October Movie Challenge: The Power (1984)

Ok. I want to start out by saying this is not the movie I thought it was. I wanted a movie that was about psychic powers. This is about a cursed Aztec idol home to a demon.

So. A win? Yeah, it was still fun. At least I can log this as a first-time view. 

I am sure this movie has nothing to do with SNAP! nor being the lyrical Jessie James.

The Power (1984)

A college professor has an old idol containing an evil demon named Destacatyl. Before long, it is in the possession of some Los Angeles high-schoolers who see fit to put it to use at a séance by the cemetery.

The results are what one would anticipate.

It is a well-worn setup, yet I appreciate the cursed-object tale when the object in question is as unremarkable as this one. The idol is small and portable, hardly the sort of thing you would suspect of harboring an ancient demon. In that respect, it is very much a movie of its time.

One does not have to trek to a ruined temple or flout the increasingly urgent warnings of locals to desecrate a tomb. Some fool has already done the work and brought the damn thing home. It is a trend I have been seeing in these films: in the old days you had to hunt down the monster, but in the 1980s the monster comes back in your pocket.

The special effects are low-budget 1980s horror through and through. Some of it is better than others, but there is enough oddity to get by. Honestly, I really liked quite a lot of them. The American Genre Film Archive is fond of calling it a film of stage fog, plot holes, and monster makeup, which is a fair enough way to put it. I would take that as a compliment. Mostly. 

The demon Destacaty’s mythology is really thin, but what the idol does to people is the more compelling matter. It offers power (hey, that's the title!). This is much worse than killing you outright. You get something and then you want more and more. The myths, even the Aztec part, are almost unimportant at this point.

This the sort of movie that could only have thrived in the early VHS years. It is a little rough around the edges, the mythology is sketched in rather than fleshed out, and it never quite settles into being one thing or another, moving from creature effects to possession to teenagers. There is a charm to that. And the cover of the VHS case/movie poster promises a lot more than the movie actually delivers, but that is also fine.

It was not going to measure up to Poltergeist or *The Exorcist*, nor did it need to. A creepy object, a couple of good deaths, and some strange imagery were all it took to get someone to buy the box at the video store.

NIGHT SHIFT and Jackson Connections

I can make this work for NIGHT SHIFT with no trouble at all.

Let us have the Jackson version open with the parents coming back from a trip with an odd figurine. Perhaps from an antique shop, or maybe Morgan Chemical sent someone to Mexico for it. No one gives it a second thought until one of the kids has it over for a sleepover.

A séance is proposed.

Someone should be quick to call it a bad idea.

They will do it anyway.

The trick is to make the object unimpressive. Ugly, cheap, even a bit comical. It should make a real 80s kid think of the cursed idol from The Brady Bunch. If it is reeking of evil, they will leave it be. Then let it do the impossible. A candle is snuffed, a door that was locked swings open, a voice is heard.

That's my hook. 

At this point, what the idol does is incidental. As long as it threatens the characters and scares the players and characters alike. But for NIGHT SHIFT I would have the idol be tempting. Give the user a nudge of psychic ability, some better luck. At a certain point, he is no longer wondering if it is dangerous, but why everyone else is so keen to have it removed. The horror sets in then.

Do not mistake *The Power* for a great film. It is uneven, and the lack of budget shows. The mythology never lives up to its potential. But the core of it is good. An ancient evil is not left to rot under a temple. It is made portable. Someone takes it home and makes use of it. And the effects, even when cheap, are fun. 

You do not have to go seeking out the old evils.  As I have shown all month so far, in the 1980s the horrors come to you.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 22
First Time Views: 13

October Horror Movie Challenge: Ænigma (1987)

 Tonight I am heading back to school.

Unfortunately, it is a Lucio Fulci school, so this will probably not end well.  This one has been on my list for a while, but I never got around to watching it. It is *slightly* outside of my range, but 1987 is on my mind right now, and I thought a college-era movie with psychic shenanigans would fit well.

Ænigma (1987)

Kathy (Milijana Zirojevic) is a student at St. Mary’s, an exclusive girls’ boarding school outside Boston. She is lonely, awkward, and the target of a particularly cruel group of classmates. The girls convince Kathy that Fred, the school’s gym instructor, is romantically interested in her. Kathy believes them and meets him for what she thinks is a date. Kathy is excited and happy. 

But it is all a joke.

