Daily Archives: October 30, 2017

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures Online #25: Don’t Go In The Old Greene House (2015, Laura Knetzger)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

For my next horrific adventure online, I played Don’t Go In The Old Green House (2015, Laura Knetzger).

Don’t Go In The Old Greene House is another Twine Choose Your Own Adventure type of game.  You have been dared to spend all of Halloween night in the old Greene House, which is said to be haunted.  You agree because you know better than to turn down a dare.  Exploring the house means running into mysterious spirits.  Here’s something that I learned the hard way: Be nice to the little girl at the table.  I know that one of the fun things about interactive fiction is that you get to do things that you would never do in real life but, no matter how tempted you may be, do not tell the girl at the table to stop crying and fuck off.  Bad things will happen.

Twine games are always a mixed bag for me.  I enjoy the simple format but, as opposed to games made with Inform or TADS, they can leave you feeling more like a reader than an active participant in the game.  Don’t Go In the Greene House is an example of a good Twine game, well-written and with enough different outcomes that it is actually worth replaying.

Art Profile: The Covers of Fantastic Adventures

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Fantastic Adventures was an extremely successful and influential pulp magazine that was published from 1939 to 1953.  They published a combination of fantasy, horror, and adventure, all distinguished by a more light-hearted approach than some of the other pulp magazines of the era.

Even better, Fantastic Adventures was one of the few pulp magazines to give proper credit to its cover artists:

by Harold W. McCauley

by Ed Valigursky

by Raymond Naylor

by Robert Gibson Jones

by Stockton Mulford

by Harold W. McCauley

by Robert Gibson Jones

by Rod Ruth

by Walter Parke

by Arnold Kohn

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Advenures Online #24: Faithful Companion (2013, Matt Weiner)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Since I was running out of horror games to play in the Internet Archive, I decided to broaden my sights by exploring the Interactive Fiction Database.  That is where I found Faithful Companion (2013, Matt Weiner).

Faithful Companion is simply but difficult.  You are at the cemetery, visiting the mausoleum.  You want to get in the crypt.  Opening the doors that lead into the crypt should be easy except you are being followed by a ghost.  Any action you take will be duplicated by the ghost two turns later.

That may not sound like a big deal until you learn that, if the ghost touches you, you will pass out.  If you take something and are still holding it two turns later, that means the ghost will take it from you.  If you have to open a door by pushing three latches so that they open, the ghost will follow behind you, pushing the latches closed.  The game’s challenge comes from fooling the ghost into helping you accomplish what you want to do.

I enjoyed this game.  It is short, it is not impossibly hard, and it’s rewarding when you actually figure it all out.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Edward D. Wood, Jr. Edition!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

This October, I am going to be using our 4 Shots From 4 Films feature to pay tribute to some of my favorite horror directors, in alphabetical order!  That’s right, we’re going from Argento to Zombie in one month!

Today’s director: the great Ed Wood!

4 Shots From 4 Films

Bride of the Monster (1955, dir by Edward D. Wood, Jr.)

Plan 9 From Outer Space (1956, dir by Edward D. Wood, Jr)

Night of the Ghouls (1958, dir by Edward D. Wood, Jr)

The Sinister Urge (1960, dir by Edward D. Wood, Jr.)

 

Stranger Things 2: S2 E1, Madmax, ALT Title: Something Mediocre This Way Comes

Posted on by casewright

ST2

The Hiatus is Over…. Yes, your Proto Millennial has returned to bring you all the incisiv…..Oh, you wanted to read about the next season of Stranger Things….Fine!

Stranger Things season 1 tapped into the essence of predatory thrills that exist in humankind deep within the recesses of our genes like when a lion roars at the zoo and modern people freeze in their tracks.  What could have been a better way to terrify a modern audience?  Nosferatu!!! Yes, read my previous reviews.  I’m right and other reviewers are wrong.

This season The Duffer Brothers try to hook us with the same sophomore slump method that JJ Abrams employed with The Force Awakens- Let’s just throw in another lady and make the monster….bigger.

Stranger Things wasn’t horribly boring, but we’re in for solid C quality.  Buckle up and prepare to be Mildly Entertained.

We open in Hawkins… NOPE…. Pittsburgh.  Sorry, Pittsburgh sucks on it’s best day.

We see a group of punk teens robbing an…apartment building?!  Fine.  Cops give chase one of the more stolid thieves uses her Mojo to make a cop think a bridge collapsed.  So her power is Being David Copperfield *bored clap*. She then gets bloody nose and we’re supposed to give a shit- we don’t.  She also, has a tatto of 008 in her arm; I’ll call her Crazy Eight because Eight Ball is too cool for this opening.

