Backrooms (2026)

Disgruntled Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the manager of a failing furniture store in 1990's San Jose, California, finds a mysterious "portal" in his store's basement.

It leads to the seemingly never-ending "backrooms": an "abandoned" maze of bizarre yellow rooms and corridors constantly bathed in humming neon light.

When he disappears, Mary (Renate Reinsve), his therapist - who Clark had been seeing regularly because of his anger issues - goes looking for him. She is surprised to find that his rambling tales of this alternate liminal dimension are actually true.

Directed by 19-year-old Kane Parsons, who originated the online Creepypasta-esque idea of The Backrooms in 2019, the film is one of those weird fiction horror pieces that is best experienced with as little foreknowledge or preconceptions as possible.

Part mainstream cinema, part "found footage", and utilising a minimal script by Will Soodik (who wrote 10 episodes of Ash vs Evil Dead as William Bromell) Backrooms does an excellent job of capturing the confusing, unnerving atmosphere of the source material, but could well frustrate a lot of viewers with its lack of explanation as to what it really going on.

Scientist Phil (the great Mark Duplass) provides a vague info-dump in the final act, but even he - and his organisation - don't have an explanation for the "backrooms". Which is the point of the original conceit, it's there purely to unnerve viewers and creep them out (as well as inspiring others to make their own online "backrooms" contributions).

Are there clues in the half-sunken objects, reversed signage, partially-remembered people? Possibly, but probably not. To me, it's the three-toed statue on the Lost island all over again: a cool visual that's there to look cool, that's all. Nothing deeper.

Ultimately the A24-produced movie is no more than an expanded iteration of one of these YouTube offerings with a bigger budget and slightly more developed central characters.

It never was going to give any definitive answers because that is not the nature of the "backrooms". Once you have a concrete explanation interest wanes because there is no more mystery.

Don't get me wrong, I love this new wave of horror films - and TV shows - based on modern, internet-spawned myths and ghost stories.

It's an innovative addition to the Universal era monsters, the Hammer monsters, the Halloween-inspired monsters etc

Every generation deserves its own horror movie mythology that reflects its experiences of the world. It's only fitting that this generation's inexplicable horrors are growing out of the internet.

'Tis The Season of Sam

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Sam's iconic appearance in the delightful Halloween anthology film, Trick 'r Treat, creator Michael Dougherty has launched the Sam: The Soul of Halloween site.

As well as offering limited edition merch, Dougherty will be releasing brand new animated shorts and artwork via various associated socials throughout October.

Sam first showed up in Dougherty's 1996 short Season’s Greetings which has been given a 4k restoration and is touring festivals and indie cinemas in the States this month.

Art by Steven Rhodes

Is It Legal To Shoot A Ghost?

In 1803, London’s Hammersmith Ghost sparked terror — and a deadly case of mistaken identity. When Francis Smith shot Thomas Millwood, believing him to be a ghost, he was convicted of murder. The bizarre trial shaped British criminal law for centuries. But who, or what, was the Hammersmith Ghost?

READING REPORT: Back On Track... Hopefully!

Two bits of great news on the reading front this week: I've finally resumed Draugr after too long a break and my copy of the Deathstalker novelisation has arrived, shipped all the way from the U.S. of A.

I can't believed I put Draugr aside in the middle of such a tense sequence, and now I'm back in the deep, dark, scary forest I'm pleased to report the book is still incredibly atmospheric and creepy.

With Deathstalker turning up there's been yet more jiggery-pokery with my "to be read" list, meaning that this movie adaptation is now the next thing I intend to read, once I wrap up Draugr, 

While all this excitement was going on, I did get another of my fortnightly comic book shipments up from Paradox Comics in Poole, which means another nine comics to also slip in the "immediate" reading pile.

This week's comics

As long as I can be disciplined about it, I'm hopeful that I can somehow alternate between Draugr and the comics, rather than putting the novel aside again to make way for comic books.

I'm feeling surprisingly confident that I'll be able to do this. To paraphrase Madonna, I reckon I'm getting "into the groove" with this whole "reading" malarky again after years of dithering because of my poor concentration.

Of course, I also really need to start reading some roleplaying game rules books as well if I want to prove to the Tuesday Knights that I'm ready to run a campaign for them without bottling it after a couple of sessions.

