Horror Book Review: Blue World (by Robert R. McCammon)

Posted on October 22, 2025 by Arleigh

“Even in a blue world filled with sorrow, the heart continues to seek love, light, and meaning beyond the darkness.”

Robert R. McCammon’s Blue World is a captivating collection of short stories that showcases his mastery of horror, while also exploring themes that go beyond the usual genre boundaries. Originally published in 1990 and recently reissued by Subterranean Press, this collection serves as a natural companion to Stephen King’s Night Shift. Both authors start with classic horror ideas but make them their own through distinctive voices. For readers who enjoy stories that combine suspense and psychological depth with moments of quiet reflection, Blue World is a deeply rewarding read.

The collection features a wide range of stories that feel connected by McCammon’s strong sense of character and place. In many tales, ordinary settings—such as small towns and suburban streets—become stages for hidden dangers. For example, “He’ll Come Knocking at Your Door” starts off with a familiar neighborhood atmosphere that slowly reveals an undercurrent of menace. McCammon’s ability to turn the everyday into a place of suspense taps into a universal fear: that the safe and known can quickly become threatening.

Themes of change, survival, and the strain on the human mind surface in stories like “Strange Candy” and “I Scream Man!” His characters often face challenges that test not just their bodies, but their minds and morals. McCammon skillfully combines moments of fast-paced action with quieter, thoughtful passages, which make the terror hit deeper because we connect with the characters on an emotional level.

“Night Calls the Green Falcon” stands out for its creative blend of horror and nostalgia. It tells the story of a down-on-his-luck actor caught in the pursuit of a serial killer, echoing the style of old adventure serials with cliffhanger scenes. This story reveals McCammon’s talent for mixing different genres in fresh ways without losing emotional depth.

The most distinct story in the collection is the title novella, “Blue World.” Unlike the other stories, it steps away from supernatural horror and focuses on a very human and emotional tale. It follows a priest who falls in love with a porn star, and both become targets of an obsessed fan. McCammon uses this story to explore themes of love, faith, and redemption, diving into moral and emotional complexities rather than scares or ghosts.

This change in tone creates a thoughtful space within the collection, inviting readers to reflect on themes that contrast with the fear and darkness in other tales. While most stories rely on supernatural or psychological horror, “Blue World” confronts the dangers and redemption found in real human relationships, showing a different but equally compelling side of McCammon’s storytelling.

McCammon’s writing throughout is vivid and sensory, pulling readers into each story’s environment. Whether describing the sweaty tension of summer in “Yellowjacket Summer” or the bleak landscapes of “Something Passed By,” the settings are tangible and emotionally charged. This helps both the horror and the personal stories feel authentic and immediate.

Across the collection, McCammon’s characters stand out because they are fully realized people rather than simple victims or villains. They grapple with their fears and flaws in ways that feel realistic and relatable. Their struggles add psychological weight to the stories, making themes of loss, survival, and redemption more powerful.

Ultimately, Blue World is more than just a collection of horror stories—it is a showcase of Robert McCammon’s storytelling skill and emotional range. Much like King’s Night Shift, it offers a variety of stories from suspenseful shocks to deep, character-focused explorations. The inclusion of the novella “Blue World,” which steps outside the typical horror mold, adds richness to the collection and highlights McCammon’s ability to write compelling stories about human resilience and complexity.

For readers who enjoy a mix of supernatural thrills, strong characters, and thoughtful moments, Blue World provides a memorable journey through fear and hope, darkness and light. It stands as a significant work in modern horror literature and beyond, inviting readers to feel deeply as well as be scared. This collection proves that the craft of horror can encompass more than just fright—it can tell stories about the very heart of human experience.

Horror Review: Cujo (dir. by Lewis Teague)

Posted on October 22, 2025 by Arleigh

“It’s not a monster. It’s just a doggy.” — Donna Trenton

In the early 1980s, Stephen King’s novels sparked a cinematic gold rush, producing adaptations that ranged widely in style and quality. Among these, John Carpenter’s Christine and David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone hold special status for their stylish direction and psychological depth. Lewis Teague’s Cujo, released the same year, occupies a different but notable niche. While it lacks the thematic complexity and artistic flair of those films, it outshines much of the era’s horror output, especially during a time when the genre was dominated by slasher films and gory set pieces designed as cheap thrills.

