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!

HALLOWEEN HORROR: Crimson Peak (2015)

At the turn of the 20th Century, American heiress and aspiring author Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) is swept off her feet by impoverished English baronet Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and whisked back to Cumberland to live in the ancient and isolated Allerdale Hall, with Sir Thomas's sinister sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain).

The house is crumbling, sinking into the red clay that was once their family's fortune, and it soon becomes clear that Sir Thomas and Lucille have ulterior motives for bringing Edith into their bosom.

Cut off from the nearby community by snowstorms, and not realising that her childhood sweetheart Dr Alan McMichael (Charlie Hunnam) has pursued her across the ocean, Edith struggles with her failing health as she tries to piece together the mysterious backstory of the Sharpe family.

The Sharpe siblings' scheming is rather predictable, almost clichéd, but Crimson Peak is also a Gothic ghost story told through the lens of an adventure movie, where the monstrous ghosts are really just "metaphors for the past" - as in Edith's own novel.

Although sold to the public as a Guillermo Del Toro horror story, with all the shudders that implies, Crimson Peak is more about the family drama and Edith's entrapment than any of the supernatural gore and special effects.

The spooky elements come across as more exciting than frightening. Even the odd jump scares are delivered with such class that they don't feel cheap.

For the little impact the ghosts have on the action, they could almost be dismissed as hallucinations brought on by Edith's deteriorating state of mind - except for the fact that on a couple of occasions they appear to be seen by others.

Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain stand out as the Sharpes, the dark heart of this tale. Hiddleston outdoes his Loki, alternating between sympathetic, scheming, and conflicted, while Chastain just gets increasingly more bonkers as the plot unravels.

Although there really isn't much depth to the film, Crimson Peak is visual masterpiece, from its A-list stars, to the Victorian costumes, and the stunning set design of Allerdale Hall, which is almost a character in itself.

In truth I wish more time had been spent exploring the haunted mansion, as we are only given tantalising snippets of its many halls and rooms.

As with the rest of the film, you come away feeling you've only glimpsed a fraction of what was there, and are left wanting to know more.

HALLOWEEN HORROR: The Pool (2014)

Having lost his job at the bank, Lennaert (Gijs Scholten van Aschat), an overenthusiastic outdoorsman, takes his wife, Sylke (Carine Crutzen), their sons Jan (Alex Hendrickx) and Marco (Chris Peters), his future business partner, the recently divorced Rob (Bart Klever) and his daughter, Emilie (Jamie Grant), on a hiking trip deep into the woods.

After a long search they find an idyllic camp site - in a fenced off area - by a small lake, far away from any sign of civilization.

Their first evening goes well, and following a hearty meal, Rob shares a folk tale about people disappearing in the region.

The next morning, all their fresh supplies are spoiled and their gas canisters are empty.

From there, things just get worse.

Despite using Len's high tech digital compass any efforts they make to head back to their car, or simply get away from their campsite, results in them appearing on the other side of the pool.

Then their tinned food is ruined, forcing them to hunt for edibles. 

Jan starts hearing voices and having strange dreams about the pool, while Len has visions of an ethereal beauty (Evil's Katja Herbers) in the woods, who claims she can help him get out of his current predicament.

As the situation escalates, deceptions and hidden passions are brought to light, tempers fray, and violence flares.

The Pool (aka De Poel) is an excellent 76-minute Dutch horror that's superficially Blair Witch Project meets Lord Of The Flies.

The disintegration of the family units is powerful stuff, with the tension ratchetting up as their disastrous camping trip goes from bad to worse, aided by the subtle infusion of supernatural prodding.

What starts off as simple uncomfortable family friction is manipulated into something deadly.

Having deliberately entered an area of the forest where they were not supposed to be, the families have fallen under the spell of a mysterious supernatural entity, the vengeful ghost of a woman (possibly a suspected witch?) drowned in the lake who is seeking her own freedom.

A solid, if slightly predictable and not wholly original, the film is carried by some excellent performances, particularly from Gijs Scholten van Aschat (who co-wrote The Pool with director Chris W. Mitchell).

