Another Octoberween draws to a close. Ah, the passage of time. Makes ya think. As always, we had a blast getting in that holiday spirit. Second Breakfast re-visited Van Helsing, a bangin’ good time if there ever was one, and also the movie that taught me Frankenstein’s Monster could speak. Go figure. Sarah returned with…
Ah, Halloween. One of the great adult drinking holidays, yet also a powerful source of nostalgia for a simpler, gentler time. There’s only one thing I can think of that could better represent these contradictions at the heart of the human condition: The werewolf. Whether they’re running amok in Kent or setting a precedent for…
My favorite thing about Dark Harvest is how masterfully Slade uses chiaroscuro. It’s evident in 30 Days of Night as well as his “‘Hannibal” episodes, but the man is just really really good at it.
Octoberween X. We’re all feeling very old and learned, looking back on reviews we posted and opinions we had a decade ago and wondering why we had them. As I scroll through the Rooster Illusion backlog and time and memory dreg up ponderous questions about this and that, one in particular confounds me: how, in…
Because two times five is ten, the number of Octoberweens this is. You know, like in math. I’m sure our twelve dedicated readers are familiar with Octoberween, especially since it’s the only thing we do here now. They know that of all the fake holidays invented by film critics to sell greeting cards, ours is…
During this site’s very first Octoberween, approximately 10,000 years ago, I reviewed a little movie called Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Thanks to the magic of Search Engine Optimization, that ended up being one of my most popular reviews. As we say in the blogging business: “Dracula Sex Wolf Lucy” sells. As true now as it was…
I do not speak Spanish, so… not sure if the title of this post actually means anything. My apologies. Octoberween is a time for monsters, and where there are monsters, there really ought to be monster-fighters. Though I have repeatedly said—and maintain—that Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing is the greater monster-fighter ever put to screen, I’d…
Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is where the wheels have started to come off the cart for me. With new series and movies seemingly every few weeks and too many of them playing out like advertisements for other series and movies (looking at you, Loki), the projects that grab hold of me these…
Octoberween. Whatever it is, here’s some more. Enjoy.
When we last saw our dear Count Dracula, he’d just died the illest death. So sick. Scars of Dracula (1970) gave Count Dracula plenty to do: savage murders, commanding animals, drinking blood, and—most importantly—he overcame that most horrid of existential obstacles: teenagers named Paul. Capping that all off with pretty rad demise, the Count was…
Last week, we began by watching one really good Dracula movie and one pretty good Dracula movie, and we learned that with the absence of Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing, Christopher Lee’s Dracula is unable to die in a particularly dignified fashion. But, he has five more appearance in this franchise, so plenty of opportunity to…
By 1958, American movie studios had largely gravitated away from the classic monsters that ruled the horror genre in the ’30s and ’40s. Until slashers became dominant in the late 1970s, American horror merged in elements of sci-fi, and plucky young heroes battled aliens and nuclear mutants instead of the supernatural, for the most part.…
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