Werewolves

The Trickster Archetype

I received an invitation to a lecture on “The Trickster Archetype: A Lecture with Storytelling” to be conducted by Dr. John S. Gentile and hosted by the Jung Society of Atlanta. (I dig on Jung and the way he merges issues of spirituality with psychoanalysis. I find his views compatible with those of Joseph Campbell,…

Colin the Werewolf

Colin the Werewolf reached out to me on social media. Or rather his reps did. Same thing, really. They challenged me to check him out, so I did. Had I found what they were offering uninspiring, I would simply have disregarded the invitation and been on my merry way. I get a LOT of such…

Book Review: MOMO: THE STRANGE CASE OF THE MISSOURI MONSTER

While I was attending the first-ever Alabama Bigfoot Conference last weekend (two weekends ago by the time you are reading this, I expect) I picked up Lyle Blackburn’s latest literary offering. I’ve already finished it, and I wasn’t disappointed. Having read Lyle’s books detailing the Boggy Creek monster and the Lizard Man of North Carolina,…

A Visit to the Nashville Oddities Market

Standing outside the expo building at the Nashville Fairgrounds this past weekend, I looked around at the crowd of people waiting in line with me to get in and felt such a sense of kinship. All the tattoos, the piercings, the multicolored hair, the mohawks. People carrying strange things into and from the building. “Weirdos!”…

THE HUNT Part Fourteen

“Are we still on Earth?” Arly said. “You’re not serious?” Pete said. He sounded freaked out, moreso than Arly could remember hearing as long as she’d known him. Saint, on the other hand, seemed amused by it all. “We’re breathin’ the air alright.” The elevator door had slid open and they’d stepped out into darkness….

Reports from the First Annual Alabama Bigfoot Conference: The Downey Booger

In Alabama, they don’t call it Bigfoot. Or at least they didn’t back in the old days. They called it “the Booger.” In Winston County, Alabama (which has the distinction of having seceded from the Confederacy after the State of Alabama seceded from the Union during the Civil War, thus becoming the “Free State of…

Reports from the First Annual Alabama Bigfoot Conference: Lyle Blackburn

I have been Facebook friends with Lyle Blackburn for a few years but we had never met in person, so it was cool to meet him at the conference. Lyle’s name is synonymous with the Fouke Monster of Arkansas. I would daresay he is the world’s foremost expert on the Monster these days; the encounters…

Reports from the First Annual Alabama Bigfoot Conference: The White Thang

That isn’t a typo. It is called the White “Thang,” not the White “Thing.” This is a creature from Alabama folklore, you must remember. I have my own personal connection to the White Thang. You can read about it here. One of the stories shared at the Bigfoot conference involved the White Thang. Permit me…

Reports from the First Annual Alabama Bigfoot Conference: Paul’s Story, Part Two

This one had me laughing hard, as it did most of the folks in attendance. Paul Hulsey had been pestered by his guy he knew for a long time, the latter wanting to “see a Bigfoot.” At last Paul gave in and took this guy camping with him, to a spot where Paul had previously…

Reports from the First Annual Alabama Bigfoot Conference: Paul’s Story, Part One

I met Paul Hulsey when I arrived at the conference. As he was the organizer of the event, he was the one to welcome me and, since I’d never before been to a Bigfoot conference, tell me a bit about what to expect. I found him friendly and sincere, and possessed of a passion for…

Reports from the First Annual Alabama Bigfoot Conference: The Arrival

This past weekend I drove out to the Bankhead National Forest and the Lakeshore Marina Restaurant and Lodge near Double Springs, Alabama to attend the first-ever Bama Bigfoot conference. It was a most pleasant way to spend a sunny and still-too-warm-for-October Saturday, where I met some interesting people and heard some interesting stories. More on…

