Billie Piper in "The Raven"

I understand that the Halloween come-down can be rough, so here, have Billie Piper performing a piece inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven."

The Horror of It All, 2017 (part 3)

Ravenous (1999)
In a remote military outpost in the 19th Century, Captain John Boyd and his regiment embark on a rescue mission which takes a dark turn when they are ambushed by a sadistic cannibal.

I got hungry while watching this, should I be worried? Anyway, this movie is not off-the-wall strange, but it is an odd movie...it shouldn't work, but it is absolutely effective.

House (1986)
A troubled writer moves into a haunted house after inheriting it from his aunt.

A ubiquitous 80s film I haven't seen since the actual 80s. Some thoughts:
- Aunt Elizabeth is terrible at tying a proper noose.
- This is less about spooks than it is the main character trauma from the Vietnam War and his stressful divorce.
- Monster Wife has the voice of Carvel's Cookie Puss.

Innocent Blood (1992)
Marie is a vampire with a thirst for bad guys. When she fails to properly dispose of one of her victims, a violent mob boss, she bites off more than she can chew and faces a new, immortal danger.

While not in the same league as Landis's An American Werewolf in London, Innocent Blood has its moments. If you have a say in the matter, the unrated cut is the way to go.

1922 (2017)
A simple yet proud farmer in the year 1922 conspires to murder his wife for financial gain, convincing his teenage son to participate.

A somewhat slight film, but it carries its notions of guilt and the avalanche of calamity that follows from giving in to the darker side of one's nature very well.

Lore, Episode 2 (2017)

I thought I'd give Lore another shot, and...it was a mistake. This episode centers on Walter Jackson Freeman II, a doctor who specialized in, and heavily promoted the use of, lobotomies. It's also a solid demonstration of how padded Lore is; repeated reenactments of lobotomies serve to add to the show's mass without adding any depth. I also question the perspective displayed on the show: its depiction of Freeman feels oddly celebratory or exculpatory, whereas most accounts I've seen cast him as someone addicted to his own process rather than as someone who really cared for the well-being of his patients. At this point I'm confident that the rest of Lore can safely be written off.

Stranger Things 2 (2017)
You don't need me to tell you what this is, right?

Anyway, Stranger Things 2 absolutely lived up to the first season and did not disappoint. Like I've said elsewhere, there is a difference between dead-end nostalgia trip and homage. If Stranger Things had, for example, Carrie rolling up in Christine with Pennywise riding shotgun, I'd hate it. But inspired by King et al? Totally cool with me.

The Carmilla Movie (2017)
It has been five years since Laura and Carmilla vanquished the apocalypse and Carmilla became a bona fide mortal human. They have settled in to a cozy apartment in downtown Toronto; Laura continues to hone her journalism skills while Carmilla adjusts to a non-vampire lifestyle. Their domestic bliss is suddenly ruptured when Carmilla begins to show signs of "re-vamping" - from a fondness for bloody treats to accidental biting - while Laura has started having bizarre, ghostly dreams. The couple must now enlist their old friends from Silas University to uncover the unknown supernatural threat and save humanity - including Carmilla's.

This is the opposite of The Vampire Lovers; ergo, I hate it.

Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Following an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia S.W.A.T. team members, a traffic reporter, and his television executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.

I wanted to pay tribute to Romero this Halloween by saving a couple of his flicks for Oct. 31st. What can I say about this that hasn't been said before? Dawn of the Dead is unarguably a classic; it set the blueprint for stuff like The Walking Dead, but exceeds it in just about every way.

Eaten Alive! (1976)

A psychotic redneck, who owns a dilapidated hotel in rural East Texas, kills various people who upset him or his business, and he feeds their bodies to a large crocodile that he keeps as a pet in the swamp beside his hotel.

(I also wanted to squeeze in some Tobe Hooper as a tribute this Halloween.) It would be easy to write Eaten Alive! off as a grimy 70s video nasty, but I genuinely think that there is more going on in this movie than it's grotty b-movie exterior belies. There is something profoundly nihilistic about this flick that goes beyond the usual extremity of this kind of horror.

