October Horror Movie Challenge: Color Out of Space (2019)

Oh. Now this was fun.

I have heard that some people didn't care for this one, but you can't watch it thinking it is a Lovecraft movie.  Lovecraft never translates well on screen.  Watch this one thinking it is a crazy Nick Cage movie.

Sadly I did not see this one when it came out, but I had heard a lot of good (and bad) about it.   Well the movie itself did not disappoint.  I mean really, Lovecraft, Nick Cage?  This has disaster written all over it but it gets pulled together well.

So the movie follows the story rather well. Well, as can be expected.

Our narrator, the unnamed surveyor, becomes Ward Phillips a hydrologist played by Elliot Knight.  I have to admit I did enjoy that the narrator, our POV character, is played by a mixed-race, Nigerian-British actor who is very active in gay rights.  Lovecraft would be so happy.

Nick Cage is at his Nick Cage best.  Super serious when he needs to be, and bat-shit insane with an accent when the movie needs that.  He reminded me of his characters in  Vampire's Kiss and National Treasure. And let's not forget, Cage has won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award.  He is great as troubled Nathan/Nahum Gardner. 

The sons are changed and there is a daughter, Lavinia played by Madeleine Arthur (who has some solid geek cred with credits in "Supernatural", "Legends of Tomorrow", "Tomorrow People", "X-Files", "Magicians", and "Spooksville").  Oh, and Lavinia, who plays a Wiccan, also has a copy of the old 1980 Simon Necronomicon.  That made me rather happy to see, to be honest.

And Tommy Chong.  Seriously.
Tommy Freaking Chong playing the "crazy man" Ezra/Ammi Pierce.

The hardest thing I think is to capture the horror of Lovecraft on film.  I am not sure how many half-failed attempts I have watched over the years.  In fact, I think the only good ones have been "From Beyond" and "Re-Animator".  Maybe, MAYBE, 1970 The Dunwich Horror with Dean Stockwell.

What I REALLY enjoyed about this was I watched it with my two boys.  We all love Lovecraft and we all love Nick Cage movies.  So this was a nice treat.

This is supposed to be the first of a shared universe of Lovecraft films, but it did rather poorly in the box office.

Watched: 7
New: 7

NIGHT SHIFT Content

What NOT to use here?  Might need to grab my 5e Cthulhu Mythos book and give this one a go using the Night Shift game.  The characters can play the parts of investigators to the scene.  My kids would LOVE that.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Il Sesso Della Strega (1973)

Wait...didn't I watch this one last night?  Well, you would think so just comparing the posters.
Also known as "Sex of the Witch" this one came out a year after Byleth did.  Though in fairness BOTH movies do have a scene that the cover could represent.

An old wine merchant is dying so he curses his family, in particular his greedy grand-children.

One by one people start to die.

The plot, minus the sex and witchcraft, could have been a thriller or even a comedy.  There are some parallels to some murder mysteries like Clue and Knives Out.  In the sense that people keep dying and there are a bunch squabbling children trying to get Daddy's wealth.

There is lots of sex and nudity and it is pretty much the ultimate evolution of the Italian Giallo, Eurosleaze flick.  It was only missing a deformed henchman in my mind. Though there is a creepy dude in black.

I will admit that I am now likely to use "fondling the goldfish" as a sexual euphemism after watching this movie.  The said scene is about 40 mins into my copy.

It is notable that Camille Keaton of "I Spit On Your Grave" fame appears in this one as well as one of the nieces, Anna.  she gets clawed by the previously mentioned creepy dude.

The movie's biggest crime though is that it is a slog and actually kind of dull.

Maybe a Byleth +  Il Sesso Della Strega supercut is needed.  In fact, I know just how to do it.

At least we know what poster to use.

Watched: 6
New: 6

NIGHT SHIFT Content

The rich brother writes his sister out of his will because she was a witch and seduced him when they were younger.  Now their illegitimate daughter is back. She is also a witch (more powerful since her blood is "concentrated") and begins to kill off all her half-siblings (they think she is "just" a cousin) so she can have all the inheritance for herself.

