#Blogtober 30 - Trailer of the Week - From Beyond the Grave

Since I've nearly finished Blogtober, the big day of Halloween is tomorrow, and the Justgiving page has been my most successful yet (BTW, please consider throwing a few pennies in).  Therefore, for today's trailer, I've picked something appropriate that I know I can have a lot of fun writing about.  Wasting no time on pre-trailer waffle (I'll just waste the time afterwards instead!), here's 1974's From Beyond the Grave...

#Blogtober 29 - Halloween Bloggery - Dr. Terror's Vault of Horrors

Remember the BBC's own horror host?  On Halloween night 1992, the same night that the legendary Ghostwatch aired, there was a horror night on BBC2.  It was hosted by Dr. Walpurgis, a character played by Guy Henry (who after being buried in make up for this role, would be buried in CGI for playing Tarkin in Rogue One), with dialogue written by horror author and film critic Kim Newman.  He was such a hit that, after being rebranded Dr. Terror, there would be several horror showings on BBC One hosted by him, across 1993 to 1996.  Recently, thanks to various bloggers, such as VHiStory, many of these have been put up on YouTube, including over an hour of the interview segments from the 1992 Halloween night, so I thought I'd share a bunch of ones I could find on here.  I've also arranged a YouTube playlist to have them in order.  Ah, we need more wisecracking demons to spice up film screenings.  Enjoy!

#Blogtober 28 - Thoughts on Doctor Who News

I'm planning on a bunch of Doctor Who related blogs for next month, in time for its anniversary date on the 23rd, but for now I thought I'd do a little look at a few cool things related to Doctor Who that have happened this month.  As the great podcast Verity puts it, these are the little nuggets of Doctor Who delight that fill me with glee.  Before I get into things, no this won't include spoiler stuff from next series; there have been some location pictures circulating recently, showing something pretty major that's turning up, but I'm not going to casually let that one slip.

#Blogtober 27 - Book Review - Ghoster by Jason Arnopp

It's safe to say that a lot of horror creators have not adjusted well to the existence of mobile phones, often trying rather contrived ways of avoiding characters easily calling for help.  Now some more astute creators have simply worked out that being able to make a call might not be as much help in some situations.  For example, the show and film Ghost Stories has a great section where a character on a phone constantly doesn't harm the tension one little bit, not least for it giving us the classic line "Fucking O2!".  Others have realised that the ever presence of not just mobiles but social media connections can be in and of itself a source of terror.  There's actually a film out this weekend, Countdown, which is basically "What if Ring or Final Destination but with an app?".  For a more thoughtful take though, there's the recently released novel Ghoster, by Jason Arnopp.

#Blogtober 26 - Halloween Bloggery - Misty Early Channel 4 Memories

Who else here has a vague memory from childhood of some weird, forgotten bit of TV?  You know, one of those things where you're not even sure if you was something you actually watched, or if it was something you dreamt up?  Well, for years I've had something like that; I can't be sure of exactly when I saw it, but I was pre-Primary School definitely, so about only 4 or 5 years old.  What makes this thing so vivid was the fact that I only came in at the end of... whatever this show/film was, so I had no context for what was happening.  I remember a kid in a normal suburban house (like mine, to add to the paranoia) being menaced by some huge, amorphous mass of stuff, at one point getting out of a scrape with a He-Man figure, and there being something disturbing about the ending.

#Blogtober 25 - Halloween Bloggery - No, not that one...

I've been thinking a bit about cases of films and shows having similar titles recently.  A while ago at a pubmeet, someone mentioned liking the show The Good Wife, which led me and a friend down a tangent of discussing Vyvyan's rant about The Good Life until we realised the mistake.  Well, with the horror genre, this could lead to some hilarious issues, as there are a few cases of kids films with very similar or identical names to fright films.  This almost certainly did lead to quite a few traumas for children when parents didn't have a close enough look at what the video store gave them back in ye olden tymes, or if they just click on the first thing that a streaming service suggests when they type in the word today.  So I thought I'd have a quick look at a few notable examples of this sort of thing; consider this perhaps a warning to look very carefully at exactly what categories Netflix lists a film under before you put something on for the kiddlywinks...

#Blogtober 24 - Canary Duty - Terminator Dark Fate

I have been burned by the Terminator franchise before.  I saw this on the horizon, and whilst the trailers looked promising, my enthusiasm for this series has been long worn down by the likes of "talk to the hand", Christian Bale's orphan voice, and a "COPS" montage.  So I approached this up until the first reviews came out more out of curiosity than excitement.  When those articles dropped though, I was still thinking "OK, maybe it's just a case though that after Terminator Mega Dryve anything would seem better".  Well, now I have seen it, and I won't beat around the bush; not only are good Terminator films back, but there's a lot in here which might just make this (after a bit more time for reflection and rewatching) my favourite one since the original.