October Horror Movie Challenge: The Queen of Black Magic (1981, 2019)

Believe it or not, I did not get the streaming channel Shudder, until really recently.  I was building my list and I saw one I knew of but had not seen yet, 1981's The Queen of Black Magic, also known as Ratu Ilmu Hitam or Queen of the Dark Arts. I also saw there was a Shudder exclusive, 2019's The Queen of Black Magic.  Thinking they might be the same I opted to make a night of it.  

The Queen of Black Magic (1981)

This one came highly recommended.  

Baedah is getting married, but something is wrong.  She sees maggots, snakes, and the groom as a corpse and his men as demons. Something also is attacking the local shaman.  The groom, Kohar, quickly decides that it must be Murni's fault because she is a witch. She is a witch because this is all her fault. Solid logic!  We learn that he had seduced Murni and took "her dignity" (virginity) but would not marry her. 

Murni is played by Indonesian horror queen Suzzanna (Suzzanna Martha Frederika van Osch).  "Murni" by the way means "Pure" in Indonesian.  Kohar and his mean go to her home and lynch her. He even slaps her old mother and sets their home on fire.  They toss her off the side of a cliff to make sure to "get rid of her black magic" but she is caught by a strange man.   

The man rescues her and nurses her back to health.  He tells her if they accuse of her black magic then she should use black magic to get her revenge. She will be the Queen of Black Magic.  

We get a "training montage" which involves Murni doing naked backflips under a full moon until smoke comes out of her head.  This had to be near-pornographic for Indonesia in the early 80s.

Murni returns to her village, much to the shock of the men that tried to kill her.  They try to warn Kohar, but she summons bees to kill one of them.  She then causes huge boils to form on another and they explode, filled with blood.   Gruesome, yet satisfying.  Lots of great examples of sympathetic magic here too.  

An Indonesian Lionel Richie-looking dude shows up to the village. He seems very religious and immune to the effects of black magic. 

Murni killing Kohar by getting him to rip off his own head is worth the price of admission alone.  Then watching Kohar's head fly around is just great. 

The becomes a battle between black magic and the power of the new stranger, Permana, invoking god. 

In their battle, we learn that Permana is Murni's older brother to learn from a holy man far away.  Makes sense since they both can do the same backflips.

They fight, but when the evil priest/magician that trains Murni shows up to kill Permana, Murni turns on him instead.  She blows him up with magic, but it is implied she dies as well.

Some great effects really, given the time and budget, and a fun story.

The Queen of Black Magic (2019)

This one is also Indonesian and described as a loose-remake of the first. 

This one starts out strong. A family is driving back to visit the orphanage the father grew up in.  While talking they hit something. Getting out they find a deer on the side of the road, but it seems like it has been there a bit.  As they drive off we see a bloody girl on the other side of the road that they missed. 

They meet at the orphanage and others are also here to see the old caretaker., Mr. Bandi.

We learn that one of the kids from the orphanage was a girl named Murni. But no idea if it is the same one. Obviously, there is something about Murni that makes the adults very squeamish.  

Hanif, the father, is getting food from his car when he notices the blood on the car but also the black hair.  The deer he hit was brown.  Driving back he and one of his brothers, Jefri, find the girl.  They also find a bus full of the orphans and they are all dead. Murdered. 

They let their other brother Anton know and he drives back to see and go get the police.  He gets trapped on the bus and attacked by bugs. So many that his eyes pop out of their sockets.  Back at the orphanage the same thing is happening to his wife Eva.  Lina, believing she is too fat due to hormone treatments and begins cutting off bits of her flesh.   Eva rips off some of her skin and bugs come crawling out.

We learn the three boys as orphans discovered that Ms. Mirah had abducted a girl and was using black magic. So they locked her in a room where she banged her head against a door until she split her own skull open.  So with Mr. Bandi's help, they tore up the floor, put her body in, and covered it in cement. 

We see her ghost at one point. Damn. The Indonesians have some scary-ass monsters.

Nadya, Hanif's wife, discovers a bunch of photos of half-dressed underage girls that apparently Mr. Bandi took.  One of the girls is Siti, the woman married to Maman who invited them all there.   When confronted with the photos Siti tells everyone he did it with all the girls. When three were going to tell, he locked them in a room and poisoned them.  It seems that Ms. Mirah was protecting the girls and she was going to kill Mr. Bandi.   

Nif finds another picture and we learn that Murni was Ms. Mirah's daughter.

Something, Murni likely, begins to torture everyone. Eva is clawing her skin off, the orphans are being scalded with steaming water. Nif's children are getting whipped. It's all pretty brutal. 

Murni gets her head cut off, but puts it back on in an obvious nod to the first movie.  Nadya sets Murni on fire.

Later Nadya is picking Haniq from school but thinks she sees Murni. 

The movie ends with scenes from the 1981 original. 

--

Both movies were pretty good with some good scares and a good story.  Glad I watched them back to back. 

October 2021
Viewed: 48
First Time Views: 35

Featured Artist: Rosaleen Norton

I have not done one of these for so long.  I am watching "The Witch of Kings Cross" the documentary of artist Rosaleen Norton.  The movie is great and it reminded me how much I love her work.  Before I get into talking about Roie, I want to mention that actress Kate Elizabeth Laxton who plays Roie in the documentary is just fantastic.  

Ok. On to Roie.

Rosaleen Miriam Norton was born October 2, 1917 and lived till December 5, 1979.  She was considered to be an esoteric artist and one of Australia's most notorious artists.  She was one of the first women to ever be charged with obscenity for her art. 

So I guess fair warning for the art that follows.

