My buddy and I attended Bennett's Curse yesterday. It has been in the basement of Eastpoint Mall for a decade now, but with the closure of the mall in September, the haunted house is leaving for a new home after Halloween this year. Which is a shame, because it is obvious BC has been growing and evolving for the past ten years at Eastpoint. Bennett's Curse is my favorite local haunt by far! There are no (well not too many) clowns or backwoods killers here. The Curse is more old school, filled with gothic influences and very Halloween influenced horror, such as the pumpkin-headed characters and the robed and hooded figure in the darkest corners of the hallways. There's an entire section, The Crypt, that is in a cemetery, with thunder, lightning and rain, with tombstones and an animatronic Edgar Allan Poe with ravens all around him, cawing. House of the Demons was another of my favorite parts of the haunt. There are all kinds of great looking monsters and skeleto...

Slapface. This was a goddamn fun witch movie! They never explicitly call Slapface a witch, but she looks like one and has supernatural powers. To me, this is a witch flick. I usually don't care for films with such in your face plot uncertainty but is the witch real or imagined is a large part of the story here. As well as dealing with trauma from bullies, at home and amongst peers. Lucas could be killing everyone himself with the .357 that his older introduced him to, for all we know.  And props must be given to Lucas for not attacking his bullies, at least his "girlfriend" and her "friends", the twins; they're all female, and he was assumedly raised not to hit girls. Though they all need a punch to the face. At one point, Lucas's supposed girlfriend, Moriah, spits on him as the twins egg her on. She does, and right then and there he should have backhanded her. Let me be clear, the characters in this movie are all quite unlikable. All of them, save for o...

I just saw the teaser trailer for Mayfair Witches S3, which is going to be set in Salem, MA, and I'm all kinds of giddy. The Salem witches wear pointy witch hats! And their wardrobe is sort of late puritan-sheik. I have enjoyed the first two seasons, so this looks like it will be worth the wait until December 30, 2026. Season 2 went nearly scorched Earth in the finale, and the season as a whole was really good, and completely fun, and ended with Rowan's uncle Cortland trapped in Julien's mind, thanks to the Victrola spell, leaving Julien to inhabit Cortland's body, free at last.

Ghost Story (1981). I haven't read the novel yet, but I picked up this Scream Factory Blu-ray years ago. The cover simply captivated my attention. Four old guys come together in a dark room and become the Chowder Society. I love this name. Anyway, their primary goal is to scare each other. to tell ghost stories and perhaps smoke some stogies. But lately, the group is having nightmares every night. This film is quite slow and can be boring at times. This movie was made for a different, older audience than today's 30-second Tik Tok generation. But the snowy winter setting set a nice mood piece with plenty of atmosphere, and the plot gets more disturbing as it builds up to its climax. The cozy atmosphere is the best thing about this movie, until the ghost (Alma or Eva) starts acting ghosty. We find out after a slog of story that the Chowder Society is collectively guilty of a most heinous accidental death. I won't ruin it, because it was quite interesting how things unfolded 5...

A24's The VVitch is close to a perfect witch story. It's dark, it's really dark, it's sad, and it has witches on broomsticks (or sticks, but in my mind their brooms). The film is quite sinister, and I learn more about the story with each successive watch. First things first, the twins. The twins are pieces of shit. These two kids (Mercy and Jonas) deserved to get, well, not what they got. But they deserved an ass-kickin'. These two kids are little pieces of shit. They do make me laugh though, because the girl in particular is such a lil shit. Mercy spends so much time accusing Thomasin of witchcraft even before Thomasin becomes a freakin' witch. The Billy goat Black Phillip should have bounced these two a long time ago, but I think he was trying to lure the twins to the dark side until he found Thomasin would be the easiest target. I'd like to take a moment of silence for young Samuel. Samuel is the infant son of William and Katherine, brother to the twins,...

Finally finished putting Margeret together and got her put up out front this evening. For the past few years, I've been trying to make my own bespoke Halloween decorations. I've been trying to put together pumpkin headed scarecrows on a T-bar but just couldn't find the right pieces to use. But then I ran into a black skeleton at Michael's the other day and thought that this would work. However, I've also been stuck on what to use for my witch decoration. I was stumped trying to make an upper torso witch and hang her from a 6- or 7-foot wooden stake. It was just a struggle. So I put my old Grim Reaper costume robe from the 1980s on the skeleton, along with a witch mask I had and I found a witch hat at Spirit Halloween. And she was done. Quick and easy. Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge was my first real introduction to Freddy Krueger. At that point in time it was only the three movies. After we watched the sequel one...