October Horror Movie Challenge: Death Smiles on a Murderer (1973)

I am a sucker for a weird Klaus Kinski movie. The trouble with this one was that he really wasn't in it much nor very central to the plot.

We watch the disjointed (and told in weird flashback) events of the life and death and life of Greta.  She is dead and mourned by her brother Franz.  We later learn that Franz used to abuse and rape Greta till she ran off with a mysterious Dr. von Ravensbrück.  Then we jump to a scene where Greta is in a coach accident. Her driver is killed and she is rescued by a young married couple, Walter and Eva.  Greta has no memory and is soon living with, and having sex with, Walter and Eva.

Klaus Kinski comes in as their doctor and he sees an amulet on Eva's neck that perplexes him.  He goes off to run experiments on corpses.  Meanwhile, Gertrude is bothered by Greta and keeps seeing Greta's rapey brother in hallucinations.

Gertrude eventually flees the house but is shot in the face by someone she knows but we never see.

Later Eva finally gets jealous of the sex Walter is having with Greta (she wants her to herself) and seals Greta up in a vault The Cask of Amontillado style.   Of and around this time Kinski's Dr. Sturges has revealed that Greta's amulet is a formula for bringing the dead back to life.  He succeeds but is killed by someone soon after.
A few weeks later the search for Greta is winding down and Eva and Walter throw a party.  At the party, Eva sees Greta and chases her throughout the house.  Greta's face is young one moment and a corpse-like visage the next.   Greta kills Eva, but no one sees her do it. 

Greta goes on to kill Walter, Walter's father who was...wait for it...Dr. von Ravensbrück!  We learn then that Greta was pregnant with Dr. von Ravensbrück's child but she died in childbirth. The whole thing was witnessed by Gertrude!
Rapey Franz then brought her back to life, but she kills him.  She also kills the butler of the von Ravensbrück's just because she can.

We see Greta in the end. I guess she must be immortal now.

Not a bad flick, but very disjointed.  Ewa Aulin as Greta is great to look at, but she isn't much of an actress. Granted my copy is dubbed, so it is harder to tell. Klaus Kinski is his typical weird-ass self.

Watched: 8
New: 8

NIGHT SHIFT Content

Woman with amnesia is found, either by the characters or people they know.  Turns out she is a reanimated corpse intent on killing everyone that was responsible for her death. 

What separates this from say the plot of "The Crow"?  Well, in this case, she is killing everyone even remotely associated with her death whether they had an active role or not.  So less "The Crow" and more "Dr. Phibes."

BaF - The Muse from Basic Witch Games

If you name your publishing label "Basic Witch Games" you are going to get my attention. 

So last night I got a new PDF from a just-as-new company.  The PDF is The Muse and the company is Basic Witch Games.  Now full disclosure, I knew about this class a while back and gave the author a tiny bit of advice about it and encouraged her to add a bit and publish it.  

So ethically I can not provide you all an unbiased review. 

Also, the book uses some of my own OGC, so there is another reason.

But I do want to tell you this is a fun class. It's not for every group, but that is true of all classes really, but for the right group this can be a lot of fun. 

The Muse is the first in what I hope will be more Basic era content from Basic Witch Games.
The class is something of a tempter or even a seducer.  I am immediately reminded of the old Houri Class from White Dwarf.  

The class itself is 14 level B/X style class.  The cover has a nice visual transition from red to blu to cover the red and blue of the beloved Basic and Expert books. In addition to the spells from my witch classes, there are new spells too.  There is also a new magic sword.

Basic Witch Games will be coming out with more material and even a Dark Fantasy / Romantic Fantasy setting. So I am looking forward to seeing what they do. 

So check them out. Spend a buck for this.

They can also be found on Twitter at, @BasicWitchGame

DMSGuild Witch Project: D&D Witch Class From David Belmonte

Another full class today.  This time one that is based on the classic Dragon Magazine #5 and #20 witches. 

The rules for my reviews are here.

D&D Witch Class From David Belmonte

I am, without a doubt, a huge fan of the witches for Dragon Magazine. I have spent hours reading and rereading those articles. I have many witch characters I have made using those rules and spent many, many more hours playing them.  So if you say that your class is based on those, you have my attention.

