October Horror Movie Challenge: Nosferatu (2024)

 Tonight is a good one. I saw this near when it came out and was going to talk about it then, but I think tonight is a good night for a rewatch. Plus it give Bill Skarsgård a chance for a better movie than last night's.

Nosferatu (2024)

Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu (2024) isn’t just a remake; it’s a resurrection. Like the vampire at its center, this story keeps returning from the grave every few generations, and somehow, each time it reflects the fears and fascinations of its age. I’ve covered this story before, the eerie, expressionist nightmare of Nosferatu (1922) and Werner Herzog’s hauntingly romantic Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979). Eggers’ version stands confidently beside them, not as a copy or homage, but as a fever dream that feels both ancient and new.

This film bleeds atmosphere. Eggers’ knack for historical texture is on full display here, shadowed streets, candlelit halls, and the creeping weight of superstition pressing in from every frame. You can practically smell the damp wood and grave dust. It’s a gorgeous film to look at, but more importantly, it feels lived in, the way all great Gothic horror should. It feels like it was shot at the same time as the original 1922 version, only you are not watching a film from 1922, you are living in Wisburg viewing the 1890s from the 1920s.

The cast is exceptional across the board. Bill Skarsgård (who is becoming a bit of horror icon) gives us a Count Orlock who is both pitiful and terrifying, a creature shaped by hunger and loneliness as much as evil. He’s not the romantic vampire of modern cinema (like his brother Alexander's character Eric Northman of "True Blood") and is more the plague and death himself, given human form. It’s not surprising that Skarsgård disappears under the makeup; what’s impressive is that he still conveys so much anguish through it.  Watch his eyes. 

Nicholas Hoult as Hutter (or Harker, for the original Stoker version) plays the role with just the right blend of innocence and mounting dread. Lily-Rose Depp brings a fragile, almost ethereal quality to Ellen (Mina), the film’s tragic center, while Aaron Taylor-Johnson (as Harding/Holmwood) and Emma Corrin (as Anna/Lucy) round out the cast with sharp, grounded performances that make the human drama as compelling as the horror.

And of course, Willem Dafoe as Professor Eberhart (Eggers’ Van Helsing figure) is a treat. It’s impossible not to appreciate the meta-textual layer here, Dafoe once played Max Schreck himself in "Shadow of the Vampire (2000)," a film that imagined the making of the original Nosferatu with Schreck as a real vampire. Seeing him now on the other side of that mirror is a delight for longtime fans of the myth.

Where the 1922 version was stark and alien and the 1979 film was slow and melancholy, Eggers’ Nosferatu is feverish, baroque, and tragic. It’s horror as folklore; personal, physical, and cosmic all at once. The tone is closer to The Witch or The Lighthouse than Dracula; it’s about fear of the unknowable and the price of obsession.

I loved it. It’s the rare modern Gothic that understands how to be beautiful and horrible in equal measure. Eggers never mocks the old tropes; he reveres them. He lets the candlelight flicker, the coffin creak, and the silence linger just long enough to make your skin crawl.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

Do I even need to go over how this would work in-game? Pretty much Ravenloft and Vampire the Masquerade were based on the original movie and the associated Dracula myths/stories.

But taking a page from Egger's books use vampires that are not all "good evening" and charm. Some, most even, should be Death on two legs. 

In this movie Orlock was a Solomonar, or a type of evil sorcerer. This puts him more in line with the Dracula of "Powers of Darkness" and "The Satanic Rites of Dracula." So there is a lot of different things you can do with a vampire like this than you typically see with Dracula. 

In NIGHT SHIFT a vampire with levels of Sorcerer or Witch is truly terrifying creature. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 18
First Time Views: 16

Witches of Appendix N: John Bellairs

There is only one entry for John Bellairs in Gygax's Appendix N; 1969's The Face in the Frost. I decided to read this to see what other titles he had prior to the 1977-1979 publication of AD&D. But I learned a couple of things. First his biggest publication before the AD&D generation age was "The House with a Clock in Its Walls" series for children, which is by all accounts a good book. Secondly, while it is in the Appendix N, it didn't really influence AD&D.  According to The Dragon issue #22. 

As I have not read the book until recently, there is likewise no question of it influencing the game. Nonetheless, THE FACE IN THE FROST could have been a prime mover of the underlying spirit of D&D.

