October Challenge: Paranormal Activity 1, 2, & 3

Paranormal Activity (2007)
Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

I wanted to save these for a last.  Glad I did because they do live up to the hype.

PA1, the first has this great charm about it.  You really feel like this is something that has been going on for a bit and just now they (Micha & Katie) have deiced to something about it.
It starts out slow.  Maybe too slow, but I love the build up and payoff was great.
This movie is a very, very effective mix of "Blair Witch Project", "The Exorcist" and any number of good haunted house movies.  My only complaint really is the Ouija board scene. It seemed a little over the top compare to the rest of the movie.  I think if it had just spelled out the name and not caught on fire that would have been better.  Some of the creepiest scenes are also some of the most understated ones.  Shadows and noises you can hear in any house  at night.  I LOVED the scenes were Katie would get up and just stand there starring at Micha for 2-3 hours at a time.

Of course the biggest issue was also why not get more people into the house with you to help.  After all that video evidence I'd be calling everyone to help out.  Well that doesn't serve the script/movie at all of course.

I'll talk about 2 & 3 together since they share some similar positives and negatives.
I kinda wish I had done my research more on these movies, it might have been fun to watch them in reverse order, but chronologically correct for Katie.  The sequels (or prequels rather) are more polished and go for the faster scare. Unlike the sequels to "Blair Witch" and the "Exorcist" these do add something to the mythos of the movies.  The biggest issue of course is why wasn't information from movies 2 and 3 mentioned in the respectively later movie 1?  Well we know why, of course.  For me, I also suffered from Paranormal Activity fatigue.  After a few hours I was wanting to see something a bit more.  That is more due to me though than the movies I think.

I liked 3 a little better than 2, but 1 was the best.
I am going to say this though, while I have not seen PA4 yet (and I will), I think this well might be dry.
To do something else or even to take it up another notch will make the movie more like the Exorcist really.
You can only jump at so many shadows and creaks.  I am reminded of a scene in Tom Hanks' movie Big.  When his character as an adult is scared of all the noises outside his apartment, many scenes later the same noises are occurring but he only gives them curious glance and goes back to eating chips and watching TV.  That was me, except sitting in front of my computer typing this.

I beat the Challenge! So far I watched one extra movie, but saw one less new movie over last year.
Though I still have one more I can watch and I might even have the time to get it in.

Tally: Watched 32, New 23

What are you watching?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

A lot going on here today!!

First, don't forget that you have less that 13 hours to sign up for "Spread the Witch"!
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/10/wicked-after-dark-blog-hop-spread-witch.html

I have some movies left to review and put up for the October Challenge (and I am draggin' today).

Also White Dwarf Wednesday.

Foremost though Happy Halloween!  The Best of all holidays!

History of The Witch

The Witch is my latest book of rules to play the Witch character class for a version of the World's Largest and First Fantasy Roleplaying game.

It is not my first book.  Or even my second.  To date this is my third book on witches.

My first was a "netbook" called "The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks" for the 2nd Edition version of the game.  It was totally a fan-driven work and most of it had been written for the 1st Edition version of the rules.  Back then the file on my computer was called "thewitch.doc".

This original "thewitch.doc" was never really meant to be seen by anyone but my gaming group. Indeed, I figured I'd be the only one to ever play a witch character.  I took a Magic-User character I had rolled up with the idea of playing her like a witch and then stopped her MU advancement and started her out as a 1st level witch.  Occult Powers were spells back then and all I had was a list of spells from the Cleric and MU lists that I felt were "witchy".   That document grew to become the "The Complete Witch" and then finally  "The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks".

The CNoWaW was in my mind a great sucsess. I released it between October 28th and October  31st of 1999.  In fact I remember sitting in the hospital room right after my first son was born posting it on a laptop while my wife and new baby slept.  Well that baby turned 13 over this past weekend!  Kinda nice that my newest Witch book  was released 13 years later.

After that in 2002 released  "Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks".  This one was far more polished and I considered a "real" release.  It used the OGL and the d20 logo.  I worked with what was then called the FANCC, or the Fantasy Community Council.  Their goal was to make and release quality netbooks that adhered to the OGL.  Many of the members would later go on to do other things.  I went on to Eden to work a number of their books including WitchCraft, Buffy and Ghosts of Albion.

In the case of all my books I would go back to my ever evolving research notes.  Pictured above and below is just one of maybe 4 binders of information I have collected over the years.  One of the print outs has a date scrawled in red pen (former teacher here!) of March of 1997.  I know I have some materials even older than that. Lots and lots of notes.

 

In every case and especially when starting a new project I like to go back to my notes.  Revisit old ideas, question why I rejected some and kept others.

The Witch is different from the CNoWnW or LM.  While in each book the witches have "Occult Powers" their mechanisms are different.  Each witch can for example cast "Wave of Mutilation", but how it works is slightly different.  Complete Netbook witches are akin to that  edition's Priests.  Liber witches are more like Wizards.  The witches in The Witch are something new.  Older versions of my witch needed high Wisdom as their primary stat.  Witches in The Witch need a high Charisma.

It is a ritual for me to go back even further when I start a new project to go not just to my notes, but my primary sources.  For the Witch I really wanted that feel of a game supplement from the late 70s early 80s.

