost. The cost is painful and must equal in proportion of the power being summoned. Once a spell is started, it must be finished or there will be dire consequences.

Earlier this year, I read Stepford Wives and The Movement. Like Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, Stepford Wives was written by a man and told from the perspective of a woman/girl. The Movement is a nonfiction “oral” history (transcripts of interviews) of ten years of the Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1960s and 1970s and provided cultural context for the other two fiction books. It is interesting how well the two men were able to portray horror that primarily affects women through research and empathy.

That doesn’t mean The Stepford Wives nor Witchcraft for Wayward Girls are perfect books. I may have given both five stars on GoodReads (yes, I use it to track my books and get tons of free ones), doesn’t mean I can’t see some flaws. However, don’t let that stop you from checking them out.

Who is a witchcraft for Wayward Girls for? Everyone.

Who maybe should skip this book? I’d say people who have had trauma around childbirth, pregnancy, and/or sexual assault.

What should you know before reading? It’s a slow burn with much more real world horror over the supernatural. It’s a creepy book with a bitter sweet ending. 

Do I recommend Witchcraft for Wayward Girls? Yes, it’s a good story about a time in history that is often swept under the rug in hopes that no one would notice the lumps.

Have you read Witchcraft for Wayward Girls? Let me know in the comments what you thought about it.

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.

Until next week.

Welcome to Social Anxiety Horror

September has rolled in and hasn’t decided which season it should be yet. This means pre-spooky season is in fully swing. Halloween candy lines grocery store shelves, the craft stores have fake pumpkins galore, and pumpkin spice nonsense as far as the eye can see.

Naturally, I’ve already started hearing buzz around horror movies.

Yesterday, at art club, we all had an in-depth discussion around which horror movies we prefer, which we find comforting, and which we won’t touch with a ten foot pole. Naturally, the recently released Speak No Evil, came up. If you’ve managed to escape the trailers for this one, let me briefly explain the premise: an American family meets an English family on vacation, the English family invites them to their house in the middle of nowhere, and procede to be as creepy as possible. It’s technically a remake of a Dutch movie by the same name or also known as The Guests (likely made because Hollywood thinks Americans are allergic to subtitles) with a few changes.

It’s also an example of the subgenre social anxiety horror (a subgenre so rare that it doesn’t seem to have a TV Tropes page).

Normally, I’d have ascribed this movie as just a psychological horror, but there a few elements that push it into the lesser recognized social horror subgenre. TV Tropes defines psychological horror as “subgenre of horror that aims at creating horrific, paranoiac, suspenseful, or unsettling effects through in-depth use of mental and emotional states or psychological conditions.” From what I’ve come to understand, social anxiety horror differs in the use of social norms to drive the building tension. 

I was first introduced to this subgenre by the YouTube video essayist Super Eyepatch Wolf. His hour and twenty minute video covers several examples of social anxiety horror including literature (Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”), movies (The Guests which I am using instead of the other name to differentiate), and real life social experiments preformed on actual people. As I mulled over the concepts brought to my attention in the video, I came to realize that social anxiety horror is one I am easily disturbed by.

Just because I enjoy horror and have published multiple short stories and poems in the genre doesn’t mean that I love every aspect of it. My preference for horror typically contains some element of supernatural, cosmic, fantasy, or science fiction in it. This is so I have a buffer between what I’m enjoying through media and the possibility of something happening in my real life. I’ve never seen an extra terrestrial (doesn’t mean they don’t exist), but I have had a stalker. 

The closer the horror is to a possible experience, the less likely I am to enjoy it. I recently wrote a blog post about my thoughts on Anna Biller’s gothic romance/horror (horror is the section I found it in at Barnes & Noble) “Bluebeard’s Castle”. I found the book difficult to read at times (spoilers: not just because a cat dies) because I found my anxiety was being triggered. The main villain of the story uses psychology and social norms to manipulate the protagonist, which set off my flight responses. Putting the book down and walking away for a few days was the only way I could finish the book. 

The same response also happened to me for the horror novels “Such a Pretty Smile” by Kristi DeMeester and “A History of Fear” by Lucas Dumas (I made a post about this one). Though those novels contain an element of the supernatural, they also play on social anxiety fears. I could handle the dog creatures and flying devils. I couldn’t handle the homophobia and creepy situations with (fictional) people who were more or less real.

And that’s probably because I realize how easy it is to fall into a bad situation through the manipulation of social norms (see previously alluded to stalker). I’ve been in situations with other people that started out as seemingly normal and then escalated to terrifying. 

Thankfully, I’ve never been physically hurt in these situations, but they have taken a mental toll. It’s likely one of the many reasons I hate dating so much. I feel a lot more comfortable in a group social setting than going off with a person I just met for a one-on-one.

So let me know what you think of social anxiety horror? Should it have a TV Tropes page? What movies, shows, books, stories, or games do you think fit as examples of the subgenre? Did you go see “Speak No Evil” or watched the original “The Guests”? Let me know in the comments.

In 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. 

Until the next week.

Welcome to a Wild World with Mushrooms

Guys, mushrooms are weird.

But, like, weird in a cool way.

Mushrooms are neither plant nor animal. They belong to a different living organism kingdom known as fungi (like that gross itchy thing growing on athlete's feet). Some are small, like the tiny Mycena subcyanocephala, while some are really freaking big, like the world's largest living organism Armillaria ostoyae. Yes, you read that right. The world's largest organism is a mushroom in Oregon. You can insert a joke about Oregonians and their recreational activities here. 

Some mushrooms are edible and some are happy to eat you...after you die that is. Some are used by trees as a network for communication known as a "woodwide web" (a pun I can't take credit for, but am happy to use. There are even some mushrooms that apparently eat plastic. 

With such a wide variety of mushroom species with unique looks, uses, flavors, and hallucinogenic properties, I think it's safe to say that mushrooms are really cool and really weird.

Growing up, I was never a big mushroom fan. I thought they looked like aliens and had a slimy texture (like what I thought aliens might taste like). I would often turn my nose up at dishes that blatantly had mushrooms in them. 