Since she is a diabolic witch her patron is Byleth, the Demon Prince of Incest. 

While Byleth, or Beleth, has a history this version is closer to the D&D/Pathfinder demon Socothbenoth.

Now, this would obviously be a more R or even NC-17 rated game. 

To borrow a Scooby-doo trope one of the characters is a distant relative to the brother's wife (so no weird blood relations here).

October Horror Movie Challenge: Byleth: The Demon of Incest (1972)

This is another one from last year.  The Blu-Ray was not available till November, so here we are. This is another one of those notorious movies of the 70s Euro-sleaze horror. One I had been looking for a while mostly because I never thought I'd find it.

Byleth: The Demon of Incest is a little Italian gem that features murders, gratuitous nudity and enough brother/sister incest for an episode of Game of Thrones.

Let's get right to the point. It's not good. It is slow and the lead Mark Damon as Duke Lionello is not great.

The movie revolves around Duke Lionello, his sister Barbara and Barbara's new husband Giordano.  This is a problem of course since Lionello and Barbara have been having an incestuous affair.   An affair that Lionello is loathed to give up.

The movie does make use of the demon Beleth, which is expected.  At one point Barbara asks her brother, Lionello, if he still has his white horse.  They later talk about "Byleth" on his white horse.

Of course, you are never sure if Lionello is possessed by Byleth or just crazy.  I like to think possessed because that is what I do here.

The Severin Blu-Ray version is really good.  There are some color issues from the original negative, but otherwise, it looks great.  Too bad the movie could not live up to the hype.

Watched: 5
New: 5

NIGHT SHIFT Content

Come back tomorrow night for my ideas on this one!

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Sonata (2018)

This was a fun one.  It reminds me a bit of "The Mephisto Waltz" and a little bit of the "Music of Erich Zahn", only in reverse.

Rose Fisher (Freya Tingley) is a world-class violinist and she learns that her estranged father, and brilliant strange composer,  Richard Marlowe (Rutger Hauer) is dead.
She inherits his home and all his belongings including a very strange violin sonata.  Her agent Simon Abkarian (Charles Vernais) investigates and learns that the sonata was part of a work linking it to a cult of Satan worshipers in France and it appears to have been written just for Rose.

The movie is more of a thriller, but there is the summoning of the antichrist and the ghosts of the children sacrificed by Marlow in the process of composing his masterpiece sonata.

The movie was rather good.  Frey Tingley is great as Rose and I wanted more Rutger Hauer.

The end was a nice little twist so I enjoyed that.

I am a sucker for any story that mixes music with magic.


Watched: 4
New: 4

NIGHT SHIFT Content

Frankly, I would lift this plot wholesale to use as a NIGHT SHIFT adventure. Investigate the scary mansion of a composer that commits suicide. Horrible tapes found in the basement. All sorts of great things here.  Though stopping it would require an active antagonist. 

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Witch Who Came from the Sea (1976)

Another "leftover" from a previous challenge.

This might be the most "1976" movie I have seen in a long time.  Lots of drugs, naked hot tubbing, and a busted up Volkswagen Karmann Ghia.

The main character, our "Witch", Molly is fairly insane.  She tries to repress the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father while lusting after all these different men.
She also seems to be killing men but not remembering it.
 Molly is not just deranged, she is also very simple like she is still stuck somehow back at being a child.

Molly keeps spiraling deeper into madness and the police are quickly on to her.

In some of her flashbacks, it's hard to tell what was real and what is only her delusional state.  So she either killed a few men or a lot of them.

What I don't get is how in the hell did she get up and kill people with all those drugs and alcohol in her system.

IMDB said this movie had witchcraft in it, but not really.
There is horror here, but not of the conventional sort.

Watched: 3
New: 3

NIGHT SHIFT content

Not every supernatural occurrence is a bad one as I have tried to show in Ordinary World. Some times the supernatural occurrence is not even really supernatural.  In the case of this movie, there is a supposed "witch" but really it is just a mentally disturbed woman that kills men.  A ruse like this only works once to be honest so use it sparingly.  Too much and you turn your "Supernatural Horror" into "Scooby-Doo."