 

So I went back to my books.  I re-read not just game books and the latest retro-clones, I also hit books about witches and witchcraft from the 60s and 70s.  The things the first and second generation of gamers would have read if they were making a witch class.  I watched the old movies like "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Initiation of Sarah".  In fact, look over my lists of movies from the October Challenge of the last couple of years.  That will give you an indication of my "Research".

You can still find my older books online, I don't link them here really for a couple of reasons.  First they were done a LONG time ago and I would like to think my writing has improved significantly since then.  Also, at least in the case of CNoWaW, they are predominantly fan works and written under that assumption.  Those assumptions are not the same that The Witch (well and Liber) was written under.  While I don't explicitly state any compatibility I did do a lot of playtesting to make sure that The Witch works with what ever version of the Basic Era game you are using, be it the original games or the newest Retro-clones.

You can read more developments notes under the Basic and Witch tags (there are a lot though).

MONSTROUS MONDAY: Fin

I am very, very pleased with the way MONSTROUS MONDAY turned out!

Thank you all very much who participated, commented and visited all the sites.

Managing the sites was pretty easy.  Many of the participants were familiar faces from other blog hops, so they knew what to do.   I did delete a few sites from the listings.  Some signed up early and then must have forgotten.  Others signed up yesterday and never posted a link back or a monster.  One I even recognized from previously bloghops/blogfests as signing up but never participating.  Obviously just looking for the links.

I have a LinkyTools account now, so I am going to look into ways of using it to improve my site.  Likely a dynamic link list of some sort.

Though the action is not done here yet.  I still have the WICKED AFTER DARK bloghop I am participating in.  Don't forget to visit all those sites and enter for some free stuff.  I am giving away a copy of the Witch!
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/10/wicked-after-dark-blog-hop-spread-witch.html

MONSTROUS MONDAY: My Monster

How is your MONSTROUS MONDAY going so far?

Mine is GREAT!  I love seeing so many cool monsters.  I have not gotten to everyone, but I will.
In fact you can still sign up!  I am sure I am going to spend the next couple of days going to every site and reading what you all posted.  If I am going to run a blog hop and people are going to work to get posts up then you can expect that each and everyone will get my attention.

I wanted to talk about what sort of monsters I like.  I have spent this month posting all sorts of monster stats in preparation of this day.
- Wine Nymphs
- Ruslaka
- The Awakened Golem
- Witch Monsters

I also talk a lot about monsters here as can be seen from my posts tagged Monsters.  Now it is natural to assume that I would want to talk about Witches today. Though honestly I don't see witches as monsters.  Witches are witches.   No in truth my favorite monsters are Vampires.

I have talked more about vampires than pretty much any other monster, maybe even all monsters combined. The vampire is our dark mirror of our times.  He can be plague and pestilence, or smooth killer, or even ersatz super-hero.  While Edward my not look a thing like Dracula or Count Orlock, he does share more than one quality with the likes of Lord Ruthven or Lestat.

My favorite of course is Dracula.  He can be suave, sexy and cool and then in a flash be violent and bloody; a rampaging monster.  He is the best of what is great about vampire literature and film.
I have talked a lot about Dracula and the subject never gets old to me.  Back in the day I had this folder that I had written "Project Dracula" on.  It was one of my first attempts at multi-stating a character for more than one system.  Near the end of the 90s I had worked him out in dozens of systems.

I would later go on to do the same thing for the real life Countess Erzsébet Báthory.  If I have written more about Dracula, Bathory wins in terms of shear number of visits to my site.  She fascinated me and horrified me at the same time.  I could not imagine the scope of her crimes or even how she got away with it all.  I guess in the end she didn't and she got her everlasting youth afterall.

I also spent a lot of time discussing the cheesy horror movie Vampyres. I will not lie, I enjoy the hel lout of this movie.  What I like about it is how the vampire has evolved yet again here to be victim and villain.   Likewise I have felt the same about Carmilla.

Looking around this blog I seem to have stated up more vampires than I have witches.  Oddly enough I have not played all that many games of Vampire. Either the original Vampire the Masquerade or the newer Vampire the Requiem.

If vampires are thing and you also like old-school gaming then might I suggest my free book, The Vampire Class.  You can play a vampire character in Basic Era games and it is 100% free and 100% compatible with my new  book The Witch.

So what about you all?  Do you like vampires? Why or why not? Share your thoughts below!

For me they are the ultimate in Halloween monsters.

MONSTROUS MONDAY

NOTE: Looking for the Entry Page for the WICKED AFTER DARK Bloghop? Click HERE!

Are you ready for the MONSTROUS MONDAY Blogfest?

Check out all the sites that have signed up.
Come back all day today for more MONSTROUS fun!

October Challenge: Army of Darkness (1992)

Army of Darkness (1992)

I debated doing this one too.  But it was a first time viewing for my kids, so I thought that made it ok.

I would say I forgot how much fun this one is, but I have seen it so many times now I have it memorized.
Great, fun. Some sorta-scary bits and a generally a great horror-comedy.

Puts me in the mood to see the new Evil Dead.













Tally: Watched 29, New 20

What are you watching?