Her classmates are waiting nearby, and when they reveal themselves, laughing at her humiliation, Kathy panics and runs into the road. She is hit by a car. 

Kathy survives, but only barely. She remains unconscious in a hospital, trapped in a coma while her mother keeps watch over her.  Her doctor, Dr. Robert Anderson (played by Jared Martin from "The Fantastic Journey") kereps an eye on her and can't figure out how a girl who is pretty much brain dead is experiencing emotions. Especially when people at her old school start to die.

Then a new girl arrives at St. Mary’s.

Her name is Eva (Lara Lamberti).

And Kathy has found a way back into the school.

Directed by Lucio Fulci and written by Fulci and Giorgio Mariuzzo, Ænigma was an Italian-Yugoslav production shot in Sarajevo, despite the story being set around Boston. Fulci openly acknowledged Carrie as an influence, describing his film as essentially a version of Carrie split between two characters. 

I can't help but think about Phenomena (1985) from last week.

These movies have given me much to consider when it comes to boarding schools. We had a case in point with the one in Phenomena. It is a staple of Gothic fiction and horror for good reason. A normal high school has its way of emptying out; by a certain hour the hallways are quiet and everyone, teachers and students alike, has made their way back to their parents.

A boarding school does not afford that luxury. Class is over, but the kids stick around.

You cannot leave. Your home is your school, and your neighbors are your classmates. The girl in chemistry who can’t stand you is only three doors down. The teacher you hate may be in the same building. There is no line to be drawn between private life and school life since the institution holds sway over both.

That is what makes St. Mary’s so central to Aenigma. Kathy is not just put upon at school; she is living in the very social environment that has cast her out. There is no safe house for her at 3:30 and her tormentors are always on hand. But once she has the upper hand on Eva, the tables are turned. They can no longer go home. The victim has become part of the edifice, and the school is her hunting ground.

I like that kind of horror. You do not need some contrived reason for why nobody is leaving, as you might in an old Gothic tale where a storm keeps them in the castle. At St. Mary’s you are there because you have class tomorrow.

The Other Girl

Then there is Eva Gordon. She is put in Kathy’s old room following the accident, which ought to have been a warning sign. Before long you see something amiss with her. She acts odd and knows more than she should. Her tie to Kathy is plain to see as the latter’s psychic output at the hospital picks up whenever the supernatural rears its head at the school.

This is where the film holds my interest.

It would be easy to say Kathy is possessing Eva in the demonic tradition but it feels more like a projection. Kathy is still alive, her body in the hospital, her brain working. Yet a piece of her consciousness has left her and gone into Eva.

The movie is not going to offer a rigorous account of the mechanics. Fulci is never helped by having rules imposed on him.

Kathy uses Eva as a physical proxy at St. Mary’s and can share senses or work her will on the environment from afar. Her comatose form is the transmitter and Eva the receiver. In a way she is haunting people without being dead. It blurs the line between "Psychic" and "Magic" very effectively.

Since this is horror and the Carrie influences abound, the deaths begin to pile up. 

Each of Kathy's tormentors dies in a horrible way (the snails and slugs are particularly nasty), with Eva as the common factor in all the deaths; she is nearby. 

The movie is about what I expected it to be, really. It was still a lot of fun, and I rather enjoyed it. It's not great, but also not terrible. It didn't give me anything new, but it didn't disappoint me either. 

Jackson, IL Connections

I don't need a long list of powers or effects for a psychic killer; I just need a good reason. Kathy, or someone like her, provides that. It's interesting in one respect. These movies are about someone coming back for revenge against the people who wronged them; if the person coming back is male, we get a slasher; if they are a woman, it results in psychic powers. 

I have not had any solid ideas for psychics yet in Jackson, though I really should, to be honest. I mean, I have Morgan, but he is not likely to go on a murderous rampage. He would find that sort of emotional outburst to be unbecoming. 

I still have a list of names that don't have NPCs yet. Maybe my psychic killer is there.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 21
First Time Views: 12

Tales of Jackson: Land of Confusion

 You know how it is. You want to run NIGHT SHIFT. Your players want to play Dungeons & Dragons. Well, my last Jackson, IL adventure shows you can do both!

Hey Look, A Dungeons & Dragons Ride!

This adventure idea began innocently enough back in September. It was September 17, and I noticed that it was the anniversary of the Dungeons & Dragons animated series. I didn't watch it a lot back then; I had a job on Saturdays, but when my kids were growing up, I rediscovered it. We picked up the DVD set when the 3rd edition was popular, and I later got the Spanish-language DVD version to help with my Spanish.  I got to thinking. What if my Jackson kids found a "Dungeons & Dragons ride!"