Meanwhile, as we stand. the top titles in my reading list to follow Draugr are: Deathstalker; The Hammer Horror Omnibus, Volume One; and Ghosts, Trolls and The Hidden People: An Anthology of Icelandic Folk Legends.

Thor The Conqueror (1983)

Did you know that snake venom on moss can restore the sight of someone who has had their eyes burned out with torches? That's just one of the many nuggets of wisdom I picked up from the totally bat-shit crazy Thor The Conqueror (aka Thor il Conquistatore).

This is Italian '80s, swords-and-sorcery at its finest with a picaresque plot that makes no sense whatsoever, where things happen without rhyme nor reason and the titular hero of the piece is a rapist and a simpleton with delusions of grandeur.

After a bizarre opening with stirring music and nothing happening for a couple of minutes, baby Thor is born to a barbarian with a stubby sword just before the proud parents are slain by bandits led by Gnut The Archer (Raf Baldassarre) - for no explicable reason. Thor is spirited away by his father's pet sorcerer, Etna (Christopher Holm), whose main power appears to be the ability to transform into an owl.

Misogynist Etna (who may - or may not - be a ghost) raises Thor as his own son, teaching him such gems as "women are stupid and are only good as playthings and to bear children" (both men make Deathstalker look like a feminist), and often forgetting he has access to potentially useful magic at key moments when Thor might have benefited from a helping hand.

Etna acts as a combination narrator and Greek chorus, several times addressing the audience directly even when Thor is right there. He also has a habit of hanging around whenever Thor is getting it on with one of his lady friends!

At one point Thor is tormented by static visions of papier-mâché monster faces and fun fair ride skeletons, but this - like much else that happens along his journey - has nothing to do with anything.

For some reason Thor has to attack the Queen Of The Virgin Warriors, but instead defeats a couple of her hand-maidens (who wear wicker baskets as helmets) and then forces himself on a third, Ina (Maria Romano).

He then ties her up and drags her half-way across the country. When she finally has a decent chance to escape - as Thor has wandered off and gotten himself ambushed by a tribe of nature-worshipping primitives - she instead decides that she's actually rather fond of  the man who assaulted her and so goes to rescue him.

The primitives were guarding the "Golden Seed" - which look like a stash of corn - and I think the movie is possibly supposed to be some prehistoric allegory about how Thor brought agricultural to humanity (or something). At one point, later on, a passing mention is made of Thor being descended from the god Thor - but this is totally out of the blue and not backed up by any evidence on the screen.

Having wandered into a random valley and declared it his kingdom, the irredeemable Thor heads off to the Land Of The Unknown, which is basically a beach, where he and, now pregnant, Ina set up home.

They are soon approached by a local village that has decided to make Thor their "Chief Of Chiefs" (no, I don't know why) and they promptly hand the village's oldest virgin over to him as a mate... which, Ina, is disturbingly in favour of.

There's then a battle with Gnut The Archer and his boys again, while Ina is giving birth to Thor's child.

Thor defends the village with the world's first horse, magically summoned by Etna ("Centuries from now it will be called a horse," the demented wizard helpfully explains), which scares the jeepers out of Gnut's crew and sends them all packing. So, yes, he does get revenge on the man who slew his father - and shot an arrow into him as a baby - but it's more by luck than judgement.

A true spectacle of ineptitude across the board, oddly Thor The Conqueror (despite its uncomfortable gender politics and generally bleak, ugly presentation) is a pinnacle of the "so bad, it's good" genre of low-budget movie making.

It isn't particularly gory, there's very brief nudity and pretty much all the sex occurs off camera, but it's the head-scratching story that will hold your attention as you try to puzzle out why things are happening... and asking where the giant snakes and pterosaurs from the DVD cover are? (spoiler: neither of these monsters appear in the movie. In fact, there are no monsters at all. Just lots of grunting cavemen and a handful of women).

Hokum (2026)

Stuck on the final chapter of his bestselling Conquistador trilogy, American writer Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) decides now is the time to head to Ireland to the hotel where his late parents spent their honeymoon.

The idea being that once there he can find the tree that was particularly special to his beloved mother and scatter their ashes amongst its roots.

Arriving at the isolated and instantly creepy Bilberry Woods Hotel, Ohm learns that the honeymoon suite has been locked and barred for years as local legend has it that a witch is trapped in there.

The writer dismisses this as "hokum" and is generally a complete arsehole to most of the staff, arrogant, self-centred and patronising.