The early 1980s horror market was flooded with low-budget slashers characterized by relentless body counts, masked killers, and formulaic plots. These films leaned heavily on explicit violence and teenage premarital sex, combining graphic killings with salacious content to hook viewers seeking quick, visceral thrills. This formula dominated the home video boom, prioritizing shock value over narrative or character development. Against this backdrop, Cujo took a more deliberate and grounded approach, offering a taut thriller focused on psychological and physical survival rather than gratuitous gore.

Cujo begins with a seemingly mundane family drama. Donna Trenton (Dee Wallace) is struggling with her crumbling marriage, and her son Tad (Danny Pintauro) battles childhood fears. Their ordinary world quickly tilts into horror when Cujo, a lovable St. Bernard owned by local mechanic Joe Camber, contracts rabies and becomes a vicious predator. The film eschews supernatural elements for biological realism, making the terror brutally tangible.

Teague’s direction is restrained but effective. He builds tension through atmosphere and character rather than cheap scares. Dee Wallace delivers a deeply emotional performance, portraying Donna’s terror, resilience, and fierce maternal instinct with authenticity. Pintauro’s natural vulnerability bolsters the emotional weight, grounding the film in relatable human experience.

Cinematographer Jan de Bont’s claustrophobic framing, point-of-view shots from both dog and victims, and the oppressive imagery of the sweltering, stranded car amplify the suffocating dread. The restrained editing and thoughtfully designed soundscape further heighten suspense without resorting to excess.

While the film’s early pacing leans heavily on domestic drama, some subplots—Donna’s affair and marital discord—feel underdeveloped, losing potential narrative resonance. A few moments push the bounds of plausibility, especially Cujo’s extreme aggression, and familiar horror tropes surface near the climax. Additionally, the film’s ending diverges from King’s grimmer novel, opting for a resolution that some find cathartic, others less satisfying but still emotionally charged.

Compared to Carpenter’s Christine and Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone—which embraced symbolic, psychological, and stylistic complexities—Cujo focuses on survival horror rooted in reality. This grounded approach was relatively unusual for the time and gave it a distinctive identity amid the slew of copycat slashers. Where many early 80s titles peddled blood, teenage promiscuity, and spectacle for quick payoffs, Cujo offered slow-burning dread, emotional depth, and an unrelenting focus on human vulnerability.

This ambition helped Cujo stand apart, making it a stronger, more thoughtful film than most of its low-budget contemporaries. It may not match the artistic heights or thematic sophistication of its King-adapted peers, but it carved out a unique place by delivering a visceral, character-driven thriller that leveraged fear’s everyday, primal roots rather than supernatural fantasy or teenage rebellion.

Ultimately, Cujo excels as an intense, claustrophobic horror film powered by standout performances and atmospheric tension. Its power derives from a terrifyingly plausible premise and an empathetic portrayal of survival against merciless odds. It is a gripping reminder that horror need not be lavish or supernatural to be effective—sometimes, the most terrifying monsters are those lurking close to home.

For fans of 1980s King adaptations and horror outside the slasher mainstream, Cujo remains a compelling watch. Its imperfections, including slower pacing and some narrative shortcuts, are overshadowed by its psychological realism and emotional impact. Cujo is a rare early 80s horror film where the primal terror of a loved pet turned threat, family fractured by fear, and nature’s cruel indifference combine to create a haunting, enduring cinematic experience.

We Joined A Cult (Wri/Dir Chris McInroy), Short Film review by Case Wright

Posted on October 7, 2025 by casewright

It is fun to review a Chris McInroy short film. They are great horror comedy with copious gore. The actors are obviously friends of his that know how to deliver a joke. Chris also knows how to use a brief silence for a bigger laugh. He’s the Anti-Alex Magana. If you watch more than two Alex Magana films in one sitting, you wonder if humankind should really keep going. Whereas, these are a pleasure to watch and review. Side note the amount of blood and gore are Sam Raimi levels.