Suddenly I had a very, very evil idea. Or a very silly one.

I loaded some movies into my queue for the October Horror Movie Marathon, knowing they would give me some good ideas. Largely because I had seen so many of them before. And I spent the month in between coming up with the ideas.

So I watched the movies last week and took the early shift in our Sunday game to run my adventure.

Enter the Dungeon

 Essentially, I had three basic problems in front of me. I knew the characters from Jackson were going to be transported to a "Dungeons & Dragons" world. But I needed to figure out who did it (which tells me why), how they did it, and what classes the characters would become in the new world.

I went with the last problem first. My three witches, Stephanie, Faye, and Larina, were easy. Too easy, as it turns out. Since I was using D&D 5.5 Rules-as-Written, I opted for Sorceress, Warlock, and Wizard, respectively. It was perfect. But I kept thinking these three were already powerful enough. So I set them aside and worked on all the other major NPCs/Characters. I didn't know who would take what, so I did everyone.

Here is how it shook out, and the surprises. One thing to keep in mind: I have also been considering a "Class Reunion" Adventure, so I have jotted down some ideas of where everyone is in 1992, 2007, and 2027. That is, if my players don't kill them.

Ami Reed: Ami was easy; she is based on Amiri from Pathfinder. If you recall Jackson's first game, I had a bunch of Pathfinder Iconics minis I was using. Amiri the Barbarian became Ami, the tough girl on the girls' softball team. Turning her back into a barbarian made sense.

Valentino Moreno: Likewise, Val is based on Valeros, the iconic fighter. So, fighter he remains.

Andy Thompson: Anderson is a Sage in the Jackson game, but he takes on his true role here as Bard. He has his trumpet, and when they later go fight the "Dragon Master," he belts out Asia's "Only Time Will Tell." At least that is the player's plan. They love the 80s and queueing up songs on Spotify. Andy is an original character, but from West Haven. 

Rowan McGowan: Rowan has been many things in my games before Jackson. Witch Knight, Protector, Paladin. But Rowan in Jackson has become something different. All those things still describe her, but a surprise later on made me re-evaluate her role. Here, she became a Gloom Stalker Ranger. Why? Because Rowan is all about making sure the creatures of the night have something to fear.

Kyra Bellamy: Kyra was also lifted from Pathfinder minis. She was Kyra, the iconic cleric. Here she is Kyra, the Preacher's Kid, who discovers her own true faith. So she is my Cleric of Light.

Meriko Hayashida: Meriko, Kyra's secret girlfriend, is also taken from Pathfinder's Merisiel, the iconic thief. Honestly, I took Kyra, and Meriko insisted on coming along. She is my thief. 

Tetsuya "Tetsu" Hayashida: Meriko's 12-year-old young brother. NPC at the moment, because I wanted her annoying younger brother to tag along (her mom made her take him to the movies). He is the comic relief and plays the annoying little-sibling trope. He is also a thief.

Benjamin Brown: "Benny" is a new character I haven't talked about much, but I wanted to bring him to the table here. Benny is a lot of things. He works with Faye at "Strawberry Fields." He is friends with Meriko and Kyra. He is the kid who wants to do everyone's star chart and horoscope. He is also the local pot dealer (he doesn't look the part at all, and only his friends know), and he is also my "Gay Kid" from the 80s. I like Ben. He is a complex character and much, much more than a stereotype. In the D&D world, he becomes a Druid of the Circle of Stars. And he has key information. And drugs.  

Note: this should also be the first clue that Darren is not 100% in control here. If Ben were to be transported to a D&D fantasy world, Darren would have been much crueler. Ben comes over not just largely intact, but key elements of his personality are enhanced.

Finally, we get to the two who should have been easy, but let me be honest: these two surprise me all freaking the time.

Candy and Denise are, rather obviously, based on Candella and Duchess from the classic D&D adventure B3: Palace of the Silver Princess. So they should be thieves, right?

Wrong. 

Candy and Denise have grown a lot as characters. I know who they will become when they get older (back to my proposed 2007 or 2013 Class Reunion idea): Candy becomes a nurse because she knows how to help people in times of crisis. Denise becomes a social worker because she stands up for kids and mothers who need someone. The magic of the land sees this. And this becomes the another clue as to what is going on, and not all of it is Darren.

