October Movie Challenge: Phenomena (1985)

Going back to 1985, to another Argento giallo, and another rewatch. Though it has been a little bit since I saw this one. This movie is notable for being one of the earliest roles for actress Jennifer Connley. This is not her first role, but it is one of her breakout ones along with Labyrinth of the same year.

Phenomena (1985)

This movie has it all: a serial killer and a Swiss boarding school, Donald Pleasence and some heavy metal, psychic insects, and even a chimp with a straight razor. And yet one would be hard-pressed to call that a full description of what is on screen. It is bonkers. I kinda love it.

We begin with the murder of a young girl. By the way, what is it with Argento and scissors? Anyway, as it turns out, her murder isn't the important piece, well at least at first. What is important are the bugs. 

The story soon follows Jennifer Corvino (Connley), the teen daughter of a well-known American actor. He has put her in the Richard Wagner Academy for Girls (yup, that is the name), an exclusive institution in the Swiss countryside. The locals have a way of calling the region "Swiss Transylvania," which might have given her father pause before he left her there.

Jennifer is prone to sleepwalking. On one such nocturnal wandering, she comes across the murder of a young woman and makes her way to forensic entomologist Professor John McGregor (Donald Pleasence). McGregor examines the insects on a corpse to tell the police where and when a death occurred. He is also the owner of Inga, a very smart chimpanzee who acts as his aide and nurse.

Jennifer realizes she has a peculiar rapport with insects; they do not go after her. She can sense them, talk to them, maybe even put them to work. McGregor figures this talent could be put to use in tracking down the man responsible for the deaths of young women in the vicinity of the school. Because of course that is what you do.

Like I said. Completely insane.

Again, this is like four movies. A serial killer, psychic girl, bugs, and whatever the hell is supposed to be up with that chimp. Not to mention the Swiss Transylvania thing, the headmistress who missed the casting call for a Nazi She-wolf of the SS movie,  and the asylum next door to the school. Most directors would have whittled that list down to two or three concepts. Not Argento.

Connelly is good and is showing some of the promise that will feature in her future roles. Hard to believe she is only 14-15 here. I mean, yes, she looks young, but she has solid acting skills. Her character is scared of the goings on around her but at the same time drawn to the insects; she has no desire to be cured of it, only to make sense of it.  Of course, the adults in her life are of little assistance. The school thinks her unstable, her peers make fun of her, and a doctor wants to write it off as mental illness. Then there is McGregor. He wants to use her as the bug-whisperer. It is the sort of role Pleasence excelled at in the 1970s and 1980s. Brilliant, eccentric, and likely clued in to something the rest of the cast can only guess at.  His and Connely's interaction is one of the best things in the movie.  A movie of just these two exploring her psychic ability would have been good.

The soundtrack is an odd mix of songs from Iron Maiden, Motörhead, Andi Sex Gang, and the like with Goblin and Claudio Simonetti. To have heavy metal intrude on a scene of Gothic suspense can be jarring, but it puts an identity on the film. At times it is brilliant; at others one gets the impression someone has put on the wrong record. I can't deny the soundtrack, on its own, is great. 

In the final act, Phenomena lets go of any pretense of restraint.  Typical for the time and typical for Argento really. We are treated to a decaying house with a secret basement, a pool of decomposing bodies and maggots, a murderous mutant child and some violent turns of events. There is even a chimpanzee of unexpected utility. In the last twenty minutes, Jennifer endures an extraordinary ordeal. By the time she is done, caked in filth, blood and bugs, she has stopped running from what she is capable of. For me, that is what makes the film. 

She starts out as the kind of odd girl everyone wants to dismiss or put in her place, but she is not so easily put down because the source of her strangeness is real and potent.

Is this one of Argento’s finest? Not likely. It is erratic and too given to substituting one bizarre notion for logic. But it is fun, often gorgeous and horrific to look at in equal measure.

I watched the longer Italian cut. That is the one I recommend over the shorter "Creepers" version. Though it does remind me I really need to learn Italian. 

