October Movie Challenge: Demons 2 (1986)

Given the disappointment of "Sotto il Vestito Niente" 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
Viewed: 4
First Time Views: 3

October Movie Challenge: Fear No Evil (1981)

 This movie is a little outside my time frame, but it is a foundational movie for my ideas of Jackson. I used to have this poster on my wall for a while, and I later gave it to a friend. Long story short, I wanted to give him one of The Omen, but this worked. 

Fear No Evil (1981)

Andrew Williams (Stefan Arngrim), an eighteen-year-old high-schooler of some brilliance but also of a withdrawn nature. His classmates make life difficult for him, his father is afraid of him, and he has put himself at odds with everyone in his vicinity.

Likely because he is the reincarnation of Lucifer.

There are three archangels who have been reborn to stand against him, which is fortunate. Unfortunately, only two of them are aware of it.

We start the tale a few years earlier, when Father Damon (the Archangel Rafael) kills a man he is convinced is Lucifer. But evil has a way of not staying dead, especially in the movies. Lucifer comes back as Andrew, born in 1963 into a Catholic home where they will come to understand that there is something very wrong with their boy.

Fast forward to 1980, and Andrew is a senior. Columbia, Harvard, and Yale would all have him, but he has no use for college, his peers, or anything else, for that matter. His father has turned to drink and abuse; he thinks Andrew is evil and has no better way to deal with it. Honestly, his father is a huge jerk from the word go. 

Then there is Margaret, the sister of Father Damon. She sees the signs of Lucifer’s return and is under the impression she and her late brother were two of the archangels meant to put a stop to it. The third is Julie, an Andrew classmate who is quite unaware of her true self. It is a bit convoluted, to be honest.

On top of that, you have zombies, a haunted island fortress, demonic transformations, a Passion play gone horribly awry, some punk rock, resurrection, glowing crosses, and Lucifer about in full dramatic makeup like a methed-up Dr. Frank N Furter. And more special effects that an Earth, Wind and Fire video.  It is not exactly subtle.

Frank LaLoggia, who would go on to do Lady in White, wrote and directed this as his first feature. For a low-budget affair, it is wildly ambitious. LaLoggia has no intention of making a run-of-the-mill Antichrist picture; he wants a religious epic, a Gothic tale, a story of teenage rebellion and a horror film all in one. He did not always succeed. Though I prefer a film to overreach and fail rather than phone it in and call it a day.

Stefan Arngrim gives a performance as Andrew that is cold and still. He says little and looks at people with a good deal of contempt and resentment. In the early going, he is more sympathetic than those around him. His mother loves him but can do nothing to shield him; his father torments him out of fear; his classmates do what they can to torment him. They have already made up their minds he is a monster before he has even taken to his supernatural side. 

LaLoggia puts together a fine soundtrack from the Boomtown Rats, the Ramones, Patti Smith, the Sex Pistols and the like that lends the school scenes an energy at odds with the solemnity of the religious fare. You get the sense of a film made at the crossroads of old religious fears and new ones concerning punk and social mores, with the Satanic Panic on the horizon.

And in the final act, any pretense of restraint is dropped entirely. 

The special effects are as wonderfully cheap as they are effective. LaLoggia may have had certain visions for some scenes, but the film does not have the funds to realize them; instead, you are left with smoke, colored lighting, and some rather frantic editing, all delivered with complete sincerity. You know what? it still works.

I saw this when it was new, yet very little of the plot has stuck with me over the years. I could put my finger on the Satanic horror vibe and Andrew, but nothing about the high-school play or the reincarnated archangels, nor how odd things get in the final act. Perhaps because Fear No Evil is less a movie in the conventional sense and more like four horror movies in a trench coat. It is part *The Omen*, part Catholic nightmare, part low-budget epic, and part high-school supernatural drama. To say it lacks focus is an understatement.

I would be hard-pressed to call it a great movie, or even a good one. But still it was a fun one. 

Jackson, IL Connections

So Darren Vale is pretty much my homage to Andrew Williams and Fear No Evil. No. He is Andrew with the serial numbers filed off. Like I have said before, sometimes embracing the cliché is the way to go. 

Now this movie also has archangels, something I have not used in Jackson even though they are something that would work fine in any NIGHT SHIFT game. Honestly, I have not given them a thought really. I don't think they belong, to be honest. Jackson is hometown horror where the responsibility of fighting the forces of darkness belongs to ordinary people. Well...normal people and some supernatural people. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 3
First Time Views: 2

Urban Fantasy Fridays: The Unexplained (2009)

 AH! It is October again. My favorite time of the year. Last year, on my Fantasy Fridays, I spent some time with urban fantasy games and, in particular, with the idea of using games as a sort of life-path development for my various characters. I actually did a few characters, but I only posted one, my witch, Larina. 

