The Writer’s Apocalypse

I love a zombie film. In fact, my introduction to the horror genre started when I first watched George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). Since then, I was hooked on scary films.   The zombie subgenre is my favorite. The reason why I love a good zombie movie is that it’s never about zombies. Not really. Sure, there are the undead cannibals that trap the main characters in a house or a…

I chose this film for the first night of the challenge because I’ve seen some clips of it online and it seems to be something of an interesting story. It’s a simple enough story, some might call it a bit boring, but I think it could have some promise.   About 6:20 minutes into the film, I’m already a bit bored. We’ve set up the backstory for the main character Iris, played by Brittney Snow.…

Saturday night was kind of a rare occurrence for me. For once in the last month or so, I had nothing to do on a Saturday night. Oh sure, there were clothes that needed washing. There were dishes that needed scrubbing. There was fiction that needed to be fictioning. But for one blessed night, I didn’t have anything work related nor did I have anyone requesting aid. Because like Rohan, when the…

When I was a kid, probably around the sixth grade but I can’t remember for sure, my oldest sister asked me if I’d like to learn how to play a card game she was playing. Looking at some of the cards and becoming interested in the card art, I said sure. Sitting down across the table from her, she handed me a sixty-card deck and a twenty-sided die. And that was the beginning of my love story with…

Over the weekend, I binged eight episodes of a Netflix documentary Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War. My favorite western film is Tombstone (1993) so of course I was interested to see how the fictional events of the film differed from the factual events of the past. So, I was surprised to find that while Wyatt Earp and his posse did go on a vendetta ride against the Cowboys, the bandits not the…

Why do filmmakers like to use monkeys as plague carriers? Directed by Peter Jackson and written by Stephen Sinclair, Fran Walsh, and Jackson, this film follows a basic plot that includes humans being stupid and taking monkeys outside of their natural habitat and then the rest of humanity has to deal with the consequences when, inevitably, the monkey ends up biting someone and passing the disease…

I hate the song “Islands in the Stream” performed by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. It’s by far the worst song and one that I pray I’ll never hear again. Obviously, there’s a history around this hatred so please allow me a few paragraphs to explain. If you were living in the southern St. Joe County (Indiana) area during the late 2000’s, you might know where I’m going with this. There was a…

Last weekend, I managed to start and finish two books. Which, in my humble opinion, is pretty impressive. There are really only two reasons why I was able to complete that feat. Well, two realistic reasons and one fictional reason. 1. I’m a natural speed reader. 2. I have no social life. 3. I’m a wizard. Hint… only one of those is the true reason and if my honorary degree from Hogwarts is…

Laundry, dishes, cleaning of my room, work on my book, grocery shopping, work on news articles…the list goes on. I know that weekends are meant as a time of rest, but I feel quite the opposite. Because I work a lot during the week, most of my normal general maintenance and upkeep duties are shoved onto the weekends.   Except for this weekend.  This weekend I did nothing except for reading,…

According to the Center for Disease Control in a 2022 report, the average life expectancy for those living in the United States of America is 77.5 years.   That means on Tuesday, Nov. 12 I will have reached the midpoint of my life. Although, to be honest, I’ve probably already reached that midpoint a long time ago if you factor in my diet, lack of exercise, the considerable addiction to…

It’s the end of the 31 Days of Horror Challenge. I think it’s only fitting to watch the classic horror film Halloween (1978) written and directed by John Carpenter. Debra Hill also wrote the script with Carpenter. I mean, it’s Halloween so it makes sense to watch the film with the same name.  Halloween is the quintessential slasher film that sets up the structure for all other slasher films to…

I think I found a film that I dislike more than Rob Zombie’s 31 (2016). And it’s not because of the same reasons why I disliked 31. It’s because the film I watched for the 30th of 31 Days of Horror was overwhelmingly boring. The Netflix movie Time Cut (2024) is a film about time travel and a serial killer. That’s really all I can say about this film. If I had to elaborate on it, it’s directed…

Douglas Whooly is the most insufferable, annoying, naive, and delusional kid I’ve ever seen in a horror film. I have to give props to Alexander Brickel for his portrayal of Douglas. In Satan’s Little Helper (2004), Douglas enlists the help of serial killer that Douglas thinks is actually Satan. See, Douglas has been obsessed with video games. Well, he’s obsessed with one particular video game…

Being Day 28 of my 31 Days of Horror movie challenge, I have learned one universal truth. The creatures aren’t real monsters. Humans are the real monsters. Here’s the thing about movie monsters. They aren’t real. Freddie Kreuger isn’t going to really kill you in your dreams. A giant shark won’t follow you to the ends of the earth trying to eat you. Dead bodies won’t come back to life and feast…

If you’ve seen some of the films I’ve watched, they’ve been zombie films. George A. Romero is my favorite horror director because of the work he did with the zombie genre. Heck, he created the zombie genre. Without him, films like Cargo (2017) wouldn’t exist. And just like Romero’s zombie films, Cargo (2017) goes beyond the blood and gore to tell a more emotional tale. This particular undead…

Do you want to watch a rip-off of A Quiet Place (2018)? Then login to Netflix and watch The Silence (2019) starring Stanley Tucci, Kiernan Shipka, Miranda Otto, and Kate Trotter. Now, before you go and email the film’s writers Carey Van Dyke, Shane Van Dyke, and Tim Lebbon and tell them I said their movie was a rip-off of the film written by John Krasinski, Scott Beck, and Bryan Woods then let…

In Islam, the canonical angel of death is named Azrael. That’s a pretty applicable name for the character played by Samara Weaving in the newly released film Azrael (2024). Directed by E.L. Katz and written by Simon Barrett, the film is set in a world years after the Rapture, most people have renounced their sin of speech. Azrael and her significant other Kenan, played by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett,…