Len's mental collapse is central to the plot, and drives many of the beats in the script.

My only slight disappointment is how little we see of Katja Herbers, but it's for a good narrative reason and makes the ending that much more powerful.

HALLOWEEN HORROR: Trailer Park Of Terror (2008)

Trying to escape her trailer trash life, Norma (Nichole Hiltz) has got herself a townie boyfriend, only the local bullies accidentally kill him and so Norma storms off, strikes a deal with The Devil (who bears more than a passing resemblance to Stephen King's Randall Flagg aka The Walkin' Dude aka The Man In Black), returns to the trailer park, kills everyone and burns down the park with herself in it.

Twenty years later a minibus of juvenile delinquents, returning from Bible camp with their chaperone, Pastor Lewis (Matthew Del Negro) crashes in a rain storm and they seek shelter in the seemingly abandoned trailer park.

However, they are greeted by Norma, who offers to put them up for the night and that's when they discover they are in the Trailer Park Of Terror (bwahahahahaha!)

This 90-minute horror starts off promisingly enough, but once the ghost-zombies start to arrive it degenerates into a very by-the-numbers gorefest - with the "final girl" telegraphed from the moment she appears, as the only one of the young reprobates with any degree of personality and charm.

A strange brew, borrowing elements from sources as diverse as splatterpunk and Nightmare On Elm Street (several of the kiddies are offed in ways appropriate to their single character-defining quirks), things further spin out of control with musical numbers (courtesy of an annoying zombie with a guitar - a gimmick that grows old very fast) and a strange demolition derby climax!

By letting the story initially unfold chronologically, thus letting us see the inciting incident that creates the supernatural horror (facts usually discovered in the course of horror film, rather than at the start), I thought Trailer Park Of Terror was going to put a new spin on this kind of "teenagers trapped in the middle of nowhere by flesh-eating monsters" movie.

Sadly it doesn't and even the half-hearted attempt at a twist ending is fumbled. Apparently the movie was based on a comic book series and clearly this ending was a stab at leaving the door open for a sequel.

HALLOWEEN HORROR: The Boy (2016)

The Walking Dead's Lauren Cohan stars as American nanny Greta who, escaping an abusive relationship, comes to the UK to take up a job offer to care for a young boy in a remote English village.

Arriving at the parents' isolated mansion, Greta realises that her wealthy employers might be a bit batty as their eight-year-old son, Brahms, is actually a life-sized doll that she is tasked with caring for as though he is real.

The Heelshires (Jim Norton and Diana Hardcastle) present Greta with a list of rules that she must follow to ensure that all Brahms' needs are taken into account.

As soon Greta agrees to take the job, the Heelshires declare they are going on holiday and leave the young American alone with the doll.

At first, she treats the whole thing as a joke, and an easy way to make money, but when she fails to follow the list of instructions increasingly weird things start happening (strange noises, footsteps outside her room, disappearing items of clothing and jewellery etc).

Her only human contact is with village grocer Malcolm (Rupert Evans), who makes regular deliveries to the house and takes an instant shine to Greta (because Lauren Cohan!).

He explains that the real Brahms died in a fire 20 years earlier and since then the elderly couple have only been able to process their loss through the doll.

Quite quickly, Greta convinces herself that the doll is actually alive, or possessed by a ghost, and even manages to prove it to Malcolm (thus also proving to herself that she's not going mad).

But then, whether out of fear of what she believes she has stumbled upon or genuine dedication to the doll-boy, Greta becomes as obsessed as the Heelshires were in following Brahms' rules.

If you can surrender yourself to the slow build-up - and the general creepiness of the doll - The Boy is a powerfully effective, and quite old school, horror flick as well as a surprisingly intelligent and novel psychological thriller.

Things start to go quite batshit crazy in the third act - after Greta's brutish ex-boyfriend (Ben Robson) makes an appearance - but the key thing, and quite a rarity in a lot of modern horror movies, is everything makes sense if you take a moment to think about it.