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Horrible Sexy Vampire (1970, 1971)

Well.  One of the words in the title is a lie, but one is spot on.

Also known as "El Vampiro De La Autopista" this is a movie that never really knows what it wants to do.  Both titles tell us this is a Vampire film, but it is often treated (right up to the end in fact) as a mundane murder mystery.   They make a big deal of the murders happening every 28 years, but the ending does nothing to explain that.

Not to spoil it, but the movie is kind of dull, the police detective pins the murders on an escaped mental patient.  One we don't even hear about till the very end.  This is despite the fact that the murders have an obvious supernatural element to them.  How obvious?  Well, the killer is invisible.

Now under other circumstances, this might be interesting, but here it is just cheesy.

Sadly some interesting ideas lost in this Spanish "Hammer-envy" movie.


Watched: 2
New: 2

Night Shift Content

Well.  The best thing to do with this one really is to have a serial killer in your games. Everyone thinks it is a vampire, but it really just a human psychopath.  This works well in Ordinary World if all the characters are supernatural and they are worried that one of their own is going to get them exposed.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Doctor Mordrid (1992)

As typical, I start with some of the left-overs from last-year.  This one was high on my list due to some chatter online.  I guess the deal is that it was supposed to have been a Doctor Strange movie with Jeffery Combs playing the Strange role.   Here he is now Anton Mordrid, and it suits him better I think.  Brian Thompson is in this as well, playing, what else, the bad guy.

The effects are a little cheesy, but that is to be expected, this was low budget even 1992 standards.  It was fun to see some old-school stop-action effects.

The horror is roughly on par with the Doctor Strange comics.  All the elements are there, but you are never really expected to be afraid.

Combs and Thompson make for great adversaries, it is a shame we have not seen them in something else together.  Both look so damn young in this. But I guess this movie is nearly 30 years old.

The "I'll see ya again I promise," leads me to believe that there was going to be more, but sadly we never got it.

All in all a fun little movie.

Watched: 1
New: 1

NIGHT SHIFT Content

Doctor Mordrid's world is so adaptable to Night Shift that one wonders why I never watched it before this!  He is in all respects a version of Doctor Strange, but there is more to it than that.  Mordrid, for example, seems to be much older than Strange having waited 150 years for the return of Kabal.

Anton Mordrid, Ph.D.

20th Level Warlock

Str 12 (+0) Dex 10 (+0) Con 17 (+2) Int 18 (+3)* Wis 18 (+3)** Cha 15 (+1)**

XP: 4,000,000

Hit Dice: 11d4+18 (20) Hit Points: 66 AC: 7

Attack Bonus: +6

Check Bonus: +8*/+6**/+4

Armor: Magic cloak

Saves: +7 vs. spells and magical effects

Fate Points: 10

Class Abilities: Arcana 150% (knowledge about magic, rituals, cults, and spellcasting), Spellcasting 150% (160% if he has his Amulet of Kronos).

Other Special Abilities: Arcane Bond (Amulet of Kronos, adds +10% to spellcasting), Blaster, Enhanced Senses, Telekinesis

Spells Levels: 1:6 2:5 3:5 4:5 5:4 6:4 7:4 8:3 9:3

Mordrid has an extensive library so all spells in the core NIGHT SHIFT book are available to him

Happy October! From the Other Side!

It is now October!

Larina by Djinn

Let's celebrate the most wonderful time of the year at The Other Side!

October Horror Movie Challenge: Getting Ready

I am getting ready for my annual October Horror Movie Challenge!

This year lacks a real theme save for "movies I have had laying around forever and I need to watch them or sell back the DVDs" and "movies I have been meaning to watch forever".

I am going to lean heavily on my preferred time of the late-60s to mid-70s.  And I have more than a few Italian horror films.

I have about 110 movies here.  Some I have already seen so won't do those. There are also more than a few overlaps.  I'll try to hit more than one per day, but often that is not really doable.  I'll also hit more over the weekends.

I am going to also try to include as much NIGHT SHIFT content as I can.

Let's see where I end up at the end of the next month!