So. With this in hand, I still opted to read this one based on Gary's recommendation. 

This slim novel follows two wizards, Prospero (no relation to Shakespeare’s) and his friend Roger Bacon (the real Roger Bacon), as they stumble into a creeping darkness spreading across their half-real world, a place somewhere between fairy tale and nightmare, where mirrors whisper, shadows move, and even the geometry of time bends. Bellairs’ world feels like a dream the Brothers Grimm might’ve had after reading The Necronomicon.

Prospero and Bacon go all over their world, which is and is not England, in search of an ancient, hard-to-translate book (I kept thinking of the Voynich manuscript, and the wizard who is close to unraveling its secrets.

It's a travling magical adventure that takes place in dream-like, and nightmare-like

That is great, but does it hit my central thesis? In other words, are there witches?

Well. No. There are rumors of witches and a couple of really eccentric wizards. But no proper witches.

If you like the idea of a wizards-only adventure (and who doesn't!) then this is a good choice.

Updates

Ok, I have been doing this for a bit, time to check in on who I have read so far. Well, I have read most, I have talked about all of them yet.

Anderson, Poul. Three Hearts and Three Lions; The High Crusade; The Broken Sword
Bellairs, John. The Face in the Frost
Brackett, Leigh.
Brown, Fredric.
Burroughs, Edgar Rice, Pellucidar series; Mars series; Venus series
Carter, Lin. "World's End" series
de Camp, L. Sprague. Lest Darkness Fall; Fallible Fiend; et al.
de Camp & Pratt. "Harold Shea" series; Carnelian Cube
Derleth, August.
Dunsany, Lord.
Farmer, P. J. "The World of the Tiers" series; et al.
Fox, Gardner. "Kothar" series; "Kyrik" series; et al.
Howard, R. E. "Conan" series [Part 2] [Part 3]
Lanier, Sterling. Hiero’s Journey
Leiber, Fritz. "Fafhrd & Gray Mouser" series; et al.
Lovecraft, H. P. (The Dreams in the Witch House)
Merritt, A. Creep, Shadow, Creep; Moon Pool; Dwellers in the Mirage; et al. (Burn, Witch, Burn!)
Moorcock, Michael. Stormbringer; Stealer of Souls; "Hawkmoon" series (esp. the first three books)
Norton, Andre. (Witch World)
Offutt, Andrew J., editor. Swords Against Darkness III.
Pratt, Fletcher. Blue Star; et al.
St. Clair, Margaret. The Shadow People; Sign of the Labrys
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit; "Ring Trilogy"
Vance, Jack. The Eyes of the Overworld; The Dying Earth; et al.
Weinbaum, Stanley.
Wellman, Manly Wade. (The Desrick on Yandro)
Williamson, Jack.
Zelazny, Roger. Jack of Shadows; "Amber" series; et al.

--

There's still a way to go! I have read many of these in the past. Some, like Lovecraft and Moorcock, I am ready to do now, I just want to reread some stories in particular. Others, like Vance and Zelazny, it has been so long I don't recall everything. 

I put some tales in parentheses because those are ones I want to pay particular attention to. I am sure I am missing some tales, so if you know of one, please let me know!

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Crow (2024)

 There’s a special kind of danger in remaking The Crow. The 1994 original wasn’t just a movie, it was lightning in a bottle: grief, rage, love, and gothic tragedy all wrapped around Brandon Lee’s haunting final performance. It was an urban ghost story that meant something. It was the "Citizen Kane" of the Goth 90s.

So, when I heard that Bill Skarsgård was taking on the role, I went in with cautious optimism. He’s got the presence, the range, and the eyes for it. Unfortunately, this new version doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be, and the result feels like an empty shell with no heartbeat.

The Crow (2024)

Let’s start with what works. Bill Skarsgård is great. He commits fully to the role of Eric, giving the character a raw, wounded energy that almost saves the film from itself. Almost. FKA Twigs (aka Tahliah Debrett Barnett) as Shelly has the kind of haunting charisma you want from a supernatural love story; she’s ethereal, mysterious, and grounded all at once. And Danny Huston, as always, brings gravitas to his role as the antagonist. If he is in something, I am going to pay attention and hope he is the bad guy. He’s one of those actors who can make a line of dialogue sound like prophecy. 

But that’s about where the praise stops. 

