Some horror pranks

https://twitter.com/horrormuseum/status/1647692091554922496

3 favorite Masters of Horror episodes?

Cigarette Burns by John Carpenter
Imprint by Takashi Miike
Pelts by Dario Argento

Hm
Sick Girl by Lucky McKee
The Black Cat by Stuart Gordon

The Third Coast, by Thomas Dyja

You guys, I just saw this in a used bookstore today. It's about the significance of the city of Chicago to the sum total of what the United States became, to itself and to the world, during the early and mid-20th century.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/15811511

I wanted to put it here in a particular old thread, but I can't find it. It could be a year or two old... I don't know. The thread had something to do with the way New York City and Los Angeles dominate the national scene too muc and how even movies and fiction are just too heavily dominated by those two cities.

In the thread I'm thinking of, I also said something about how Boston has had more than its share of movies about it, in recent years. I can remember thinking, when I was a kid, that I wished there were more movies set in and around Boston. But, at this point, I think my home city has kind of worn out its welcome, and they should find other places to talk about, and other places to set movies and books. I might have asked, in that thread, what other cities anyone here thinks would make sense to set more movies in?? I remember thnking about that topic, I'm not sure if I actually went ahead and created a post about it here...

Anyway, the book I saw is an effort to discuss the significance and importance of Chicago. So, just the type of thing I had in mind.

Had to share.

Penpal, by Dathan Auerbach

Has anybody here read this? I just finished it yesterday, and want to talk about it a little. It's very short, but it took me three or four days anyway, just because I kept getting distracted.

Spoilers coming up. Go somewhere else if you don't want to read them.

I think the story was some kind of Creepypasta or Reddit thread that evolved over time, or was built incrementally somehow. I'm seing people say different things online, about that, soooo I'm still sorting it out.

Spoilers coming now. Really.

I read almost the entire thing before I really understood what kind of horror story it is. I had it in my mind that it would end up being something like The Institute or Tommyknockers, both by Stephen King. Or possibly something supernatural. Maybe something along the lines of the Mothman... I hought of that possibility several times, especially regarding the Polaroids. There are things going on that are just a little beyond the narrator's circle of awareness... the narrator is supposed to be remembering himself as a child, depicted at various ages. He describes things happen that he doesn't understand at the time, but tries to come up with explanations to help himself understand, usually wrongly. He is supposed to be remembering all the events in the story from some future point. The events are told out of linear order... it's like he's just trying to sort out his own memories, and doesn't know exactly where to start, or how to proceed. You can tell that someone or something is observing or stalking him, but you can't tell who or what it might be. As I said, I had it in my brain for some reason that he was being cultivated or "groomed" by some nefarious organization, for purposes that we may or may not ever learn.

One question I have that isn't a total spoiler, exactly... if you have read it, do you think the person with the bandaged face who co-inhabited Veronica's hospital room was, um, the bad guy? That would make some sense, but I'm not 100% sure.

Another question: do you think the bad guy could have been the narrator's father?!? Is that possible?

What else, what else... um... people generally seem to really like the story, in the comments section under YouTube videos about it, and in Reddits and probably Quora threads. But, I get the sense that a lot of people reading it are kids, or people in their early 20s. I did not understand that, when I started reading it. I had just vaguely heard that it was a good story. What I'm saying is that I can see how people that age would find it particularly powerful and gripping, but all of us here are so desensitized to all kinds of horror that we mostly just kind of take it in stride. The kind of horror that it is is kind of a real world horror, like, it is something that basically could probably happen to someone. People reacting to it in comments threads are probably fairly average, normal people, having an authentically horrified reaction, not hardcore gorehounds or horror fans at all, particularly. So, yah, just think about it in that way, if you have yet to read it.

I'm still mulling the story over. It is certainly disturbing, and horrifying for any empathetic human being, but it isn't exactly what we here might think of when we hear the word horror.

Anybody have any thoughts on any of this?

The conspiracy thread

Instead of polluting the main shoutbox we can chuck it all here

Challenge schedule 2024

Here is a list of all the challenges coming up in 2024 and when to mark them down in your diaries. I've also nominated hosts for the challenges, so if you don't want to do it then... nominate someone else!:

January: Break
February: Documentary challenge - hosted by Markus
March: Trash challenge - hosted by Troma
April: Animation challenge - hosted by Ballz
May: Crime challenge - hosted by Box
June: The "different genre every week challenge" (Comedy/Action/War/Western)• - hosted by Markus
July: World Cinema challenge - hosted by zed
August: A-Z challenge - hosted by Zombie
September: Sci-Fi & Fantasy challenge - hosted by Ballz
October: October challenge - hosted by Markus
November: Turkey challenge - hosted by Zombie
December: Christmas movie challenge - hosted by Box

Also, if you don't intend to compete in any of them then... •beep• you!

Free Guy

Any big fans of Free Guy here? I am right in the middle of watching it for the first time. I had vaguely heard about it when they were filming it in Boston, but this is the first time I've seen it.