We return to the suburbs.  Mike and all the boys head to the arcade and lament that “Madmax” now has the Dig Dug highscore. This goes on for a while and we’re supposed to care that the Madmax is girl- We Don’t.  We see that now Will’s back. During the High Score concern, Will goes outside and sees the Upside Down, but this time there’s a storm and a big spider beast coming to the town that inspires mild interest.  Will’s performance is emblematic of the season itself- not bad, not great- just meh.

Bearded Crank is waiting for Hop at the police station.  Bearded Crank re-caps about El sorta and is a paranormal investigator or some such shit.  We learn later that he’s soaking Barb’s Parents to pay for him to search for their daughter.   Hop gets a call to investigate rotten pumpkins and boy are they rotten.  That’s about it.

Winona has found love again with a porky Sean Aston.  He’s boring and cute- that covers it.

Mike has to get rid of two boxes of his toys because he’s been rebelling.  Really?! What is he wearing a paisley sweater vest?! Hey Mike, a note from your very young Uncle.  The toys should probably go.  Also, try to date a girl who can’t disintegrate you when you cheat on her with her with the waaaaay hot Graduate School R.A. down the hall in college.  Trust me.

We learn that Will has been seeing Paul Reiser a quasi-nice therapist at the Castl… I mean Evil Government Building. Will expositions that the upside down has a really big bad coming to kill everyone.  *Shrugs* After he leaves, we return to the basement where they are pruning the upside down portal with a flame thrower- Better Government Facilities and Gardens.

The episode ends with Hop having dinner with El!!! Yay, El’s alive and Hop has a daughter again!

This episode wasn’t great, but I guess if you’re at the gym and have 47 minutes to kill… Watch “Longmire” – it’s really awesome! It’s got it all!

As always, Retweet! Repost! Tell Lisa Marie Bowman that I’m worth keeping around.

 

 

 

Horror On The Lens: Haxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages (dir by Benjamin Christensen)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I previously shared Haxan back in October of 2013.  A day later, YouTube removed the video and turned my post into a tease.

Well, the video has been uploaded again so I’m sharing Haxan again!

To quote what I wrote the last time that I shared this particular film:

Directed by the Danish director Benjamin Christensen, Haxan is a quasi-documentary that, over the course of four separate sections, documents the history of witchcraft and superstition in Europe.  Along with making a potent case that religion and superstition are largely the same thing, Haxan is best known for dramatizing various old folk tales.  Though the film was made in 1922, its images of lustful devils and dark magic remain powerful to this day.

Enjoy Haxan!

TV Review: The Walking Dead 8.2 “The Damned” (dir by Rosemary Rodriguez)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I want to make one thing absolutely clear: I tried.

Seriously, I tried to get emotionally involved in this episode but there’s really only so much time that I can spend watching people shoot at each other before I get bored.  It’s kinda funny, to be honest.  I spent all last season complaining about Rick not doing anything.  Then, this episode comes along and it’s basically 45 minutes of Rick and the members of his militia kicking Savior ass.  Rick is finally doing something.  This entire episode was all about Rick doing something.  And I was bored out of my mind.

Basically, this episode followed several different groups as they all launched concurrent attacks on different Savior compounds.  A few minor members of Rick’s militia died but the majority of the victims were Saviors.  For all of their fearsome reputation, it’s pretty obvious that the only really strong savior is Negan.  The rest of them are just bullies and sycophants.  Unless Negan is physically there to tell them what to do, they’re easily defeated.  Over the course of the episode, a few of the dead reanimated and started eating anyone they could get their hands on.  That was good.  The show is called The Walking Dead, afterall.

During the attack, we were allowed a glimpse into some of the group dynamics in this new alliance.  Perhaps the most intriguing scenes were the ones that features Jesus (Tom Payne) and Tara (Alanna Masterson) debating whether or not to execute a man who claimed to just be a civilian.  Tara’s approach was significantly more ruthless than Jesus’s.  Even when Jesus had both the opportunity and the justification to kill a savior, he still decided to merely knock the man out.  Jesus said that Maggie would back him up.  Tara replied that Rick’s got her back.

Meanwhile, King Ezekiel, Carol, and the rest of Team Renaissance Faire wandered through the woods, with Ezekiel going on and on with his faux royal posturing.

As for Rick, he ran into a guy named Morales who is now a part of the Saviors.  Apparently, Rick met Morales in Atlanta.  Considering that there’s only a handful of people still alive in the world of The Walking Dead, it’s actually not too shocking that Morales and Rick would run into each other again.  It’s a small world.  If Rick had run into Shane’s brother or maybe Carl (who we saw running away last week), it would be exciting.  But Morales?  Who cares?

Finally, Morgan apparently now feels that he’s achieved some sort of immortality.  I guess that means that Morgan will eventually turn out of the be this season’s surprise sacrifice.

We’ll see what happens.  Maybe this episode will pay off in the future but for now, it’s just forgettable.