Candance "Candy" Mercer: Candy is still that girl who can climb to the third story of a building to break in, but she is also the girl who stitches people up and gets them back into the fight. She is a Way of Mercy Monk. Her touch can heal or harm. Mercy is even in her name.

Denise "Duchess" Carver: When the kids were pulled into the world the "Dragon Master" wanted to Denise to be a simple serving wench or better (for him) a slave. That didn't happen. Something (someone) saw into Denise's soul, and when she got here, her true self was revealed. 

Denise Carver, Paladin. Oath of Devotion.

She shows up in shining (literally) armor, wielding a sword. I justify this by stating the obvious (well, obvious to the other players and me). Denise wears "armor" all the time. In Jackson, her armor is sarcasm and attitude. When Candy was hurt, she picked up a crowbar and challenged the monster (a zombie) to "fucking come get some!" I don't care if she was a "thief" in another life. Denise is a protector. Denise gets in between her friends and danger. Or as I have said repeatedly, "Denise Carver fucking shows up."

I honestly can't explain how well they all fit their new roles. So now to figure out my other (many) problems.

I have guidelines for all the other major and minor NPCs as well.

The Dragon Master Summons

When putting together my list of movies, it became obvious that I needed a Big Bad, and this was the guy who pulls everyone into his realm. The answer was obvious before I finished my thoughts on it. 

Darren Vale AKA "The Dragon Master"

At the end of Am I Evil? Darren was in a coma. Well, somehow this little asshole managed to create an entire fantasy world in his mind. I cheated and just used a "cartoon" version of Yog. He wanted revenge against all the people who wronged him. So he first traps Stephanie, Faye, and Larina. How? No freaking idea; I am going to use horror-movie logic here and say they were performing some ritual, and Darren had already laid a trap for them. They are trapped in his Realm, and he thought he would get the other characters into his world as well, where he could torment them at his leisure while siphoning off the magic of my three witches.

This solved a lot of problems for me. It kept the witches out of the picture so my other characters (jokingly referred to as "The B Team") could shine. It gave Darren the magic power he needed to power his realm and draw others in.  AND it gave me the key to Darren's defeat.

The adventure in Jackson begins when all the characters receive an invitation to see a new fantasy movie at the Illinois Times theatre at midnight (Yes, cribbed from "Demons"). They are the only ones there. The movie is cheesy but looks realistic, and then a group of orcs jump out of the screen and drag the characters into the movie.

The Realms of Spellcraft & Swordplay

The characters come through, and many of them are much more powerful than I think Darren intended them to be. Candy, Denise, and Ben in particular. There are "copies" of all the other NPCs from Jackson, but they are all caricatures of who they really are. Coach Kurt is portrayed as a dumb jock, despite also teaching AP Calculus and serving as the Honor Society sponsor. Kerri is depicted as an alluring nymph (ok that is not too far from the truth), and Valerie as an old hag, because that is how Darren categorizes women. Thomas Avery is stereotypically gay and predatory. It is all an awful version of Jackson. That's Darren's vision. But there are other tells. 

First, there is no one here who showed up after Darren's coma. Renee is still here, for example, and she left to return to Finland at the end of the 1986 school year. BUT. Moria is here. And more to the point, she is here as a demon-girl. Moria was introduced after Darren, and only four people knew Moria was really a demon: the three witches and Candy. Something Darren would not have known.

Also, the characters are on a quest. To find and free the Three Witches from the dungeons of the Dragon Master. (again, obvious) BUT the names of the witches are The Sorceress (Stephanie), The Ash Witch (Larina), and The Thorn Child (Faye). Again, only four people know that "Thorn Child" was what Faye's aunts were trying to turn her into: the three witches and Ben. Faye works with Ben at Strawberry Fields.

I drop other little clues that only the characters know, but not Darren. 

Somehow Stephanie, Faye, and Larina's thoughts are getting into Darren's world. 

What follows is a really, really stereotypical D&D adventure. I wanted it that way. In fact, I wanted it to almost feel like a parody that was so earnest it became an homage. The Dragon Master's lair was just Module B1: In Search of the Unknown and B2: Keep on the Borderlands.