The film overdoes the "and she wakes up from her nightmare" gimmick a couple of times, but doesn't ladle on the cheap jumpscares that tend to plague the genre these days, instead relying primarily on the weird atmosphere that Stacey Menear's script and William Brent Bell's direction have crafted.

A movie where the less you know about the plot the better, for good measure, The Boy throws in some red herrings along the way, ultimately building up to a genuinely surprising, yet wholly logical, clever and satisfying, climax.

HALLOWEEN HORROR: The Black Phone (2021)

Already a regular target of bullies, shy-but-smart, 13-year-old Finney (Mason Thames) is snatched off the streets of 1978 Denver by the local bogeyman, a masked sicko known as The Grabber (Ethan Hawke).

Locked up in the basement of sadistic, serial child-killer's home, Finney starts to get messages on a disconnected, old black telephone from the ghosts of The Grabber's previous victims.

Meanwhile, his younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) is having vivid dreams about The Grabber's victims, including details not released to the general public, which piques the interest of the police.

As the ghosts on the phone guide Finney into trying to complete their own escape attempts, Gwen - against the wishes of their alcoholic and abusive father, Terrance (Jeremy Davies) - tries to piece together clues to her brother's location.

With its '70s suburban setting, psychic kids, ghosts, and creepy and enigmatic antagonist, writer/director Scott Derrickson's The Black Phone has an immediate, overpowering Stephen King vibe about it... which is unsurprising as it's based on a short story of the same name by King's son, Joe Hill.

Unfortunately, for all its intensity and jeopardy, there's little depth to the story. While The Black Phone is incredibly well-made, but it simply lacks any enduring substance or character depth.

Sure, it's suggested that Gwen got her "abilities" from her mum (who had been driven to suicide by her own visions) and presumably that's also why Finney could hear the black phone "ringing", but that's about it.

Some of the hardest moments to watch don't actually involve The Grabber, who by and large (for what we actually see) is all talk, but are, instead, of the inexcusably violent Terrance beating on Gwen for attracting the attention of the police because of her dreams!

Then, much of the film's resolution hinges on the police's immediate willingness to act on Gwen's dreams, which - given the apparent "true crime" grittiness that Scott Derrickson (of Sinister and Doctor Strange fame) seems to be chasing here - feels rather far-fetched.

But it was the 70's, I guess, perhaps the Denver police were more open to pursuing leads from the dreams of tween girls?

In truth, throughout the 100-minute movie, the paranormal aspects are treated in a very matter-of-fact manner, as if psychic kids and ghosts were an accepted part of real life in 1970's suburban America, rather than the stuff of nightmares and horror flicks.

Nevertheless, The Black Phone is a powerful and engaging thriller, with a disturbing and memorable central performance from Ethan Hawke in a variety of Tom Savini-designed masks, that bear more than a passing resemblance to Lon Chaney's iconic character from the legendary, lost, silent horror movie London After Midnight.

However, while The Black Phone understandably unnerves its audience with a constant sense of threat towards its young captive lead, this ultimately feels very superficial.

Even the pseudo-bait-and-switch, Silence of The Lambs-inspired, arrival of the cavalry at the end isn't the giant misdirect you fear it might have been, that could have opened the plot up for a potentially darker denouement.

For all its supernatural trappings, The Black Phone is disappointingly linear, devoid of any interesting twists or revelations at the eleventh hour. 

Ultimately, while there's definitely the essence of a potentially great horror movie in what has been brought to the screen, you are left with the distinct feeling that there could have been so much more to The Black Phone.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Pleasant Dreams!

Back in 2015, Rodney Ascher, director of the controversial documentary Room 237 about Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, released his documentary, The Nightmare, about the phenomenon of sleep paralysis.

Now this is something I have experience of.

Despite my love of all things horror-orientated (monsters, cannibals, ghosts etc), when it comes to real life I'm not so brave, so as we are fast approaching Halloween I thought it would be time to share my own 'horror movie' experience:

Way back in 2002 I went to visit Paul when he was working for an English-language newspaper in Beijing, China.