Something very interesting happened while I was doing that. I grabbed a couple of Pathfinder characters and was doing the same experiment on them. I remember sitting in my car one night, waiting for my oldest to get off work, and I began writing a bit on what those two characters would have been like as teens. Then I took it a step (ok, a big step) further and thought: what would they have been like as teens in high school, not in a fantasy world, but in an American high school, specifically in the Midwest.

Those two Pathfinder characters became Stephanie and Faye. I resurrected a bunch of other ideas, and by December of 2025, I had a very good idea about what my town of Jackson, IL, was starting to look like. It has been my obsession ever since, and here I am nearly a year and several thousand words later. If you go through those posts, you can see the ideas that eventually took shape as the Jackson I am talking about now. 

With this collection of Urban Fantasy Fridays, I want to explore other games in my collection that do similar, but not quite the same, things as NIGHT SHIFT does for my Jackson setting/Night World. I am committed to Jackson as a NIGHT SHIFT Night World, no other game fits it quite so well. But, I do want to see what these other experiences give me. I want to make sure I am capturing not only what makes NIGHT SHIFT special, but what makes Jackson so special to me.  For the Fridays in October I am going to pull some Urban Fantasy/Horror RPGs from my shelves and see how they work for me. Some are older games, others are newer but obscure, but all approach the "modern magical world" from different points of view, and all can teach me something.

Last year I went in order, more or less, of life span development. This year I am generally going in order of involvement with the supernatural. From least to most. For example, today's game, The Unexplained, largely deals with normal people dealing with abnormal things. In the last game, Night Life, the characters are the "abnormal things."

So lets get to it!

The Unexplained

by Bradford Younie, 
2009 Carnivore Games, 298 pages.

I talked about the FUDGE game, The Unexplained, way back in 2010. Or, more to the point, I talked about its sister game, Now Playing. Back then, I described it like this: if The Unexplained is the reality, then Now Playing is the TV series based on it. Both are FUDGE games and use FUDGE dice. They are 100% compatible with each other and both top my list as my favorite FUDGE games to date.

While I am looking at this game for possible ideas, I do want to point out that it is, by itself, a perfectly wonderful game. I have not looked at it in detail for over 15 years, and I am surprised at how playable it still is. 

Character creation is easy using a simple point-buy system. I was able to generate NINE characters in under an hour. Likely, I would have been faster, but I was trying to maximize the differences in my characters. 

The Unexplained posits that the characters are part of an organization dedicated to hunting supernatural monsters. Now, the nature of my Jackson kids kinda precludes this. That is fine; it is not a requirement of this game, merely a feature they are adding. 

The Foundation for Paranormal Investigation

The FPI is an in-game conceit that allows the players to get their characters together. It is part "You characters meet in a tavern" and part "You have been recruited by S.A.V.E. or A.R.T.E.M.I.S. or the FBI or SCP or whatever alphabet organization the characters need to join. 

That said, there are some really good ideas for putting together an organization like this and using it in a game. Maybe I'll revisit them someday, but right now I don't need them. My characters meet because they are all in the same school. 

But if this is your thing, then The Unexplained is worth picking up for these ideas. The underlying system is FUDGE, but really, as I showed already, replace the words with numbers, and you can play this almost as if it were Unisystem.

My Jackson Kids

Character creation was so fast and easy that, instead of doing one or two of my Jackson kids. I stated them all. Well. Most of them.  Plus the Character Concept Questionnaire I used from Now Playing was also a huge help. 

I won't add all of them here, but I will give two examples. My witch, Larina, and the reluctant ally, Vera. Why? Vera Rook is becoming a LOT of fun over here. She is just a great frenemy who adds some tension to the group. Plus, she irritates Stephanie and Larina, and that is always fun.