The party finds the witches and rescues them. Each witch is a separate quest. Doing so breaks the magical hold. So freeing Stephanie, the Red Sorceress, causes social interactions to loosen their magical bonds; all the NPCs remember who they really were/are, and Darren loses control of them. Freeing Faye, the Thorn Child, causes the land to begin to revert to normal. Finally freeing Larina, the Ash Witch, breaks the magical hold. Now the PCs have to confront the Dragon Master directly. Everyone wakes up in the theatre. The janitor wants to know why they are all still there at 3 in the morning. ("Those damn kids!")

BUT I haven't gotten to that in-game yet. My real-world players are just now finding clues.And this is looking like it will be a lot longer than the one-shot I had intended it to be.

What is good about this adventure? The witches are completely sidelined. They didn't have to do anything and gave me a chance to see how the other characters do without them.

Spoilers?

Given the influence of Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors, not just on this adventure, but on the genesis of AD&D Larina's daughter Taryn, I did add Taryn (in her Half-elf incarnation) here. She appears to know things and even understands that this is a trap. The players picked up right away that she was different, but I didn't tell them why. My oldest got it right away. In fact, his comment was, "What the hell is she doing here?"

Sorry, Liam, I don't really have a good answer for that other than "fan service." Now I need to figure out how/why she was there.

This game is going to go on much longer than expected, and it is already shaping up to be my proper "Season 2" of Jackson, just not in the way I expected. I had planned to bring in Taryn as a time traveler to return to the 1986-87 school year, but I never figured out why she was there. Other than a 21-year-old Taryn trying to deal with her mom when she was 17.

It will be fun to see where this one goes.

October Movie Challenge: Sotto il Vestito Niente (1985)

 Is it really an October Horror Movie Challenge without some sleazy Italian Giallo film? No, not really. But I am sticking with my theme of 1985-1986, though calling this one "Small town" is a huge stretch. Released in America as "Nothing Underneath." It is one of the few Giallo movies from the time I have not seen.

Sotto il Vestito Niente (1985)

This one falls under the theme of "an American has to search for a missing relative in Europe and strange things happen." In this case, our American is a Wyoming park ranger, "Bob Crane" (no relation), played by Tom Schanley, and the missing relative is his twin sister, Jessica (Nicola Perring), in Milan, Italy.  Oh, and they seem to be able to feel what the other is feeling, a bit like the Corsican Brothers. But he is also seeing premonitions of her death.

Bob flies to Italy to investigate on his own and discovers the underworld of the Italian jet-set. He fears Jessica is dead, but she is missing. The police, in the form of Donald Pleasence, do not seem to want to help. Granted, Bob does say that he saw it all happen while he was still in Wyoming. 

The film has a solid Brian dePalma feel to it. Especially with the psychic connection between the twins. Also, this was apparently based on a novel. 

The mystery, though, is pretty basic. I am not sure why it was classified under horror except for the psychic themes. Unless you count Bob's creepy interest in his sister's underwear.  

Bob does find his sister, and the killer is a twist, if a bit of a cliché, really, and kind of a downer. Odd that Bob didn't see it beforehand given the psychic connection between him and his sister.  

Jackson, IL Connections

I almost made Stephanie and Grant Vale into twins, but I decided against it. I did, however, figure she has twins of her own later in life. I do like the weirdness they can bring to a game.

But I am certainly going to try to figure out what I can use for my Advanced Mystics & Mentalists book. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 20
First Time Views: 11

Witchcraft Wednesday: Coven 13, Issue #2

Last week I started my October look at the short-lived occult horror magazine Coven 13. Issue #1 came out in September of 1969 and established what editor Arthur H. Landis wanted the magazine to be: a modern successor to magazines like Weird Tales and Unknown Worlds, but one firmly grounded in the contemporary world with modern takes on horror and the occult. 

This week we move on to Issue #2.

Coven 13, Issue #2, Nov. 1969

Our second issue is dated November 1969 and still has the 60-cent cover price. Once again we are promised WITCHCRAFT, HORROR, and THE SUPERNATURAL, along with Part Two of James R. Keaveny's Let There Be Magick! The lineup this time includes werewolves, witchcraft, ghosts, old gods, transformations, and more of the occult in modern life. Or pretty much my Christmas list.

Arthur H. Landis' editorial is worth revisiting because he further defines what he wants Coven 13 to be. He talks about contemporary witchcraft, including the very real occult revival going on around him in 1969, and argues that religions and occult beliefs exist within and influence the modern world. For Landis, the closer supernatural fiction gets to both the phenomena themselves and the actual world people live in, the better and more meaningful it becomes. He even uses Ray Bradbury's "The Foghorn" as an example of how a fantastic creature can be treated as something more than just a monster smashing things.  