October Horror Movie Challenge: Suspiria (1977, 2018)

Been wanting to get to both of these for a while and tonight was the night.  I actually kinda wanted to do them last, but I was also hoping to get a few more in.  Been busy I guess.

I saw the original (1977) Suspiria many years ago.  I honestly think it was when my oldest son was born and I remember watching one night while holding him to get him to sleep.  I rewatched it and there was a lot I had forgotten.

The remake of Suspiria in 2018 has been mixed. Some loved it, others hated it and wanted to know why we needed a remake.  I thought it was visually stunning and I will watch Tilda Swinton in anything.  If she is playing a vampire or a witch?  Sign me the hell up.  I just wanted to know why this one was a full hour longer than the original.

The basic story deals with Susie/Suzy a naive American girl joining a dance studio in Germany; a divided Berlin of 1977 in the 2018 version.   Of course, the studio is a front for a coven of witches and Susie is the newest recruit.

Both films are visually stunning, with the original Suspiria edging out over the new one.

There is a mythology here that I feel I need to read more about.  The movies are derived from "Suspiria de Profundis" by Thomas De Quincey.   I am going to have to do some research on this.

In any case, both movies are great horror movies, each with their own moments, and I am ending the 2019 October Horror Movie Challenge on a very high note.

I think I am going to put the 4k restoration of the 1977 version on my Christmas list.

Final Tally
Watched: 33
New: 25

October Movie Challenge: The Neon Demon (2016)

The Neon Demon is another one that has been on my list a for bit.  I admit I am a fan of Jena Malone.  This is more of a psychological thriller-horror than horror-horror.  Though there are some serious horror elements; necrophilia, murder, cannibalism.  You know, family fare.

At the core this movie is about the horrors of the modeling world and what happens to the "disposable" women of this world. 

Elle Fanning plays Jesse, a 16-year-old would-be model. She has beauty and natural talent which of course puts her in the cross-hairs of current models Gigi and Sarah and the obsession of make-up artist Ruby (Jena Malone).

As Jesse gets deeper and deeper into this world and more and more narcissistic the thin veneer of everyone's sanity (or if there was any) peels away. Ruby tries to rape Jesse, but is rebuffed.  So Ruby heads to her other job as a morgue make-up artist where she violates the corpse of a woman.   
When Ruby comes home to the house she is letting Jesse stay at she pushes Jesse into an empty pool where she breaker her leg.   Ruby, Gigi, and Sarah descend on her and butcher her.  Gigi and Sarah eat her and Ruby bathes in her blood.

And it gets weirder from there.

The film is arty and maybe a little too long, but a fun little descent into madness.


Watched: 31
New: 24

October Movie Challenge: Housewife (2017)

This one has been on my list but I debated because I saw some fairly poor reviews. But I wanted to see it so tonight was the night.

The movie starts with Holly and Hazel, young sisters, playing with dolls.  Hazel is drawing, including a very strange one with tentacles coming out of the clouds.   Hazel notices that she is getting her first period so Holly calls for their mother who is going on about "visitors".  The mother tells Holly to stay behind while she takes Hazel.  Holly goes to see where they went and she sees her mother drowning Hazel in the toilet.  Her mother chases her through the house to catch Holly, but her father comes home.  Holly's mother kills him but Holly manages to escape.

Fast forward to today and Holly is a bored housewife.  Holly and her husband Tim get invited to a cult meeting, UML, where they find their former lover Valery is now a "family member" of UML.
The cult's leader seeks out Holly and manages to read her mind and learn about her pain.

Holly, Valery and Tim head back home where they rekindle their love affair.

But things are not that simple.  Holly begins to question reality.  Did they come home? Did she meet up with Bruce the UML leader again?  Is she seeing her mother and sister?   A session with Bruce makes her think she killed her sister.

Then it gets weird.

I won't ruin the ending for you, but in truth I kinda liked it.  Weird, surreal and frankly a lot of fun.


Watched: 30
New: 23

October Movie Challenge: Dead Space: Downfall (2008)

Part Alien, Part Zombie movie and dash of Event Horizon, I had higher hopes for Dead Space: Downfall.  Sadly it was not to be.  Based on a video game, I should have known it wasn't going to be great, but I  had hoped for a bit more.