That was, until I went to Japan at 11 and was told that I would have to get used to eating them (or as the rule went: two bites before I could say "no thank you"). This is when I learned to love enoki mushrooms. At first I thought they were noodles and enjoyed the way they'd get stuck in my teeth. I quickly learned otherwise and would ask for them all the time - alone with the more well known shitake mushrooms.

However, it still took a while for me to really enjoy the culinary options that came with mushrooms. This was mainly due to the fact that I can't stand portabella mushrooms and they were everywhere (along with the button variety which I find marginally more appealing). 

That is until I started going to farmer's markets with people who cultivated mushrooms. Suddenly, I had my whole world opened to new mushroom flavors. My current favorites are king oyster and maitake (otherwise known as hen-of-the-woods). Both have distinct flavors that require different cooking styles. King oyster can be used as a substitute for a lot of seafood, but especially scallops. Maitake have a stronger flavor that I prefer to roast in the oven. 

Also fun fact about oyster mushrooms: they might not be strictly vegan or vegetarian friendly as they will consume live worms while growing. This is similar to the grey area that figs (require the death of a wasp to grow) and honey (no bees die from the production or cultivation of honey if done properly) fall into.

But those are just a few of the many culinary mushrooms humans are able to eat. 

However, there are even more mushrooms that will instead cause agonizing death and a few look like the yummy kind of mushroom. 

You know those red and white mushroom's Mario and Luigi use to upgrade their bodies? They're deadly in real life. 

Since the 2020 pandemic, mushroom foraging has become a popular hobby. This is good for getting people outside and looking for their own food. This is bad because people are over picking mushrooms that are needed in the environment. Nature is a delicate balance...one that humans are constantly messing up in the modern era. Also, with the onset of AI book writing, there are a number of badly written mushroom foraging guides for sale on Amazon that have (at best) misleading information and (at worst) seriously bad you, will die if you eat that information. Be wary of AI written work in general, but this is just criminally bad.

There are also the getting high kind of mushrooms that will take you on a hallucinogenic trip...or might be useful for therapy for people suffering from severe PTSD and depression under the right circumstances (and government approval). I first learned more about this in a Netflix 2019 documentary called Fantastic Fungi, which was truly fascinating. It was also where I learned that if you're going to do mushrooms, maybe don't be in the woods while a thunderstorm is going on - you might climb a tree. 

Most recently, mushrooms have been popping up more and more in the horror genre. From the video game, turned TV adaptation The Last of Us to the seriously creepy novel "Mexican Gothic". Mushrooms are everywhere (literally and figuratively) and since we don't know a whole lot about every single species, they make for a great horror story. Especially since there exists and actual mushroom known as the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis that turns ants into zombies.

You're welcome for that fun fact.

Well, I'm off to make my dinner of roasted mushrooms. Hopefully, you still have an appetite. What are some of your favorite mushrooms - either to eat or stair at, doesn't matter. 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 a Character Tragedy

Have you ever read a book and wanted to smack the main character upside the head?

I have - very recently in fact. It was tough to get through some parts of the book, but I persisted (mostly out of a sense of completion pride). I’m glad I did because, though I found the main character frustrating, I was interested to see how her story would end.

I’m not going to spoil the book for you guys (though I doubt most of you will read it). I picked it up because I liked some of the other author’s work - as eccentric as it is - and the cover art was very 1970s pulp. It was in the horror section and claimed to be a gothic tale - one of my favorite sub-genres. It was advertised as a feminist retelling of a grisly fairy tale.

The book : Bluebeard’s Castle.

The author: Anna Biller.

My first introduction to Anna Biller was a YouTuber’s review of her movie “The Love Witch”. It’s a movie I greatly enjoy for its aesthetic. The plot is also interesting as it focuses on a witch looking for her ideal man. There’s some magic and murder and tons of camp. I recommend it for people who like campy movies and a healthy dose of 1970s influence. Sadly they couldn’t edit out all the modern cars.

Bluebeard’s Castle is still very clearly an Anna Biller creation, and the camp is still there. The difference are the characters. Judith is not Elaine and Gavin is definitely not Griff. Actually, Gavin doesn’t feel like a character for most of the book. He’s more of a paper thin dreamy wish fulfillment that suddenly turns into a nightmare.

It’s very clear early on that Judith is easy to manipulate when given the opportunity to live out a fantasy. She rejects the more interesting and complex (actually developed) character of Tony early on because he is too safe and boring. Honestly, Tony is the best character in this book, aside from the cats.

Gavin love bombs Judith into running away with him to Paris. They then get married in about a month and buy a castle together. Oh, and did I mention that Judith writes gothic historical romance fiction? I’d almost call her a self insert for Biller except that I’ve seen her interviews and she’s a lovely person. 

Judith is insufferable and frustrating. She claims to be a feminist - and on surface level she kind of is - but it’s a white woman’s feminism. She still gets jealous and takes it out on the wrong people. She thinks that her problems can be solved by loving a (really quite terrible) man enough. She refuses to listen to people who actually care about her well-being (see my note about Tony). The woman needs therapy and doesn’t consider it once in the whole story. There are so many mommy issues.

I could go through all her faults (oh my god the alcohol abuse), but that’s not the point of this post. I’m also probably making the book sound terrible with my descriptions. It’s not a bad book. Heck, I even liked it.

Not that I’m putting it in my top ten anytime soon, but the book does suck you in and you hope for the best, even though you’ll know it’ll end for the worst.

I still don’t want to spoil the book for the (very) few of you interested in checking it out. However, near the end of the book we finally get a few points of view changes that add more context. One is from Gavin, and we do see that he is a real character, not a product of Judith’s imagination. The second is from an omnipotent narrator which wraps up the story in a neat little bow and drives home the message. Honestly, I think this book could have used more of this type of narration - not a lot - but enough to break up some of Judith’s inner thoughts. And boy does she have thoughts - chapters upon chapters of thoughts. Biller could have benefited from a few writer’s group critiques to tighten up the story.