He was staying in a big, one-bedroom flat in a tall tower block, so I was sleeping on a makeshift (but comfortable) bed in his lounge.

Alcohol usually played a large part in making sure I had a good night's sleep... but one night I awoke with an "invisible person" sitting on my chest; pinning me down. I couldn't move!

I have no recollection of what happened later but talking to Paul the next day I discovered I wasn't the first person this had happened to. There was the usual urban myth circulating about someone jumping to their death from one of the flats... but no-one could ever say which one.

Later I read about 'sleep paralysis', which (basically) means your mind has woken up but your body is still asleep, so you can see and think - but not move; but at the time I was as convinced as I've ever been that I had come face-to-invisible-face with a ghost!!!

From Wikipedia:

In Chinese folk culture, sleep paralysis is referred as "gui yà chúang" (鬼压床), literally: "Ghost press bed": 鬼: ghost, 压: press, 床: bed. The belief is that a spirit or ghost is sitting or lying on top of the individual while they were sleeping, causing the sleep paralysis. This is thought to be a minor body possession by the forces from the dead, and usually doesn't cause any harm to the victim.

The Witcher Is In A State of Flux

After the Continent-altering events of Season Three, Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri find themselves separated by a raging war and countless enemies. 

As their paths diverge, and their goals sharpen, they stumble on unexpected allies eager to join their journeys. 

And if they can accept these found families, they just might have a chance at reuniting for good... 

 The Witcher, season four, returns to Netflix October 30.

HALLOWEEN HORROR: The Night House (2020)

Grieving widow Beth (Godzilla vs Kong's Rebecca Hall) returns to the lake house her husband, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit), built for them, but can't shake the feeling she is not alone.

Desperate to understand why Owen killed himself, Beth starts to dig through his belongings as she spirals into a maelstrom of paranormal activity, lucid dreaming, and paranoia.

The more secrets about Owen she unearths, the more threatened Beth becomes by whatever is haunting her home.

Despite the best efforts of her friend Claire (Sarah Goldberg) and lovely neighbour, Mel (Vondie Curtis Hall), an elderly widower, to get her to cease her pursuit of "answers" and move on with her life, Beth is a woman on a mission.

Perhaps I watch too many movies, but there are some pretty hefty sign posts/red flags in the first act of The Night House that - knowing I was in for a ghost story from the get-go - pretty much spelled out what was going on.

Despite the nice, measured, slow burn I couldn't help but feel the movie may have shown its hand a bit early with the first of Owen's note books that Beth comes across, with its strange diagrams and cryptic notations.

There are plenty of clues to the underlying mystery throughout the film with many left ambiguous even as the central conceit is spelled out in a necessary info-dump.

Director David Bruckner delivers some really impressive camera tricks, particularly in his use of shadow entities, but also in a wonderfully disturbing sequence with an invisible ghost, as well as a striking, sudden, switch of POV as Beth's dreams overlap with her reality.

He also has an uncanny knack of building to what you expect to be a jump scare, but then taking the scene in a different direction, which only accentuates the creepiness of the situation.

Even the story's ultimate resolution is atypical for this style of predominantly threatening and violent ghost story.

Unfortunately, there is an inescapable sense that the film doesn't do enough with some of its more intriguing elements, such as the lake itself, the "other house" (that exists in different forms in dreams and reality), Beth's real connection with the entity, the "mirror world" etc

While occasionally evoking comparisons with other modern ghost stories, from Twin Peaks to Final Destination, The Night House certainly has a style all of its own.

Sometimes this obfuscates the narrative a bit too much, but generally it creates something that is truly memorable - if only for some of its clever imagery, at the expense of its plot.

However, as intriguing and enthralling as Brucker's direction of Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski's script is, The Night House truly belongs to Rebecca Hall, whose central performance as Beth dominates this 107-minute movie.

She is in almost every scene, often alone, and wholly convinces us of Beth's heartache, despair, deterioration, confusion, anger, and fear. 

Ultimately, The Night House feels a bit patchy, but it's certainly unnerving viewing and never resorts to cheap tricks when trying to elicit a reaction from its audience.