A group of interstellar miners find an artifact on a dead planet and decide to take it back to Earth along with a big chunk of the planet.

The artifact begins to make people crazy and they begin killing each other.  The dead being to rise, transformed into monsters that kill more of the crew and thus making more monsters.

Fairly predictable.







Watched: 29
New: 22

October Movie Challenge: Voice from the Stone (2017)

I will admit, I like Emilia Clarke. I think she is a good actress and I like to see her in more roles other than the Mother of Dragons.  This movie was a late afternoon pick.  A slow-burn thriller at my wife's request (she is not a horror fan normally).

This one was not so bad.  Clarke plays Verena, a pediatric nurse that specializes in helping families.  She is summoned to Tuscany to help a mute child after the death of his mother.
The child Jakob listens to a crack in the wall where it is assumed he hears the voice of his mother.  Verena works with him to get him to talk.
As the movie goes on we begin to question Verena's perspective on things.

The movie reminds me a bit of "The Others".  The creepy atmosphere and the not knowing what is happening actually. Well...actually part of it was pretty easy to figure out.  The "twist" at the end leaves a little open to interpretations.

Still though, a nice little creepy movie.



Watched: 28
New: 21

October Movie Challenge: The Witch Files (2018)

What do you get when you cross "The Blair Witch Project", "The Breakfast Club", with "The Craft"? Well, the producers were hoping you would answer "The Witch Files."  Sadly that is still not the correct answer.

That is not to say the Witch Files doesn't have it's moments.  It does and there is some fun to be had here, I just can't quite figure out what it is missing or what else it needs to do.

The five girls, Julia, Claire, MJ, Brooke, and Greta, fit all the needed stereotypes for a teen movie so that is covered.   The town has a spooky history, check and there is some neat displays of magic.

I really wanted to like this movie more.  Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it, it just wasn't great.









Watched: 27
New: 20

October Movie Challenge: The Love Witch (2016)

One could be easily excused for thinking this is a movie from the late 60's or early 70's.  In fact when I saw come up in my suggested movies that is in fact what I thought.  Looking at the film stills only reinforced that idea.  But the movie is from 2016.  It was shot on 35 mm film and used effects to mimic the Technicolor film of the time.  The sets, the costumes, and even the sensibilities are all from late 60s/early 70s.   It is a real vision from writer, producer and director Anna Biller.

The movie is "comedy horror" but dark comedy/horror is a better description. It deals with a witch named Elaine (played by the wonderful Samantha Robinson) who leaves San Francisco looking for love.  Trouble is her love spells usually leave her suitors dead.

Love Witch is fun little tale of feminist tropes and some interesting witch trivia. My only gripe was that the movie was a little too long.  At 120 minutes it should have really been 80 to 90 minutes.

This is one of those movies with a message to unpack and it was fun. Scary? Not so much, but I supposed a lot of people died all the same.


Watched: 26
New: 19

October Horror Movie Challenge: Blood Craft (2019)

Well.  This one should of have been better, but I also should have known better really.

So the premise is good.  Two girls use witchcraft they learned from their mother to bring back the soul of their dead father who had raped and abused them so they could torture him.
Of course, things don't go as planned.

The father was a preacher and set up more of a stereotype of every bad behavior you can think of.  The girls Grace and Serena are likable enough and the actresses play the damaged types well. In fact I felt that they got better as the movie went on.

They summon the spirit and the girls learn some really horrible shit.

There is a nice twist at the end that I really should have seen coming.  But in the end, it was not really enough to redeem this movie.

Oh, and don't expect to see a lot of Dominque Swain in this.

Ah well. It could have been fun.



Watched: 25
New: 18

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Dead Don't Die (2019)

I caught my first 2019 movie tonight.  The Dead Don't Die. It was a lot of fun.  I have been a Bill Murry fan since I first saw him on SNL and Adam Driver is a completely underrated actor (and also funny as hell).

The truth though, I'd sit through anything to watch Tilda Swinton.  To watch her with a thick Scottish accent and wielding a katana while cutting through zombies?  Yeah, that is worth the price of the rental alone.