Two bros are meeting a fellow bro for kickball, but their comrade has joined a satanic cult. Here’s the twist, all of the cultist are terrible at their job. What is refreshing is that there are no Mary Sues or Mike Sues- EVERYONE in this cult is a moron! Black, white, asian, libertarian, or vegetarian ALL are equally stupid and it is hilarious! There is a kickball decapitation that is priceless! I highly recommend this short!

Horror Review: Horror Express (dir. Eugenio Martin)

Posted on October 6, 2025 by Arleigh

There was one film I saw when I was very young that absolutely terrified me, and even now, decades later, it still has the power to unsettle me and rob me of sleep. That film is Horror Express, a 1972 Spanish-British horror/science fiction hybrid directed by Eugenio Martín. It brought together two titans of gothic horror cinema, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing—icons of the Hammer Films era—while also featuring Telly Savalas in a sadistic, scene-stealing turn as a volatile Cossack captain.

When Horror Express was released, the horror genre was at a fascinating crossroads. The gothic traditions popularized by Hammer Studios throughout the 1960s were beginning to fade, overtaken by the grittier, bloodier styles of filmmakers like Herschell Gordon Lewis and George A. Romero. By 1968, Romero’s Night of the Living Dead had already shifted the genre toward a darker, more nihilistic tone, paving the way for the grislier excesses that would dominate the 1970s. Martín’s film stood out precisely because it clung to the elegance and atmosphere of Hammer’s gothic aesthetic while incorporating moments of shocking violence and morbid detail. It occupied an unusual in-between space: refined in look and tone yet unnerving in its thematic brutality. Its blend of period atmosphere, science fiction paranoia, and restrained gore made it a fascinating transitional work in horror history.

The premise is simple but chilling. Aboard the Trans-Siberian Express, a British anthropologist (Christopher Lee’s Professor Saxton) transports a recently unearthed specimen—an ape-like, fossilized creature. His colleague, Peter Cushing’s Dr. Wells, becomes reluctantly entangled in the unfolding mystery. Predictably, the specimen is not what it seems; it revives and begins unleashing a series of violent attacks on the passengers. Soon it is revealed to harbor a far more terrifying, alien intelligence capable of killing and inhabiting its victims. This leads to one of the film’s most haunting sequences: the white-eyed, zombie-like corpses, drained of memories and humanity, shambling through the train corridors under the entity’s control. At eight years old, these images struck me as some of the most horrifying I had ever seen, and even today their uncanny blend of gothic atmosphere and science fiction body horror still lingers.

Viewed in retrospect, Horror Express bears a striking resemblance to John W. Campbell’s novella Who Goes There?—the basis for Howard Hawks’ The Thing from Another World and John Carpenter’s The Thing in 1982. Like those stories, it is steeped in paranoia, playing with the idea of an alien intelligence that can absorb knowledge and animate the dead. While it never attains the precision of Carpenter’s later masterpiece, it foreshadows that same blend of claustrophobia, distrust, and escalating dread.

What makes Horror Express unforgettable is its restraint. Rather than leaning on gore, it generates fear through suggestion, atmosphere, and disturbing imagery. The snowy isolation of the Trans-Siberian route reinforces the cold sterility of its alien invader, while the confined train cars become a claustrophobic prison of escalating terror. Over time, the film has slipped into the public domain, making it widely available on streaming platforms and budget DVDs. Though often overlooked in surveys of 1970s horror, it deserves recognition as one of the last great gothic horror films before the torch passed to Craven, Carpenter, and Hooper.

For me, Horror Express remains not just a childhood scare but a cinematic touchstone: a rare piece of science fiction horror bridging two eras, one that manages to terrify without relying on excess gore. It disturbed me at age eight, and even now, watching the blank-eyed corpses lurch through the dim train cars still triggers that same visceral shiver.

Charles Bronson interviews the slasher in 10 TO MIDNIGHT (1983)!