The third and final point of view shift is to a character in one of Judith’s books. The character is in a similar situation to Judith and based off the fairytale Bluebeard. However, this character’s fate is different than Judith’s. It is the final wish of the tragic author after the last one turned out so wrong.

I may have just spoiled the ending…oh well.

Somewhere in the universe Judith exists in, there is a monkey paw that curled its finger anytime Judith truly wanted something. Maybe Biller is planning on having some of these characters show up again and she’ll do a retelling of The Monkey’s Paw. 

Did I enjoy the book? Not really. Am I satisfied with its ending? Yes. Do I recommend it? Maybe…I’m not really sure.

I still really like “The Love Witch”, but Bluebeard’s Castle is an entirely different story. Elaine would have had her fun with Gavin. Griff would have been too boring for Judith.

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.

Until next week.

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 Fear

 Happy first weekend of Fall. Spooky season is in full swing and Halloween is just around the corner. I’m currently read “Mexican Gothic” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I’m about a third of the way through the story and so far it’s hitting all the right notes for my love of spooky atmosphere and gothic tropes. I’m hoping things carry through the whole story.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the novel I just finished. Luke Dumas’s “A History of Fear” comes out in December, yet I managed to score an advanced reader’s copy through a GoodReads giveaway. It’s premise sounded promising - a young man claiming the devil had made him commit a murder. I love a good murder mystery and the idea of supernatural forces intrigued me.

Sadly, the book didn’t live up to my expectations, falling into some of my least favorite horror tropes and setting off my social anxiety to the extreme. Overall, I didn’t find this book scary or horrific and everything is (purportedly) explained in an afterword.

Don’t get me wrong, this book has some good points. There’s an intense scene in a library that is excellently paced and thoroughly creepy, but this type of horror is rare. If the book had capitalized on those moments, I think I would have had a more enjoyable spooky experience.

I admit that I have my own standards for horror that don’t always align  with what is popular or conventional.

For example, I really like creepy atmosphere and quiet moments in my horror media. This can allow for a bigger build up in a scare or paranoia. These moments without action give me time to reflect and think - or overthink - about what is happening. I still crave that release of buildup and tension, but a solitary character lost in a fog can be just as terrifying as a monster popping up saying “boo”. 

I consider a story scary if it follows me off the pages of a book or the images on a screen and into my everyday moments. What would I do if my family was slowly starving and possibly being stalked by a witch? (The VVitch). Could I battle a button eyed version of my mother? (Coraline). Would I be able to find who the dead person is before dying myself? (Another). Could I defeat ancient Lovecraftian gods and save the multiverse without losing my mind? (Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem) What would I do if my town was suddenly possessed by spirals? (Uzumaki).

Honestly, only Junji Ito could make a spiral scary and he truly succeeds. The scene where the woman realizes that there is a naturally occurring spiral in her ear haunts me. 

When I was little, I couldn’t handle a lot of horror. I had a reoccurring nightmare of Fidget from “The Great Mouse Detective” popping out (if you’ve seen the movie, y’all know the scene) and kidnapping me while I’m trying to find my way home. The movie (with horror veteran actor Vincent Price as the villain) along with “Scooby Doo Where Are You” were my introduction to horror. As long as the scary images were clearly separate from the real world, I enjoyed it (with maybe a nightmare or two).

And then one of my parents thought it would be an excellent idea to show young me “Arachnidphobia”. For some background, I thought spiders were the coolest before watching this movie. After watching it, I wanted nothing to do with the eight legged arachnids. Suddenly, there was no longer the barrier of animation for my young mind and the real world became a little less safe.

As I’ve matured, I’ve found that I still prefer some kind of barrier between me and my horror media. I much prefer ghost stories and creature features to serial killers and psychological thrillers. If my horror story is too “real”, the less I feel like I’m escaping into a story. Real life is full of terrifying things - many I can’t do anything about. The less plausible a scenario, the more likely I am to jump in without questioning the details of the plot that otherwise might cause it to colapse on itself. As soon as my brain can start poking holes into things, I become frustrated rather than entertained.

Again, this is just my opinion. And these preferences aren’t inflexible.

Once I figured out what was going on with the plot of “A History of Fear”, I became less invested and more annoyed with the author’s choices. I almost completely left the plot and instead powered through to finish the book and move on to a new one.

However, one movie that did scare the crap out of me was “Oculus”. In someways it has some similarities to “A History of Fear”, but only surface level. There’s an element of reality to “Oculus”. The story could be about the mental break down of a family. However, the lore and presentation of the movie creates a narrative that takes me out of reality and into the internally logical world the characters are navigating. I completely buy that the mirror is evil. I also buy that the family had a mental breakdown unrelated to the evil mirror. The fact that there’s no explanation that ties up the plot in a neat little bow and spoon feeds me the explanation is a plus. This movie loved rent free in my mind for weeks.

So did the book (and movie) “Coraline”. As did the manga “Uzumaki”. 

Also, the less jump scares a movie or video game has, the better. I don’t have to worry about these too much in books and graphic novels since books don’t make obnoxiously loud sounds, but movies and video games love jump scares with unnecessarily grating noises. This is why I can’t do haunted houses despite loving the aesthetic and decorations - they’re too loud. Jump scares also don’t leave room for thinking. It’s an almost complete release of tension when they happen. Yes, “Oculus” has a few jump scares, but those weren’t the scenes that got under my skin. (No, that honor goes to the apple/lightbulb scene).

I’ve long since grown out of a need to line by bed with an army of stuffed animals to defend me against vampires and other nighttime terrors. My preferred horror stories have me buying into their internal logic and leave me with questions to mull long after I’ve finished the narrative. I prefer creepy quiet scenes mixed in with my horrific images. I want to escape into a story rather than be forced to live my reality.

Also the less jump scares, the better.

