Dracula voice: I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for my lawyer, his wife, his wife’s girlfriend, his wife’s girlfriend’s fiancé and their extra boyfriends the Cowboy and the doctor and the doctor’s thesis advisor who knows how to kill vampires for some reason!
“A Good Student” by Nuzo Onoh (2014) “Bit by slow bit, his body started to disintegrate like fluffy flakes of white cotton.”
I read a story from this book every year, and they are always memorable. Onoh’s stories present such a unique cultural viewpoint that it provides new takes on stories of spirits and ghouls. Another reminder to get my head out of America’s and Western Europe’s ass.
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Dracula Daily – “October” by Bram Stoker & ed. Matt Kirkland (1897, 2021) “The men were scared every time we turned our electric lamp on them, and fell on their knees and prayed.”
I’ve been reading Dracula Daily, well, daily since the beginning, and it ends next month. What a journey. I’d never read it before so I’ve definitely not had the typical reading experience. All the travel stuff this month reminds me most of playing the Fury of Dracula board game, zipping around Europe to hunt down the children of the night. As far as the reading, October was the most suspenseful month thus far as the protagonists chased Dracula out of London and pursued him into the east, then are forced to wait and see where he’ll turn up. I’m not actually sure how this is going to end since the 1992 movie adaptation has been all I knew about Dracula proper for a long time and it turns out is not too faithful to the actual novel written by Bram Stoker. And I suppose neither is this chronological reading, but at least this gets through the original text.
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“The End of All Things” by Natalie Leif & Elaine Well (2014) “I’ll look at the lines myself.”
I wasn’t quite sure of the message here, and it’s probably a sign of a good story that I found it very compelling but wanted more. The ending evokes a sense of inevitable collapse beneath the weight of the world, that we are all inextricably linked to an entity we cannot escape.
Take Street Fighter and throw in supernatural and sci-fi horror figures, and that’s this game. Each of the 18 characters gets their own little arc and ending through the arcade mode, and while I’m sure most people are more interested in the multiplayer aspect, I always found the single player mode an interesting part of these fighting games. This is another instance in which I realize that while I never considered myself a horror fan when I was younger, I was absolutely in for monsters and the supernatural.
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Amer dir. Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani (2009) "Can’t you see she’s hungry?”
This was a doozy and a strange movie to end the month. Hardly any dialogue and fairly interpretive, it’s also a sharp homage to giallo horror, which I’m not especially versed in. But part of the reason I take on these movie-a-day projects is to check out new works and be challenged, so I’m glad I did. The horror here is in confronting the self, staring inward into the abyss from which there is no escape.
I enjoyed this year’s Treehouse of Horror, even if it was fairly light on comedy. But the comedy in recent years can sometimes be full of some real groaners, so perhaps I just welcome an acceptance by the writers that jokes every other second isn’t their strong suit. The first two segments are straightforward retellings of The Babadook and Death Note (the latter also animated in anime style), but the third segment was especially meta and weird, even as a simple parody of Westworld. That clicked with me because it’s as meta as The Simpsons Game, which I’ve written about before from my perspective of working on the game. That introspective angle also makes it the darkest segment, asking the audience to examine pop culture today and the way we treat the characters in our favorite media.
“Everyone wants a piece of you. Sometimes as a sacrifice to the gods.”
This show’s dedication to producing a Halloween show every year is admirable. The episodes are always great, though in recent years they’ve moved away from Halloween itself as the central theme in favor of other spooky familial shenanigans. Louise’s exploration of the nature of popularity was a poignant thread.
“Thank you for my second life. I intend to use it well and make wonderful new dreams of it.“
I’d watched the first two seasons some time ago, and waited until the show was complete to catch the rest. While the arc of the first two seasons that were focused on Dracula felt complete, these latter two seasons were more of an extended epilogue, exploring these characters in the wake of defeating a great foe. As a result, there isn’t the same satisfying arc, just a series of interesting encounters and meditations on forming new lives and relationships. It feels like a short story anthology that follows the novel. Reflecting on it, I’d say it’s just the thing to round out the month, some breathy autumnal monologues punctuated by decadent battle sequences.
Bram Stoker in his grave like: fucking stop complaining that I rose the stakes in early October and then ghosted and gave you scant updates for the rest of October ok did I say “hello dear readers please rearrange my work so it’s chronological and then read it in real time? Did I say wait in suspense for three weeks while they take trains and boats???” Did I fucking say any of that? I figured you people would get through the bulk of October in like 10 minutes
The lead-up to October 24th has been a masterclass in suspense.
That Van Helsing sure takes his sweet time but I respect the dedication to the process. And now I see why everyone wants to make Mina Harker the star of her own thing because these fellas hog up way too much of the action.
Alternate universes is part and parcel for Star Trek, and this series of novellas seems to have arrived at a time when authors were keen to meld those universes and pepper in some “what if…” scenarios. I like that this one gives T’Pol a proper due.
The whole thing, just all of it. What a read and especially good timing as I was just in one of those former silver towns that were built on the slave labor from local people. The house is so richly described that I can still walk through it when I close my eyes.
A shockingly good game based on the Goosebumps license. It captured a really mellow, spooky atmosphere and wasn’t interested in rushing the player along. Just the kind of game I’d hope to see and I’m glad we at least got a couple of these meaty adventure games in the series.
Some potential in the second level (see the aforementioned note on pacing), but the first and third levels drop the ball a bit. I don’t need FNAF scares in a video game based on children’s lit.