The Witch Class from David Belmonte is a 10 (1 cover, 1 title, 1-page addendum, 7 pages content) page PDF that is Free on DMSGuild.  So the price point is already good. It also presents a full witch class.

The pdf is sparce really. There is no art save for the cover art and the artist is not credited. 

The witch in this case is a Wisdom spellcaster. (They were Intelligence and Wisdom in Dragon #20).  

The powers this witch gets are in line with the witch from Dragon #20. Though the witch in Dragon got a lot more powers, this witch is a little more inline with the D&D 5 rules.  There are no subclasses listed even if the obvious choice would have been High and Low Order witches with some different powers.

There are 8 new spells.  One of the Spells "Oracle" only works "in obscure woods"  whatever that is supposed to mean.  

So nice effort, but it falls a little short for me.  Though it is tough to argue the price I guess.

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.

The Sky is Falling. Again.

So there is a new bit of errata out for D&D5.  Nothing new there, in today's Internet age errata is easy to get and often flows out easy enough. For some reason, this latest one has some of the old-school crowd up in arms. Again.  Let's see what it is all about.

This is the Errata for Volo's Guide to Monsters. A book that is described by all accounts as optional. 

What does it say exactly? Let's have a look.

Kobold Traits (p. 119). In the Ability Score Increase trait, the text has changed to read “Your Dexterity score increases by 2.”
The adjustment to Strength has been removed.

Orc Traits (p. 120). In the Ability Score Increase trait, the text has changed to read “Your Strength score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.” The adjustment to Intelligence has been removed.

Orc Traits (p. 120). The Menacing trait has been replaced with the following trait:

Primal Intuition. You have proficiency in two of the following skills of your choice: Animal Handling, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, and Survival.

Ok. So this is all for characters. Optional characters. 

Checking online...oh. For fucks sake.

A message to my fellow 50+-year-old gamers. Lighten the fuck up.
Seriously. You all look like a bunch of Chicken Littles, running around screaming about the damn sky is falling.

Wizards of the Coast doesn't care what people who don't buy their product think, to be honest. 

The world didn't end when the whole Oriental Adventures debacle happened back in July.  Everyone was claiming it was the start of censorship and that Wizards would start taking down or editing older books. Censorship! Censorship! CENSORSHIP!!

These optional rules, in an optional rule book for two races that 99% of you would never allow in the first place in a system you never play has fuck-all to do with you.

In D&D5 there are 15 standard races with 28 sub or variants for a total of 34 choices. None of which have negative ability mods. The only two that did have them were in a supplement and those two are being edited to come into line with the other 34 choices. These are two outliers. They are being brought back into line.

How is this any different than say a new rule in Savage Worlds?  Or even in Monopoly? 

Yet, people are losing their shit online and looking like a bunch of idiots. 

The OSR gets a bad reputation online for the reactions of a few. This is just another example.  On one hand, the old-school community will claim not to care or even pay attention to what WotC does with D&D and then turn around and freak out when they release a rule errata that many in the 5e gaming community might just ignore.

So, stop freaking out all the time. 

DMSGuild Witch Project: Hex Witch - 5E Player Class

Another full class today.  This one has been selling well so let's see what is inside.

Again, here are my rules and guidelines for these reviews. 

Hex Witch - 5E Player Class

This is a 9 page PDF (1 cover, 1 title page, 7 pages of content) and sells for $2.95 straight. So well above the 10 cents per page guide at 42 cents per page. This presents a full witch base class and three subclasses, known as "Wiccan Pathways." Now for myself, I try to avoid using the term "Wicca" in games since it is a recognized religion.  Even in the stuff I wrote for the WitchCraft RPG we used "Wicce."

The paths are the Augury Witch (seer), the Fey Witch (combat spellcasting), and the Wyld Witch (healer). So some nice variety. 

This witch also gets Hex powers that a little like the Hexes the Pathfinder witch gets or the Occult powers I give my witches. 

This witch uses Charisma as their main spell-casting ability. 

Some powers sound good, but are not 100% clear on what they really do or how they work. Living Objects for example is described as inanimate objects coming to life. But are they still made from the material they were or are they flesh and blood?  Will Dispel Magic turn them back?

This one also properly credits the artists which is good.

I like it, but it left me wanting something more in the end. 

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).