She referred to herself as a "witch" and used altered states of consciousness to make her art. She often called herself "Thorn," much like a craft name.  But her friends all called her Roie.

I came to know her via her art "The Seance."  I thought she had tapped into something deep and maybe even a little dark.  For someone young and obsessed with witches and the writings of C.G. Jung she seemed like some sort of prophetess or seeress to me. 

Later I learned her art was fueled by drugs, sex, and trying to commune with other powers, in particular Pan.  Sounds perfect to me.  

If The Seance grabbed me, then her Lilith cemented her in the pantheon of people that influenced my RPG writings.

She does a lot of Jungian archetypes in her art and I use the same ones when I wrote my first books on witches.

Her demon Fohat (above) was something of her personal demon or even a Jungian Animus. 

Interviewer: What would be the state of the world if evil ruled?
Roie: Exactly as it is now.

If I could, her art would be the covers for all my books.

"I came into this world bravely, and I will leave this world bravely."

- Last Words of Rosaleen Norton

October Horror Movie Challenge: Astaroth (2017)

This one came up as a suggested movie on Tubi so I had to check it out.   I have long been fascinated by the Goddess Astarte and her literal demonization to the male demon Astaroth. This movie covers some of that and adds some neat little tidbits as well. 

Astaroth (2017)

The movie is Brazilian and completely in Portuguese.  Thankfully the captions are in English.  Not that it would matter much, it's not a difficult one to follow.

Our stars are three college students living together whose primary interests seem to be tattoos and metal.  There is tattoo artist Dri (Ju Calaf),  guitarist Lia (played by former top Brazilian porn star Monica Mattos), and martial artist Mai.  Dri and Lia meet up with tattoo artist Gregório (Janderson Tucunduva) who has been communing with the demon Astaroth (also played by Mattos).

Gregório has been tattooing sigils on to people so Astaroth can claim them.  Once she has enough she can come into the mortal world.

All in all not a bad premise.  The movie feels like an American horror movie circa 1995, only a lot less sex and nudity if you can believe that.  The movie doesn't really get going until the half-way mark. 

Eventually, Lia gets possessed by Astaroth kills Dri, but not before Mai can find out.  Mai figures out what Astaroth is and kills Gregório and the possessed Lia to send Astaroth to hell.

The movie is quite obsessed with metal with the bands getting top billing right after the actresses. Not a bad thing really; demons, metal, horror, it all fits together.  The trouble is sometimes it comes across as an 80s training video.  If it had been made in the 80s there would have been a larger body count and at least one song by Dokken.

It wasn't a bad flick really, it just had the feel of some people doing this on a budget and they got all their friends over to do it. 

October 2021
Viewed: 46
First Time Views: 33

Monstrous Mondays: Nicnevin, Faerie Queen of Witches

Been spending some time working on my various Lords and Ladies of the land of Faerie. With the new Wild Beyond the Witchlight out, I have been thinking more and more about what I'd like to do with them.

Case in point is an old favorite, Nicnevin the Faerie Queen of Witches from Scottish lore.   I mentioned her all the way back in 2014 as servant/ally of Aradia. She would later appear in the Tome of Beasts from Kobold Press.

My version fits into my vision of the Lands of Faerie and my War of the Witch Queens a bit better.  She is the Witch Queen of the Faerie Tradition and can be a patron for witches or Fey Pact Warlocks.

Nicnevin, Faerie Queen of Witches
Faerie Lady

Frequency: Unique
Number Appearing: 1 (1)
Alignment: Neutral [Chaotic Neutral]
Movement: 120' (40') [12"]
  Fly: 150' (50') [15"]
Armor Class: 0 [19]
Hit Dice: 13d8+39*** (98 hp)
  Large: 13d10+39 (111 hp)
To Hit AC 0: 8 (+11)
Attacks: 1 sickle or by spell
Damage: 1d6+2 or by spell
Special: Fly,  Immune to charm, hold, and sleep spells, Magic Resistance 50% (all magic), Magic Resistance 100% (Witch magic), witch spells and powers
Size: Large
Save: Witch 13
Morale: 12
Treasure Hoard Class: See below 
XP: 4,200 (OSE) 4,350 (LL)

Str: 17 (+2) Dex: 12 (0) Con: 19 (+3) Int: 16 (+2) Wis: 18 (+3) Cha: 20 (+4)

The Witch Queen of the Faerie is also known by the names Nicneven, Nicnevin, Nicnevan or Nic an Neachneohain.  She is the current Witch Queen of the Faerie tradition and the longest-serving.  Previous Faerie Queens of Witches were known as Satia, Bensozie, Zobiana, Abundia, and Herodiana.  She is both a Faerie Lord (Lady) and the Queen of Witches for all witches in the Faerie Traditions.  She is served by faerie witches of all courts.  Her retinue includes elves, nymphs, and hags among many others.  Any faerie creature that becomes a witch or has witch-like powers are hers to command.

The Witch Queen can attack with a special sickle made from pure moonlight.  It can attack creatures as if it were a +3 weapon.  In her hands, the sickle acts as a sword of sharpness +3 and will do double damage to clerics and magic-users (wizards).  In anyone else's hands, it is only a simple harvesting sickle.  She also may cast spells as a 13th level witch of the Faerie Tradition with the appropriate occult powers.  She knows all the spells of the Faerie tradition and does not need to prepare them beforehand.  She employs a magical cloak that reduces her AC to 0 [19] and provides her an additional +3 to all saves. 

Magical attacks against her have a 50% chance of failure. If a witch casts a spell at her the spell is completely negated.  No witch may harm her via magic or mundane means.