Posted on October 4, 2025 by Bradley Crain

Charles Bronson played a cop a bunch of times in the 1980’s, but my personal favorite is Leo Kessler from 10 TO MIDNIGHT. Kessler wants to be a better dad to his daughter Lori (Lisa Eilbacher), but first he needs to catch a psychotic killer who’s murdering beautiful young women. One of the most interesting things about 10 TO MIDNIGHT is the way it tries to fuse a badass cop film with the popular slasher films of the 1980’s. It’s arguably Bronson’s best Cannon film, and Gene Davis is a certifiable creep as the slasher, Warren Stacy. Enjoy this infamous scene where Kessler confronts Stacy about his, ummm… private sexual activities!

Freddy’s Nightmares Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 1.6 “Saturday Night Special”

Posted on August 29, 2025 by casewright

GUEST REVIEWER ALERT!!! Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Plex!

This episode was really two storylines that had very little to do with one another; so, I’ll have to do like a story A and a story B. Story A shows Gordon (Scott Burkholder) and weird friend pining for a blonde bombshell ice skater. This entire scene is really creepy. Why? Neither of these guys went to the skating rink to skate or watch a game. They are literally just there to watch people. Yikes!

Super creepy Rob Lowe likes to go to the rec center and watch folks swim just like these guys who go to the rec center and watch people ice skate

Gordon has an OK job. He is not particularly handsome, but he’s not the worst. Anyway, he’s lonely. Gordon decides to use a dating service that has him lie on a video to get women. This could’ve been a cool plot line, if the dating service was run by the devil and he was selling his soul, but nope, it was just a dumb dating service. Then, out of nowhere, he was dead the whole time. So, huh?

Story B has an unattractive woman named Mary who gets convinced by her pretty coworker to get bizarre plastic surgery to be beautiful, but she’s actually not beautiful. It was so convoluted that it was really hard to follow.

The story B also had a sub plot that the real estate place where Mary worked was hiring pretty women to sleep with the clients to close deals. After Mary beautifies herself, she agrees to prostitute herself to close a real estate deal, but then the client thinks she’s ugly and she dies. Yep, the plot was schizophrenic. I was going to use a flow chart to follow it, but I can’t spend more time on story than the writers did.

Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 6.14 “Paroled to Love/First Impressions/Love Finds Florence Nightingale”

Posted on August 27, 2025 by casewright

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

Gavin MacLeod of the clan MacLeod declares (after the song number) “There can be only one!”, runs amok

This episode should be called- Lying Liars Who Lie!!!!

There are three stories all of which have pathological liars. The first story is “Paroled to Love” and it is beyond impossible. Gloria Baxter (Vicki Lawrence) is a criminal defense lawyer who just got a pardon for her embezzling client Eddie (Richard Kline). As the plot would have it, Eddie and Gloria love one another, but Eddie has a secret: he done did it and Gloria thought he was an innocent man!

Sidenote: as you may know, I was a criminal attorney for a number of years and in all of those cases, I can’t say that I had no innocent clients because I had one. One!

When I told my criminal defense attorney public defender friends that I had an actually innocent client, they told me to hold on because they needed to get recesses in the courthouse so that all of the PD’s could come out and hear this tale that sounded like lore! These attorneys had been doing criminal defense for decades and never had an innocent client! There was a crowd of over 70 attorneys, both public and private! They listened rapt to every detail of my story like I was Gandolf telling the stories of the rings!

I told them that I had documented proof that the police officer had not only lied, but falsified his police report, you could feel their goosebumps. Several of them begged me to just let them sit next to me as co-council or let them file a motion for me for free just so they could be part of this once in a career event. So, why in the world did Gloria not just presume that Eddie was not only guilty but a liar? Was this her first case? Was she hit on the head with something hard? Was her law school in Candyland?

Yes, Eddie lied to Gloria so she would get him a pardon when in fact, he was an embezzler, and she insists that to have her love he must go back to jail. At first, Eddie refuses, then she changes her mind, and Eddie decides to change his mind and go back to prison! It’s weird for many reasons: lawyers can’t date their clients and once a pardon is issued, it can’t be revoked! Once a pardon is accepted- It’s over.

