I'm sitting here in the McDonald's parking lot on Wise Avenue. For the most part Dundalk still feels like the same town I grew up in. But it's not, not really. You can't go home again, so they say. Most of my family and friends have left. So have many stores. The Pizza Hut was razed where I used to play the cocktail arcade game; there was this huge, round fireplace in the center of the restaurant. The Dennys had been here for over 40 years; it's boarded up now and has been since the pandemic, all set to become another car cleaner. I moved out about 10 years ago to get a new house with my girlfriend, though I argued to stay. My parents left over 5 years ago, and my aunt and uncle left years before. And now we've lost our bridge.   I'm not ready to go inside yet. It's nice out, anyway. But I need to make sure I'm cool before I head in. All I want to do is air-punch! I want to let it out, whatever it is. I want to shake this feeling that holds me like a...

I found this cool lil Halloween Pumkin man on Etsy months ago and forgot he was in the closet. He's made himself at home here, and honestly, he scared T, and she doesn't want him running around the house. So, he's stuck in my office for the time being. I don't know that I'll be able to keep him cooped up during Halloweentober, however. Really, it's not his fault, it's mine. I had her watch Terrortory with me, a local Maryland horror anthology, and Smiling Jack freaked her the hell out... Smiling Jack could be this guy's dad, the resemblance is uncanny. Smiling Jack is a dark, mirrored pumpkin pail candy bucket-headed supernatural killer in the woods. Terrortory is a film set in a Bermuda-Triangle-like land of horrors in Western Maryland where monsters of all kinds will kill you, if you don't follow the rules. The rules become evident throughout the two films, while the sequel's plot is outright dependent on it. I found Terrortory I and II on Tub...

I wanted to talk about Tom Shellenberger. When I was barely a young kid there was a man who would dress up as Dracula and walk around Dundalk, my hometown. Dundalk is like the underarm of Baltimore. Dundalk is the punching bag for the suburbs of Baltimore, always has and always will be. But I don't mind, I love growing up there. I miss it. I love Dundalk. People like Tom are Dundalk. I have always had an affinity for vampires. I grew up with a Hollywood obsessed with the undead. Check out this list!: Once Bitten, Fright Night, Vamp, My Best Friend is a Vampire, Near Dark, The Lost Boys. All of these films came out in the mid-1980s and I watched them all, over and over again. I am still obsessed with these movies! I read everything I could find in the library on vampires as early as elementary school. In high school I found the Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice's vampire universe, and later, other writers, like Michael Romkey, Laurell K. Hamilton, John Steakley, Charlaine Harris and...

One of my favorite sounds and one I strongly consider linked to Halloween these days is the Scream Factory scream that each (well most) of their titles begin with. It's incredibly quick but now completely attributed, in my mind, to one of the cooler sounds of Halloween, and especially horror. Once I hear that noise I know I'm in for a treat. It is easily the best of all the boutique's intros.  The Scream Factory catalog is the biggest reason I enjoy this label. They have put out on DVD and Blu-ray, and now 4K, most of the movies I was raised on. They have most of John Carpenter's work, including his Halloween and all of the (real) sequels up to Rob Zombie's take on the franchise. And that may come later. They have so many mid-tier horror, like Nomads or Shocker to The Return of the Living Dead and it's sequel. They put out Pumpkinhead, one of my favorite monster films, and one of the greatest fantasy films ever: Big Trouble in Little China! They reintroduced me...

Aziz, Light ! I have loved this film since I saw it twice on opening weekend in May 1997. The soundtrack score (by Eric Senna) is sublime, the effects are incredible, and the characters are perfect! This film is one of my favorites from the mid-90s that I rewatch regularly. Bruce Willis absolutely kills it in this flick. Milla Jovovich is fantastic as Leelo (Leelo Dallas multipass!). Tricky is great to ("but I am Korben Dallas!"). Gary Oldman's Zorg is one of the coolest bad guys in Sci Fi ever. Just check out his costume (by Jean Paul Gaultier). Gaultier was a bit prescient with his gender-neutral wardrobe choices in this movie. But Chris Tucker is the shining light of ridiculousness in this Sci Fi gem as Ruby Rhod. Everything about Ruby Rhod is utterly obnoxious and beyond ludicrous, but I love him all the same. And by the end of this action adventure he is a hero and saves the world! I remember the feeling of awe that set in while watching this movie in the theater for...

I realized something while watching Jurassic World Dominion recently that I couldn't quite understand for the past few years. What I realized is that, people don't want to die. They're scared to die just like me and sometimes that fear is utterly debilitating. It's not only the fear of death that is in the back of my mind while watching this film, it's my place in a world that I increasingly do Not Recognize. It's a world that daily feels like a Xerox copy of the one I remember, just off. Like The Matrix (there ya go, another one!) today's world feels like a copy of a world that used to be. But it's not a perfect copy. An imitation can never be the real thing, after all. I'm watching these characters, who I've come to love as I grew up with them, and seeing them still on the big screen after 3 decades confirmed this feeling. I mean, duh, right? We're all a little scared of death, even though it's something we all do, like tak...

For the past few years I was ready to write-off DVDs altogether. As I started to pick up more Blu-rays I was just done with DVD. I pickd up a 4K TV and player. And even Blu-ray was getting long in the tooth... But then I looked at my collection and saw my snap case DVDs. These things were once the bane of my collection; now , they are the highlight of my collection and not just the DVD portion. I love them. The cardboard is so nostalgia now, and I didn't see that coming. In the early 2000s I would trade up every single snap case DVD for their plastic cousins. Shame! These snap cases have so much character, the chapters on the inside cover, they are just too cool. Their fragility is what made me consider tossing them all those years ago. But I'm glad I held onto some of them because now is the time to collect them. You can see more and more YouTubers talking about them. You could feel that collectors are starting to really lust after these things again - well some of us. Out of ...