Jackson, IL Connections

Jennifer Corvino is right at home in NIGHT SHIFT. As a psychic who channels her gifts through insects, she can quiet a dangerous bug or get an impression from those congregating on a corpse, and in time turn them into a threat. That ought to be frightening to all concerned.

So, take an adventure where a student at a private academy claims to have seen a murder in her sleep. The adults don’t believe her, but a forensic entomologist notes the swarm outside her window is arranging itself into a map. The insects are telling her where the dead are buried. A bit heavy-handed? Yeah, but I lack Argento's style.

Phenomena is a supernatural giallo, a heavy-metal nightmare, an origin story of sorts. It has no business working. Yet it does.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 8
First Time Views: 5

Working the NIGHT SHIFT: What Charmed Taught Me About Witches

 October 7, 1998 was the premiere of Charmed on The WB. Just seven months after the premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show would be most often compared to.  By this point, I had been writing about witches for a decade, but hadn't published anything yet (one more year). But I want to talk about what Charmed taught me about witches, specifically, what Charmed taught me about witches in NIGHT SHIFT.

Charmed (1998 - 2006, 2018-2022)

Charmed was about witches. But this was a different take than other witches on TV. We had Samantha in Bewitched and Sabrina in her own show, which showed that a witch can work well, if comedically, in modern times. Charmed had more to do with the 1996 movie The Craft, including using Love Spit Love's cover of The Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?"

The witches of Charmed were not old hags or evil sorceresses. Nor were they suburban housewives dealing with the magical and mundane worlds. They were three estranged sisters who discovered they were not just witches, but a powerful kind of witch known as The Charmed Ones. Their job was to protect innocents from supernatural threats like warlocks, monsters, and, in particular, demons, all while trying to hold down regular jobs, maintain relationships, and find a way to mend the broken pieces of their own pasts. It was a very different, and honestly a more mature take on how to deal with otherworldly weirdness in a normal world than, say, what Buffy was doing on a different day.

The show began with three sisters: Prue (Shannen Doherty), Piper (Holly Marie Combs), and Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano). Later on, when Prue is killed, Rose McGowan joined as a younger half-sister, Paige Matthews. The Halliwells lived in San Francisco in a house owned by their Grandmother, Penny "Grams" (Jennifer Rhodes). When Grams dies, their magic comes back. Their mother, Patty (Finola Hughes), had died years before, fighting a demon.

Charmed was not perfect by any stretch. There were some continuity issues. Some of the episodes were goofy. Some were not great. Some were just an excuse to dress the stars in costumes. But the show had heart. I felt that the first three seasons at least tried to be consistent in their world-building, particularly in their magic. For example, the police detective and love interest to Prue, Andy Trudeau (T.W. King) knows about cults and recognizes witchcraft items like an athame (and pronounces it correctly) among other items. As the show moved on, other new ideas were added, like Whitelighters and other types of sabbats. But Charmed was never supposed to be a documentary on Witchcraft. 

I knew Charmed would work as a game world back in 2012 at Gen Con.

I signed up to play in a Buffy RPG game that was a Buffy-Charmed-Supernatural crossover. I had played a lot of Buffy by then (naturally), but I was looking forward to playing a witch. So I picked Piper. Let me tell you, that was a freaking blast. One of the best times I had playing at Gen Con where I was a player and not the GM.

I had also already done my own crossover prior to that.

So when work began on NIGHT SHIFT, I already knew what I wanted.

Charmed and NIGHT SHIFT

Charmed has been with NIGHT SHIFT from the very start. During playtesting, for instance, I used the Charmed Ones as playtest characters. They served a purpose because they were more than just three people who happened to have magic. Each sister brings her own mix of strengths, weaknesses, and personality to the table, yet in combination they are something else entirely. That is what I was after for NIGHT SHIFT.

From this (and many other ideas) came the concept of Arcane Bonds. Power is not always an isolated thing; it can be drawn from the ties between characters, family, friendship, love, or even shared trauma. The Power of Three is the obvious case in point with Charmed, but I was less interested in replicating that particular mechanic than in the wider principle. I wanted a game where a character’s connections made them stronger, rather than just another spell or level-up. It suited my way of writing witches at the time. You can even see the development of the idea in my previous writings.

