Tag: ice cream man

New Horror 2023 – Day 4

“The policemen who arrived on the scene found only cotton wool.”

“The Time Remaining” by Attila Veres & trans. Luca Karafiáth (2019)

We imbue objects with a power that we sometimes can’t take back, and I love when a story explores that. But then I’m the guy fixated on doll and dummy horror and who recently visited the only ventriloquist dummy museum in the world. So if that kinda stuff terrifies you, this story’s for you.

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“Now you listen to me, you lousy tuna sandwich!”

“Good Ol’ Fashioned Vanilla” by W. Maxwell Prince, Chris O’Halloran, Martín Morazzo, Good Old Neon (2018)

This is horror in the way some stories from Tales from the Crypt are horror. Which is, not really. It’s doesn’t even have a comeuppance. Ice Cream Man appealed to me as an anthology series but I recall the last issue being pretty light on the horror as well, so maybe I’ll skip these going forward. But, the particular story in this issue was neat in that Heavy Metal sort of way, just wacky space fantasy shenanigans.

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“You’re ruining our time together.”

Honeymoon dir. Leigh Janiak (2014)

This is not what you think it’s going to be. Ask yourself, do you need to know?

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“Unfortunately, everybody’s home this evening.”

Castlevania dev. Konami (1987)

Yeah I can see why this hit and spawned a series. Controls feel great, looks good for the vintage, and that music is tops. It takes the beefy Conan the Barbarian type and throws him into a castle full of monsters, what’s not to love? The scariest creature by far is the little guy who hops around.

New Horror 2022 – Day 4

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“The Door” by Ann R. Loverock (2020)
“It looked the same as it had in the winter: standing alone, unfixed to the landscape.”

I love this one for that particular short fiction quality of just getting started immediately and then cutting off the story before a traditional ending. It’s creepy and the implication of these events in this environment calls back to that ancient fear of forbidden knowledge or advancement. We want it but there is a price to be paid. (Also, colonialism.)

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“Rainbow Sprinkles” by W. Maxwell Prince, Chris O’Halloran, Martín Morazzo, Nimit Malavia (2018)
“Arizona like in the movies of our dreams”

My first reaction was this isn’t horror (particularly after a more straightforward horror story in the first issue), but I think this is going to happen many times throughout the month. I’ve made the effort to seek out a more expansive range of voices and backgrounds in my horror selections and it’s going to require a broader acceptance of horror as a genre and medium for storytellers. All that said, this second issue of Ice Cream Man is more tragic and real, and horror fiction is, after all, a reflection of the horrors we face as real people.

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The Skin I Live In dir. Pedro Almodóvar (2011)


“The things that a madman’s love can do.”

First: I thought I’d watched a Almodóvar movie before but apparently I hadn’t watched a one before this. Second: my cynical side thinks any male director with power will absolutely leverage it to make an attractive woman be naked a lot in his movie and linger on it. Third: I am a very uptight American. Fourth: holy shit.