The Queen of Witches appears to be a statuesque, 7' tall, Faerie woman of middle age.  She is beautiful in a wild, uncontrolled way like that of a towering waterfall or a dangerous storm.   Her hair is a bright red that seems to shimmer like flames, glowing brighter as her emotions run higher.  Her eyes are a uniform blue that glows when she casts spells.  Her skin is covered in blue woad designs. 

She rides out at night with her retinue of nymphs and hags on great faries steeds like giant elk or stags searching the countryside for girls to add to her coven of witches and for clerics that honor gods of the sun to kill. 

--

Might tweak her a bit. Have a couple books on Scottish folklore I'd like to go over again. Plus I want to work out her relationship with Scáthach.  Likely Nicnevin is a daughter or something similar. 

https://www.heroforge.com/load_config%3D17900174/

October Horror Movie Challenge: Mother of Tears (2007)

The third of Dario Argento's "Three Mothers" series that began with Suspiria (1977) and followed into Inferno (1980). This one deals with the Mother of Tears, Matter Lachymarum, the most beautiful and cruelest of all the mothers. 

Mother of Tears (2007)

A crypt is uncovered in an ancient Italian graveyard with a coffin and a reliquary.  Inside the reliquary are little stone carvings of demons and a red vest that they keep calling a talisman.  It is sent to the Museum of Ancient Art in Rome to be studied by the curator Michael Pierce. He is out so it is opened by art student (and Pierce's girlfriend) Sarah Mandy (director's daughter Asia Argento).  She lets out some demons that attack and kill her colleague. Sarah manages to escape by listening to a voice that tells her where to go.

Soon Rome descends into violence as more witches from all over the world begin to come to town. We learn that they have heard the call of Matter Lachymarum. She has returned from the dead with her red talisman. Sarah is watched by the police for her colleague's disappearance and by all the witches for reasons we don't know yet.  The voice she hears keeps getting her out of trouble. 

We learn that Sarah is the daughter of a powerful white witch that dealt a serious blow to Mater Suspiriorum (Suspiria). It is implied that she was one of the dancers.  Sarah also has power and that is why Matter Lachymarum is seeking her out. 

The witches coming to Rome manage to kill pretty much everyone that Sarah knows. 

Sarah finds Matter Lachymarum's home and before she can be sacrificed she uses a spear to rip off Matter Lachymarum red talisman and burns it.  All the witches panic and Matter Lachymarum is killed.

--

So. It's not a great movie. There are some good moments. I think what I should do is watch all three back to back sometime to get Argento's full experience.

Asia Argento is not a great actress.  She was ok in this, but someone with more skill would have been better. 

The witches coming to Rome though were great. One of the things I loved here was that the witches all spoke a language they alone understood. I have seen this in Motherland, Coven, and Emerald City.  Now I really want to try and implement it in a game somehow. 

Creating a language though. That is WAY beyond my skillset. 

October 2021
Viewed: 45
First Time Views: 32

She Kills Monsters or "Is it 1982 again?"

It is not often that I bring my Atheism into my posts over here.  I mean in D&D my preferred classes to play are clerics, druids, paladins, and witches; all pretty much the exact opposite of my own beliefs (or lack thereof).   So my blog reading is fairly split between RPG blogs and Science and Atheism blogs. 

It's nice when they combine. 

Case in point with the latest "scandal" with the play "She Kills Monsters."

Briefly, the play, written by award-winning Qui Nguyen,  centers around a recently orphaned girl, Agnes, who wants to learn more about her younger sister Tilly by playing the D&D adventure Tilly had written.  In the process, she learns more about her sister and Tilly's struggles with being bullied for being gay.  The play happens both in the real world of Agnes and the game world where Tilly was Tillius the Paladin.  People from the real world are also represented in the game world. For example, Tilly's girlfriend Elizabeth "Lili" becomes "Lilith" in the game. Cheerleaders are Succubi, and so on.

This in and of itself is worth talking about.  A well-received play featuring how a young woman comes to know her late sister a little more and her friends from playing Dungeons & Dragons. It is sweet and actually wholesome.

So, of course, some religious asshole is going to have a problem with it.

Enter said asshole, Jeff Lyle, and his cult at Good News Gathering. 

I found out about his fuckery from Hemant Mehta over at The Friendly Atheist. I guess for "God" reasons, Jeff Lyle wanted the play canceled. Because that is what religion does.  And he succeeded.  Sot of.

Here is a local news report discussing it. 

It is 2021. Why are LGBT issues still being censored?  Why are Dungeons & Dragons-themed media still being attacked by the right-wing members of the religious community?  

When I say "politics" are an important facet of my gaming THIS is what I mean.  The optics here are...well EXACTLY what we have been seeing forever.  Some white, hetero male sees something HE doesn't like, especially since it is a.) female focused, b.) has magic /occultism/demons involved, and SHOCK c.) might have a LGBT character in it HE decides that NO ONE ELSE can see it either.

That's original fucking cancel culture right there.  

But, just like all great D&D games, when our hero is down the party comes in to save the day!

In this case, the "party" is a Go Fund Me page set up to take the play off-campus so they can still perform it.   As of this writing, it has raised $13,762 of its original $5,000 goal! That is great!

So yeah. If you have a couple of bucks and want to send the message that this is not the Dark Ages, nor the 17th Century nor even 1982 anymore, then give it to these kids.

The Go Fund Me is here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-she-kills-monsters-hillsboro

October Horror Movie Challenge: Lady Bathory Night

I have seen a lot of attempts of telling the Bathory story.  This one focuses more on the history than the vampire retellings. Though it gets some of that wrong as well.

The Blood Queen (2015)

The acting by the young stars,  Isabelle Allen as Aletta and Lucas Bond as her brother Mischa, is quite good really.  I expect to see more of them in the future.