There are a ton of people in this movie too. Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Danny Glover, RZA (working for WUps!), Carol Kane, Selena Gomez, Rosie Perez, Tom Waits, and Iggy Pop!  I mean really. This is crazy.

The movie is hilarious, with lots of callbacks to other zombie and B-Horror movies.
The ending left a little to be desired to be honest, but I don't expect a lot from zombie flicks.





Watched: 24
New: 17

October Horror Movie Challenge: Daughters of Darkness (1971)

It's strange. All these years and I have not done one of my favorite movies, Daughters of Darkness.

Some of my earliest opinions on what Elizabeth Bathory acts like as a vampire come from the 1971 movie Les Lèvres Rouges, known here in the States as "Daughters of Darkness" (not to be confused with the movie Vampyres, which also had been called Daughters of Darkness).

Delphine Seyrig really helped form the idea of vampire Bathory as a timeless aristocrat so convinced that what she was doing was right that there is no sign of psychosis at all. She was a royal and therefore all others exist to serve her.  Now I will contend, just based on the reports as we know them, that Bathory was not a lesbian but rather a sexual sadist that happened to have targeted young girls.

That all being said, she is most often represented in movies, like she was here, as a lesbian and one that does not care much at all for men.  Of course, credit goes to Delphine Seyrig and her portrayal of the immortal Countess.  This movie presents Elizabeth along with her companion Ilona (Andrea Rau).  Elizabeth begins to prey on new bride Valerie while sending Ilona out to tempt her new husband Stephan.

There is nothing really subtle here.  Stephan is portrayed as a useless thing that later can only consummate his marriage by beating Valerie.  When he kills Ilona in an accident in the shower he is portrayed as incompetent and something to be discarded.  All the while Elizabeth holds court and seduces Valerie away.  The ending is jarring,  more "Celluloid Closet" style vengeance maybe? Valerie, with Elizabeth's voice, is now off picking up a new couple to continue her immortality with.

There are traces of we will later see in The Hunger here.  The cool, sophisticated, European, woman. She might have some royal blood in her somewhere (pardon the bad metaphor) and she is certainly worldly.  She has companions, maybe male and female, but it is in her female companions she lavishes the most attention on even if I dare say it, the most love.    This is not the rampaging monster of Dracula or even Orlock. Carmilla, Bathory and later Miriam Blaylock are exotic creatures almost unique to themselves.

This is still one of my favorite movies.

It should be no surprise then I want to bring her over to NIGHT SHIFT.

Elizabeth Bathory
Vampire Lady
No. Appearing: 1 (Unique)
AC: 2
Move: 50ft.
Hit Dice: 9
Special: 4 attacks (claw, bite, 2 weapon), vampire abilities
XP Value: 1,400

Ilona
Vampire Spawn
No. Appearing: 1
AC: 6
Move: 30ft.
Hit Dice: 4
Special: 2 attacks (claws, bite),
Cannot mind control. Do not gain “strong and fast” bonuses. Cannot polymorph. Cannot create new vampires.
XP Value: 900

This movie may have fueled more game ideas for me than any other.

Watched: 23
New: 16

Edited to add: Now available, Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars. You can get the PDF from DriveThruRPG and both the standard and special edition hardcovers from Elf Lair Games.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Mark of the Witch (1970)

Enough TV movies for now.  Reading Anita put me in the mood for some movies about witches.  And I never say no to that!

Up first is Mark of the Witch from 1970, but it looks more like the 1960s really.  We don't quite have that 70s vibe here yet. 

This move covers similar ground to Black Sunday; a vengeful witch killed by witch hunters comes back 100s of years later to exact revenge.  Only this time the witch possesses a young college coed.  She proceeds to kill off other college kids for...I am not quite sure why. Maybe because she is EVIL?

Anyway, there are a few nods to actual witch practices and at least they got the hanging, and not burning, right.  The special effects are cheesy and the acting is only slightly better.  But it was a fun little romp.   Anitra Walsh is not bad playing Jill and possessed by the Witch Jill.

Still, there are better films out there. 





Watched: 22
New: 16