I gave “A History of Fear” 2.5 stars (rounded up to 3) on GoodReads. For all its flaws, I can see fans of true crime enjoying this book. As for me, if the paranormal is promised in my story, I want some really good, actually in the narrative’s world, paranormal stuff to go down.

What are some of your favorite horror media? I’ve listed a few of mine here, but this list is nowhere near complete. For one thing, “Dracula” is still one of my all time favorite horror novels (even if only the first part is truly horrifying) and the first time I mention it is this sentence.

Pleasant nightmares.

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.

Until next week.

Welcome To Spooky Season Recommendations Part 1 Of ?

 It's officially Spooky Season!

Okay - technically fall starts in roughly two week, but pumpkin spice non-sense has hit the shelves and I am eating it up (literally and figuratively).

So far, I've tried the Dunkin Donuts and Goldfish brand mashup of pumpkin spice donut goldfish (they are unsurprisingly addictive) and the Special K pumpkin spice cereal (it's good, has a nice pop of spice). Both are good, but you don't need to go out of your way to pick them up (unlike the amazing pumpkin spice mini ice cream cones from Trader Joe's - those are worth every penny).

Non-pumpkin spice related flavored non-sense, my local giant has a lovely honey crisp flavored seltzer water. I normally don't go for apple flavored things, but this one I do enjoy picking up at this time of year. It's light, not overly artificial apple flavored, and disappears by the end of September.  

Sadly, I have yet to see my favorite baked chips hit the shelves yet this year. These are the ghost baked chips Trader Joe's has between September and October. If you see these, stock up, they also go fast. Trader Joe's also hasn't yet had their pumpkin spice mini ice cream cones yet, so I'll have to keep my eyes peeled. 

Other reoccurring fall themed foods that are back on the market and I can recommend are the pumpkin spice coffee blends - though they vary by brand, apple cider (local is best), and apple butter (seriously, shop local, it's so much better than store brand). I'm also fond of the pumpkin spice tea by Harney & Sons Fine Tea. It's an herbal blend with rooibos and pumpkin pie spices (no actual pumpkin included). It's great for cold nights by a roaring fire. 

Alright, I've written enough about the food and drinks that have hit the shelves. What about the media? Are there any good spooky TV shows or movies to enjoy my time? What about books or graphic novels?

Well...

I've recently become obsessed with the recently released Netflix series Dead End: Paranormal Park. Netflix is currently in my bad books for some of their recent choices, but they at least have kept their animation line up (unlike certain other platforms - see my last post for salty details). This series came out in June and takes place in a theme park that might be described as 1 part Dollywood, 2 parts Disneyland on steriods. The main characters consist of a transgender boy named Barney, his talking dog Pugsley (who happens to be voiced by the actor who played Beetlejuice on Broadway), an autistic Pakistani-American girl named Norma, and the demon Courtney. 

This show is amazing - like Gravity Falls levels of amazing. 

The first season only has ten episodes, but we're left on the finale with an open ending that allows for a season 2 (and there had better be a season 2 Netflix). It checks all of my boxes for spooky season animated shows including good comedy, excellent representation, an intriguing mystery, and really well written complex characters. I love it.

Other spooky season animated shows to recommend on Netflix include Hollow (I've only seen the first season though), Castlevania (I've watched through season 2), and Hilda (which is less spooky and more fun adventures with a dash of mythical...and trolls).

Sadly, Disney has yet to put House of Mouse or House of Villains on Disney+, but they have released the trailer for Hocus Pocus 2. No I haven't seen it, I'm in denial that it will exist in a couple of months.

A movie I'm actually excited for (based on the trailer) is The Invitation, which looks like a modern take on "Dracula". Will I see it in theaters? Probably not, but I will stream it when I have the opportunity.

As for books, I'm currently in the middle of "A History of Fear" which will be released in December. I won this in a Goodreads giveaway and am determined to finish and review it soon. I'm about half way through and very confused. Is it spooky? Parts are, but overall it's more confusing. I do plan on ready "The Only Good Indians" and "Mexican Gothic" for the season - which I can recommend through reputation.

As the season goes on, I hope to have a few more recommendations for you guys. I plan on seeing a "Sleepy Hollow" ballet in the middle of October and might have a review in the works (not that I really know much about ballet, but I love Sleepy Hollow). Additionally, I watched Perfect Blue which deserves it's own blog post simply because it is an intense experience. It's not really spooky season themed, but it fits into the season by virtue of it being such a trip.

If you have any Spooky Season suggestions, please feel free to let me know. I enjoy this season and I hope you guys do to.

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 Tragedy in Horror

 This past week, I watched the Netflix original The Haunting of Bly Manor. Based on the classic gothic horror novel, The Turn of the Screw, and a spiritual successor to the fabulous The Haunting of Hill House, I was excited to see how this mini series was going to do. 

I wasn't disappointed. 

Though I don't think The Haunting of Bly Manor is nearly as good as The Haunting of Hill House, I did enjoy watching it. And like the first miniseries, it left me crying my eyes out by the end.

Ghost Stories are Never Just About the Ghosts

At least good ghost stories are never just about the ghosts. 

At their heart ghost stories are about people. Their actions, their emotions, and what they leave behind. My favorite ghost stories not only scare me, but also leave me in tears. The tragedy is part of the horror. 

One of the first ghost stories I remember watching as a kid was The Others (2001). I'd seen other horror movies as a kid (Arachnophobia might have hindered my interest in spiders for a few years), but not many serious ghost stories.

And boy did I have an interest in ghosts and haunted houses as a kid.

One of my favorite shows as a kid was the History Channel's Haunted History series. They'd go to cities, visit some haunted locations and explain the history with some ghost stories thrown in. It wasn't like the ghost hunting shows that are on now. You can find a lot of them on Amazon Prime (though it takes some digging to find them) and a few channels on YouTube.

So, when I watched The Others, my kid self was expecting a haunted house story. I was not ready for the twist ending or how much I was going to cry (and I was one of those kids that cried at the drop of a hat). 

I freaking loved it.