Equally, Svetlana Khodchenkova is hypnotic as Bathory. Watching her on-screen you really want her to be something other than the monster we know her to be. 

Aletta and Mischa get arrested for being thieves but are soon rescued by the Countess' aides, Dorata and Ilona.  Both children are taken to the castle.

The Countess takes an interest in Aletta, and it is not entirely a wholesome one.  

While Aletta is getting more involved with the castle, and the more Mischa is getting beat up, we discover that kids go missing all the time from the castle.

Mischa is caught stealing Bathory's book and is thrown in the dungeons.  The book is Bathory's diary of the children she tortured, mutilated, and killed.  

Mischa manages to escape and get back to the judge to tell him about Bathory, but the judge decides that Mischa is lying and sentences him to death.    Aletta also tries to escape, thinking that Mischa has left her.  She runs into Katja, the gypsy girl we saw in the beginning.  Katja is Aletta's older sister that went missing the year before.  She had been at Castle Csejte but had escaped.   Katja almost gets away with Aletta, but is killed by Dorata.

Bathory has Aletta chained up above her bath to drain her, but Mischa arrives with Bear, the jailer that Mischa had impressed with his ability to get out of any locks.   Bear saves Aletta, but not before Bathory kills Mischa.  The King's men arrive in time to arrest Bathory. 

After this, the story follows what history tells us.   It's not a bad flick at all, but not a great one either. Light on the explicit horror but heavy on the implied.  They changed Bathory's victims to boys and girls instead of just girls.  I suppose they needed to do this to allow Mischa in.   There was just so much more they could have done with it I feel.

The movie was very stylish. It scene was great to look at and Svetlana Khodchenkova was great as Bathory.  It reminded me a lot of the Daughters of Darkness.  Then I recalled I had a brand new Ultra 4k BluRay I had gotten for my birthday!  I figured I should pop it in.

Daughters of Darkness (1971)

This is still one of my favorite horror films from the 70s. This new Ultra 4k transfer is fantastic looking.  Blue Underground does a great job as always.  This one is a 3-disc set. An Ultra 4k BlueRay, a regular BluRay, and a soundtrack CD.  

I did Daughters of Darkness in 2019. So watching it now I still have my DVD version in mind.  This one is so much clearer, so much sharper.    For example, when Valerie (Danielle Ouimet) is reading the newspaper you can actually see the page she is reading.   The scene where Stefan beats Valerie is also much, unnecessarily so, clearer.  The car crash at the end is so much brighter and clearer you can see all the skid marks on the road from the other takes. 

Plus it is great watching this right after The Blood Queen is kind of fun.  Both movies featured a haunting portrayal of Ezerabet Bathory as a blonde from two fantastic actresses. Both movies also feature her servant Ilona.  

I have not checked out all the special features yet, but they look interesting. There are two features I did check out are the interviews with Danielle Ouimet "Valerie" and Andrea Rau "Ilona."  Danielle Ouimet's was fantastic and a lot of fun.   Andrea Rau's was also great and also great to hear sounding excited in this.   They look like they were filmed in 2006. Both actresses have nothing but wonderful things to say about Delphine Seyrig.

Each time I watch this I am just fascinated by Delphine Seyrig.  She seems like she is much classier than this movie should be allowed to have. I think about a modern remake of this and I can't think of anyone who could play her the same way.  Though I do admit that Svetlana Khodchenkova came very, very close.

Eternal (2004)

I figure lets keep going.  I had seen most of the other adaptations of the Bathory story from her time period, I had often wondered though what filmmakers had in mind for her post-1971.  I guess the answer is "Canada."  Or at least that is the way that filmmaker Wilhelm Liebenberg sees it in 2004's Eternal. Here we get Caroline Néron as Elizabeth Kane aka Erszabet Bathory.  We don't have an Ilona character, well and Irinia, but there is an actress whose real name is Ilona. 

We open with a woman,"Wildcat" played by Sarah Manninen, who goes to see Elizabeth for some pre-arranged sexual hook-up.  Elizabeth promptly kills her and asks her assistant to prepare her bath.

Soon we learn that the woman was the wife of cop, Raymond Pope (played by Conrad Pla). Raymond is not what you call a faithful husband.  He is having sex with another woman (who we learn is Nancy, the wife of his friend) when he gets the call about his wife's car.  Pope goes to see Erszabet/Elizabeth.  BTW Conrad Pla is not a great actor.  His son Joey Pla, who plays his son Nathan, is a better actor.  Now to be fair the role he is playing is not supposed to be subtle.   Caroline Néron on the other hand is much better. 

Ray continues to investigate Bathory while she kills Nancy.   Ray investigates and drinks and spends time in strip clubs while his friend and son's babysitter Lisa is killed by Irina. 

Ray follows Bathory to Venice (despite being wanted for murder and having a kid to watch)  where he ends up at Bathory's house. Here he hunts her down during her orgy but is shot and stabbed.  He is saved by the Interpol Detective he talked to in Montreal, Inspector Thurzo. Somehow Thurzo, who also seems to be a priest of some sort, has everything cleared up for him. Of course like an idiot Raymond drinks the wine Elizabeth gives him. It is hinted he will go rescue her when she is transferred to a clinic in Switzerland. 

The movie is not great, not by any stretch of the imagination. 

October 2021
Viewed: 44
First Time Views: 31

October Horror Movie Challenge: Lilith (2019, 2018, & 2017)

Some movies about one of my favorite mythological figures Lilith.  

