The Snarky Cats of Ulthar

Demons! Giant rats! Cannibalism! Aliens! Ghosts! Welcome to our review of Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities . Part of this was already tweeted, but we decided to write a whole blog post. They're the same type of mini reviews we did for Robert E Howard's Solomon Kane stories and School Tales: The Series . Warning: some spoilers. Each episode begins with an introduction by Del Toro, who picks a related item from the titular cabinet. The opening credits are wonderfully macabre and the mechanical style, with moving panels and wheels, reminded us of Hellboy II: The Golden Army . It also fits the series' tone: sinister rather than outright scary. DAY 1 1.LOT 36 Nick Appleton has debts, a chip on his shoulder, and no problem sharing his right wing views with the people around him, including Eddie, who gives him tips about promising abandoned storage units in exchange for a cut of the profits. This time, it's lot 36. Its recently deceased owner made regular visits

I recently rewatched It Follows (2014). Since it's Spooky Season, I decided to review it. Warning: SPOILERS . After Jay's boyfriend gives her a supernatural STD, she finds herself followed by a slow yet relentless entity that will kill her if it ever catches her. With the help of her sister, Kelly, and her friends, Greg, Paul, and Yara, she tries to find a way to stop it. The movie opens with a desperate girl running around, though there's no visible threat. Terrified, she drives to an isolated place. It doesn't work, and she turns up dead, her leg broken in a brutal way. Elsewhere, Jay is being ogled by a couple of little creeps in training while she floats in a pool. She's planning to go out with her boyfriend, Hugh, later that day. Jay likes him and not even the fact that he's seeing people who don't exist stops her from going with him to an isolated place to have sex. It's not really surprising when he drugs her. Afterwards, we even find out that he

The Craft: Legacy (2020) tries to update 1996 The Craft to a more modern audience while also trying to appeal to fans of the old one by recreating some of it and giving its lead a direct link to the original witchy quartet. Did it work? Well, if it had, I wouldn't be reviewing it. Warning: SPOILERS . When her mother moves in with her boyfriend, Adam, Lily switches to a new school where she meets Tabby, Frankie, and Lourdes, three teen witches looking for a fourth member to complete their coven. Soon, they're doing real magic and fighting against their main bully. But will they be able to keep everything under control? Lily is different, Tabby is black, Lourdes is transgender, and Frankie isn't pretty. That's it for the current coven. Lily has more to do, clashing with her strict stepfather, bonding with magically reformed bully Timmy, and finding out her mother, Helen, has been hiding things from her. Unfortunately, the movie never gets around to show the audience exa

I wrote in a previous post that I was going to review the first four Phantasm movies because I had the DVDs. However, I got the chance to watch the fifth movie, Phantasm V: Ravager (2016), so here we are. Warning: SPOILERS . (Previous reviews: Phantasm , Phantasm II , Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead , and Phantasm IV: Oblivion ) Reggie returns from wherever he ended up after walking through the dimensional fork at the end of Phantasm IV . The Tall Man sends the spheres of death to torment him, but then makes him a surprising offer. Reggie is at a care facility, suffering from early onset dementia. Mike visits him and listens to his stories about the Tall Man but doesn’t believe him. Also at the facility is a dying Jebediah Morningside, who occasionally shows signs of his Tall Man persona. Which of these timelines is true? The lone warrior one or the care facility one? Both? Neither? And can Humankind really be saved from the Tall Man’s evil plans? There may be a new director, but fear

As promised, here’s my review of the last Phantasm DVD, Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998). You can read the other reviews here: Phantasm , Phantasm II , and Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead . Warning: SPOILERS . Mike drives into the desert, more specifically the accurately named Death Valley, looking for answers and a way to finish the Tall Man once and for all. Helping him is Jody, who seems to know more than he lets on. Meanwhile, Reggie tries to reach Mike, fighting a few zombies along the way. The movie begins with a long montage going back to the original Phantasm , interspersed with creepy shots of the hearse driving through a cemetery at night and the Tall Man walking along a corridor in a mausoleum. Reggie’s voiceover describes himself as an ice cream vendor turned soldier in a war against the Tall Man and his zombies. Well, as you may recall, the soldier ended the previous movie pinned to the wall of the mausoleum by a swarm of spheres of death. And that’s where we find him. The voi