However, it turns out this is masking a deep depression; luckily the sensitive barmaid Fiona (Florence Ordesh) realises something is wrong when she goes to his room to return personal items he'd left in the bar after an evening of heavy drinking.

She rescues him from an attempted suicide and the troubled writer is sent to the local hospital to recuperate.

Weeks later, Ohm returns to the hotel to collect his possessions and thank his saviour - only to discover that Fiona has gone missing. He is told, candidly, that the police believe she was kidnapped and killed by the local rough sleeper, Jerry (David Wilmot).

Because she saved his life, Ohm - who is now, almost, a changed man - becomes determined to get involved in the hunt for Fiona, despite the protestations of the hotel manager, Mal (Peter Coonan).

After his stellar performances in the great horror Krampus and, of course, the mind-bending Apple TV tentpole show Severance, I was excited to see Parks and Recreation star Adam Scott - another of my favourite actors -  in a new horror flick.

The incredibly well-crafted script, written by the film's director Damian McCarthy, does a splendid job of manoeuvring Scott's character believably to where he needs to be, in just the right circumstances, but my issue with Hokum is less technical and more mundane.

It very quickly becomes clear that while Ohm is 'haunted' by ghosts of his own, especially concerning the traumatic death of his mother, the central mystery he becomes entangled in is an almost stereotypically sordid, very human, whodunnit.

The supernatural elements of Hokum are thus largely incidental - although often on the dramatic side - barriers to slow down his amateur investigation. 

So, despite Adam Scott's strong performance, and the superb supporting cast, the story was very disappointing for me as I'd come for the ghosts and ghoulies. Sure, they were there, but they almost felt like an afterthought. To be fair, there's several decent "spooky things going on in the background" shots of the kind I always appreciate.

However, a final scene, with Ohm back in the hospital, suggests that - maybe - all the weird stuff Ohm witnessed could have been in his head anyway.

At around 107 minutes, Hokum is too long for the story it has to tell - even with all the character-building sub-plots - and there's definitely a sense of repetition as the tale unfolds. 

Honestly, it could probably have been trimmed down to an hour-long episode of the Twilight Zone or even a half-hour Inside No. 9 and told the same story with more concentrated impact.

READING REPORT: New Additions

Latest acquisitions for the "to be read" pile

I am currently about halfway through the magnificent Draugr, the thrilling novelisation of the low-budget Swedish historical horror Draug.

It's a swords-and-sorcery yarn, set in the 11th Century, with a definite Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now bent to its narrative, as a rough-and-ready rescue party ventures into a 'never-ending' ancient Swedish forest to hunt for a lost missionary expedition.

Tense, atmospheric and graphically violent (it is certainly no glorification of Viking era hand-to-hand combat), Draugr is shaping up to be my favourite book of the year so far.

Along similar 'creature feature' lines I've also picked up a copy of Ghosts, Trolls and The Hidden People: An Anthology of Icelandic Folk Legends.

I heard the book's editor, Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir, on an episode of the Gone Medieval podcast the other day and just knew immediately that this was the sort of book I needed to read.

Via eBay I acquired another vintage Michael Moorcock book, The Singing Citadel, for my collection of his work. It contains four supplementary stories for the Saga of Elric, although I believe he only appears in the first, the title story.

And, finally, Rachel, Alice, and I were in town the other day and popped into one of Tonbridge's two great second-hand (charity) bookshops: Teppa Books.

It's very dog-friendly - which is always a big plus in my mind - and Alice not only got a couple of treats but also a lot of cuddles and attention from other customers.

Rachel treated herself to her first Jackie Collins novel, Deadly Embrace, and got me A Quest-Lover's Treasury of The Fantastic.

This is an anthology, edited and introduced by Margaret Weis of Dragonlance fame, and features an Elric story by Michael Moorcock. Other pieces in the book include tales from Karl Edward Wagner, Poul Anderson, Mercedes Lackey and C.J. Cherryh.

The "to be read" list is getting ever longer, but I think once I've finished - if I survive - Draugr, I'll probably plump for something shorter next, such as The Corpse Priest or Warriors of The Boundless, which have been on the list for a while.

Eighty-Year-Old Movies That Can Still Creep You Out

The latest video from Luminism is all about "1940's horror, gothic thrillers, ghost stories, and noir nightmares that still know how to get under your skin more than 80 years later".

