Easter! It's a Thing!

On Easter, I personally just go where I'm told and eat whatever animal carcass placed in front of me. But the most effective way to renew my interest in a holiday is to make is creepy as hell. Thanks to HappyPlace.com for making my Easter nightmares come true:

The Creepiest Easter Bunny Photos Ever Taken

God, that's terrifying. The best part of their article is the captions, so check it out for your holiday larf!

I Take My Coffee Dark, Like My Nightmares

[from Cut Out and Keep]

To be more precise and less clever, I take my coffee black. And yes, I can hear you wiseacre Airplane! fans finishing that sentence for me. I'm a big fan of almighty caffeine and the wonderful ambiance of the coffeehouses, diners and cafes that it especially calls home. I hope that in some tiny way that appreciation was, before I was old enough to drink coffee, once influenced by a little TV show on NBC that was cut down before its time: NIGHTMARE CAFE.

Book review: Hemlock Grove

On April 19th, Netflix is launching another of their original series-- this time in the horror genre! HEMLOCK GROVE is based on the novel of the same name by Brian McGreevy, and the story is a modern gothic mix of horror, fantasy and mystery.

Comic review: Revival Volume 1, "You're Among Friends"

My local Chicago comic fandom is slowly spreading through the entirety of Four Star Studios, which includes local comic creators Tim Seeley, Mike Norton, Sean Dove, Josh Emmons, Chris Burnham, and Jenny Frison. I started out loving HACK/SLASH from Tim Seeley, discovered Jenny Frison's artwork through that series, and now REVIVAL has gotten me into Mike Norton's work, as well.

Comic review: Severed

As much as I love comics, I'm constantly behind on the latest and greatest because I don't read issue-by-issue. Even when I purchase part of a series, I tend to buy the trade paperback rather than each individual comic. Most of the time I borrow titles through the library, and they too purchase either trade paperbacks or hardcover collections. The fact is, issues are more difficult to keep current, more fragile, and would require a different sort of display space than most libraries have. Whether they should or not is a debate for another time.

Given these facts, I have not been able to jump on the SEVERED bandwagon as early as I would have liked. But I'm there now!

Moments from my Creepy Childhood

All together now, readers: "That explains a lot!"

I doubt it was my parents' intent to fill my childhood with creepy things, but as you can deduce from this blog, I gravitated towards them on my own.

This particular item is not just any book about ghosts, monsters and ghouls in a dank castle. This is a *pop-up book* about THE GHOSTS OF CREEPY CASTLE.

Film review: Nightmares in Red, White and Blue

I've been hanging on to NIGHTMARES IN RED, WHITE AND BLUE for a while, waiting for the right time to watch it. Not that I knew some way to identify the right time, because in retrospect I didn't realize how appropriate it would be to watch it right now. The past few months I've had some of the most in-depth conversations with people (and admittedly, sometimes myself) about storytelling, themes, what makes them compelling to a reader/viewer and what the films mean to them. This particular documentary touches on all of that, specifically within the horror genre.

Fun With Keywords

As a blogger (ha ha ha! I'm a blogger.)
...Sorry. Some days it's just... weird to realize that. In an I'm-proud-of-it, it-makes-me-happy sort of way. It's like when I first moved out of my parents' house into my own apartment, some nights I'd lie there on the couch looking around thinking: "This is mine." I feel that way about this blog, too.

Anyways, where was I??

As a blogger, I like seeing what keywords bring people to my site. Once in a while they make me laugh, other times I have no clue. So just for fun, let's have a look. I'm pulling these from various time periods, since I've never done it before and I've missed out on some good ones-- maybe this can be a monthly thing from here on out, though.

Horror Marathon: Timey Wimey Edition

In honor of that weird and wacky thing that some parts of the world call "Daylight Savings Time," I decided to have a Timey Wimey horror marathon. Can you tell I'm missing Doctor Who already?

The Frighteners

I can't even call what I'm writing a review. It's pure, unabashed love. I can't be objective and talk about strengths versus weaknesses or first impressions, and I'm not going to rehash the plot. Instead, I am going to succumb to a gushing letter of praise to one of my favorite movies ever: THE FRIGHTENERS.

Film review: The Possession

I like figuring out how stories work. They all have histories, rules, connections and themes that are waiting to be unearthed. The difference between the good and bad ones, for me, is that the good ones have innards that make sense. They might not be obvious, they might require some work to figure out, and they might even surprise you. I always hope they'll surprise me, I like that part. If they're really good, the next time you go back to the story they'll even change.

The... not-as-good stories don't make a whole lot of sense.

Boing Boing interviews Faith Erin Hicks

I may have hit on a sustainable theme through my Women in Horror Comics blog series, at least as long as I keep stumbling upon interesting information about the female comic creators I discovered during that process.

Granary Burying Ground (Boston, MA) - Part 2

I last posted photos from the Granary Burying Ground over a month ago, intending to talk about the second set much earlier than this. February was a bit of a whirlwind, so here were are in March already. As I said then, I often come away with so many wonderful examples of gravestone art that I can't narrow it down into just a few images. So here are some more that I loved from this particular Boston cemetery.

Fangoria Chainsaw Awards

Voting for Fangoria's Chainsaw Awards is now open! They're taking ballots between now and April 10th, the winners to be announced in May. The genre typically doesn't get acknowledged in the mainstream film industry awards, so be sure to show love for your favorites so they can be properly recognized for their accomplishments!

Film review: Absentia

I find that horror fans are a much more diverse group of people than those not actively involved in the scene might otherwise guess. It says something about the wide range of sub-genres within horror that there is such a variety of tastes, preferences, expectations, and experience. But a big part of that is our own individual fears. I, for example, don't find clowns scary. I am 0% scared by clowns. I've seen IT, I've watched all sorts of horror with clowns in them, they remain fun and silly even at their most evil. But clown fear is very common, I've known people who have it. I, on the other hand, am terrified of spiders. One of the scariest movies I've ever seen is ARACHNOPHOBIA. I feel a chill run up my spine just thinking about it.

I say this before I delve into ABSENTIA because I was surprised that an award-winning film that was this good hadn't been rated higher on sites like IMDB.com or Rotten Tomatoes.

Buffy the... Guilty Pleasure?

And this weeks Thing That Makes The Least Sense To Me is... Netflix's "Flixie Awards."

Specifically, their "Best Guilty Pleasure" category. Among other such things as 90210, Pretty Little Liars, Bady Boys II, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, you can vote for... Buffy the Vampire Slayer?