The second story with a lying liar who lies is the Phyllis Faraday (Carole Cook) storyline. Phyllis wants to get a part playing of Florence Nightingale so decides to be a fake nurse for the Doc in order to get practice. Sadly, there was a shuffleboard accident and she did not set a compound fracture properly, the patient became septic, died, and the show was renamed The Death Boat. The show still had song and dance numbers, but they were all by Adele.

JK, she meets a guy who’s a rancher out of Wyoming, who thinks she’s an actual nurse and he falls in love with her after 24 hours because he thinks she’s a tenderhearted nurse. However, she is not a nurse and must confess this.

But did she really need to confess anything? I mean, this guy fell in love with her after 24 hours. How do you know that he won’t fall in love with the cab driver who picked them up for the ship and took them to their hotel or a cashier or anyone he meets for any period of time over 60 seconds?

The last storyline of lying liars who lie was probably the most weird, but it did allow them to have their required vaudeville acts of impressions and singing. Doris (Leia’s Mom) and Marsha (Marilyn Michaels) started a talent company with Julie. Gotta say, Julie seems agitated – I wonder why? Could it be????

Unfortunately, Doris and Marsha booked all of these celebrities to go on the cruise, but they sent them on the wrong cruise. They sent the stars on an Alaskan cruise and they didn’t bring any warm clothes which makes me wonder. Are they all dead? Is this like “Alive?” Why would that cruise ship take these stars aboard, when they were not on the manifest? What kind of a rogue cruise ship was this? Was it, in fact, a ship devoted to human trafficking? Are all these poor Hollywood stars now in some bizarre salt mine fighting to the death for the amusement of The Rumble on the infamous Money Plane???

I couldn’t find the “it’s rumble time”GIF

Doris and Marsha decide to do the most obvious thing: they pretend to be all these different Hollywood stars with OK impressions and then do a song number. Honestly, they might as well do that. It’s so hard for this show to contrive credible reasons for a song and dance number for every episode that I’ve seen so far; so, why not this?

I would describe this episode as OK.

Freddy’s Nightmares Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 1.4 “Freddy’s Tricks and Treats”

Posted on August 15, 2025 by casewright

GUEST REVIEWER ALERT!!! Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Plex!

Marsha (Mariska Hargitay) is a medical student with childhood trauma and an affinity for peeping toms. Yep, she likes peeping toms, which made me realize that Gilbert Adler – the story’s writer is not great at writing. In fact, he’s pretty terrible at it, but he did produce an awesomely bad movie “Ghost Ship.” Marsha joins a sleep study with Zach (Darren Dalton) who created a machine that can DVR your dreams. Why would you want to DVR dreams? Who knows?! Have you ever heard someone try to describe their dreams? If so, you need to politely smile and weather the storm.

During her sleep study, Zach gets pervy and sends peeping toms into her dreams and she quasi-undresses. It’s really really weird. I couldn’t figure out what the big mystery was. We learn that Marsha’s parents died, leaving Marsha to be raised by her ultra religious abusive grandmother. Marsha argues with her grandmother and her Nonna has a fatal heart attack. Ok, I don’t understand the mystery. Your parents are dead and your grandmother was mean. Why do you need dream recordings for that? You were there! You were there the whole time!!!

Freddy does make some appearances in the story itself, but doesn’t really cause any harm to Marsha. The perpetual lack of blood really killed the show. At this time, Freddy had sliced his way through at least 4 movies in horrific fashion; so, seeing him impotently nudge a potential victim really makes me sad because you could feel the franchise dying before your eyes.