READING REPORT: Sailor Tom & Reconcile

 

I had a pretty impressive - for me, anyway - weekend of reading. I finished two books (one cover-to-cover in a handful of hours) and started a third.

First up was Mark Finn's homage to Robert E Howard's Sailor Steve Costigan: The Adventures of Sailor Tom Sharkey. 

One of the big differences between Sharkey and Costigan is that Sharkey was a real professional boxer in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Finn has simply given him, via the use of "tall tales", a pulpy life outside the ring and past his retirement.

Another big difference is that Sharkey's two-fisted adventures are much wilder and weirder than Costigan's, this collection includes weird science, ghost stories, battling robots, dinosaurs, and monsters (of several stripes). 

Because of his time in the ring, Sharkey is also a celebrity and is often recognised on his various travels, freely giving out autographs to his admirers.

Each story is short and succinct, but told with great gusto by Finn channelling Sharkey's voice.

My next read - which thankfully only took a couple of hours - was far less inspiring: Bruce Campbell's Western novella Reconcile. 

I hoped the A.I. art of the cover was just a glitch, a slight error of judgement. But the more I read of this short work the more I began to wonder if A.I. hadn't also infected the text within as well.

The adventure is set in Oregon in 1866 and within a few pages we meet a tribe of Northern Paiute Indians... playing (American) football!

If it had been kickabout proper football it wouldn't have stuck out so much like a sore thumb.

So I had to stop and check: American Football was first played between two college teams in November, 1869.

From there, it just kind of went downhill. There's no sense of place and direction for all the scenes that unfold, so when some crash into others it strains credibility.

If only there had been a map included, I might have had a better grasp of how close everyone was supposed to be, and what directions headed where. 

After his family is 'accidentally' massacred by an enraged Paiute, elderly engineer, George (who I think is who Campbell is portraying on the cover) teams up with an ex-army scout Joe (half-Paiute/half-white).

Togther, they seek to thwart the impending war between the natives and the real bad guys, the US Government forces who have just erected a new fort in Paiute land and want to corral the original inhabitants of the land into a reservation (or simply kill them).

The plot is pretty pedestrian, but I couldn't help wondering if the story (which gets quite gung-ho in its finale) wasn't recycled from an old Xena, Brisco County Jnr, or Jack Of All Trades script, because it can't decide if it's cartoon craziness or deadly serious (for instance, the brutal slaying of George's family is quite horrific, but the ultimate fate of the fort's commander almost comes with built-in Looney Tunes sound effects).

A disappointment in the wake of Campbell's excellent series of memoirs, nevertheless Reconcile was a quick read and that freed me up to start Cruise of Shadows.

This is an anthology of weird fiction by Jean Ray, an author I only recently learned about from the Strange Studies of Strange Stories podcast.

I'm two-and-a-half stories in... and it's very weird. But in a good, Lovecraftian way. 

Ghosts Haunt The East Palace, Who You Gonna Call?

A man who walks the spirit world and a court lady who hears the dead enter the East Palace by the king's orders — can they unravel its dark secrets?

The East Palace, an eight-episode South Korean supernatural serial, comes to Netflix on July 17.

Good Boy (2025)

Following the death of his grandfather (Larry Fessenden), sickly Todd (Shane Jensen) moves into his isolated home out in the woods, much to the chagrin of his sister, Vera (Arielle Friedman), who is both worried for Todd's health and claims that the old house is haunted.

Todd's only companion, in his self-imposed exile, is Indy, his gorgeous Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever.

Of course, Good Boy being a horror movie, the house turns out to be haunted but it is Indy who picks up on this first - sensing "something" in the shadows, a menacing black figure.

Meeting his grandfather's neighbour, Richard (Stuart Rudin), Todd is told that since the grandfather's death his loyal Golden Retriever, Bandit, has gone missing.

But Indy has been seeing Bandit around the house!

As Todd's health worsens, he becomes more aggressive towards his sister (on the phone) and Indy, with the poor dog eventually being chained up in the garden after he stumble's into one of Richard's fox traps in the woods.

But when Indy realises the ghostly creature has returned and Todd is in a very weakened state, the heroic dog breaks out of its confinement and charges back into the house to try and rescue his master.

Good Boy, the feature-length directorial debut of Ben Leonberg (who also co-wrote the script) attracted a lot of buzz when it was released last year as it takes the innovative step of showing this ghost story from its canine hero's point of view.