The Halliwells were formidable, but their magic was inextricably linked to their family history and obligations. Their enemies were often the result of events predating their birth. Their connection to magic and their ancestors were all part of the equation. To me, that is a far better model than a mere spellcaster with a different repertoire.

In NIGHT SHIFT, the structure is similar. The characters lead ordinary lives until the supernatural intrudes, whether they seek it out or it comes through the front door. One has to deal with both.

More than anything, Charmed offered me a new perspective on witches as protagonists. They were not types who stood apart from the world and peered in; they had families and jobs and bills like everyone else, along with the attendant problems. The supernatural was there to complicate those realities, not to put them aside. I would come to value that notion highly. The first setting I dealt with all of this was my "Ordinary World," Night World. Here, supernatural types all have to try to get along to maintain the appearance of normality, lest the "mundanes" find out. 

Charmed and Jackson

With Jackson the influence is perhaps deeper, but not as overt.

Larina, Stephanie, and Faye are not Halliwell imitations; their world is darker, the town is not San Francisco, and their magic is of a different sort. But Charmed gave me license to pursue what I already held to be true for a very long time: that witches can be heroes. Not the kind you have to sanitize, but the ones with their rituals, old books, and unsettling family secrets. There is no need for any of that to make them the villain. Stephanie's family comes from old money and not all of that was "clean money." Larina learns she has some demonic blood in her going back generations. And Faye. Poor girl is being raised by hags, and bits of her soul are being bartered out for more magic. But each one is trying to make the world better than it was before. All while dealing with normal things.

It is right at the heart of Jackson. Larina might spend her day concerned over school or whether Stephanie is mad at her, and then face down whatever has emerged from the Bad Land by nightfall. The two coexist. No. More than that. They are inseparable. 

I was also reminded of the role of family history. The Halliwells not only inherit power but also unfinished business. You will find plenty of that in Jackson. Larina’s abilities are bound to things that transpired long before she was here, and so is the town. Faye's Thorne and Voss heritages come with some serious magical debts. There are old crimes, monsters, and promises in its past. Sometimes the young ones have to put right what their grandparents or some long-dead soul left behind.

Places have a way of mattering too, much like the Halliwell manor. A library can be a repository of dangerous knowledge, a house can be more than four walls, and a town’s history will not always lie buried. Those Devil Chairs in the cemeteries have to mean something. Magical Mystery Lane leads somewhere.

Charmed did not put these ideas in my head, but it demonstrated how well they function in a sustained narrative. Witchcraft does not have to be an escape from life. It can be a part of it.

The Second Charmed

The second Charmed series taught me something different.

When the reboot premiered in 2018, it understandably wanted to inherit many of the things people associated with the original show. There were three sisters (Macy, Mel, and Maggie), the Power of Three, Whitelighters, demons, a Book of Shadows, and all the other pieces we immediately recognized as Charmed.

But having the pieces is not the same thing as building the thing.

Too often, I felt the second series wanted the benefits of the original Charmed without doing all the work that had made those ideas matter in the first place. The Halliwells had years of history, relationships, losses, mistakes, and accumulated mythology behind them. You could not simply reproduce the visible parts and expect the same emotional investment.

Interestingly, I thought the newer Charmed worked best when it stopped trying so hard to be the old Charmed and started becoming its own show. When it developed its own mythology, its own relationships, and its own answers to what witches and magic were, it became much more interesting to me.

That lesson has been extremely useful while developing Jackson.

I cannot just take three witches, drop them into a fictionalized Jacksonville, Illinois, and expect Charmed to happen.

Nor would I want it to.

Jackson has to grow out of Jackson. Its witches need their own histories, relationships, families, enemies, mistakes, and reasons for being there. The supernatural world has to emerge from the place's history and character rather than be imported wholesale from elsewhere.

Influence is useful. Inspiration is essential. But imitation is not world-building.

The things I learned from Charmed can help me understand what makes Larina and her friends work. They cannot tell me who Larina and her friends are. They can't tell me who YOUR characters are.