Honestly, this editorial might explain why I am enjoying Coven 13 so much. His experiences also track with my own. Well, not at the time. When Coven 13 #2 came out, I was just about five months old. But it tracks with my writings here about the 1970s Occult Rival.

Landis isn't interested in just putting a werewolf in a story because werewolves are scary. He wants to know why the werewolf is there and what it means that it exists in the same world we do. That is something I have been doing in my own games for years, especially recently with Jackson and Sunny Valley.

Up first is Once Upon a Werewolf by Robert L. Davis, with art again by William Stout. This is a comedic werewolf story set firmly in contemporary Los Angeles. Henry Thorndyke has managed to turn himself into a werewolf, and his friend Ed has to deal with the consequences. We get Laurel Canyon, bars, cars, Hollywood, and all the other trappings of late-1960s California right alongside lycanthropy and occultism.  

This is exactly the sort of story Landis was talking about. The werewolf doesn't live in some remote European village. He's hanging around Los Angeles drinking rye and causing trouble. Exactly the sort of things I am looking for in my games and the overall theme of my current 1980s Horror Movie Marathon.

A Message for Brother by John Lipford takes us back toward the macabre. Our narrator awakens confused and slowly remembers his life, particularly his rather unpleasant relationship with his brother. It becomes increasingly obvious that there has been a long history of the two attempting to do kill each other, culminating in a dinner involving some very dangerous mushrooms. The narrator has one final message to deliver to his brother. 

Not really witchcraft, but it fits the old Weird Tales tradition of the gruesome story with a supernatural twist.

Then we get Double Hex by Samuel M. Clawson, and this one is much more interesting for what I am doing here.

The story takes place in Pennsylvania and concerns Amanda Spiegell and her brother Reuben, who are engaged in what amounts to a magical feud. The introduction describes Pennsylvania as rivaling New England in spells, enchantments, and what it calls "garden witchcraft." Amanda uses folk magic, charms, timing, animals, and sympathetic magic against her brother, who knows enough magic to protect himself and strike back.    

This is the kind of witchcraft I love seeing in stories.

It isn't flashy fantasy magic. Nobody is tossing fireballs around. This is household magic, inherited practices, signs, charms, bits of animal and plant lore, and the constant question of whether the magic caused something or whether events just happened that way.

There is a lot here I can use for Sunny Valley in particular. Pennsylvania isn't Appalachia (exactly, but you can see it from there), of course, but there is enough overlap in American folk-magic traditions and rural supernatural storytelling to make this feel familiar. It also fits Jackson, where magic can be happening in someone's house while the neighbors are completely unaware.

The new Bell, Book and Tarot feature by Jean Cirrito is especially important. It promises to explore witchcraft, sorcery, lycanthropy, Druidic lore, spells, enchantments, the Evil Eye, and whatever other bits of occult lore the editors can uncover. They even invite real covens to send in contact information.  

The first installment, About Witches and Such: An Objective Peek, is a very 1969 look at the history and practices of witchcraft. There is a lot here that stems from the Margaret Murray/Gerald Gardner understanding of witchcraft that was common at the time, so I wouldn't treat all of it as reliable history.  Ok, actually not much of it at all. But as a snapshot of what people interested in witchcraft were reading and thinking about at the end of the 1960s, it is fascinating. Plus, as I have said many times about Murray, it makes for a great element in a game. 

We get covens, sabbats, the athame, circle, chalice, wand, cauldron, pentacle, cords, scourge, elemental correspondences, nature worship, and the idea of modern witchcraft as the survival or revival of an older religion.

I have been writing witches for RPGs for a very long time, so quite a lot of this is familiar territory.

Next is The Transmogrification of Ridgely P. Winters by Joseph Harris, another bit of supernatural satire. Ridgely's trip into the infernal becomes a mixture of Hell, mythology, psychology, sex, psychiatry, and bureaucracy. Like Potlatch in the previous issue, it shows that Coven 13 wasn't above having some fun with all of this. Horror and the occult don't always have to be deadly serious.

The Shadow Trader by Wylly Folk St. John is another one that really caught my attention. A modern newspaper is constructing a new multimillion-dollar building and creating a "Crypt of Culture" as its cornerstone. That leads us to the much older belief that buildings require a sacrifice for their their foundations, and to a man who claims his shadow has been stolen by a professional Shadow Trader.    