Lillith (2019)

Ok, this one is spelled with two Ls and is a bit of a silly movie, but even then there is a good-sized body count.    Jenna played by Nell Kessler discovers her boyfriend cheating on her. She and her friend Emma decided to get some revenge by summoning the demon "Lillith."  Trouble is she never really believed it would work even when she shows up.  Savannah Whitten is so much fun as Lilith.  She brings a real dark sense of humor to the role.  I love the makeup effects they use for her too.

A few other things.  I love the Tarot card they are using here. And 69 action news? Sure why not!

Let's be honest...this is not a great movie, but it is a fun one.  There is a solid vibe here of just a bunch of friends getting together to shot a horror movie.  It is quite fun.

They have/had a good social media presence, so that is also really fun.

• https://www.facebook.com/LillithFilm/
• https://itsblogginevil.com/tag/lillith/
• https://ritterhausproductions.com/lillith/
• https://www.voicesfromthebalcony.com/2021/06/24/lillith-2019-review/

Lilith (2018)

Ok now, this one is 180° from the one above.  This one is an anthology where the central theme is Lilith getting revenge on men who have wronged women. The connective tissue here is Police Detective Ryan Carson.  We see him shooting Lilith (we learn later) in the first scene.

The first story deals with Brook Carson (Brialynn Massie), the detective's teenage daughter.  She is having sex with her teacher and gets pregnant.  Unable to deal she kills herself.  Brooks friends, who abandoned her when she needed them try to blackmail the teacher, but they screw it up. One kid gets shot and the teacher tries to kill the others.  While he is hunting them down Brook comes back, but possessed by Lilith.  She kills her former friends for abandoning her and the teacher.  When she is done though her father sees her and tells her that Lilith will take care of her now.

In the next one Lilith poses as a caregiver for an old man.  She takes on the form of "Joanne" the old man's dead wife. In this one Philip (Vernon Wells) expects her to show up and has been waiting. There is the implication that Lilith is now in charge of Hell.  She kills Philip and Det. Carson shows up later to investigate. 

The next story deals with a guy, Darren (Colton Wheeler), and his porn addiction.  His wife heads out to a religious retreat.  His skeezy buddy convinces him to call this call-girl, who is of course Lilith.  They have sex. A lot of sex. Lilith kills him. Madison, his wife, comes home and finds his dead body posed like Baphomet.  Det. Carson investigates this murder too.

The last story deals with a serial killer Frank (played by Frank Tryon) and he kidnaps Melissa (Kimberly Roswell).  He brings her to his home where he has been torturing her.  Frank is remembering all the women he killed (and their shoes) and is getting ready to dismember a still living Melissa when there is a knock on the door.  It is Lilith (no shock).  Frank tries to drug her, but Lilith manages to switch the drug to Frank's drink. Lilith proceeds to torture him, but sets him free.  Melissa shows up behind him and shoves the drill into him.  Lilith then rips out Frank's heart.   As expected Det. Carson shows up.

The connecting scenes between the stories deal with Det. Carson and a priest trying to trap Lilith, but it is obvious there are in way over their heads.  It is also the least interesting of the tales. 

The makeup effects are kind cool and Lilith is played in each story by a different actress. I admit this is what drew me to the movie to start with. Some of the actors were good, many were only ok.  It was still a fun little romp.  I do love a nice horror anthology.

Lilith' Hell (2017)

This one is a little odd.  It is filmed as a point of view movie staring the "filmmaker" Ruggero Deodato as himself and two others to film a horror movie. I say "filmmaker" since he is playing himself and he is the filmmaker in the movie, the actual director is Vincenzo Petrarolo. Though Ruggero Deodato is an actual director, just not in this one.  He is most famous for "Cannibal Holocaust." This movie is a nod to that,  

The movie is taking place "just outside of Rome" and it is obvious that the filmmakers (in the movie) have no idea what they are doing. 

There is some security came footage, ala Paranormal Activity which could have been scary, but ends up just being tense.  The only scare comes when Marco hides under the bed of the actresses (everyone has to share) and then reaches up to grab Michelle's leg.  Everyone then tries to go back to sleep. Michelle wakes up startled and walks around the house.  She finds Marcond Alberto in the pool and seems to warm up to them. That is until she bites off Alberto's penis. Ryans and Sara find them and start freaking out.  Michelle is nowhere to be found and Alberto is dead.   They find Michelle but she seems all possessed.  She screams, but it sounds like an animal and the security cameras go all weird. 

They stumble into another room that is covered in drawings and runes that look demonic.  The room is connected to the security room where all the cameras are.  They also find the body of Marco's grandmother.  Of course, Ryan is freaking out, but not because of the deaths or the evil room, but because what is they are filming now is better than his movie.  

They find a camera on the ground and play the SD card on it.  There are robbed people in the evil room and they performing a seance to summon Lilith.   She appears to possess the young woman in the video. The men in the video get terrified and try to stop Lilith and Marco's grandmother, but they all end up killing each other, leaving the possessed girl tied up in the room.  They realize she is still there, and she begins to scream.   It looks like the girl, Linda, is ok, and in pain, and only Sara seems to understand what is going on.  She demands that they tie her up since Lilith can possess her.  Though in their excitement to find a phone and call the priest they let Sara loose.

Credit to Manuela Stanciu who plays Michelle as a vapid actress wanting drugs, to a scared woman, to a demon-possessed monster.  Her exorcism scene is quite good.  Joelle Rigollet also does a great job as Sara, the make-up artist that knows a lot about Lilith.  Speaking of make-up, her running and smeared mascara is a great touch. 

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What do these all have in common?  Well, they get a lot of it right at least in terms of popular cultural understanding of Lilith.  In two of the three cases, priests are unable to exorcise her.  In the 2017 movie, he says it is because she is Sumerain and can't be removed.  She can charm with her eyes and get men to do what she wants.  She only possesses women, but that might be a personal preference.   When she does her eyes turn yellow or gold. 