That part has to come from Jackson.

And that is the part I think is useful for anyone building their own game setting. You can absolutely start with the things you love. Take the family dynamics from one show, the occult atmosphere from another, the monster hunting from somewhere else, and the small-town weirdness from something completely different. But eventually those influences have to become yours.

If I can take all these influences and use them to build Larina, Jackson, Carbon Vale, and Sunny Valley into something with its own identity, then you can do the same with your characters and your world.

The goal is not to recreate the thing that inspired you.

The goal is to discover what it inspires you to create.

--

NIGHT SHIFT^® is a Registered Trademark of Elf Lair, LLC. Used by Permission.

October Movie Challenge: Dark Tower (1987)

 Tonight’s movie is not based on Stephen King. 

It does have a haunted tower, though. More importantly, it has Jenny Agutter, who has long been a favorite of mine.  It is also an "Attack of Opportunity" movie of sorts. I mean it has been on my list, just not the one I was planning for this Challenge. So it almost fits my time frame. Plus it has Jenny Agutter (I know, I have said this twice, expect it again), so there is that.

Dark Tower (1987)

Carolyn Page (Agutter) is an architect of some success. She has been put in charge of an enormous new office tower in Barcelona, a modern and costly edifice that is almost ready for its opening. Headed to her office, she sees a window washer outside, and suddenly he is fighting with something outside, and he falls 28 stories to his death.

Then more strange deaths start to happen. It becomes clear, at least to the cast, that it is a supernatural element and not, say, just a series of malfunctions. 

Dennis Randall (Michael Moriarty), a security consultant, is on hand to look into it. He starts by seeking out the practical side of things, but the body count soon tells him otherwise. Well, that and seeing ghosts. He enlists the aid of Max Gold (Theodore Bikel, who is actually not all that bad here), a paranormal investigator, and he sets about examining the history of the tower and its designer. That would be Carolyn’s late husband. Oh, Kevin McCarthy is in it as a drunk psychic playing pretty much to type. 

So Agutter is good, but not up to the standards I have for her. Michael Moriarty is ok, but like Agutter, he is not given a lot to work with here. Neither lives up to their acting chops.

So yeah, the building is haunted. Haunted houses are good, haunted castles are better, so a 28-story haunted high-rise is the best of all, right? Well...not in this case.  Note: this movie came out a year before Poltergeist III, which also features a haunted high-rise. 

I did want to like this one more; the cast is good. Some of the acting is good, others less so. The idea is good. It just never came together.

Jackson, IL Connections

I said before that you don't always need a haunted castle, or in Jackson's case, a haunted abandoned hospital (seriously, what the hell is up with my town?), a brand new building can have ghosts too.

It does give some ideas on what to do with my psychics, though. But that will have to wait a bit more.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 7
First Time Views: 5

Mirror Mondays: The Past is a Foreign Country

I recently went back to my old hometown of Jacksonville, IL, to visit my mom and dad. My dad is 96 and will be 97 in just under two months. He is doing pretty well, if you ask me. But this was also my first trip back to Jacksonville since my Jackson project had taken full steam.

Jacksonville of 2026 is not the same as Jacksonville of 1986. And neither is the same as Jackson, IL, of 1986.

But if you look hard enough, you will see the similarities.

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

Jacksonville is trying very hard to improve its image. So they are rebuilding the downtown area. Bringing in new shops, restoring buildings.

But they have a long way to go. This is not really uncommon for towns of this size in Illinois. We see it in nearby Ottawa, IL. It's about the same size, same sorts of history, and there is a booming tourist trade. Same with Woodstock, IL, and Long Grove, IL. So I think Jacksonville is doing all the right things; they just need what a lot of places need. More money.

Jacksonville, IL is an old town. Established in 1825, it has some history. This also gives me a good excuse to say Jackson was established in 1827, or whenever I publish, to say it was 200 years ago. But that age is showing. Buildings that were merely old back in 1986 look positively ancient and run-down now. I found a tree I used to play around, and the bark is completely white. The places I used to hang out are gone; new ones have taken their place.  Some things are the same. A lot is different. But I will say that this newfound desire for the town to explore its own history is making my job here a lot easier. The image above provided some good research material, and I picked all of that up at my hotel.

