Vampires

Brian awoke to the earliest hint of sunrise, a faint milky light that seemed to pursue the car as they had earlier chased the setting sun, driving due west. He and Dave had driven nonstop, swapping out and stopping only long enough to fuel up and buy junk food. They’d kept to the Interstate, gambling…Continue readingTHE CHOSEN Part Three: A STUDY GUIDE TO THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX Chapter Two

You suck, Universal! Boo! Hiss! And again I say, you suck! Things were just starting to, slowly, painfully, with baby steps, return to some semblance of normalcy. Theaters are back open. TENET, THE NEW MUTANTS, and UNHINGED all released as they were supposed to, and did well, relatively speaking. Why, why would you *now* choose…Continue readingCandyman Yanked

It’s something of a crapshoot, finding a place of interest open during this time of pandemic. I got lucky during my recent visit to Hopkinsville, Kentucky. I got in touch with a cool lady at the Pennyroyal Museum and made an appointment to visit. I had to, considering they have an exhibit dedicated to the…Continue readingA Visit to Goblin Country: the Pennyroyal Museum

I highly recommend a visit to Mammoth Cave to anyone, as it is a true natural wonder, the largest cave of its type in the world. Once an underground river, there are places where the ceiling, remarkably smooth for a cave system, reaches seventy or more feet overhead. It is so big that church services…Continue readingThe Giant’s Coffin and the Spirits of Mammoth Cave

Because the little town was originally settled by folks of predominantly Irish stock, it was decided by the powers-that-be that the “Goblins” would be called “little green men” despite the fact that they were really silverish-blue in coloration, Glenda Sutton Morris, daughter of eyewitness Lucky Sutton, told me. (Get it? Irish? Green?) That’s part of…Continue readingThe Little Green Men of Kelly, Kentucky

As it just so happened, I was in the area at the same time the annual “Little Green Men Festival” was supposed to be taking place in Kelly, Kentucky. I say “supposed to be” because it, like so much else this year, got derailed by the ‘Rona. I also visited the site of the encounter…Continue readingA Visit to Hobgoblin Country: The Site of the Kelly-Hopkinsville Incident

“Know Thyself.” —Inscription on the temple of Apollo at Delphi Julian Gamier reprimanded himself for being out of shape as he paused on the last of the steps leading up from the sidewalk to the museum entrance, wiping his brow clear of sweat and gulping mouthfuls of the humid air. The museum, the National Institute…Continue readingTHE CHOSEN Part Three: A STUDY GUIDE TO THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX Chapter One

All this time we’ve been waiting to see if TENET would hold to its promise to be the movie that led audiences back to movie theaters. Though technically UNHINGED and THE NEW MUTANTS beat it out the gate, there was no way I wasn’t going to go see it in the theater, not after the…Continue readingMovie Review: TENET

Steven Spielberg, researching UFOs and alien encounters while writing CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, learned of the Kelly-Hopkinsville incident, as it came to be called, and became inspired. He came up with the idea of doing a movie based on the incident, a family under siege from nasty little aliens. One of the children…Continue readingThe Hopkinsville Hobgoblins on Film, Part One

They inspired E.T. and GREMLINS, and even partially inspired POLTERGEIST. But the little “goblins” that allegedly attacked a farmhouse in rural Arkansas in 1955 would be depicted again on film, and in a manner far more faithful to the actual incident. They inspired the movie CRITTERS. Okay, lose the alien bounty hunters. (Which I wish…Continue readingThe Hopkinsville Hobgoblins on Film, Part Two (and the Vampire Connections)

On Sunday, August 21, 1955, between the small towns of Kelly and Hopkinsville in rural Kentucky, something happened that has gone down in the history books as one of the most compelling cases of alien encounters ever—or one of the most culturally-influential hoaxes. Two families, the Suttons and the Taylors, after witnessing something crash to…Continue readingThe Real-Life GREMLINS

I’m not. Gloating, that is. I wouldn’t. A lot of people worked on that new PENNY DREADFUL series from Showtime. Those folks are all out of a job now. I’m sure they’ll bounce back just fine, but still. I won’t take any pleasure in their misfortune, even if it’s a small misfortune overall. I’ve also…Continue readingGloating about PENNY DREADFUL