This one is pure Jackson to me.

A new office building is going up. There are architects, newspapers, publicity stunts, and all the things you expect in a modern American city. But underneath all of that is a very old magical idea that never went away. That is exactly how I like the supernatural to work. The modern world didn't replace the old one. It was built right on top of it.

Then we get the best-known writer in this particular issue, Harlan Ellison, with Rock God. Here we have an ancient stone or earth deity, Dis, associated with Stonehenge and an older world that modern people have largely forgotten. Unlike some of the more conventional supernatural creatures in these issues, this feels genuinely ancient. The point isn't that Dis fits neatly into some mythology. The point is that something very old is still there.

That works extremely well for Sunny Valley.

Some things in the world are older than the names people have given them. Calling something a god, demon, spirit, or monster might say more about us than it does about the thing itself.

That is also one of the lessons I keep coming back to in my games. D&D, by necessity, likes categories. This is a demon. That is a devil. This is an undead. That is a fey. Those categories are useful at the game table, but older weird fiction is often much less interested in telling us exactly what something is.

There is a Letters section, which is kind of fun.

Next is Part Two of Let There Be Magick! by James R. Keaveny. We are back on the planet Camelot, where magic and dark sorcery really work. We have castles, knights, strange creatures, kingdoms, magic, and more of the Science Fantasy/Sword & Planet mixture from the first issue. One particularly fun detail is the Collegium in Glagmaron, where students can study Minstralism, medicine, philosophy, law, theology, and, because this is Camelot, introductory magick, sorcery, and astrology. 

Again, this is 1969, almost five years before Dungeons & Dragons, and nearly 30 years before Harry Potter.

I am not claiming any influence here. I have no evidence of that. Indeed, I feel Coven 13 was largely ignored by many at the time. But this is exactly the sort of literary environment that makes the arrival of D&D a few years later seem much less like something that sprang fully formed out of nowhere. Fantasy, science fiction, sword & sorcery, occultism, and weird fiction were already happily stealing from each other.

Finally, we have Pia by John Donaldson, which gives us another werewolf story. Unlike the comedy Once Upon a Werewolf, this one takes the idea seriously and turns lycanthropy into a story of paranoia and suspicion. Same supernatural creature, completely different effect.

That might be the best demonstration of Landis' point in the entire issue.

A werewolf isn't a story.

It is something you can build a story around.

We end with a great ad for the Unverse Book Club.

It feels very much like the Science Fiction book club, and many of my searches brought up both. 

With Issue #2 done, I think Coven 13 is beginning to show its real strength. Issue #1 established the sort of magazine Landis wanted to publish. Issue #2 starts showing us the rules of that world. Magic exists in modern America. Old gods might still be around. Folk traditions didn't necessarily stop working just because people got televisions and automobiles. Werewolves don't have to behave like movie werewolves, and witches don't have to live in fairy tales.

And perhaps most importantly, the supernatural needs a context.

If there is a troll under the bridge, I want to know why it is there.

That is something I can absolutely use.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Witchboard (1986)

Tonight’s movie is one I have not seen in a very long time.

I saw Witchboard when it first came out, but I have not watched it since. I remembered the Ouija board, obviously. I remembered Tawny Kitaen. I remembered that it was one of those movies that seemed to be everywhere on video shelves for a while.

Witchboard (1986)

Jim (Todd Allen) and Linda (Kitaen) are throwing a party at their new place when Brandon (Stephen Nichols), Jim's friend and Linda's ex-boyfriend, produces a Ouija board.  He wants to show how he has been in touch with "David", the spirit of a ten-year-old. Linda can’t take her eyes off it; Jim is far from as enthralled. After Jim has a word or two insulting the spirit, the tires on Brandon’s car are found slashed in response. One would think that was the moment to put the board away and be done with it. 

Yeah. Then we wouldn't have a movie, now would we?

Left to her own devices after Brandon forgets the board, Linda begins to use it. At first, David is amiable, if not a little too helpful. He will answer her questions, tell her things she could not possibly know, and even lead her to a missing engagement ring. We also learn that Linda is pregnant.

And then the deaths begin.

We learn that Linda has really been talking to a spirit with the impossible name of Carlos Malfeitor (seriously, just call him "Gary Evil" while you are at it).

