Werewolves

Guillermo and SCARY STORIES

When trying to figure out how to properly adapt SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK as a movie, Guillermo Del Toro looked to his own oeuvre for inspiration. Said Del Toro while sitting on a panel at the recent San Diego Comic-Con: “When we started talking about…this about five years ago, I had to…

Movie Review: ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

This movie doesn’t show things the way they really happened in our mundane world. It shows them the way I wish they had happened. And I’m betting you will too. If only there’d been a boozy actor named Rick Dalton living next door to Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski in 1969. How different things would…

What Happens When Politics Get In The Way Of Professionalism

Read this review here of the new Tarantino flick ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD. Read it a second time if you like. Now I ask you, honestly, did this guy tell you or me anything concerning the quality of the movie? Or did he spend a lot of time and words explaining to us…

Why Some in Hollywood Want to Tar-and-Feather Tarantino

With his latest movie ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD making news (and big box office), talk has resurfaced among those who feel that Tarantino ought to be run out of Hollywood on the proverbial rail. You may be wondering why. The answer, despite what some would tell you, appears to be complicated. We know…

New Fouke Monster Mannequin at Monster Mart

I’ve been to the fabulous and homey Monster Mart in Fouke, Arkansas. I drove to Arkansas specifically to visit Fouke, home of the legendary Boggy Creek and its resident Monster. I bought a plaster footprint of the Fouke Monster, waded in Boggy Creek, met and unintentionally offended local Monster expert Smokey Crabtree. I had a…

THE HUNT Part 2

“Well, I guess we won,” Pete Corelli said. “What do you mean?” Arly asked. “Nobody’s gonna be digging for old bones here,” Pete said, “not now, regardless of the Court’s ruling.” “No,” Arly agreed. “Not the way I would have wanted to win it, though.” Pete and Arly stood a little ways back and away…

The Big Bad Wolf from Wolf’s

Last week I reported on the resurrection of Wolf’s Museum of Mystery. After a horrendous fire destroyed most of their artifacts and exhibits (and tragically killed numerous pets), Wolf and Ali Mertz purchased a historic, decommissioned church building in Friendship (formerly Bloody Corners) New York. Along with the few pieces that managed to survive the…

Giving Demons a Bath

Christian wackjobs today wonder why people can’t take them seriously. Pressuring school boards not to teach Science because it conflicts with *their* beliefs (Note: mainstream Christians in general have no problem with Science or evolution.) Refusing to bake wedding cakes for sinners—and by “sinners” they mean only people who are having sex without their approval,…

Getting’ a Wild Hair

These new figures from Wild Hair Creations are adorable. Which one is your favorite? I already ordered my favorite of the lot, Mothman, but they’re all cute. I don’t like so much the design they used for the Jersey Devil figure, leaning a lot more on the “devil” part of it instead of trying to…

Oldest Human Remains Discovered

Not the oldest in the whole world, but the oldest ever discovered outside of Africa. How old? 210,000 years’ worth of old. And where were these ancient bones located (since I’ve already told you they weren’t found in Africa)? In a cave in southern Greece. And they weren’t “just” discovered, either. They were unearthed in…

WIZARDS AND WEREWOLVES

I received an offer a few weeks back to try out this new game called WIZARDS AND WEREWOLVES. While I didn’t have the time to take them up on the offer, I did find the premise of the game intriguing. Here’s what the message I received had to say: “Would you like to be among…

Revisiting the Classics: THE BOOGENS

I had completely forgotten that this movie existed, until I saw a mention of it online. This rekindled a memory for me: I was a wee laddie, and a promo for the movie came on TV. I remember it scared me. In the intervening years, though, this slipped into my subconscious. Right up until this…

THE HUNT by Wayne Miller, Part 1

[As promised, here’s the first entry to my novella. Enjoy!] The place stank. If a prison should have a common smell, the kind of stench one would expect of such a place, Abbeville State Penitentiary had it. Like a cesspool of human sin, Garret Roth mused. It looked as ugly as it smelled, too, a…

Let’s Go To The Mall!