Day of the Dead (1985)
A small group of military officers and scientists dwell in an underground bunker as the world above is overrun by zombies.

The gory, black comedy entry in Romero's zombie series. While not as inventive as its predecessor, Day of the Dead is also a classic. The whole trilogy is unimpeachable.

Poltergeist (1982)

A family's home is haunted by a host of ghosts.

The moral of Poltergeist is that sometimes it's okay to walk away from equity. Also, it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that there was some really bad parenting on display in this movie.

Haunted History of New York's Southern Tier

Below are a few short videos recording the haunted history of my hometown. If you enjoy these, I highly recommend you check out my colleague Elizabeth Tucker's book Haunted Southern Tier. WSKG has further information worth looking at here.

Devil's Elbow

Evergreen Cemetery

Phelps Mansion

Frisbee House

Hyde Hall

Elmira College

The Roberson Musuem

Six Games Fresh From the Grave

Free games. Free horror games. 

Rafael Chandler, Night of the Slashers

Kreg Mosier, The Dead

John Harper, Ghost Lines

John Harper, The Mustang

Philip Reed, Vs. Monsters

Wet Nightmares, Changing Face of Horror, Queer Final Girl

Wet Nightmares: a conversation with the editors of comic anthology of erotic horror Mirror Mirror II (Minh Nguyen, AQNB)

We Are the Weirdos: meet the women changing the face of horror (Rebecca Hawkes, The Telegraph)

Lana Winters is the Queer "Final Girl" We Need Right Now (Tina Horn, Slutist)

Horror Lists

We Dare You to Spend the Night with these 15 Haunted House Stories (Leah Schnelbach, Tor)

The 25 Most Artistic Horror Movies of All Time (Tastes of Cinema)

10 Hair-Raising Horror Novels Not By Stephen King (Theresa DeLucci, B&N)

Top Ten Lesbian Vampire Movies (Holger Haase, Den of Geek)

Freaks of Color: 10 Horror TV Shows (Manny A.Castellanos, Geeks of Color)

TridentCon 2017

TridentCon is an RPG convention happening on Nov. 11 & 12 in Baltimore. An adventure I wrote will be part of the convention-exclusive content available to play: "CCC-DDT-01 The House At Weeping Quay
Tier Two (Lvl 5-10). A premiere con-created DDAL adventure for TridentCon! In his melancholy, the bard has unleashed something horrible...dare you set foot in this accursed house of madness and murder? A gothic mystery adventure saluting Edgar Allan Poe." Suffice to say that if you like my particular brand of Gothic Fantasy, and like spotting allusions to some classic American Gothic literature, you're probably going to have a grand old time.

If that doesn't move you, I am assured that there are going to be plenty of games on offer no matter what your favorite flavor of gaming happens to be. Here's the scoop from Erik Jensen, the conference organizer:

"The rest of the events (mostly organized-play stuff) are up and open for TridentCon 2017! https://tabletop.events/conventions/tridentcon-2017

Get over there, get your badge, and sign up for games! We have a ridiculous lineup this year in support of our "Old-School Baltimore" theme.

You like DDAL? We have a ton of Tomb of Annihilation content, including a con-long hexcrawl through the jungles of Chult. We have classic dungeon delves from Yawning Portal. We have sweet con-created content, including a brand-new TridentCon-exclusive adventure by +Jack Shear (yeah, you read that right). We have Tier Three content in the form of the 'Necromancer of Zhentil Keep' trilogy.

You like Pathfinder Society? We have a nice blend of content for different tiers, including the "Assault on Absalom" multi-table special Saturday night. We also offer several sessions of Starfinder you can check out.

You want to try Greyhawk Reborn? We have three tables of it, all con long, including a special multi-table interactive. Come get your Greyhawk on!

You like new-school games? How about some Lasers & Feelings? Some FATE?

You like old-school goodness? Get cracking on some Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Jump in to some Blueholme. Gamma World. Stonehell. Mutant Crawl Classics. Tekumel. USR. BREAK!!. Call of Cthulhu. And more.

Did I mention we have two different huge megagames (up to sixteen players) of Aerodrome? TINY BIPLANES YOU GUYS

If you miss out on TridentCon...well, you miss out."