Brandon dies. Jim and Linda defeat Malfeitor and live happily ever after. Until their landlady finds the Ouija board in the trash and wonders aloud if "it still works."

Kevin Tenney wrote and directed this one, and had penned the script at USC under the working title Ouija, but legal and production issues forced a name change to Witchboard. The film is built on what Tenney calls "progressive entrapment": the notion that a person is worn down by repeated contact with a spirit until possession becomes possible.

That concept at the heart of the movie. It is not as if Linda is taken over with a single touch of the board. The spirit goes about its work. It is of service to her at first, then it becomes something of a confidant. She starts to depend on it, using the board in private and growing more isolated. Her behaviour alters; she is left physically and emotionally drained. By the time those around her notice the trouble, the spirit has made itself at home.

It is a more compelling approach than to view the Ouija board as some kind of supernatural telephone. The board is the bait, and Linda is the one who keeps answering.

This movie was made before Tawny Kitaen's famous Whitesnake video appearances.

Jackson Connection: The Spirit in the Room

There is an odd fascination with the Ouija board as a tool of horror, given that one can hardly find anything to be scared of in its design. It is simply a board with its letters and numbers, the words "yes," "no," "good-bye,"and a planchette. Nothing more. You will not find any skulls or human bones here, nor some Latin tome bound in dubious leather and put there by a curse. On the face of it, it is a game.

Perhaps that is the source of the unease it engenders. I have been in conversations with people well on their way to sixty who will recount a fright they had with a Ouija in their youth. Or they will begin to. They stop short. Something happened, they will say, and they are under no illusion that they will ever put one to use again. But the details of the story are not for you to know.

As a rationalist I do not make the mistake of thinking a piece of plastic and a factory made board from Parker Brothers (now Hasbro!) can call up the dead; the ideomotor effect is explanation enough for most Ouija sessions, and it is easy enough for someone to spook themselves in a dark room if they are primed for it.

Horror does not care for such logic though. The fear is what counts.

Take four teenagers and an Ouija board at midnight. Extinguish the lights and light a single candle. Pose the question: "Is anyone here?" and let them wait on the planchette. The scene is set. The screaming will start soon enough. 

I am reminded of a slumber party happening at a house in my neighborhood. A bunch of preteens were out in their yard after dark using an Ouija board (my wife and I had walked by) and by the time we got down the street a bit they were all screaming. We had to laugh.

The film has this down. Witchboard is smart in that it need not make Linda out to be a fool for the spirit to gain her confidence. David appears to be nothing but a harmless child who will answer your questions and put his hands on things. Which makes the truth of the matter all the more jarring.

David is not who he seems. Malfeitor is the one in contact with Linda, a murderous type wearing the dead boy’s name to work his will. The whole affair has been an elaborate deception to put him in position to take her over. That is the stuff of good occult horror. The peril is not in the existence of ghosts, but in the fact that what is on the other side is capable of lying.

I can lift this whole cloth and drop it into my Jackson setting with hardly an edit.

Again, this movie follows my established theme of horror coming home. 

Kinda wish I still had an Ouija board around; I'd pull it out as a prop for the game night.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 19
First Time Views: 10

Games Plus Fall 2026 Auction Haul

 Went to the Games Plus Auction this past week. I was not expecting to pick up much, which naturally means I bought a lot.

Some of that belongs to my oldest kid. He grabbed the Dune games, the magnetic tiles, the cookbook (natch), and the monster books. I am going to give Savage Worlds another try. 

I picked up Dark Age Vampire for us both, he has been wanting to try it out more.

But the real surprise in the lot was the game Fledge Witch. 

Described as a non-combative, cozy Japanese RPG, it is about creating apprentice witches who try to impress their teacher, an older witch. Already, I am thinking of Elown, Ainsling, and the rest of my West Haven coven with Larina as the teacher. 

I ended up with what can only be described as the "deluxe set," possibly a Kickstarter exclusive. ETA: It looks like this is the $80 version. 

It came in s very sturdy box, with dice, a nice-looking rulebook, a notebook to put spells in, a collapsible dice tray, and some signed art.

It is on DriveThruRPG for the PDFs, but that is about how much I got if for at the auction. So yeah, it was a steal. I did grab some character sheets. I printed two pages per page in landscape, and they fit into the box. I can have multiple apprentices and multiple teacher witches.

Though, knowing the group I have here on Sundays, they will decide the best way to impress their teacher is by sabotaging the other students. 

Still, it looks like it could be fun!