The Others is a ghost story about ghosts not knowing they're dead and their need to come to terms with that. Their feelings of isolation, hopelessness, and guilt permeate the film. The horror isn't that there are ghosts haunting a house, but how they handle the stressful situations they are in. 

Going back to The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor, much of the horror is realizing who was fated to die, how they were unable to prevent it, and the response to those deaths. Nell's death in particular ticks all of these boxes. 

We learn that Nell is dead in the first episode of The Haunting of Hill House. Her spirit is waiting in her brother Steve's apartment when he gets home. He grumbles to her for a bit, then he gets a phone call from his dad stating she's dead, and finally we get that awesome jump scare. Much of the rest of the series that takes place in the present focuses on how her death brought her family back together.

However, we do get a full episode dedicated to Nell's life. We see her falling in love, getting married, and then losing her husband to an unforeseeable health problem. We see her pain and deepening depression as she struggles with her husband's death. I wanted to see her get better. I wanted her to be happy.

Throughout the episode, we also see the bent neck lady haunting Nell. She shows up at some of the worst moments of Nell's life - including the death of her husband. Right before going back to Hill House, Nell sees her again. I don't know if this vision was the final straw for Nell to go to the house or if she would have gone regardless of seeing her, but she goes back to the house. And she relives some of her happiest moments with her family. She even dances with her husband again like she did on her wedding day.

She seems so happy, even though we, the audience, know it's not real. We want Nell to be happy. But she's destined to die. We've known this from episode one. When she does die (and we find out who the bent neck woman is) we're horrified. I was so upset that I burst into tears. 

Same thing happened at the end of the series, when Steven is learning the whole truth of his mother's death. The ending of Bly Manor also left me in tears between the lady of the lake (though I honestly didn't need an entire episode dedicated to her), Hannah, Rebecca, and the inevitable death of Dannie.

I was horrified and full of sorrow.

I seem to like these types of horror stories a lot.

A couple of nights ago, despite knowing that I was going to cry again anyway, I decided to put on the movie Paranorman (2012) after finishing Bly Manor. Paranorman is one of Laika studio's best all around animated films. It's got horror, humor, and one of the biggest tear-jerk moments in a movie about witches and zombies. 

If you haven't seen the movie, I recommend going and watching (because I might spoil a couple of key plot points) it. Norman is a little different - mainly because he can talk to dead people like the kid in the Sixth Sense. He's given the responsibility of reading the spirit of a witch a bed time story to keep her asleep for another year. He fails, zombies rise from their graves, and the town descends into chaos.

The resolution and ending is so sad.

(Spoilers - next paragraph)

Nothing bad happens to Norman. It's the witch's story that's depressing. Because of course the witch wasn't actually a witch. She was a little girl like Norman - a little different. She was killed because they were afraid of her.

(Spoilers - ended)

No matter how much I'm enjoying the movie, I know that I'm going to be in tears by the end. That doesn't stop me from watching, but I do have to prepare myself for it.

Go watch Paranorman, it's great. Plus there is this hilarious scene where you find out one of the characters is gay and it's one of the best reveals I've ever watched. 

But this is my opinion on horror stories. I can't just be terrified or in a state of anxiety the whole time. Tragedy rounds out the story and adds depth to characters' back stories...especially if they're ghosts. 

Why are some of my favorite horror movies also ones that make me cry?

Probably because I like ghost stories, where the ghosts aren't what's really doing the haunting.

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.

Until next week.

Welcome to a Horror Revival

Movie award season is underway and I couldn’t help notice a lack of nominations for a particular genre: horror. I might be a little bias, I happen to write a lot of horror stories, but there have been a number of decent to good horror movies made over the past few years. I think some more than others deserve recognition.

Movies like Get Out, Midsomer, Us,  and the VVitch had amazing acting, were visually stunning, and  some amazing costumes (especially the VVitch). The new version of Suspiria was a little long and there were a few questionable choices, but the updates they made were creepier and more relevant than the original (the original is still my favorite because it is one hell of a trippy nightmare fairytale). I love watching The Ritual on Netflix on a quiet night and The Babadook along with Hereditary are emotional rollercoasters.

A lot of good horror movies came out this past decade, but few got the recognition I think they deserved.

The VVitch - currently on Netflix

I enjoy a good horror story for a number of reasons. Sometimes I need a creepy tale to get me thinking of what I might do in a similar situation. Other times it makes me think about the real life situations these stories are based on. Candyman has a lot of great commentary on class inequality and policing in minority communities (hopefully the remake will go a few steps further). Jacob’s Ladder, one of my all time favorite movies, has a lot of accurate and horrific facts about the Vietnam War. Maybe that’s why I like it so much - it’s a deadman’s dream rationalizing his senseless death.

The one type of horror I’m not super fond of is overly violent gore nor found footage. It’s one thing if it’s sparing and tastefully done, but the torture porn genre that emerged after the rise of Saw is not my cup of tea. I prefer atmospheric that causes a creeping tension with few releases of emotions. Minimal jump scares  and not too much found footage.

The remake is the better series of movies, but the original holds a special place in my heart.

I do have a few exceptions. If the story is good and I can watch the movie without feeling sick to my stomach, I usually enjoy them. The first Saw movie, though incredibly gory at times, has a lot of good twists and an excellent story. The found footage movie As Above So Below has amazing symbolism and use of layered story telling.

Unfortunately, horror movies and stories have a reputation for being terrible (and for good reason), but some of cinema’s greatest movies are horror. The Shining, Pan’s Labyrinth (yes I count this one as horror), Alien, and Psycho are all amazing and have had a major impact on today’s pop culture.

Even the more campy horror movies have merit. I love pretty much anything with Vincent Price in it and Christopher Lee is probably my favorite Dracula, but these movies aren’t always masterpieces and their shoe string budget occasionally shows. The Fog, Sleepy Hollow, The Woods, and even Halloween might have a few big plot holes and leave the viewer asking more questions than the movies probably intended, but the visuals, aesthetic, acting, and music really make the viewing enjoyable.

Evil witches and plants...yes please!