The movie’s biggest problem is emotional weight, or the lack of it. In the original, Eric and Shelly’s love was the film’s soul. They were engaged, planning a life together, brutally murdered on the eve of their wedding. Their story hurt because it mattered. Their love was the kind of thing you could feel in the air, something worth crossing death to reclaim.

Here? I just don’t buy it. Their relationship feels more like a concept than a connection. We’re told they love each other, but never shown that, only in the most shallow of ways. Without that, the revenge story loses its heart. The violence feels hollow, the tragedy performative. It’s all mood and no meaning. This is no fault of Skarsgård or FKA Twigs, they sell it the best they can.

Visually, it’s stylish, moody neon, dark rain, that same “urban myth meets grunge music video” aesthetic, but even that feels oddly sterile. The original Crow’s world was grimy, angry, and alive. This one feels manufactured, like a high-end perfume commercial with blood spatter. Eric Draven in the original is a driven force of vengeance, not for the goal or pleasure of killing (quite the opposite in fact), but because of his pain.  Eric is this one feels like he is killing because something was taken from him. The difference is subtle, and knowing that difference tells you why the first one is a classic and the new one forgettable. 

Skarsgård deserves better. He brings shades of sorrow that could have anchored a stronger script, and FKA Twigs radiates the kind of energy that should have made her Shelly unforgettable. But without the emotional architecture, it’s all just noise and ash. 

I wanted to like it. I really did. I wanted to give it a chance. But this version of The Crow misses the point; the resurrection of love, not the celebration of vengeance.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

If you’re playing NIGHT SHIFT, The Crow has always been the archetype for “The Driven,” characters who return from death to right unbearable wrongs. The Driven from The Night Companion is made for this kind of story:

• Origin: Murdered unjustly, bound to the world by rage and unfinished love.

• Motivation: Redemption, closure, or vengeance; sometimes all three.

• Tone: It’s not about being undead; it’s about being unable to rest.

• Mechanics: In NIGHT SHIFT terms, your “anchor” (the emotional bond that holds you here) is everything. Without that, you’re just another spirit with a weapon.

The original Crow is how you do it right, a Driven character whose power is love corrupted into wrath. The 2024 remake? It’s the opposite, wrath with nothing to redeem it. Still, as game fuel, there’s plenty to mine here: tone, atmosphere, and tragedy. Just make sure your version remembers the heart behind the horror.

Dungeons & Dragons has this in the Revenant. They even made a class for it in 4e. This could work for 5e.

I also created a Revenant class for Old-School Essentials in Monster Mash.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 17
First Time Views: 15

Mail Call: Witch and Stone by Pacesetter Games

 Just in time for Halloween is Pacesetter Games' latest adventure, Witch and Stone.

This Basic-era (B/X) adventure is designed for 3rd-level characters. I would say 6 characters. 

The premise is simple enough, yet effective; the PCs need to investigate an old wizard's stronghold that a witch has taken up in. 

I have not played it yet. Just got it today, but it looks fun and I plan to slot it into my War of the Witch Queens campaign. 

October Horror Movie Challenge: Sputnik (2020)

This is a "lite-horror" movie. My wife picked it, and she is not a horror person. Still, it had a good story and was a lot of fun.

Sputnik (2020)

Every few years a movie comes along that reminds me why I love the intersection of science fiction and horror—the cold corridors, the moral ambiguity, the sense that humanity is both the experimenter and the experiment. Sputnik (2020), a Russian film directed by Egor Abramenko, nails that tone perfectly. It’s equal parts Alien, Arrival, and The Thing, but filtered through the icy paranoia of the late Soviet era.

Set in 1983, the story opens with a cosmonaut mission gone wrong. One of the two men returns to Earth, alive, but not alone. Something came back with him. The surviving astronaut, Konstantin (Pyotr Fyodorov), is quarantined at a secret military facility where psychologist Tatyana Klimova (Oksana Akinshina) is brought in to evaluate him. Her discoveries form the film’s slow, unnerving reveal: the creature lives inside him, emerging only when he sleeps.

The beauty of Sputnik lies in its restraint. This isn’t a creature feature with non-stop gore, it’s a tense, methodical study of control, ethics, and survival. The creature design is excellent, organic, sinewy, almost elegant in its grotesquery, and the way it’s symbiotically connected to Konstantin gives the whole film a tragic undertone.