None of the movies were "great" but all were fun and I honestly enjoyed them all. 

October 2021
Viewed: 41
First Time Views: 28

BlackStar: Whispers in the Outer Darkness

Soon after I posted my discussion on Aliens and Horror for use in sci-fi horror and in BlackStar in particular I found a wealth of information.  Here are the fruits of those findings.

Whisperer in the Outer Darkness

I see this as the "second" episode of the season after the two-parter "The Stars Are Right" that introduces the Cthulhuoid Horrors we share space with. 

The crew gets new orders from Starfleet.  They are to pick up a professor Alyson Wilmarth.  While setting up a new subspace relay on Pluto the Starfleet Corp of Engineers uncover two startling discoveries.  The first is the remains of a Tellarite survey team that dates back to the early 20th Century, circa 1930-31.  The second is what the Tellarite's were investigating.  The remains of a small outpost of any unknown civilization that dates back to 12 million years ago.  Among the remains are a frozen Danuvius guggenmosi, a human ancestor from the Miocene.   Artifacts from the civilization bear a resemblance to other artifacts found on Earth in the Andes, Appalachians, and Himalayas mountain ranges.  Dr. Wilmarth is an expert on these.

Naturally, Starfleet contacted Tellar Prime about this to see what they knew, and maybe figure out what they were doing on Pluto in the 1930s.  This puts Dr. Wilmarth in contact with Dr. Akeley, her counterpart in the Tellarite College of Exoarcheology.  Dr. Wilmarth was scheduled to take a sabbatical and head to Tellar Prime when the term was done.  Dr. Akeley, in typical Tellarite fashion claims he can't wait for her and takes their data and heads out to a remote system he thinks has the answers.

Once on Tellar Prime, we learn that the Tellarite name for Pluto is Yuggoth, though they claim that name was not one they made up, but what they were able to decipher.  Much like Earth, there is evidence of this unknown species having lived on Tellar Prime, the 5th planet on the 61 Cygni/Tellar system.  The Tellarites wanted to know how artifacts from Yuggoth got to Tellar Prime.

The crew, with Dr. Wilmarth still in tow, head out for the remote system discovered by Dr. Akeley.

<<I'll add some bits about getting to the planet, the tech on the planet here.>>

They discover Dr. Akeley, but he is acting with a flat affect is very polite to everyone (should be a dead giveaway that something is wrong).  He claims to have been in contact with the civilization, the Mi-Go, and they are friendly and only wish to share their secrets of over 70 million years of space travel with the Federation.  Akeley of course has stayed hidden in the shadows this whole time.  When he is confronted they will discover the entire back of his skull has been opened and "scooped" out.  His brain and eyes are gone.  The look is similar to the original Tellarite masks on The Original Series that made their eyes look like they were missing.  Only a tiny device is left in his otherwise empty skull.  It is apparently "piloting" the body.

Here the ship is attacked by Mi-Go.  They can't appear on sensors and are only known by the gravity they displace when they land on any deck with artificial gravity. 

I am certainly going to use some ideas from Forbidden World even if it is just to model a Mi-Go creature from the movie poster.  I like the idea of a human/Mi-Go hybrid that can talk.  Maybe it will have Dr. Akeley's or even Dr. Wilmarth's face.  Recreate the poster art, but not the movie, Galaxy of Terror.

I still need to come up with a resolution for this. What do the Mi-Go want? How does the crew "defeat" them? Still need to work out those details as well.

This will be a good test of Star Trek Adventures mixed with Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 both from Mōdiphiüs.

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Demoniacs (1974) and Red Scream Vampyres (2009)

Every year I try to work in at least one Jean Rollin film. They are usually not great but usually fairly fun. Tonight's choice is one that has also been on my list for a bit and thanks to fine folks at Redemption, I now have my own copy.

The Demoniacs (1974)

We begin the movie with an introduction to a group of "Wreckers" I guess these were people that would shine lights out into the sea at night to "wreck" ships on the rocks and steal their cargo.  The Captain, Le Bosco, Paul, and the "beautiful but perverted" Tina.

After a recent wrecking, two young women survive and come to shore where they are brutalized by the Wreckers.  

The crew heads to the village brothel to drink, and the Captain gets all weird and paranoid.  They decide to go back to the wreck and kill the women.  They set fire to ship but never find the bodies.

The girls, believed to be dead, make a deal with the Devil, who is locked in an old castle for some reason, to have the power they need to get revenge.   Of course to give them the power he has to have sex with them.

Though I am not exactly what power he gives them.  They find the Wreckers, but it seems they are brutalized some more and all six die in the end.

Well.  I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been Jeunes filles impudiques, aka Schoolgirl Hitchhikers, which was just dreadful.

Red Scream Vampyres (2009)

Caught this one streaming after I was done with the Demoniacs BluRay.  Needed something a little newer. Well. I am really disappointed and should have gone to bed instead. 

Earlier I was complaining about the "Daughters of the Craft" movies. Well, I'd take the worst Craft remake here over this bottom basement "Vampyres" remake. I have seen terrible remakes of Vampyers before, this one is unwatchable.

October 2021
Viewed: 38
First Time Views: 25

This Old Dragon: Issue #43

It's October and that means horror here at the Other Side. It also used to mean horror in the pages of Dragon Magazine.  While the horror-themed issues would not start in earnest until the mid- and late-80s, this little gem of an issue was released in November of 1980.  