Jacksonville of 2026 is not the same place as Jacksonville of 1986. Buildings have disappeared. Businesses have changed. Roads and commercial development have altered how people move through town. Especially in the downtown. Trees have grown or vanished. Signs, parking lots, lighting, storefronts, cars, clothing, and dozens of things tell you that you are looking at 2026. The people are different too. 

The real Jacksonville of 1986 also isn't Jackson. Jackson is deliberately a mirror.

All The World's A Stage

Jackson is like a model I am kitbashing. I have all the pieces to say the Enterprise A and D, but what I am building is something more akin to a ship from the same period as the Enterprise A, but it is really the USS Challenger. And...this is something I am actually doing, so this analogy feels really right to me, even if it might not be all that clear to you, the reader. Sorry. 

I have a stage (Central Illinois), I have the set (Sal's Pizza, Jackson Public High, MacAlister College, Oak City), and I have my supporting characters (Larina, Stephanie, Rowan, Andy); I am just missing those all-important lead characters. That's you, by the way. The people who will pick this up and move forward.

But the "kits" I bought to build this stage are all labeled "Jacksonville." And the pieces are "Leo's Pizza," "JHS," "MacMurry College," and "Elm City." I am just reassembling them. But these pieces have been in storage for 40 years, and my instructions are a combination of old, faded instructions (memory) and new instructions for the newer models I find online (the real Jacksonville of 2026).  

So...my stage looks different. It is built from memory. That is not just fine. That's good world-building.

It means I have something as a placeholder (memory) until I can get more creative with it. 

But not everything in Jackson is coming from Jacksonville, and not everything is coming from the 1980s

Renee Sylvi Jäneläinen is based on a couple of people I knew, one of the (many) Rhiannon's from my AD&D games, and the oft-mentioned but so-far-never-seen Renee of Renee's Tea Shoppe. 

I wanted to bring Renee's Tea Shop over to Jackson, but I was very recently reminded why that would not work in Jackson of 1986. First, I wanted Renee as a teenage foreign exchange student. Secondly, I was sitting in an upscale coffee shop in Jacksonville last weekend (Elm City Roastery) and telling my wife how I would have killed for a place like this 40 years ago, but it never would have worked because that is not where Jacksonville "was" back then. I mentioned the tourism above, and Elm City Roastery is exactly one of the things that make Jacksonville of 2026 work. So Renee's Tea Shoppe has to wait. 

"Strawberry Fields" as a record store, and a maybe-it-is, maybe-it-isn't head shop is based on a very real place. Penny Lane in nearby Springfield, IL. But Penny Lane was important because it was where I could get records I couldn't find in Jacksonville. And there was the appeal of going somewhere "forbidden."  

But there is also more. 

Jackson remembers things Jacksonville never experienced. It remembers the Crimson Cougar stalking the edge of town. It remembers teenagers encountering the Mochem. It remembers the Mauvaiseterre Hag. It remembers Larina Nichols walking into Paula's on a Saturday afternoon, Candy Mercer driving far too fast through town, and the Mercers' cat, "Pringles", sitting in a window watching something no one else can see.

Jackson works well as Jacksonville 86 + supernatural goings-on. But it has to be more than that. 

And I think that distinction is important. I am not trying to create a historically perfect reconstruction of Jacksonville in 1986. I am not writing a history book. I am building a place where people can play a horror game.

Don’t misunderstand me in that history is unimportant. It is the other way around: the real history is what gives Jackson some weight.  The streets need to feel right. The colleges need histories of their own. The old houses need to look like they have been standing there for generations. The downtown needs to feel like a Midwestern downtown in 1986, not like someone dropped a collection of "80s stuff" into a modern town. If I get those things right, then when I add a witch, a haunted house, or something moving through the cornfields at night, those things have something solid to stand on.

Then again, being authentic and being accurate are two different matters.

