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.
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:
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 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.)
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.
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.
Some movies just force the viewer to ask, “What would you do?”
I mean, just consider what it would be like to be in the scenario that’s presented to us in the 1990 film, Sorority House Massacre II. You’re a college student. You’ve got your entire future ahead of you. The president of your sorority has just purchased a new sorority house and she wants you and three others to spend the weekend helping her fix the place up.
You arrive at the house and you discover that it’s literally on the verge of collapsing. There’s no electricity. There’s no telephone. (And remember, this is back when people just used landlines.) There’s no hot water. Soon after arriving, you’re informed that there’s two reasons why the house was being sold at such a cheap price.
First off, there’s the neighbor. He’s a creepy, kinda pervy-looking guy named Orville Ketchum. When Orville comes over to meet his new neighbors, he announces that he has the keys to the basement. He reaches into his pants to retrieve them. Ewwww!
Secondly, it turns out that the house isn’t just any deserted house. It’s the old Hockstadder Place! Years ago, Mr. Hockstadder killed his daughters before dying. Orville witnessed the whole thing. As he tells the story, you might notice that the flashbacks are lifted from a film called Slumber Party Massacre, despite the fact that you’re starring in Sorority House Massacre II.
Despite all of that, you still enter the house. A storm is rolling in and, whenever you look out the window, you see the same lightning stock footage that has appeared in a countless number of cheap horror movies.
When you and your friends decide to explore the basement, you find a Ouija board. You know that Ouija boards can be dangerous but everyone else wants to run upstairs and use it. Someone suggests that maybe the board can be used to contact the spirit of Hockstadder. After all, according to Orville, Hockstadder swore that his murderous spirit would never leave the house and would possess anyone who tried to move in.
At this point, you have two options.
Do you say, “Okay, obviously, it’s not a good idea to contact the spirit of a murderer — especially one that said he would possess anyone who tries to contact him — so I’m going to go ahead and leave now?”
or
Do you light some candles, strip down to your underwear in front of a bunch of open windows (despite the fact that weird old Orville is right across the street), sit on a filthy floor, and try to communicate with the spirit of a homicidal maniac?
The smart option would be the first one so, of course, the characters in Sorority House Massacre II do the exact opposite. Then again, nobody in Sorority House Massacre II appears to be that smart. For one thing, they’re all in their 30s and they have yet to graduate college. Trust me, I wish I could have stayed in college forever but, at some point, you really do have to either graduate or drop out. Tuition’s not cheap.
Anyway, Sorority House Massacre II is one of those movies that just amuses me to death. There’s absolutely nothing subtle about it. It’s such a blatant exploitation film that you can’t help but admire it for not pretending to be something that it isn’t. (At the same time, it’s rather tame when compared to the movies that we’re used to today. Whenever someone is killed, obviously fake blood is squirted on a wall.) This may be a stupid movie but it’s very sincere in its stupidity and there’s something to be said for that.
Add to that, Peter Spellos is memorably weird as Orville. The way he delivers his lines makes Orville into the neighbor that everyone would dread having next door. In the end, though, it’s a good thing that Orville was there.
Finally, there is one surprisingly effective moment. The movie starts with the “final girl” huddled in a dark room, begging the unseen killer to remember who they are. The movie then flashes back to that morning, with the girls standing in front of the house. The abrupt cut from darkness to the bright and sunny morning is surprisingly effective and feels almost dream-like. Though one gets the feeling it was probably unintentional, it’s still works far better than you’d expect.
For tonight’s televised horror, we have another classic episode of the Boris Karloff-hosted anthology series, Thriller!
In this creepy and atmospheric episode, a newlywed (Nancy Kelly) and her cat attempt to get through a stormy night in an isolated house. But are they really alone?