Let's put this all into context.  Holmes Basic was the D&D people were going to now to get started. AD&D was about to hit its highest levels of popularity.  The famous Moldvay Basic set was still a year away from publication.  Personally, I had just learned of the Monster Manual a year before and had gotten my hands on a shared copy of Holmes Basic that had been making the rounds.  I can vividly recall riding my bike to the burned-down Burger King in my neighborhood thinking it would make a great dungeon.  Ok. I was 11.  I wonder how things might have been different if I had gotten ahold of this issue before Dragon #114 (for reasons that will be obvious)?

But let's start at the beginning and that is November 1980. Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" is the #1 song on the radio.  The Awakening is the number one movie and on the stands is issue #43 of This Old Dragon.

One of the real joys of reading any old magazine, and reading Dragon in particular, is seeing all the old ads.  

Ral Partha, a huge favorite, is up with some of their boxed board games. Here we see one that would vex me for years, Witch's Cauldron.  I mention it more below, but here is the start of what would become my "Traveller Envy."

A couple of things I noticed right away.  One, I tried reading "The Dragon Rumbles" a couple of times and I still am not sure what it was trying to tell me.  Maybe it's because I am tired.  The second one of the featured artists in this issue is Ed Greenwood.  He really was doing it all.

The grinning hag cover art was done by Ray Cioni, a Chicago artist and we are told there are more color pages in this issue of Dragon than any other.  This includes the witch art from Alan Burton and pages of Wormy and Jasmie from Tramp and Darlene respectively.

Out on a Limb covers the questions of the time. Where can I get a copy of Issue 39? Do Angels have psionics? It is continued later in the magazine. Breaking up longer articles was more common then.

Our main feature is Brewing Up A New NPC: The Witch.  This is an update to the witch found in issue #20. Though the presentation is better here.  There is a lot here to unpack.  This article is written by Bill Muhlhausen, revised and edited by Kim Mohan and Tom Moldvay.  The witch here is very similar to the one found in Dragon #114.  Again, we get Low Order Witches limited to 16th level and High Order Witches limited to 22nd level.  I wondered if this was related to the 22 level cap found in the Greyhawk supplement.  The class reads through much like that of #114 and I am hard-pressed to find the exact differences. The article covers several pages.  I have had a fairly poor photocopy for years in my research binder. It was a thrill to finally read it again, this time with color, on the Dragon Magazine CD-ROM.  Now I have a print copy.

 The true gem for me is The Real Witch: A Mixture of Fact and Fantasy by Tom Moldvay.  This article covers what a witch could be in D&D.  It is only half a page but is punching way above its weight class and I reconsult it often.  With Holmes' "promise" of a witch class and Tom Moldavy Basic about to rock my world in just one year's time, I have often (and I mean all the time) wondered what a Basic witch might be like as penned by Holmes or Moldvay.   I have mine, but they are my witches, not theirs. Especially a couple of scholars like them.

Jake Jaquet is next with the Convetions 1980 report.  It was a pretty good year for cons.   Speaking of which Dave Cook reports from Gen Con XIII with Survival tips for the Slave Pits.  And a report on the winning Dungeon Master of the tournament play, in  He's the top Dungeon Mentzer with none other than a very young-looking Frank Mentzer.

Sage Advice covers some AD&D questions that really are new.  A brief article on D&D in Germany from a West German player.  West German, I have not had to write that in a while. 

There is a six-page questionnaire/survey to determine how good of a DM you have.  It is more of a self-guide to help the players figure out what their DM is or can do for them.  It is a tool for discussion, not actually dissimilar to the RPG Consent list.  The difference lies in who should have the supposed power in this structure.  

Len Lakofka is up with his Leomund's Tiny Hut discussing Action in the Meele Round. It is always nice to go back to these and read not just what the official interpretation of the rules are/were but what were the areas where they were ambiguous.  41 years and 4 other editions later we lose track of these things.

We get some more color with the Dragon's Bestiary.  Not only color but Erol Otus art at that.  One of the "monsters" is an Amazon.  This is not the first time we get a witch and amazon connection. There is art in the OD&D books of a "Beautiful Witch" and an Amazon together.   It is one of the reasons I like to include Amazons in my witch books.  Both for the Cult of Diana and the duality of magical and martial qualities.   

I didn't find the other two monsters, the Tolwar and the Lythlyx to be as interesting. Though I did find the Ed Greenwood art credit. He created the text and art for the Lythlyx.

Philip Meyers discusses illusions in Now you see it . . .but is it really there?.  I wonder that if Dragon #43 had been my first Dragon about witches and not #114, would my witches today have more illusion spells?

Ad for the 1981 Days of the Dragon calendar. If you can find one it will work for 2026 as well. 

For our big center-piece is a Traveller adventure called Canard from Roberto Camino. I have read through it a couple of times and it looks fun. I might need to use this Summer of 2022 when I plan my big outing for Traveller.   

Speaking of Traveller.  The reviews section is next and Roberto Camino is back reviewing the latest Traveller product Azhanti High Lightning in Azhanti: Almost too Creative.   This is likely the start of my Traveller Envy.  This was popular among the "older kids" that played Traveller a lot and it just looked so cool to me. It's a game all by itself AND it is a supplement to the main Traveller RPG.    

Douglas P. Bachmann reviews SPI's DragonQuest.  While he is not a fan of the ad copy hyperbole, he does make me want to try out this game even more.  Though we are warned that with the supplements then planned that DragonQuest could end up costing you $94 to #98 to play. A very expensive game!

A reminder of our forebears is next from Bryan Beecher in the next in his series of Squad Leader articles, #5: The Fall of Sevastopol. This one deals with a battle between the Russians and Germans in the late Spring of 1942. The DM I would meet the very next year was WAY into Squad Leader and tried to get me to play a few times.  He drifted away from RPGs eventually and even deeper into Wargames and Reenacting.  Not my bag, but I could see how he enjoyed them.  This was the DM that ran me through the Slave Lords series years ago. 