I hope that this next decade ushers in a new era for horror stories and movies. I want more movies with creepy atmospheres and lots of suspense. I want a good soundtrack that takes me out of the ordinary and let’s me live in a dream within a dream. I want gothic houses to explore and monsters that are never seen, but always lurking in the shadows.

An evil fairytale brought to life.

Bonus points if the stories have just enough answers to not confuse the watchers, but doesn’t hold their hands either.

Give more movies like The Woman in Black, Cabin in the Woods, and The Lighthouse. Plant the stories in both reality and in dreams. Let the mind wander and think.

And nominate some of these movies for awards.

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.

Until next week.

Welcome to an Interactive Dream

Recently I went to an art performance in New York City called "Sleep No More". In essence it's an interactive play. A sort of choose your own adventure story that you get to live instead of read (or play as a video game).

It's a very individual experience and I don't necessarily recommend sticking with a group or even following a crowd (though you'll likely see more of the main scenes this way). It's also nearly impossible to have the same experience twice.

My time at the McKittrick Hotel, which hosts "Sleep No More", began with my arrival at 6:00pm for a 7:00pm entrance. I was quickly checked in and told to walk through a nearly pitch black maze until I reached a small lounge and bar set in 1939. Though the show itself isn't scary, it's set up to be disorienting.

Lights are low and it's a little difficult to see inside unless a spot light comes down on a performer. Even then, some of the actors are out of sight and are only seen when they want to be seen. At 7:00 I was called to a small room, where I was given a mask, which I was told to keep on at all times "for my protection". Suddenly I was thrust into the movie "Eyes Wide Shut" and I became a voyeur to the activity in the hotel.

Voyeur is one of the words I'd use to express my time at the McKittrick Hotel. It was voyeuristic, dreamlike or better yet a nightmare, erotic at times, and perverse. We, the attendees in the white masks, weren't supposed to speak, but we could rifle through papers, open drawers, and even get a lot closer than I normally would to the performers.

The majority of the performance is silent - told in dance and wild gestures. Occasionally there is dialogue. In fact, I was lucky enough to be chosen for one of the coveted one-on-one scenes. During one of the major scenes in the ballroom, the Matron character asked me to come with her to a side room. She took off my mask and that's when I jumped from voyeur to character. I was now a part of the experience I had only before been casually observing.

The Matron took my hand and told me that she'd been waiting for me. She said that she, another woman (though I never discovered who), and I were in a lesbian relationship. She gave me a white box tied with a red ribbon. Slowly we opened the box and as we did, she described how the gift was meant to symbolize me. Inside was a rose. She made me promise to look after the third mystery woman, then kissed my forehead, and put my mask back on. She led me back out to the ballroom, which is where we parted.

It was an intense, intimate, and very unexpected series of events.

Most of my time was spent wandering around the many sets that are located throughout the five floors you're allowed to explore. Occasionally I'd stumble upon a scene and I might follow one of the actors to another area.

That was how I ended up seeing one of the most disturbing scenes in the whole show. It was basically an orgy with witches and the devil - who was wearing a goat's head - scene. There was a strobe light that distorted the dancer's movements and reminded me of stop motion animation. It was amazing and highly disorienting.

I also wasn't ready for the extreme nudity.

There are a lot of naked people in this performance. Some of it is like the orgy scene I described above. Other times it's someone taking a bath, trying to wash blood off their body. There was one moment where the person was simply changing their clothes.

If you want to experience this performance, be ready for a lot of full frontal naked people.

You guys might have noticed that I haven't mentioned what the plot is. That's because the plot is incredibly confusing if you go in without doing any research beforehand. All I knew going in was that it was largely based off of Du Maurier's Rebecca (as well as the Hitchcock adaptation by the same name) and Shakespeare's Macbeth. I was only able to discern certain scenes because of my familiarity with both sources.

However, there were some scenes that I got an entirely different vibe one. There's a pregnant woman (Lady Macduff) who becomes obsessed with drinking milk from a maid. From the descriptions of the characters I was able to find, the maid is trying to poison Lady Macduff and her unborn baby. I, however, got a creepy "Rosemary's Baby" vibe from the dance scenes. It was super creepy.

There also were characters that I saw maybe once for half a second before they disappeared from my experience. In fact, I'm not even certain I met all of the characters present that night. A few times I didn't even notice that I was standing in front of or behind a character until the light fell on them or they turned around.

The performance goes in three hour long cycles until the finale, which I will not be spoiling. It's an intense scene and I somehow ended up right in the very front of the ending performance. My only reaction was to gasp, though a few people did scream.

We were then ushered back into the bar area where there was live music. If you had wanted a table, you had to pay for a reserved seat - not worth it in my opinion - and though the drinks were cool sounding, they were also expensive (but what isn't in New York City). I don't drink, so I can't judge their taste.

The commitment to atmosphere and time period is on point. The actors, dancers, and helpers make certain that audience members are kept safe without breaking character. The audience is also just as important as the performers and our commitment to not speaking is very important. I did see one or two people take off their masks, if only because it was hot at times and the masks caused some of us to sweat.

Do I recommend "Sleep No More"? Yes if you're ready for an experience most people only have in video games. You are not a character, you are a voyeur, an observer, the fly on the wall, unless otherwise asked. Be ready to enter a dreamworld that is stranger than reality.

And there will be naked people.

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.

Until next week.

Welcome to the Remake

I somehow got talked into seeing the new Child's Play today with a couple of my friends. Was it good? Yes. Was it scary? Not really. Did I scream like a small child because I can't handle gore and jump scares? Of course.

If my friends are to be believed I helped to enhance the movie going experience.

Also I don't mean that this movie isn't scary in that it won't make you jump in your seat. I mean that it's not scary because it's just not still creeping me out after seeing the movie. That's how I judge whether or not a movie is scary, if I'm still freaking out about it after the credits roll.

It's honestly been a while since I was left feeling like my skin was crawling after a horror movie or TV show. Much as I like The Haunting of Hill House, Jaws, or The VVICH, I don't often find them all that scary.