Akinshina’s performance carries the movie. As Tatyana, she’s brilliant and empathetic, a scientist navigating a world ruled by secrecy and fear. Her quiet defiance in the face of military authority gives the story a strong moral backbone. Fyodorov, meanwhile, delivers a layered portrayal of Konstantin—part hero, part host, part victim. The supporting cast, especially Fedor Bondarchuk as the cold, pragmatic Colonel, rounds it out with just the right shade of bureaucratic menace.

Visually, Sputnik is gorgeous. The muted Soviet palette, gray walls, cold steel, and red floodlights make the few splashes of biological horror stand out even more. Everything feels grounded and real, which makes the alien all the more unsettling.

What really sells it, though, is that under the horror, Sputnik is a story about compassion in an inhuman system. Tatyana’s empathy becomes her rebellion. The film doesn’t just ask, “What is the monster?” It asks, “Who gets to decide what’s monstrous?”

We joked that this movie took a lot of influences from both Aliens and Avatar. I imagine if James Cameron had directed this, there would have been a lot more blood and gore.

Occult D&D and NIGHT SHIFT/Thirteen Parsecs

This is the sort of thing I want to do most with a NIGHT SHIFT and Thirteen Parsecs crossover. It’s a perfect bridge between the two, space-born horror that bleeds into secret government facilities and ethical nightmares.

• Setting: The isolated Soviet research base is ideal for a one-shot or small campaign. Swap out the USSR for any Cold War or near-future setting, and you’ve got an instant “containment horror” scenario.
  
  
• The Creature: Not evil, just alien. Its bond to the host makes it more tragic than villainous. Mechanically, it could be treated like a symbiotic parasite that grants enhanced senses, physical strength, and telepathic empathy—but at a psychological cost.
  
  
• The PCs: Scientists, soldiers, or medics trapped between orders and conscience. The horror isn’t just the alien, it’s the bureaucracy trying to weaponize it.
  
  
• Tone: Think Alien meets The Fly, but stripped of corporate gloss and injected with Cold War moral decay.

If you’re running a NIGHT SHIFT campaign, the creature could easily be the remnant of a failed space probe encounter. If you’re running Thirteen Parsecs, it’s your first-contact scenario gone horribly right, or wrong, depending on your point of view. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 16
First Time Views: 14

Monstrous Mondays: Devil, Valac

I went on a Conjuring bender last week and I lamented I did not include the demon/devil Valac in my The Left Hand Path. Well. Here is where I can fix that.

Demon or Devil?

Since I am basing this on the "historical" Valac and not the movie Valak, I need to make some choices, and these are choices I have to make pretty much with any creature. The world doesn't fit into Gygaxian taxonomy. 

Valac appears in The Lesser Key of Solomon, the demonologies of Thomas Rudd, the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, Liber Officiorum Spirituum, and the Munich Manual of Demonic Magic. Quite the CV for him, really.  In the Lesser Key, the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum and the Munich Manual of Demonic Magic, he is listed as a President of Hell.  The Liber Officiorum Spirituum lists him under two different names, Coolor or Doolas, and Rudd calls him Valu.

My typical stance is that if the demon is named and found in one of these grimories, then I tend to think of them as a "devil." Given that Volac is also a President of Hell and has an angel archenemy, I am inclined to continue that thought.  So, in Gygaxian (which we can pretend is also from Iggwilv) taxonomy, Valac is a Devil. In my classification, he is a Baalseraph.

Valac

Valac is described as having command over household spirits and serpents, which, in this case, I am going to say means poltergeists and other harmful ghosts and demonic spirits.  So he is a devil who will summon and use demons. 

DEVIL, VALAC (President of Hell)

Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1 (unique)
Armor Class: –1
Move: 12” / 18” (flying)
Hit Dice: 13+13
% In Lair: 25%
Treasure Type: V (×2), Q (×10 gems), plus special
No. of Attacks: 3 (2 bites, 1 staff) or special
Damage/Attack: 2–12 / 2–12 / 1–8, or special
Special Attacks: Command serpents, summon spirits, cursed treasure, poison
Special Defenses: +1 or better weapon to hit, immunity to poison, half damage from fire, protection from good 10’ radius
Magic Resistance: 65%
Intelligence: Exceptional (15–16)
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Size: L (15’ tall, three-headed)
Psionic Ability: 170
-- Attack/Defense Modes: All / All
Level/XP Value: X/14,000+

Valac, also called Ualac, Volac, or Valak, is one of the Five Infernal Presidents who serve the Archdukes of Hell. He appears in his true form as a winged humanoid 15' tall and covered in scales. A child’s head rises from between two great dragon heads, borne aloft on scaled wings. He most often appears as an angelic child riding a two-headed dragon. These are seperate creatures, the child and the dragon are all one creature. His voice is gentle and coaxing, belying the cruelty within.