An opinion piece is up from Larry DiTillio.  The same that worked on He-Man and She-Ra as well as the Masks of Nyarlathotep.  The article, Apples, Oranges, Role-playing, and Morality, replies an article (in Dragon #39) by Douglas P. Bachmann on morality in fantasy. This article works on the premise that Mr. Bachmann did not truly understand the game worlds and the responsibility of DMing.  It's hard to evaluate this response without reading the first, but there are some interesting takeaways. There is room in AD&D (and other RPGs) for both DiTillio's world and Bachmann's.  As AD&D  game progresses with a good DM there will be other solutions to deal with problems other than with "the sword" (Witchlight is a good modern example).

Hate Orcs? You'll Love this Campaign by Roger Moore details his ideas for an all dwarven game in AD&D.  Now this might strike newer players as odd' not because of the all dwarf nature, but because back then in AD&D dwarves had class limits making it a different sort of challenge.  For example there were no Dwarven wizards.  While I like the newer versions of the game and can choose any class, I personally still find Dwarven wizards a little odd.  BUT that is not the point of Moore's article. His point is how to make it work in spite of the rule of rule limitations. 

Out on a Limb continues. We get a letter from an "E. Gary Gygax" from Lake Geneva, WI. He addresses an article from Dragon #40 about buffing up undead. This Gary guy seems to know a thing or two.

The Electric Eye covers Four From Space on Tape by Mark Herro. What we have are four different space-themed computer games on one cassette tape. I am not going to be all "well..back in my day computer programs were on cassette tape and you had the CLOAD them before you could play..."  No instead I want to reflect on two things.  First. Wow, have we come a long way!  These game were designed for the TRS-80 Level II Basic on a 16k computer.  16k! As of right now this post is 8.5k and takes up 12K of disc space.  One of my new hardware projects here at home is rebuilding a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 (with a HUGE 64k).  Let's pause a moment and be impressed by how far technology has come since the 80s.   The second point is, wow, companies really were fairly open about their copyright infringement back then.  This cassette has four games, Ultra Trek (Star Trek), Romulan (also Star Trek), Star Wars (what it says), and Star Lanes which was an outer space stock market.

Dragonmirth is next with the comics. In our color section, we get Finieous Fingers, a Wormy, and Jasmine.  The art in Jasmine is so different from anything else here. This is of course thanks to artist, cartographer, and under-sung hero of the World of Greyhawk, Darlene. I think Jasmine was too "adult" for the target audiences of Dragon at the time. Not "Adult" as in nudity (we have a bare ass on page 70, six pages before this) but in content. The art is fantastic, but the story doesn't pull you in, at least not unless you were there in the start.  Sadly Jasmine was cut for space, but I would like to do a retrospective on it someday.

Really one of the great issues for me and it captures a time, for me at least, where there truly was no end of the possibilities in sight. 

Minus Issue #5 (but represented my Best Of Vol 1) I have all the published Dragon Magazine Witches.

October Horror Movie Challenge: 5ive Girls (2006)

I am not going into this one with very high hopes.  It deals with demons, witches, and Ron Perlman.  

5ive Girls (2006)

The movie begins with Ron Perlman as Father Drake.  He is the teacher of a Catholic girl's school, St. Marks.  One of his students, Elizabeth, is drawing a scene from the Bible where Jesus casts out the Legions of demons (is Legion the number or the name? Sunday school was a long ass time ago).  Anyway, while Drake is talking to some students, Elizabeth starts to hear voices.  Soon the door slams shut and she begins hearing the voices of demons.  Drake finally gets into the room, but Elizabeth is gone, leaving only blood.

Five years later, the school reopens with just only five students and recovering drunk Father Drake.  The newest girl, Alex, is a witch with TK and can hear voices coming from nowhere. She also sees Elizabeth walking around the halls.  The other girls also experience strange happenings.  Leah passes through a filing cabinet.  Cecilia is blind but has second sight. Connie is a Wiccan.  Not sure what Mara does other than being a pain in the ass.  No, actually her power is healing by touch. 

Former student and current head Mistress, Miss Anna Pearce played by Amy Lalonde, also can see Elizabeth.  She tells her she is trying to help her.

We get typical Catholic School Girl shenanigans. Spanking with a ruler, girls sneaking off to smoke, breaking into the third floor.  While there they find a pentagram in a magic circle. At the same time, Miss Pearce is casting a diabolic spell to try and free Elizabeth with the other five girls as the sacrifices. 

Elizabeth, or a demon, is summoned and lands in Connie, but Mara is able to heal her.   Alex discovers a book belonging to Elizabeth. 

The next day a possessed Connie tries to kill Leah and then vomits a bunch of demons into her.  The girls realize right away that Leah is possessed. Leah confronts Father Drake and he tries to exorcise her, but she stabs him with the crucifixes instead.  We learn that Miss Pierce is Elizabeth's sister. 

Legion jumps from girl to girl, killing them along the way. 

The ending is kind of neat with the demon made of blood. But otherwise fairly derivative and predictable. 

About the cover. In this movie when you get possessed your eyes don't go all black, but all white.

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Ok, I think I need to create a category of movie, Daughters of the Craft.  These are movies made after 1996 with teen witches, usually four, sometimes five. One should be good and one should be evil, or at least misunderstood. The filmmakers obviously loved the Craft and thought that was the movie they wanted to make.  I'll go back and see which ones fit it. 

October 2021
Viewed: 36
First Time Views: 23