I do think they are all really good movies and TV shows. Just like I think Child's Play (the original and this remake) are good movies, just not very scary ones.

In fact, and this might be an unpopular opinion, I think this new version of Child's Play is slightly better than the original.

I'm not sure if it's the updates that were made to the story, the changes that were made, or if I just need to go back and review the original again to compare the dialogue, but the remake was a lot more engaging for me. Also Mark Hamill is amazing. Like I could tell it was him, but it wasn't his Joker or his Luke Skywalker voice. Spot on casting right there. (And he liked my tweet!)

Reasons I liked the movie aside (because I swear this isn't a review), it's very rare for me to enjoy a remade movie. It's an extremely fine art that Child's Play did well and most other remakes do not.

Much as I love Disney and enjoyed the remake of Beauty and the Beast, I still felt the original animated 1991 version was better. I even went how right after seeing it in theaters and rewatched the original. Carrie? 1976 film all the way. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory versus Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Willy Wonka wins hands down. There's just something a little more heart warming to that movie.

And the less said about the Psycho remake the better.

That isn't to say that remakes can't work. I freaking loved It: Chapter 1. Again, did I find it scary...no. It was entertaining as all get out though (especially that random dancing scene, I was hysterically laughing). I also like the 1953 version of House of  Wax, which is in fact a remake of an earlier version from 1933 and was also remade (terribly) in 2005.

I  even occasionally like gender-bent remakes (where they switch a main character or characters' gender) such as His Girl Friday which is a remake and adaptation of The Front Page. These types of remakes are even rarer to work and designate with audiences or just be good in general.

Also a remake is different from a reboot. Batman  and Superman are rebooted fairly often, each with varying degrees of success. I like both the Dark Knight and the 1989 Batman, however there is very little connecting the two. Reboots are giving a franchise a face lift without actually being the original. A remake is just trying to be the original.

(I know that reboots and remakes are very similar in concept, but I think of them as two different types of movies.)

So why do so few remakes work?

Honestly - it's because most of the time the studios are hoping you'll see the movie on name recognition alone. They hardly ever try to do anything new or refreshing in the story. Often times, the remake is just the old movie with modern tropes thrown in for fun.

A good remake pays homage to the original and makes itself something new.

The original Suspiria is a technicolor trip. It's entertaining and at times scary (though not much), but the story isn't really there. The new Suspiria that came out last autumn is also a trip, but it's much more focused on the story (maybe a little too much) and political climate of 1970s Berlin. One is a fairy tail and one is a beautiful, yet twisted period piece. I like both movies for very different reasons and because they are so different, I couldn't even begin to tell you which is better.

For the record there are movies I am not opposed being remade. There are some stories I feel can be expanded upon in visual media (*cough* Harry Potter *cough*). I do have a select few movies that are so very much part of the time that they came out, I would hate it if they were remade (rebooting is not impossible - Star Trek was fine, but definitely not remade). Movies like:

• Indiana Jones (all three originals)
• The Crow
• Star Wars
• Labyrinth - with the possible exception of Tom Hiddleston as Jareth 
• Back to the Future
• Lord of the Rings 
• Princess Mononoke
• Akira (no live action remakes Hollywood please)
• Jaws
• Metropolis 

This isn't a comprehensive list, just the movies I can think of off the top of my head. The reasons I don't want them remade have more to do with how well I think the story works. There isn't as much I want to see explored anymore from the above listed. Now, inspired by movies and spin-offs are okay...if done well (only the first Hobbit movie was to my liking), but those stories are done. If I want a new Indiana Jones, I want a new character, not a new actor playing a beloved character.

And some animated movies really don't need live action remakes. Occasionally they work. I was very happy with Detective Pikachu (that's not a remake, but it was a medium transfer from animated to live). I was not impressed with Death Note and I'm still pretending Ghost in the Shell never happened. Beauty and the Beast wasn't bad, but the new things didn't work and the ones they tried to "fix" didn't really need fixing to begin with.

Okay maybe that whole cursing an 11 year old kid nonsense needed to be explained, but that's neither here nor there.

Do you guys have any movies you would never want to see remade? Let me know.

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 Haunting Horror

Happy belated Halloween! Did you guys have a spooky time? I was suffering from some extreme jet lag as I had spent the past week exploring the Pacific Northwestern region of the United States. Then I decided to take the red-eye home. The only thing scary about my day was the lack of sleep.

When was the last time you felt scared?

The feeling doesn't have to be because of something major. I feel scared for many reasons, some of them even silly. Fear, horror, and terror are all associated with feeling scared. I tend to find myself terrified of some social situations (none I will specify here) or when one of my cousins decides to take a mountain pass road on the side of a cliff...in the rain (“it’s only 8 miles” my foot).

Fear is subjective.

As a child I was always fearful of mysterious monsters in my closet or under my bed. I would build a wall of stuffed animals to keep vampires and ghosts away. Don’t even get me started on zombies. I can’t stand zombies even to today (if only they weren’t a real probability of occurring right?).

Did someone say monsters?

It took a long time for me to be able to watch or read horror stories. There are some stories I still won’t watch (mainly of the torture/slasher variety). I don’t like blood and gore at all. Even in college I wouldn’t watch the show Supernatural after a certain time.

Except things started to change.

It was a slow process. I was always aware of stranger danger, but it wasn’t as big of a reality until I moved away from my friends and family. The idea that I could fail didn’t seem as scary until I was responsible for providing for myself. The future always seemed bright and shiny until I realized there was very little I could do to control it.

My fears went from imaginary monsters to intangible realities. I can’t punch a fear that doesn’t have a physical form.

I also started embracing more of the horror genre as a way to deal with my own nightmares. Slowly at first with kids shows and cheesy movies from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. I became drawn to the beautiful side of horror. Gothic sets with ominous lighting and music scores that could draw out every emotion the characters felt. I really liked horror video games with their intricate stories and emerging the player as both the protagonist and omnipresent observer. Fatal Frame and The Haunting Grounds are two great titles that pull this off.