But, honestly, beyond that the film is a bit of a mess. 

For some reason, Leonberg took a play out of Skinamarink's book and doesn't show any human faces (except the grandfather on old video tapes), which is okay as a gimmick, I guess, but just doesn't feel true to its core gimmick of having Indy as its protagonist.

Dog's love looking at human faces, because that's an important part of the bonding process between man and beast. 

And then, suddenly, as the story lurches into its third act, we start seeing Todd's face anyway! 

This inconsistency is emblematic of  the confusing nature of the story.

The pacing of Good Boy is all over the place, repetitive and unnecessarily obtuse.

Matters certainly aren't helped by introducing Indy's dreams and visions into the narrative flow as well.

Yet, while the audience has to focus on every little detail of the story, due to the minimal dialogue and sparse non-diegetic score, it feels as though there's no reward, no explanations.

I'm not even sure if the "ghost" - which reminded me of the Rubber Man from American Horror Story - had a reason for doing what it was doing, what its apparent grudge with Todd's family was.

And while Indy was main character of the piece, it was very difficult to have any sympathy for his owner, Todd, despite the young man's chronic illness.

He's just wholly unlikeable, and you can't help feeling he was probably this unpleasant before he fell ill.

When we first meet him he's being obnoxious to Vera, and this attitude continues throughout the 72-minute movie. Sure, he has moments of fun with Indy, but these are few and far between.

Yet, Indy loves him and will do anything to protect him. Perhaps that's the point?

Again, I have to stress the idea of telling a haunted house story from the point of view of a dog is an incredible idea - we've all seen dogs staring at things in our houses that we can't see!

But, it feels that was all Good Boy has to offer: a clever idea wrapped up in a very underwhelming story.

Award-winning Indy is brilliant though and I hope he has a long and successful career in film and television (he was, for instance, the emotional support dog on the set of Daredevil: Born Again last year).

Little-Known Stop-Motion Monster Movies

Rare VHS oddities. Forgotten fantasy films. Handmade monsters hiding in places you’d never expect.

Today we’re digging into some obscure and little-seen movies that delivered surprisingly great stop-motion creatures, from demonic vultures and clay dinosaurs to cyberpunk war machines and prehistoric monsters.

Thanks to the excellent SirBootis Flicks channel for this selection.

Inside Predjama Castle: Slovenia’s Most Haunted Castle

Folklore YouTuber The Jolly Reiver takes us to:

"Predjama Castle, considered to be the most haunted in all of Slovenia. Here you'll learn about the last stand of Erasmus of Lueg, the 'Robin Hood of Slovenia', as well as the spooky tales of the supernatural associated with this site."

Exploring The Afterlife in Dungeons & Dragons

Image by Nanne Tiggelman from Pixabay

Complementing my thoughts on resurrection in a fantasy setting from back in January, the excellent YouTuber DnDHunter has just released an inciteful 15-minute video on what happens to characters that die in the 'official' Dungeons & Dragons mythologies.

Join The Creepers on Their Most Dangerous Expedition

The Creepers are thrill-seeking urban explorers who love pushing things to the edge, and their latest stunt – livestreaming from New Jersey’s abandoned Paragon Hotel – is their biggest yet.

With its mobster past, supposed ghosts, and rumoured stash of $300 million, the Paragon is catnip to the Creepers, a sure-fire way to increase their fanbase.

But fear has other plans. Daring to enter the Paragon, not heeding the warnings, the Creepers fend off deadly rivals while supernatural creatures stalk them from the shadows, testing their endurance, sanity, and willingness to pay fame’s heavy price.

Based on the 2005 book Creepers by David Morrell (the creator of Rambo in his 1972 novel, First Blood), Do Not Enter is directed by renowned music video director Marc Klasfeld and I have to give him major kudos for NOT shooting this movie as "found footage".

This great-looking exploration horror is getting a limited cinema release in the States from March 20.

Eclectic and Beautiful Fantasy Movies From The 1970s

BACK OF THE NET!!!

Following my first "random bookshop puchase" of the year earlier in the week, I have now made my first "random online purchase" of a book: Ultimate Football Heroes – Goal Machine (Career Mode).