Larina Stephanie Nichols

Profession: The Scholar* (I am using the Professions more like archetypes)
Paranormal Society: Jackson Public High School
RankAge: 16 
Income: Good
Luck: 3
Size: Medium/0

Attributes
Brawn: Mediocre
Agility: Fair
Stamina: Fair
Reasoning: Superb
Perception: Good
Will: Fair

Gifts
Attractive
Single Minded (Magic)

Faults
Curious
Obsession: Magic
Quick-Tempered

Psychic Abilities
Mental Psi: Psychometry (Fair), Telepathy (Fair)
Physical Psi: Telekinesis (Fair)

Skills
Astrology (Fair), Athletics (Mediocre), Concentrate (Good), Computers (Fair), Decipher Script (Fair), Drive (Mediocre), Gather Information (Good), Language, Greek (Poor), Language, Latin (Poor), Mythology (Good), Occult (Great), Parapsychology (Fair), Research (Good), Ritual, Wicca (Fair), Search (Good)

Vera Diane Rook

Profession: The Reluctant Ally* (I am using the Professions more like archetypes)
Paranormal Society: Jackson Public High School
RankAge: 16 
Income: Great
Luck: 3
Size: Medium/0

Attributes
Brawn: Fair
Agility: Fair
Stamina: Fair
Reasoning: Good
Perception: Great
Will: Fair

Gifts
Attractive
Increased Income
Patron: Rook Family

Faults
Blunt and Tactless

Psychic Abilities
Mental Psi: Psychometry (Good)

Skills
Astrology (Good), Bluff (Fair), Cryptozoology (Fair), Drive (Good), Gather Information (Fair), Ghost Hunting (Fair), Intimidate (Good), Occult (Fair), Persuade (Good), Religions (Good), Research (Fair), Ritual, Wicca (Fair), Sense Motive (Good)

This run is where we learn that Vera's family is Jewish. She is a witch yes, but her religion is Jewish. Much like Larina's religion is Wicca. Vera is a bit of a lapsed Jew, but I think I want to work more of it into her character later on. 

The images, as it turns out, are from the day after Larina's 16th birthday. Her birthday was on a Friday, and this would have been the next Saturday. 

Remember, with all these "Poors" and "Fairs," they are still just kids.

Though looking at the art of these two, they seem to be less Larina "Nix" and Vera "Raven" of Jackson and more Larina "Creepy" and Vera "Shadow" of Carbon Vale. 

-- 

The Unexplained is a lot of fun. I have never really connected with FUDGE, but this game makes me want to try it again.

Links

• PDF from DriveThruRPG
• Carnivore Games
• Sheets
• Facebook
• Willow & Tara stats

October Movie Challenge: Slaughter High (1986)

Let's get into this properly now.

I am going to spend this year's October Horror Movie Challenge with a couple of themes in mind. The first is movies from 1985 to 1986 and movies featuring high schools and small towns.  There is some overlap between these two themes, so I am going to start with those. I am actually a little surprised by how many I haven't seen.

Slaughter High (1985)

Pretty much in the center of my Venn diagram is 1985's Slaughter High. Now I was sure I saw this back then; I mean, it has Caroline Munro in it, and I tried to catch anything she was in.  But I have no memory of this one. I mean, there is nothing special about it, to be honest; it is a fairly predictable flick but that doesn't not make it fun. Plus, there are some good ideas here. Though I wonder, are they predictable or did I see this and just forgot it? It does have an old abandoned high school, like my Jackson setting, but in my defense, I actually stole that idea from my own hometown.

The film starts in 1976, but the bulk takes place later on in 1986 during the high school class reunion. 

The idea of a class reunion to bring all the school bullies is a fun one. Too bad the acting is fairly terrible. 

Marty is the local geeky kid who gets picked on. So ten years after the accident on April Fools' Day that disfigures him, he gets all his former bullies to a fake high school reunion where he kills them off one by one. 

Sadly, Simon Scuddamore, who played Marty the slasher, died of a drug overdose shortly after filming.

One note. I am watching this on Tubi, where I am planning to watch a lot of these movies, and it is so dark it is hard to see anything at all in some scenes. Not sure if it is Tubi, the copy they have, or if that is how the movie was. I know it is not my TV, at least.

Jackson, IL Connections

I am also going to try, where possible, to talk about what I can use from these movies for my Jackson, IL Night World for NIGHT SHIFT. Failing that, NIGHT SHIFT, Thirteen Parsecs, and/or Advanced Witches & Warlocks. For AW&W in particular, it will be more of a tonal thing; these are the things in the media around 1985-86 that might have influenced me. 

Slaughter High at least gives me some ideas for class reunions, not necessarily for the current group of characters (and my much-talked-about NPCs), but maybe for the Class of 1976 back for their 10th reunion. This shows that the horrors of this town keep happening over and over again. In truth I kind of like that idea. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 2
First Time Views: 2

October Movie Challenge: Dracula (2025)

 I have a theme this year, but I need to get this one out of the way first. I had heard a lot about it, both good and bad, but a quote from Director Luc Besson filled me with dread. And not the good kind.

Besson had described the project as the "ultimate love story" and even going as far as to say (and I am trying to remember his exact quote) "if you read the novel it is a love story."

NO.