Now, it’s become a lot harder to horrify me with movies, books, and even video games. It’s not that I’ve seen it all or that I know the genre too well. It’s more that a lot of horror mediums these days rely on cheap scares to jolt their audience into an adrenaline rush.

The type of horror I’m drawn to is subtle. It isn’t a sudden jump scare or loud “boo” to the face. It’s seductive, able to draw their victim in to a beautiful trap that leaves them shaking for days after wondering when the next bout of terror will come. It’s a horror that stalks its prey long after the prey has escaped.

A great example of this horror done well is the new Netflix original The Haunting of Hill House. I was surprised by how off putting and truly terrifying the mini series was. The very few jump scares were on point and not cheap thrills.

The new Suspiria movie that just came out is an equally terrifying experience (though I wasn't so keen on the Epilogue portion of the movie). Much like 2018's The Haunting of Hill House, this remake of the 1977 classic takes things in a completely new direction while keeping the bar bones of the original. It's a slow burn horror movie that draws the viewer in and isn't shy about being upfront with the supernatural aspects of the movie.

However, these examples might not be seen as scary or engaging enough for everyone.

The thing about horror is that its incredibly subjective. A movie like the 2017 It doesn't scare me for a couple of reasons: 1) I'm not scared of clowns, 2) I know that there's a whole other part because I watched the original 1990s miniseries, and 3) the imagery that's supposed to shock me - doesn't. That doesn't mean there weren't a few good scares in the movie. I definitely jumped when I first saw the headless boy following Ben and the scene with Pennywise coming out of the projector was creepy as all get out. I still enjoyed the movie, I just wasn't scared by it.

I may find it creepy, but it's not scary.

As my taste in horror media changed, so too did the things that scared me. I'm no longer scared of ghosts or witches or vampires. Now I'm scared of things that are a lot more abstract and less straight forward to fight back against. I'm scared of the a future I can't predict. I'm scared of hypothetical situations that I can neither control nor account for. I'm afraid of isolation and being forgotten about.

People have different fears, anxieties, and feelings. What one person finds scary another finds invigorating. Some people like being scared, others hate it with every fiber of their body. Fears morph and change as your life does the same.

Just remember one thing: whatever your scared of, no matter how mundane - it's okay to feel that fear.

Just try not to let those fears take over your life.

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 Gothic: the Appeal of Darkness

The Gothic genre is filled with tales of mystery, macabre, and dark atemosphere. There are plenty of ghosts, monsters, and victims. Though not exclusively tied to the horror genre, most Gothic tales include elements of horror (as I have written in previous blog posts), but why?

What attracts us to that dark atemosphere?

I can only answer this question for myself. Personally, I find the dark side of life to be just as fascinating and beautiful as the dramatic and comedic, sometimes even more so. However, there’s one element that shines through above all else in Gothic tales and that’s mortality. Horror and Gothic stories bring audiences to the edge of death, whether through tragedy, mayhem, or the supernatural.

Everyone dies - it’s a guarantee of life - but we don’t often like to acknowledge it.

Young people often think they’re invincible, that the seductive hands of death won’t touch them for a long long time. Why should the young worry about death? Yet in the Gothic genre, it is the youth who are often facing the most horrific and tragic of situations. They must confront their mortality before the end of the story...or succumb to it.

I haven’t a clue how older people feel about death. I doubt that there is a collective feeling on the subject. Some might welcome it at the end of their lives, others might continue to fear it. I’d rather think of death as the end of one journey and the start of the other. The older individuals in the Gothic stories I’ve read were occasionally the victims of the younger generation’s ambition, such as in A Tale Tale Heart. There are other older people in these stories who help guide the younger generation, such as Van Helsing in Dracula.

Death is the overly dramatic lurker in these stories. It’s not quiet. Most characters know that it’s around, but not how to avoid it.

But death isn’t the only dark figure lurking around. The more Gothic tales I read, the more I feel like I’m being drawn into a twisted fairy tale. Ghosts, ghouls, and fairies all have the potential to pop up in Gothic tales. Magic, spells, and curses all seem more real in the Gothic setting. If I were to guess why, it would be because the main setting of these tales feels so different from my modern world.

Things weren’t nearly as clean and sterile as they are now. Indoor plumbing wasn’t common until the 1900s. Medical sciences are constantly improving, they feel so much more advanced than a hundred years ago, let alone two hundred. We know so much more now than ever before in human history.

I often feel that our modern world takes some of the mystery out of life, whereas the height of the Gothic period seems so very mysterious by comparison. I don’t know if people in the 1800s felt that way as well. Especially since they would have felt that their society was the panicle of modern science and technology.

Yet, superstitions and interest in the supernatural remain, even to today. People continue to try to spot the paranormal during historical ghost tours in some of the world’s oldest cities and as does the fear of crossing a black cat. Some people might laugh at the idea of witches casting spells in today’s modern world, but witchcraft has grown a large following since the early 1900s. Scientists agree that Earth is billions of years old, but some people are still convinced that the earth is actually flat.

I’m very curious as to how the decades surrounding the new millennia will be remembered. What will people a hundred years from now think about our superstitions and omens. Will they think the vampire craze of the mid 2000s meant that people actually thought vampires were sparkly?

But getting back to the topic at hand...

Darkness doesn’t have to be frightening. It can be a chance to conqure the unknown or hide within its mysterious embrace.

Humans have this uncanny need to be both uniquely special and a member of a group. Understanding the mysteries of the unknown, being able to see in the dark so to speak, can make us feel like we’ve stumbled onto information that is only meant for a select worthy few. It can make someone feel more knowledgeable and thus more powerful.

Sure, embracing the darkness in life can mark you as an outsider, but most people don’t go it alone. They have friends who are also interested in these topics, who want to know these secrets. People form their own group who accept their interests and share in their knowledge.

Regardless, it can be fun to Hear stories about the darker side of life...as long as I don’t live them.

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.

Until next week.