******SPOOKY-SEASON SPOILERS!****** And now for something completely different. Taking a brief yet seasonally-appropriate break from my site’s usual sci-fi/horror/cinematic scribblings, this column explores a warm fuzzy childhood memory of mine; 1966’s “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” This was the third Charles Schulz Peanuts’ animated special, debuting on the CBS network after “Charlie Brown All-Stars”…
Month: October 2024
“Late Night with the Devil” (2023) is a Faustian horror flick that more or less delivers…
******SUPERNATURAL SPOILERS!******* Cowritten and co-directed by Australian brothers Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes, “Late Night with the Devil” (2023) was a movie that’d been on my personal radar for awhile. A film festival darling from 2023, the film didn’t debut in the US until earlier this year, and received generally positive buzz. I was curious….
Retro-Musings for Halloween: Twilight Zone’s “The Grave” (1961) is an eerie and effective ghost story…
******SPECTRAL SPOILERS!****** As I’ve written in this column previously, the late-great Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone was my first true TV addiction; yes, even before “Star Trek.” Twilight Zone also whetted my then 7-year old appetite for horror TV shows such as “The Night Gallery” (another Rod Serling series) and “Kolchak: The Night Stalker.” Watching…
“The Moon” (2023) is Korea’s well-crafted fictional answer to “Apollo 13”…
*****SPACE-SURVIVAL SPOILERS!***** Space survival dramas are hardly new, of course. Even as a kid, I remember my eyeballs nearly pressed against the glass screen of the family Zenith while watching 1964’s “Robinson Crusoe on Mars.” However, the post-“Star Wars”/“Jurassic Park” revolutions in filmmaking made later space survival sagas a lot more realistic. And with a…
The Paramount+ prequel “Apartment 7A” (2024) drops “Rosemary’s Baby” on its head…
******SATANIC SPOILERS!****** ParamountPlus has recently released a made-for-streaming movie called “Apartment 7A,” which is a prequel to 1968’s horror classic “Rosemary’s Baby.” This new prequel focuses on a minor character from the original who met her demise early on in that film, and whose experiences more or less mirror those of Rosemary Woodhouse herself. …
Forever “the Oogie Boogie man”; Ken Page (1954-2024)…
A number of celebrity greats have passed away this past week; legendary singer Kris Kristofferson (“A Star Is Born,” “Blade”), Maggie Smith (the “Harry Potter” movies, “Downtown Abbey,” “Hook”), John Amos (“Good Times,” “Roots,” “Die Hard 2”), and John Ashton (the “Beverly Hills Cop” films). While each have received their deserved tributes in the media,…
“Interview with the Vampire” season 2 finishes the book with a bloody good finale…
*****BLOOD-SUCKING SPOILERS!***** I’ve been an Anne Rice fan for around three decades now, having read half of her “Vampire Chronicles” books. For a time, they were a staple of my late 1990s/early-2000s literary diet. Having seen the movie adaptations of “Interview With The Vampire” (1994) and 2002’s “Queen of the Damned” (a mashup of the…