Costing mere pence more than the hardback book I got at the weekend, this is not a typical "choose your own adventure" book. There are (I'm guessing) no dragons or magic items in this one. Instead, it capitalises on my newly invigorated interest in football.

Like a great many kids, over several generations, I grew up with Dungeons & Dragons-inspired gamebooks where you selected which page your adventurer would go to next, depending on the options offered at the end of your current location.

Generally, there was randomness, fighting, limited statistics etc to stress the danger of the situation your character found themselves in - be it searching an abandoned spaceship, avoiding ghosts in a haunted mansion or delving into a dungeon.

From what I can see in Goal Machine - and I realise I am way older than the target demographic - character creation is 'limited' to giving your in-book persona and their team names, and designing warm-up and first team strips. Everything else, as you progress through the story, is purely down to your choices.

And I'm okay with that. I'm interested to see what twists and turns Roland Hall's gamebook takes me on during my journey from the "playground to the pitch".

It'll also be a chance to revive (to some degree) my old Subbuteo team, Pogle Rovers, if I can just remember what their team colours were. I'm pretty sure I had a team of Feyenoord miniature players that doubled as Pogle Rovers, but I'll have to rack my brains a bit harder to double check.

"You've Got To Laugh, Haven't You?"

I made this!

"It's not the girl, Peter, it's the building! Something terrible is about the enter our world and this building is obviously the door. The architect's name was Ivo Shandor. I found it in Tobin's Spirit Guide. He was also a doctor. Performed a lot of unnecessary surgery. And then in 1920 he founded a secret society...

"After the First World War, Shandor decided that society was too sick to survive. And he wasn't alone. He had close to a thousand followers when he died. They conducted rituals up on the roof, bizarre rituals intended to bring about the end of the world, and now it looks like it may actually happen!"

Not the introduction to a Call of Cthulhu adventure, but some of Egon's dialogue from the original Ghostbusters and highly pertinent to what I want to try and say here.

Speaking as someone who has entertained the idea of running both a Red Dwarf RPG and a Ghostbusters campaign, I have strong feelings about the intersection of comedy and roleplaying games.

Where I feel the old Ghostbusters RPG went wrong - although I fully understand why they did it - was to establish a game world more inspired by the cartoons than the movie, full of bad puns, books with silly names, aliens in sports cars etc

The original Ghostbusters movie (a horror-comedy) worked because it was a seriously scary situation (just read the backstory, above, again) being handled by humorous characters (i.e. players in an RPG).

The humour comes from the approach of the characters (and their wildly variable skill checks) rather than the situation per se.

For me, that's where roleplaying game comedy comes from.

Why do you think there are so many memes about Ravenloft campaigns featuring Leslie Nielsen's vampire from Dracula: Dead and Loving It?

When a module (or game) tries to be funny, it has to take the simplest approach, and that's the most universal. Which usually means bad puns.

And, I don't know if it's my British "stiff-upper-lipness" but I'd be too embarrassed to read out a NPC's dreadful pun name (Ivor Clue, anyone?) to my group.

Humour is very personal, what's funny to one group may mean nothing to another.

I'd rather listen to me and my movie buddy Paul riff on a naff horror film than ever listen to something like Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

Not because I think we're better at it than MST3K, it's just we've developed our own in-jokes over years of watching crap movies and have our own points of reference that probably wouldn't mean anything to anyone else unfortunate enough to be listening in.

And it's the same for comedy in roleplaying games.

Of course, there are extreme comedy games, like the delightful Toon and Rocky & Bullwinkle, which are all about slapstick and establishing a cartoon verisimilitude, but they really lean into the craziness and are a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

However, take the set-up of Red Dwarf: the last surviving human (a bloke) who will never, ever, meet another human being in his life, have a family etc and knows he's doomed to die alone; a hologram of his priggish nemesis; an insane supercomputer; and an amoral creature evolved from a feral cat.

Ghostbusters

In different hands, and depending how lenient the gamesmaster was, that set-up could unfold into a grimdark tale of Lovecraftian cosmic horror and existential anxiety.

But, in the hands of most roleplayers, it's almost certainly going to degenerate into wonderful silliness, knob gags, and banter.

A good gaming group, especially one that has been together for years and knows each other's senses of humour, can - sometimes too easily - turn any "serious" gaming set-up into a comedy.

I'm not talking about totally taking the piss and trashing the campaign setting (that's just childish and idiotic behaviour), but having a laugh within the confines of the game can be very therapeutic.