Not since George Romero’s 1978 DAWN OF THE DEAD has a mall featured so prominently as the backdrop for a Horror story. (Unless you count 1986’s CHOPPING MALL, which we really should, since it’s a wonderfully cheesy 80s Horror “classic”.) Like too many malls today, Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth, Georgia, wasn’t doing so well….

Wolf’s Museum of Mystery – Reborn!

It’s still in the gestational stages, but I’m so glad to see that a new sprout has started growing from the scorched stump of the Museum of Mystery. Readers may recall how the MOM was destroyed by fire after relocating from St. Augustine, Florida to New York State. As the days passed and the grief…

The Area 51 Gate Three Incident

For what it’s worth, I don’t put much stock in this one. I think it’s a good story but that’s about it. That’s not to say I discount the whole Area 51 phenomenon. Much the opposite, in fact. But this particular story, involving an “escape” from the restricted government facility, or an attempted escape, has…

Horror vs. the Tentpoles

“Clutter.” That’s the new term du jour when it comes to describing the current box office. It means simply that there are a lot of movies you want to see in theaters all at the same time. And, with time being a precious commodity, choices must be made. Why didn’t the masterful MIDSOMMAR do better…

Movie Review: CHILD’S PLAY

I typically don’t cover the slashers here on this site, relegating them to our sister site darkness.com. But since I mentioned the all new CHILD’S PLAY last week in regards to the film’s fictional feud with the *other* killer doll movie out in theaters now, ANNABELLE COMES HOME (which has a werewolf in it!), I’ll…

Forget Waldo. Where’s Pazuzu?

First Annabelle appeared in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in last winter’s AQUAMAN. Now we have the statue from THE EXORCIST hidden in a film frame in GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS. (Which, if you haven’t seen it yet, you really should before it leaves theaters. This movie is the reason they made movie theaters in the first…

THERIOPHOBIA: FEAR THE BEAST Finale

TOMORROW: WANING MOON Hank Frye nodded to the trio of uniformed policemen standing, sipping coffee from their Styrofoam cups, and stepped through the sliding glass doors of the lobby, out of the air-conditioned coolness and into the morning humidity. 95 degrees already, and not even lunchtime. Just a morning like any other in Ironwood. Except…

Introducing THE HUNT

This week will mark the final installment of my novel THERIOPHOBIA: FEAR THE BEAST posted here to this site. I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading it. The clicks say that you *have* been reading, and since I’ve received no harsh yet witty criticisms I can but assume that you’ve been digging it. I’m pretty proud…

Don’t pick that fight, Foukey!

Y’all, I love the Fouke Monster and THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK about as much as anybody can love ‘em. The movie is an out-and-out classic, a drive-in masterpiece, as well as a vintage slice of shadowy Americana, and I’m thrilled that, with its full digital restoration and time currently being spent on the theater…

Skeptical of the Skeptics

Skepticism is good. Everyone should be skeptical, of anything and everything. Especially where claims of the paranormal are concerned. This allows people to avoid being duped, taken advantage of. One should always look to the dictum of Occam’s Razor when assessing any purported case of the paranormal. Occam’s Razor, coined by medieval scholar and theologian…

The Warrens’ Werewolf

All the THE CONJURING movies have ostensibly been based on true stories, but some of them are a step removed. For example, the origin story for Annabelle the doll provided by the first two ANNABELLE films (The first one fell short, so why not retcon it with a sequel? And it worked.) was entirely fictitious….

PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS – John Logan Gets Desperate

Remember back when John Logan prematurely pulled the plug on PENNY DREADFUL? Sure you do. I gave him all sorts of hell over it, at the behest of fans of the series who felt royally screwed over by Mr. Logan. I offered proof that Logan lied when he said the ending had been planned in…