Valac commands serpents, both natural and monstrous, and exerts dominion over wandering household spirits, poltergeists, and harmful shades. These he calls from the Lower Planes or from the restless dead, unleashing them to plague the living. Unlike most devils, Valac traffics freely with demons, summoning them to fight in his name, though always bound by infernal compacts that assure his own mastery.

He is also known as a finder of hidden treasures, though every hoard he reveals is tainted, cursed with possession, bound to restless spirits, or poisoned by infernal enchantment. To accept Valac’s gifts is to welcome corruption into one’s home.

Valac avoids direct battle when he can, preferring to drown his enemies beneath waves of summoned serpents and spirits. In combat, each dragon head may bite for 2–12 damage, while the child’s form wields a staff of serpents (1–8 damage, plus poison save at –2).

• Summon Serpents: Once per turn, Valac may summon 1–4 giant serpents, 1 basilisk, or 1 hydra (50%) as if by gate.
• Summon Spirits: Once per day, he may summon 2–8 wraiths or 1–3 shadows to serve for 12 turns.
• Cursed Treasure: Any treasure he reveals carries a curse or haunting. Roll as per Book of Curses, or DM’s choice.
• Spell-like Abilities (at will): charm person, snake charm, invisibility, ESP, locate object.
• 3/day: true seeing, teleport without error, magic jar.

Valac’s cults are rare but feared, often operating in rural places where snakes are plentiful and tales of haunted houses spread quickly. His followers keep cursed relics and treasure-troves that spread corruption as surely as any plague.

Witches and warlocks who serve Valac gain serpentine familiars or restless household spirits, but their “blessings” always bear a hidden snare.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Ed and Lorraine Warren Documentaries - The Conjuring Series

 It's Sunday. I am coming down from my Conjuring high, but I still wanted some more. Since I allow myself at least one night of documentaries, I am taking it tonight with some documentaries about Ed and Lorraine Warren's best-known cases.

Amityville Horror House (2021)

This one covers Ed and Lorraine's most famous case, the Amityville Horror House. Interestingly enough this one was not made into a Conjuring movie. Likely because there have been so many Amityville movies already. 

We start with Ronald DeFeo Jr. and the mass murder of his family in 1974. We spend a little bit of time with this case and DeFeo making claims of ghosts and devils in the house.  

The documentary quickly shifts to George and Kathy Lutz. This is the big Amityville story. I do love how the so-called "paranormal investigators" speak with such authority. Silly for reality, but great for games.

We go through the Lutzes' stay in the house day by day. It is rather fun going through it all. 

Oh, drinking game, every time they give you the full address, 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, Long Island, NY, drink. 

Ed and Lorraine Warren show up about 2/3's of the way through. And yes, that is Poison drummer Rikki Rockett giving us his expert opinion on the Amityville House.

The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

This is the case that also gave us Conjuring The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) from last night. We now move to Brookfield, CT in 1981. This is the second documentary I have seen on this. I think I saw it on Netflix (very likely. Edited, yes.) and it was better than this one. This one, though, does have some footage of Lorraine Warren from 2005. 

It covers the possession of David, the murder by Johnson, and his trial. Of course, the involvement of the Warrens.

It's fun, but not as, dare I say, "good" as the Amityville Horror House one.

I freely admit I like Ed and Lorraine Warren. It is very, very obvious they would not have liked me; a skeptical atheist trained as a rationalist. Although I am not immune to the lure of empiricism, Warren and I would differ on what constitutes experience.  

Occult D&D and NIGHT SHIFT

While nothing for Occult D&D (as such) there two great ideas we can get from this all. First and most obviously is the haunted house. It's no exaggeration to say that Amityville is the best-known haunted house in America. 

Second is the idea of a demonic possession as a cause/reason for a crime. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 15
First Time Views: 11