Catching up on AMERICAN HORROR STORY: 1984

A few episodes in, and I’m having a good time thus far. I wouldn’t advise playing a drinking game wherein you take a shot every time a Slasher movie cliché occurs onscreen, though. You’d likely expire of alcohol poisoning. Understand that these clichés are *supposed* to be there, as AMERICAN HORROR STORY is and always…

Bray and Bray

I think I’ve figured it out. What is it about Bray Road in particular—this is the Bray Road outside the little town of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, which I recently visited—that it can lay claim to its very own werewolf, the Beast of Bray Road? I think I know. It’s the name. I don’t know for whom…

STRANGER THINGS Season Four

I am shocked, shocked, I tell you, to learn that Netflix has approved a fourth season of STRANGER THINGS. Who could have possibly seen that one coming?! You may recall the rumor that Netflix had “decided” it would cancel the smash hit show after one more season. I hope I debunked that one appropriately. There…

THE HUNT Part Thirteen

One would have expected Joe Clark to have been used to the climate by now. He’d lived in the same area his entire life. But being indigenous to a part of the world that saw an awful lot of cold, rainy days had not tempered the effect of such weather on his state of mind….

Tanya’s Island

I kid you not. This one actually exists. It is a sappy love story, the kind you’d expect to see on Lifetime during any given afternoon, and it’s way ahead of its time in that it features a love triangle. As we all know, love triangles are de rigueur these days after THE HUNGER GAMES…

Movie Review: ABOMINABLE

Not to be confused with the excellent killer Bigfoot film of the same name from 2006, this quiet hit (I’d never even heard of it till a couple of weeks ago) is a “kid’s movie.” As there are quite a lot of monster fans who have children, or who are, like me, simply fans of…

Revisiting the Classics: DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

This story has been filmed almost as much as DRACULA, almost as much as FRANKENSTEIN. If we take into account all the myriad stories that have cribbed from them all, adapting and altering at will, then possible the tale of Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde, from the short novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, may have…

THE HUNT Part Twelve

Garrett Roth hadn’t slept more than four straight hours in as many days. He could not. Even pure exhaustion couldn’t overcome the anxiety that kept him awake. All he could think about was Kiersten, where she was, was she in pain, was she afraid. *Is she even alive?* He’d started to have auditory hallucinations. He…

The Curse of Childbearing

According to the Holy Bible, Adam and Eve got kicked out of the Garden of Eden, paradise on earth, because they ate “of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” (Contrary to popular belief, the Bible never mentions what form the “fruit” took. It was not an apple, as is…

Another Nail-biting Werewolf Flick

Remember NAILBITER? It was one of the most unconventional and unique werewolf movies I’ve ever seen, and indeed the monsters featured therein are never referred to as werewolves or identified as such. Even so, the parallels are there. There is supposed to be a sequel in the works, NAILBITER: THE STORM CHILDREN, also the creation…

Oranges and Lemons and IT

“Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s. You owe me five farthings, say the bells of St. Martin’s. When will you pay me? say the bells at Old Bailey. When I grow rich, say the bells at Shoreditch. When will that be? say the bells of Stepney. I do not know, says the…

Movie Review: BIG LEGEND

This one slipped under my radar until this past week. I spotted a cheap copy in the DVD bin at Walmart and picked it up, not expecting much. I was wrong. I think it must be the title. Terrible title for this movie. I guess all the good ones were taken. WILLOW CREEK. ABOMINABLE. EXISTS….

Morons Writing Reviews

I don’t consider myself the most “professional” of journalists. I’m an entertainer, first and foremost. Even so, if I’m going to write about a subject, I’m going to make sure before I put fingers to keyboard that I am at least rudimentarily familiar with the subject I am writing about. I don’t want to get…

The Birth of Baphomet

No one can really say for sure where the word “Baphomet” came from. It appears in the documents detailing the trials of members of the Knights Templar, being the name of the idol or pagan god they were accused of worshipping. But before that? Some scholars believe Baphomet is actually an ideological derivation of Khnum,…