There's always room for witty word play and the occasional actual joke written into the setting, but the players don't need to meet "NPCs with funny names".

They're gamers. Having fun.

If they have the imagination to play a roleplaying game, the chances are your players have a good sense of humour, so give them free rein to crack wise occasionally.

Sometimes, of course, this isn't appropriate for the setting or mood that the gamesmaster has carefully crafted, and he's quite within his rights to put his foot down, and remind the players that (imaginary) lives are at stake.

It's just telling the group that they're playing, say, a Ghostbusters or Red Dwarf campaign gives players licence to relax a little, not take their characters' serious jobs so seriously, and relish in their screw-ups.

HALLOWEEN HORROR: Late Night With The Devil (2023)

On Halloween night 1977, in a bid to win the ratings war, late night talk show host Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) hosted a live demonic possession on his show, Night Owls.

The (faux) documentary, Late Night With The Devil, screens the whole show, intercut with black and white, candid, behind-the-scenes footage when the talk show cuts to commercials.

It opens though with an account of Jack's rise to fame (narrated by Michael Ironside), his involvement with The (the very real) Grove, the tragic death of his wife Madeleine (Georgina Haig), and his constant struggles - and failures - to score better ratings than The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

The documentary segues smoothly into Jack's Halloween special episode of Night Owls, which opens with an obviously fake psychic, Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), who clashes with magician-turned-professional sceptic Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss).

Eventually, Christou (who might actually be sensing something) ends up projectile vomiting blood over Haig before he is taken off to get medical attention, making way for the evening's main attraction.

Then  the show (and film) introduces us to young Lilly (Ingrid Torelli), who was rescued from a brutal Satanic cult (who all, otherwise, died by fire rather than allow the FBI to take them in). Her saviour was parapsychologist author June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon), who became the girl's guardian and then started working with her, trying to understand if she really was possessed by a supernatural entity.

From the get-go, Lilly is a demonic Jan Brady with a dead-eyed thousand yard stare, but once June reluctantly calls forth whatever is inside the young girl - she refers to it as Mr Wiggles - her transformation is terrifying and impressive.

Even amongst an impressive line-up of older actors, Torelli gives a bravura performance as the centre of attention, who manages to be nightmarishly creepy even when seemingly trying to be nice and not channelling dark forces from the great beyond. 

Dark secrets are laid bare, convictions are challenged, people die graphic deaths, and general shenanigans ensue.

The build-up, and pacing, directed by Cameron and Colin Cairnes from their own script, is methodical and steady, giving the gradual of collapse of the Night Owls talk show into chaos and carnage a genuine sense of believability.

Perhaps this really is recently unearthed footage from a legendary episode of American '70s late night talk show folklore...

This is the stuff creepypasta and urban legends are born out of.

Kind of aiming for similar territory as our Ghostwatch (with a liberal dash of The Exorcist), Late Night With The Devil does a spectacular job of maintaining verisimilitude while seeding clues through its simple and straightforward storyline, right up until the end.

It just fails to stick the landing by seemingly breaking its format to peel back the curtain for anyone who hadn't already twigged why everything was happening.

Maybe a documentary bookend, akin to the opening of the film, digging more into Jack's background might been better, but then again the repeated image of Jack shouting into the camera "turn off your television" is still very striking (and very Invasion of The Body Snatchers).

I guess it could be classed as found footage, but don't be put off by that, this isn't hours of shaky cam as teenagers run through woods in the middle of the night, this has higher aspirations than that.

In truth, while "found footage" can be more miss than hit with me, I do have a particular soft spot for this story format sub-genre, the mockumentary presenting something supernatural as if it were real, especially when they are done well - which Late Night With The Devil is (barring that one niggle of mine).

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Real Life Ghostbustin'

Filmed in the middle of the night on a "nanny cam" in our old house (in late September, 2015), I've kept this quiet (only Paul has previously seen it) until now because I know this kind of thing can freak Rachel out. 

 

A couple of seconds in, you can see an "orb" of some description fly from the top of the screen towards our old TV (on the right). 

It appears to hit the TV and ricochet off towards the bottom of the picture. 

I'm not saying it's a ghost (it's way more likely to be a dust mote... as they really exist) - but it's easy to see how these things can be construed as "supernatural" by those who want them to be. 

So, yes, our old house was probably haunted!