Phantasm (reviewed here ) was awful. Phantasm II (reviewed here ) was dumb but entertaining. Now, Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead throws away everything the sequel got right and delivers a convoluted shitty mess. Warning: SPOILERS . The Tall Man kidnaps Mike and Reggie tries to find them with the help of Jody's spirit, who is now stuck in one of the spheres of death, Tim, a Kevin McCallister that actually kills people, and Rocky, who's a woman and therefore must deal with Reggie's horniness. Phantasm III starts with a recap of the other two movies and shows us the Tall Man sitting on an elaborate chair, surrounded by candles, holding a sphere of death. Inside the sphere there's a brain and the Tall Man pokes it. Turns out the spheres have dead people's brains inside because the Tall Man has an interdimensional portal and can create zombies but can't make a normal drone. The movie also rewrites the previous ending to explain how everyone (well, almost everyone

Slender Man is the fake internet urban legend that inspired a few teenagers to do crazy stuff including attempted murder. The eponymous movie focuses on a group of friends experiencing hallucinations and paranoia after summoning what we're told is a real entity until they eventually disappear, or, to use the technical term, are nonspecifically dissolved. Warning: SPOILERS . After finding out some boys in their class are planning to summon Slender Man, high-school students Hallie, Wren, Katie, and Chloe decide to do the same. Soon, they're having nightmares, seeing the faceless man everywhere, and Katie disappears. As things get progressively worse, the surviving friends become ever more desperate to stop the haunting. Meet: Hallie, a star athlete who doesn't care about her trophies for reasons and has a younger sister, Lizzie, who looks up to her and her cool friends; Katie, who has a drunk father and wants out of her shitty life; Chloe, who has a thing for Kyle, who wears

And after Phantasm (1979), which I reviewed here , it's time for Phantasm II (1988). If you're wondering where this will stop, I regret to inform you that I got the DVDs of the first 4 movies, so... Warning: SPOILERS. Liz is tormented by the knowledge of the Tall Man and his gruesome work. She's also had the misfortune of seeing the previous movie in her dreams and is now waiting for Michael to find her before the Tall Man gets her. Meanwhile, Michael has just been discharged from the psychiatric hospital where he's spent the last seven years. He's obsessed with finding and stopping the Tall Man, and has also been dreaming of Liz. After Reggie suffers a personal tragedy, the two old friends get a bunch of weapons and hit the road looking for both him and Liz. ICYMI the first movie ended with Michael being dragged through the mirror by a couple of zombie hands. Now, we find out what happened courtesy of Liz's visions. After Michael was attacked, Reggie had to f

(QUENTA SILMARILLION: OF BELERIAND AND ITS REALMS, OF THE NOLDOR IN BELERIAND, OF MAEGLIN, OF THE COMING OF MEN INTO THE WEST, OF THE RUIN OF BELERIAND AND THE FALL OF FINGOLFIN) This is the third post in our The Silmarillion series – you can read the previous two here  and here . These new chapters (minus Of Beleriand) are everything we’ve been asking for: there’s conflict, Valar dissing, tragedy, and Elven magic. Chapter 14: Of Beleriand and Its Realms is a more descriptive chapter that will no doubt please all the fantasy readers who love a good map. In it, Tolkien takes great care in describing all the beautiful lands he will soon be sending death and devastation to. That’s nice… and a little sadistic. He describes all the ugly, creepy ones, too, which tend to be dark, scary, filthy, and smoky. Chapter 15: Of the Noldor in Beleriand starts with more scenery description. After Doriath, we now get Gondolin, another hidden magical Elven city courtesy of Ulmo (one of the few cool Va