With no chemistry at all, Marsha hooks up with Zach and he goes into her dream and Freddy bloodlessly takes him away. The story could have been better if it ended after 22 minutes; unfortunately, the story dragged on for another 20 minutes. It’s interesting that there were so many anthology shows coming up at the same time in the late 80s. It wouldn’t be until the mid 90s that The Outer Limits made a return. While science fiction can get traction, it was only a serialized drama “Supernatural” that could really entertain with horror as the theme. The closest we came to a horror anthology was Dark Mirror and that is trash! If you are a “Dark Mirror” fan, who hurt you? I mean it’s like if the reboot of The Outer Limits just decided to be mean all the time. It does make a question though maybe for Lisa: Maybe we should start reviewing the 90s outer limits??? I mean it’s a legit good show….just sayin.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 7/27/2025 — 8/2/2025

Posted on August 2, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Big Brother 27 (24/7, CBS, Paramount, Pluto TV)

I’ve been writing about Big Brother over at the Big Brother Blog.

Diff’rent Strokes (Tubi)

On Sunday morning, I watched an episode in which Mr. Drummond was being sued by an employee who had lost out on a promotion because Drummond felt he had a responsiblity to give the promotion to a black executive. At first, Willis was all in favor of handing out jobs based on race but then, when he was cut from the school basketball team to make room for a white player, Willis realized that he was actually against Affirmative Action.

I followed this up episode up with a two-parter in which Arnold wore a wire to take down two bullies at his school. Is that really something that the police needed to get involved with? Of course, the middle school bullies did appear to be in their mid-20s so maybe it was a good idea to get the police involved.

On Monday, I watched an episode in which Mr, Drummond gave a promotion to a woman. Willis was all like, “How can you promote a woman!” Kimberly thought the woman was going to try to steal her father. It was a dumb episode. I’m probably not getting the plot right because I was bored. I followed this up with an episode where Arnold wanted to join a football team but the football coach was a jerk. Mr. Drummond told the coach off. Then, I watched an episode where a baseball coach wanted to recruit Willis but Mr. Drummond didn’t approve of the coach’s tactics. Mr. Drummond was kind of a busy body.

Gordon Ramsay’s Secret Service (Hulu)

Gordon Ramsay helped a restaurant that was owned by a woman and only employed women. The owner said that her goal was to empower women. So, of course, she brought in Gordon Ramsay to save the restaurant. This restaurant had a dead rat in the kitchen. Close that place down!

The Prisoner (Night Flight Plus)

I watched two more episodes on Saturday night. Rover is my favorite character.

Untold: The Fall of Favre (Netflix)

I watched this Netflix documentary earlier today. It was about how Brett Favre went from being a beloved football hero to a somewhat shady figure of scandal. It really didn’t dive that deeply into the story but I guess it worked as a reminder that a celebrity’s public self is often far different from their private self.

Untold: Johnny Football (Netflix)

Johnny Manziel was trending on twitter for some reason so Erin and I decided to watch this Netflix documentary about him. The documentary explored why Johnny Manziel failed to make much of an impression as a professional football player. The main reason would appear to be that he was kind of dumb.

Untold: Malice at the Palace (Netflix)

This was a documentary about a brawl that broke out during a basketball game. It was interesting to watch, even though I’m not really into basketball. Both the fans and the players came across as being spoiled and immature. I recognized Metta World Peace from his brief stint on Celebrity Big Brother.

Watched and Reviewed Elsewhere:

1st and Ten
The American Short Story
CHiPs
Degrassi High
Fantasy Island
Freddy’s Nightmares
Good Morning, Miss Bliss (Review will drop in 90 minutes)
Highway to Heaven
Homicide: Life On The Street
The Love Boat
Miami Vice
Pacific Blue
St. Elsewhere

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Wes Craven Edition

Posted on August 2, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More 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 lets the visuals do the talking!

86 years ago today, Wes Craven was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Craven started his career as an academic, teaching high school English. However, realizing that there was more money to be made in the film industry, Craven changed careers. By his own admission, he started his career directing “hardcore, X-rated films” under a pseudonym and it has been rumored that he was a member of the crew of the first “porno chic” film, Deep Throat. Eventually, Craven broke into the mainstream with some of the most influential and often controversial horror films ever made. From being denounced for the original Last House On The Left to changing the face of horror with A Nightmare on Elm Street to becoming something of a revered statesman and a beloved pop cultural institution with the Scream franchise, Wes Craven had a truly fascinating career.

In honor his films and legacy, it’s time for….

4 Shots from 4 Wes Craven Films