My memory can be faulty. I may have mixed up a building in my mind or conflated two stores into one, or carry a memory of 1985 as if it were timeless. Or I will come across something in Jacksonville’s actual past that I was unaware of back when I was living there and think Jackson ought to have its own take on it. At times I make changes simply because the town calls for them.

This is where the mirror is involved.

Jacksonville gives me the shapes. Memory gives me the colors. Forty years of gaming gives me the monsters hiding in the shadows. That is Jackson.

I went to Jacksonville looking for Jackson.

I didn't find it.

I found something better.

I found the place I remembered as Jackson.

I don't need a historically accurate Jacksonville, circa 1986, for Jackson. I just need a Jackson that feels like a believable Midwest town in 1986.

And then I can leave it all to you to bring it to life.

October Movie Challenge: Chopping Mall (1986)

Time to hit that other center of teen action outside of the high school in the 1980s; the mall. 

Oh. So, I decided that this year, even when I watch multiple movies on the same day, I am going to give them each their own post unless they are obviously related by theme or sequels and the like. It makes it easier for me to come back and find a particular movie if I need to. 

Chopping Mall (1986)

Ok. I'll admit it. I like this movie. It is goofy and weird. Plus, it has a strong cast, including the always-fantastic Barbara Crampton. Back in the mid-80s, that was usually enough to get me to watch a movie. Plus, it has Dick Miller in it, and he is always fun to have in a flick. As is Kelli Maroney of Night of the Comet fame. 

The premise is dirt-simple. The mall has a new security system in the form of three Daleks Killbots Protector Robots. Lightning strikes the mall, messing up the computers, and the robots go on a killing rampage. The plot is essentially the same as Jurassic Park.

It's not high art, but it is a lot of fun.

The teens/young adults are not the typical victims. I mean, they are partying in the mall after hours, but that is hardly typical horror movie bait. I mean, yeah, they are all having sex and the women walk around in various stages of undress, but again, that is really just 80s-typical. I mean, who hasn't run through a mall in their underwear, amiright?

This one also has scenes that are basically an (overt) homage to Rambo, but here it makes sense.

Filming took place in a real mall with a few shots at Roger Corman's studios.

The cast is great and above your normal horror movie fare. Of course, everyone in this cast has been in multiple horror flicks, and honestly it looks like they had a good time. I know that Barbara Crampton is a big fan of this movie. 

I watched "In Search of Darkness: A Journey into Iconic '80s Horror" prior to all of these so I could get a better idea of what to watch. Barbara Crampton talks about filming at night after the stores close and needing to wrap up before they all open. And she loves the kill where Leslie Todd's (played by Suzee Slater) head gets lasered and explodes. Note: some online sites say it was Crampton's character, "Suzie Lynn," who gets lasered; I think that's because the character's and actor's names get confused. And both are blonde. And most likely, people were not paying attention. 

There are a lot of horror movie Easter Eggs in this one too, which is a lot of fun.

Jackson, IL Connections

Jackson, IL is based on a real place, Jacksonville, IL. It has worked out great for me so far except for one little problem. Jacksonville, IL did not (and still doesn't) have a mall. So I had to invent one. It doesn't look like the one here. Though the pizza guy here may have helped me figure out who Sal was (and an old boss I had when I worked at Pizza Hut myself), there is still a lot to like about this movie.

I have always wanted to do an adventure in an old mall with zombies. Zombies. Kill-bots. About the same thing.  

NIGHT SHIFT has zombies covered, and if you want kill-bots, then Thirteen Parsecs has you covered. 

I might need to write up Lincoln Square Mall now. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 6
First Time Views: 4

October Movie Challenge: The Majorettes (1986)

Going back to 1986 again with some of the oldest-looking high school students so far.  I will say this, I am going be completely burned out on canned 80s synth-pop by November.  Though in typical 80s slasher flick fashion, we get about 5 minutes in before there is any gratuitous nudity or creepy stalkery types. This one gives us two, Harry AND his mother, Helga Schuler. Harry is a creepy Peeping Tom, and Helga is a live-in nurse who wants to kill her patient. Fun times.

