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FREAKS and the Sleaze Circuit

Tod Browning will always be most celebrated for his work with Lon Chaney and his serving as the director for 1931’s DRACULA, but among the true Horror aficionados he must also be lauded for his pre-code (i.e. uncensored by the government or any ratings board) masterpiece FREAKS, which came out one year later. Even before…

Dracula’s Cameo on PROJECT BLUE BOOK

If you haven’t been watching the History Channel series PROJECT BLUE BOOK, now in its second season, you’re really missing out. Yes, the series is 90% hooey. While each episode is inspired by a real-life case and the show as a whole is based on the real Project Blue Book, which was the code name…

Oscars Justice

The Oscars will always have limited credibility because of its history of getting it wrong. Still, it sure is nice on those occasions when they get it right. Joaquin Phoenix won for Best Actor for his role of the JOKER, and never has an award been more deserved. The same is true of Brad Pitt…

THE CHOSEN Part Two: IN THE PADDED BELLY OF A CONCRETE WHALE Chapter One

Deb Ashemoore thumped her spent cigarette out the passenger window of the jeep, filling her lungs with hot, humid air. The trail which passed for a road had suffered the ravages of a recent storm, the floodwaters leaving deep furrows and scattered debris to complicate the already difficult task of traversing the snaking path. Twice,…

Movie Review: DOCTOR SLEEP

This one came and went so quickly in theaters that I didn’t even get the chance to go see it. It’s a damn shame that it didn’t perform better financially than it did. Not because its getting a sequel is dependent on its box office success, the way it works with most movies. The only…

The Mummy Speaks!

This. This right here. This is cool. Nesyamun was a priest at Karnak, Thebes (where Luxor is today) during the reign of Pharaoh Ramses XI, 1099-1069 BC. (Remember that it counts backwards if we’re dealing with BC years.) That means Nesyamun has been dead for over 3000 years. And yet, thanks to the miracles of…

Simulacra!

Here is the definition of the word, courtesy of Wikipedia, if you are unfamiliar with the term: “A simulacrum (plural: simulacra, from Latin: simulacrum, which means “likeness, similarity”) is a representation or imitation of a person or thing. The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe…

Movie Review: THE CURED

Zombies are so played-out. That’s why, when there is something new done with them, it’s so refreshing. On that note, I am pleased to recommend newcomer David Freyne’s THE CURED. It tells the story of what would happen if there were a zombie apocalypse but then a cure for the condition was subsequently found and…

Zoltar and Bela

I was in a flea market this past weekend, looking for some quality junk, and they had one of the old Zoltar (sometimes Zoltan) Fortuneteller machines. Of course I had to drop in a couple of quarters to get my fortune. (And fortunately it was good news.) Then, staring into Zoltar’s twinkling glass eyes, it…

Did A Woman Really Have a Heart Attack During THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA?

I’ve heard this one for as far back as I can remember. I don’t even remember where and when I first heard it, that a woman had supposedly had a heart attack during the infamous unmasking scene in Universal’s 1925 silent masterpiece THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA starring Lon Chaney. I decided to do some…

There Are Such Things…

All throughout the Victorian era, ghosts and the supernatural were rampant. Why, then, when movies first came into being, among them Horror movies, and especially with the advent of sound in movies, was it so often necessary for filmmakers to reveal, at the end of their narratives, that the ghosts weren’t real, that it had…

THE CHOSEN Part One: THE FLOATING CRADLE Chapter 8

Becky Pearl O’Leary had become a nurse out of no great desire of her own, but rather to satisfy what had become a near-obsession to her mother. Margaret Hayes O’Leary had dreamed of becoming a nurse but instead became a housewife and mother four times over. All the elder woman’s dreams and aspirations she had…