My fellow child of the eighties Drew Barrymore once said, “I never regret anything. Because every little detail of your life is what made you into who you are in the end.” I tend to agree with that. It is hard to have regrets in a world where mistakes teach valuable lessons, I live with my soulmate and our cuddly cat, and we all have lessons from movies such as “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “The Butterfly Effect”…and “The Butterfly Effect 2″…and “The Butterfly Effect 3″… (Some people never learn…and I don’t mean the characters in the Butterfly Effect movies, I mean the girl watching the characters in the Butterfly Effect movies.)  Which brings me to the point of this article…knowing when to jump ship before a series sinks.

Poster courtesy Mondo

Paranormal Activity-> Grab your life preservers, it’s time to go. Paranomal Activity 4 is the first sequel to move forward in time from the original movie but far from lived up to the promise of the series. (See my review of 3 for a synopsis of the first 3 films.)         Continue reading →

The first time I saw Dolls was soon after its release in 1988. When I created this comic, I used my vague memory of this movie as inspiration, although the Child’s Play and Puppetmaster movie franchises, introduced soon after Dolls, were more long-lived in pop cultural memory.

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These are some of my favorite Christmas-time horror movies, in no particular order, and they include some that are good because they’re good and some that are good because they’re so very not. Enjoy and please share your favorites in the comments!

Gremlins is a modern (not so modern now, I guess) classic. It is a rare child from the ’80′s that cannot recite the three rules for Mogwai. 1. Don’t get them wet. 2. Keep them out of bright lights, especially sunlight. and the most important 3. Don’t feed after midnight.

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Wikipedia begins its definition of “urban legend” with:

An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories usually believed by their tellers to be true. As with all folklore and mythology, the designation suggests nothing about the story’s veracity, but merely that it is in circulation, exhibits variation over time, and carries some significance that motivates the community in preserving and propagating it.

In the case of the mothman stories of Point Pleasant, WV, a small town on the Ohio River, the final sentence in that paragraph seems to be the primary fuel that keeps the legend alive, a “significance that motivates the community in preserving and propagating it.” That motivation seems to be primarily a financial one. Although the first newspaper accounts of the “mothman” occurred in 1966 and the book “The Mothman Prophecies” was written in 1975, the town remained on the verge of becoming a ghost town until 2002, when the 1975 book was released as a major motion picture starring Richard Gere and the town took advantage of this national attention through a new, now annual, tradition of a “Mothman Festival” and merchandising based on the legend. Continue reading →

I never knew my great-aunt Sid as an adult, but I think I would have liked her. As a child, she was one of my favorite adult relatives. Possibly in part because she wasn’t much taller than I was, even though I was (and am) shorter than average. But I also remember her as being generous, warm and not only possessing a great sense of humor but also funny.
She was also the first person I knew who firmly believed in ghosts. She is responsible for telling me the first ghost story that “really happened.” Continue reading →

Although I had never previously heard of The Burning, it was recommended by a horror movie podcast (40 Oz. of Horror–a title more clever than the podcast turned out to be) and a completely unrelated blog (hellogiggles.com–which is a more interesting and diverse blog than the name would indicate) within the same week. As of this writing, it is also available on Netflix streaming so it was an easy decision to give it a shot.

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An open letter to the person that “found” my (knock-off) Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses in the ladies’ room at the 40 Watt Club Saturday night, 10/15/2011

There’s really no more delicate way to say this, Person that “found” my (knock-off) Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses in the ladies’ room at the 40 Watt Club Saturday night, 10/15/2011, but you have pee glasses. It was not an accident that they landed in the otherwise empty trash can. They had fallen off my person straight into the toilet bowl where I retrieved them with the tips of my first finger and thumb and deposited promptly into the plastic waste bin. Continue reading →

The stories and especially the jokes I hear about marriage involve things like learning that the man who took you dancing all the time is secretly a couch potato or the woman who showed so much interest in the details of the motorcycle you’re building not only isn’t interested but is terrified at the thought of riding one. Maybe this kind of disillusionment happens but speaking from the experience of one who has been in the Mrs ranks for over a month, this experience is not mine. Case in point: my boyfriend and even my fiancé Chris would not be found anywhere in earshot or eyesight of a horror movie. However, a few days ago, my husband Chris snuggled in bed with me and my usual movie companion Lucy the Wonder Dog to watch the fourth installment in the Scream franchise. (That he was happily snoring less than halfway through in no way negates the intent of this gesture.)
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The Return (2006) starred Sarah Michelle Gellar as a sales representative plagued by nightmares and deja vu when she traveled to a small town in Texas.

I was left with these questions at the end of the movie, possibly because I dozed through much of it: 1. What was with that dude from work stalking her?  2. Did the little girl die and the woman’s spirit take root in the hollow shell of her body, or were the two of them in there fighting it out?   3. What was the deal with that guy from her work?  4. And what was with her being all, “Yeah, he tries to rape me all the time, no big deal.”    5. How cool was it when the husband of the dead chick hit that crazy guy from Buffy’s work right in the throat?