The Majorettes (1986)

Someone is murdering the majorettes of a small Pennsylvania high school. For the record, I don't think my school had Majorettes. We had cheerleaders and pom-pom girls. Also, I don't know if I honestly know the difference, really. 

Anyway, the killings start right away. Our first victims are Tommy and Nicole. 

The killer wears military camouflage and a hood, stalks the girls when they are alone, and leaves their bodies in or near water. The murders appear to be part of some twisted religious ritual, with the killer believing he is cleansing the girls before they can become corrupted adults. The slasher is a surprise. 

The acting is, well, fairly terrible. But I wasn't expecting much. But seriously though, the gang is some of the worst acting I have seen in a long time. 

So it is based on a novel by John Russo, who also wrote the screenplay. It was filmed in western Pennsylvania. So maybe it would be closer to my Sunny Valley setting than Jackson or Carbon Vale.

That is, until the movie turns into a low-budget Rambo wannabe. I get it. It was the 80s. It feels like two movies that were being filmed at the same time with the same cast and then accidentally spliced together. The Slasher flick and the High School drug turf war. And in this case, the two halves don't add up to a good single movie. At all. 

Bottom line here is it doesn't matter if it is good or not; I am looking for the vibe. Majorettes by 1986 doesn't give us anything we have not already seen a 100 times. I mean, its competition is movies like Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street. This would have been better if it had come out in, say, 1982. 

Jackson, IL Connections

So the ending got me thinking. Cheerleaders are favored prey of these slashers. And that could be true in Jackson too, except for one thing: my head cheerleader is a witch. And the football team's co-captain is a Divine Warrior. So my kids have teeth. 

Granted, this is not terribly different than the premise of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," NIGHT SHIFT's older step-sister, and I do like subverting clichés too. The pretty blonde cheerleader does not have to be the first victim. The football player does not have to be the dumb jock who wanders off alone. They can be the people the monster should have avoided.

Stephanie would take an attack on herself personally, of course, but she would handle it. An attack on one of her cheerleaders would be something else entirely. Stephanie does not merely lead the squad. She knows those girls, watches over them, and considers their safety part of her responsibility. She is their protector. 

As she might tell the killer:

"Come after me, and I'll deal with it. Come after my girls? We are going to have a fucking problem. And by 'we,' I mean 'you.'" 

The dynamic changes when the supposed helpless victim start to throw fireballs. "Oh! You have a knife." Her hands burst into flames. "That's just adorable."

Yeah. I might need to find some other victims.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 5
First Time Views: 4

October Movie Challenge: Demons 2 (1986)

Given the disappointment of Dracula 2025 I went back to the fertile ground of Dario Argento and Lamberto Bava for the sequel to the 1985 Demons movie. "Sequel" is generous since it is essentially the same plot.

Demons 2 (1986)

Demons (1985) had a bunch of people meeting up in a theatre when a bunch of demons attacked and killed or infected them all. 

Demons 2 (1986) had a bunch of people meeting up in a high-rise when a bunch of demons attacked and killed or infected them all. This one, though, also features a 10-year-old Asia Argento. It also assumes that the events of the first movie are now known to the whole world. 

This is not a great flick. It's also not a very coherent one. There is a group of young adults investigating "the restricted zone," and people are watching it on TV, but who is filming them? Is it live? If they are doing something they are not supposed to be doing, then where are the authorities? Of course, one of them bleeds on a demon, and it comes back to life. And then one of the demons comes through the TV to attack a woman in the high rise. And is it coming through the other TVs? 

The special effects are mostly, well, hysterical. Some are remarkably effective, and others are just remarkably bad. 

The soundtrack is pretty cool ,though. 

Jackson, IL Connections

So, I never quite understood why these are "demons" and not just some sort of mutant disease. Well, I guess "Demons" fits better on a movie poster. In truth, they are more like fast zombies. In a NIGHT SHIFT game, the infections could still be in place, and it could even be demonic in nature.

I'd have to figure out what makes them demonic rather than just really ugly zombies.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
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