So far, my verdict is.... not bad at all. They make a huge deal about sunglasses being the key to a realm of higher awareness, which is clearly borrowed at least a little from They Live. But the overall plot, at least so far reminds me mostly of the "Everything is Awesome" scene from The Lego Movie. Just that whole idea of a lowly but cheerful worker drone dude in a cutthroat world, who begins to get a clue.

It also reminds me, at times, of Tron, and of Ready Player One. Not hard to see why. Anyway, I'm right in the middle of it, but so far I like it.

The Exorcist: Believer

The trailer for the movie looked terribly underwhelming. They wanted to market this as a straight-up horror film, but if you think about it, the original Exorcist was more of a psychological drama for most of the movie. This movie goes for that approach too, meaning that its trailer isn't showing you the movie you end up getting.

What you get is actually a pretty simple story. Two young girls go missing, and their respective families experience some bizarre shenanigans. It takes the legacy sequel approach by bringing back a familiar face or two, but the main idea is pretty concise. I wouldn't say it's very scary, but it is well made. That's what I say about the original, too. It has a few decent creepy moments, and I think it was trying to channel Hereditary a bit, especially by casting Hereditary actress Ann Dowd in yet another spiritual horror character role. I also liked the ending. It's a bit of a twist, both bittersweet and still quite bleak.

For anyone wondering about continuity, nothing in the movie negates the events of Exorcist 2 and 3, and the director confirms that. So none of that garbage where it's a sequel only to the first film, though the first film of course will be the only film they reference, because even I don't remember part 2, and modern audiences shouldn't have to relieve that mess either.

Not a bad flick like I was expecting, but poor box office and reviews tell us we probably wont be getting this turned into a trilogy like they planned. I wasn't terribly attached to that idea anyway. As a stand alone legacy sequel, it works just fine.

#Review

Excellent potential for a meme

Pause this clip at 1:37 or 1:38, and just look at the expression on Rev. Sayers' face. What a great meme that could make. I don't know exactly what you could use it for... just the expression on his face is awesome. Like, maybe you could post it on some thread, right after the person posting before you said something that reveals he is out of his mind, or is a complete idiot.

The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis

This https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/3858519 is a short story by Clark Ashton Smith, published in 1932. C.A.S. is mostly known today through his connection with H.P. Lovecraft, but I have been beginning to appreciate him in his own right. I discovered him... early in the pandemic, 2020 or 2021. Well, I had vaguely known that he had existed, before then, but, whatever.

I just wanted to mention this story, because I came across some discussions online, speculating that it might have been a big inspiration for Alien. Yes, THAT Alien, the 1979 classic.

I am not sure if I agree with this or not. It is an intriguing possibility, though. It is possible to describe the story in such a way as to make people prone to say "Of COURSE it was the inspiration for Alien, you idiot! How could anyone possibly even question this?!? Why is this the first time I am hearing about this?!? Jesus Christ!"

OK, here is how I would describe it, if I were trying to see the idea that it inspired Alien.

A group of explorers in the future are on another planet. While exploring, they find a passage into some kind of large, underground complex, built by aliens who have long since died out, or have gone to some other unknown end. While exploring the complex, one of the explorers is abruptly surprised by a small alien creature that doesn't LOOK too threatening at first glance, but which pounces on him and attaches itself to his head and (upper) face. It seems to be comandeering his body for unknown, but clearly nefarious, purposes of its own. Very soon, all the other explorers are in great peril from... well, not from the exact same alien, or from a spawn of that alien, but from other, identical creatures which were also concealed in the depths of the underground complex. One by one, the explorers are subjected to extremely yucky attacks, until they are all severely yuckified except one solitary explorer, who through a combination of quick thinking and luck avoids the fate of... well, of HIS, not her, comrades. Does that lone explorer survive all the way until the end of the story? ead the story, and you'll see. (Or just ask me, I'll tell you if you want).

So, yeah, when I describe the story like that, it really sounds like it could be the inspiration for Alien.

But... well, I won't wreck the story anymore than I already have, but lots of the common ground the story has with Alien are actually pretty common sci-fi tropes. I'm not a hundred percent convinced.

One thing I'll say, and I don't think this wrecks too much of the suspense: the story takes place on Mars, not some heretofor undiscovered planet way the hell out there in the cosmos. For me, that radically changes the whole feel of the story from Alien. Part of the mystery of Alien was that not only was that planet unknown, but also we had no idea where the alien spaceship was from, at least until the recent sequels. For me, that added a lot to the mysteriousness of the setting. I guess it is possible that that was just an improvement that Ridley Scott thought up.

Another thing is that there is nothing in the short story about The Company, which for some people was one of the main scary things about Alien, maybe even THE scariest thing.

Anyway, I can see this one going either way.

By the way, I have mentioned this author here before, in some thread. He wrote another story that I DO think was probably a big inspiration for Land of the Lost, the 70s Saturday morning TV show. I'm pretty convinced about that.

Anyway. Yah. Had to share. Any thoughts?