Category: movies/tv

Remember when Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died, and, the picture on his site was just that birdcage he’d doodled, open and empty? Broke my heart and fixed it with a single image. Same here:

I just wrote a haunted house novel that used a SpongeBob episode kind of as touchstone. SpongeBob, man, he’s deep in my DNA, somehow. …

By category, sub-genre, branch, type—whatever’s under “Horror” and’s on the movie shelf, and not getting too granular. But, “15,” right? I know. I tried to keep it to a properly spooky “13,” but things happen. Though, if you take #11 and #15 out (which would shatter me), as they’re not really ‘categories’—”Scariest,” “Perfect”—then this does slide in more like “…

Mike Flanagan’s Netflix series, I mean, not Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel*—though? I do kind of wonder if a whole generation will find a re-issue of The Haunting of Hill House, maybe even with a cover from this television series, and consider it this weird old-timey novelization that doesn’t have Theo being a sister, that puts Hugh Crain way in the past instead of at the head of the current family, all that. I mean, the rain of stones will remain, the novel…

How about instead of an actual write-up for Shudder’s Video Palace podcast series—limited series, I guess—I’ll just do a cloud-gallery of associated stuff. Wish I could make it swirl:

Excellent graphic for this one:

• https://www.cpr.org/news/story/brains-rotting-flesh-and-infection-zombie-101-with-an-expert-cu-professor

If you like a good gory time with some ridiculous storytelling and nothing but laughs, you can’t do better than Gravy:

If you like that, then Murder Party‘s a sure bet:

And it goes without saying that Trick ‘r Treat is called for this time of year:

And, for something less silly that comes in one-two punch form (there’s a third, too, if the first two leave you all leaning forward, and you have to fall into something), Cold Prey and Cold Prey II are som…

For real horror, you need:

• an empty rocking chair, rocking
• a crackle-faced porcelain doll
• the close-up of an eyeball
• a spread-fingered hand on the other side of a window
• a tree swing, creaking back and forth
• and a cat flying out of every closet:

• doesn’t hurt to have a mysterious shape walking past a doorway, either:

Isn’t that mask just so expressive? It’s supposed to make Michael Myers faceless, but really it kind of gives him a soul. A dark, evil, tortured soul. Anyway, I think it’s going to be a touch before I get to actually talking about this latest version, BUT:

• if you haven’t seen it yet
• AND you don’t like spoilers
• AND you can’t help but finish every post you start reading, then:
  • maybe don’t start this one yet?

Which is to say, spoilers wil…

It’s just a campfire story, it’s just a campfire story