Dracula has NEVER been a love story unless you count Stoker's dedication in the novel to Hall Caine, aka "Hommy-Beg."  It was only a love story in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 Dracula. Well...yes other movies worked that bit of plot, but Christopher Lee's Dracula was never in love with his "brides." Bela Lugosi's Dracula was never in love. Frank Langella's...well, his Dracula was just lust-filled all the time. That is fine. 

I am ranting, and I have not even clicked play yet. And it is after midnight now.

Dracula (2025)

Ok. So right away, some liberties are being taken with the story. Not a big deal. Again, many characters are gone, and a few new ones are added. Set in France. Gods, this is going to be a pain.

I am a few more minutes in. One thing is 100% clear to me. This movie would have never exsisted without the FFC 1992 Dracula. Remove any Dracula movie in existence, and the others still survive, albeit with some minor changes. The 1979 shots would look different if the 1931 movie were removed. The shadows would be different in the 1992 movies if Nosferatu were removed. Remove the 1992 movie, and this one falls apart.

Matilda De Angelis appears as "Maria" our "Lucy" stand-in. Though Lucy represented the old world of Europe, the damsel in distress, the "weak-blooded woman." Maria is part of the old French aristocracy. Now. I do like this character, plus I adore Matilda De Angelis. If she were in this movie more I *might* enjoy it better. 

Christoph Waltz plays Van Helsing. Is he a priest here or just pretending to be one? No idea; they are not very clear on that. BUT as always, Christoph Waltz is fantastic and really great casting here. Too bad the rest of the movie is shit. 

Ok, on to our other actors. Caleb Landry Jones as Dracula. Maybe the worst Dracula casting since Jack Palance (although his movie was better). Maybe he was told to play Dracula like Lestat and ended up doing neither character justice. Zoë Bleu was okay as Mina and less so as "Elisabeta" (a character who never appeared in the book and only gained prominence in the 1992 movie). Ewens Abid played Jonathan Harker and was utterly forgettable. He didn't really do anything.

The movie is a mess, really. We are also supposed to believe that Dracula's ability to charm comes from a perfume he had manufactured in Paris? Did the French Film Board give them some kickback for this?

I like Luc Besson. I love The Fifth Element, Léon: The Professional, and even Lucy was fun. This? Fuck this was bad.

I own nearly every Dracula movie there is. Between VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray, you would be hard-pressed to find one I don't have. I am not buying this one. I did get a new Blu-Ray of Frank Langella's 1979 Dracula for my birthday last summer. I might need to pop that one in as a palate cleanser.

Jackson, IL Connections

So. For this challenge, I am going to try to make connections between the movie I watch and one or more of my current settings.  

This one is not going to make the cut. 

There is the question of whether Jackson should have a vampire, aside from the one or two I have in "Better Off Undead." But besides that, this one is not good enough to emulate. Maybe, MAYBE, an argument could be made that this is a better "Strahd von Zarovich" movie, since it features an obsessive love story. Maybe I could bring in Maria to that world. Christoph Waltz would make for a better Van Richten, to be honest.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 1
First Time Views: 1

Witchcraft Wednesday: Advanced Mystics & Mentalists

 I have been sitting on this one for a little bit. But when you see why, you will understand.

So it is my pleasure to announce another upcoming book: Advanced Mystics & Mentalists.

The art is by Eugene Jaworski. The same artist as my upcoming Witch book.

As you can see this new book will be a companion to my Advanced Witches & Warlocks. 

I have been sitting on this image for a bit. The subject is "Morgan Highstar," but he is really my old DM, R. Michael Grenda.  I want him on the cover because while I was obsessed with witches, he was obsessed with psychics and psionics. I didn't want to post it until I had had a chance to give this painting to his widow. I was able to get to her this past weekend, and now I can show it off to all of you. Grenda's widow and I both think Eugene captured his look extremely well.

Advanced Mystics & Mentalists covers mystics, psychics, and mentalists. Grenda loved psychics, and I have so much of his material. I have a lot of my own material, and material from Advanced Witches & Warlocks, that fits this book much better. As I mentioned, you can't write about witches for decades and not have some opinions about psychics. 

There is a ton of material of here. Some is mine, some we worked on together, and a lot of it is his. So, in a sense, I'll be working as the editor on this.

This project still has a very, very long way to go. I am thinking the book won't see the light of day until at least 2028. I have WAY too much on my plate now.

Plus, I want to do this one justice. It behooves me to do a proper book on psychic powers for Old School Games. I am just disappointed it has taken me 40 years to get it done.

I hope this new book can live up to the hype I am putting into it. But more importantly, I hope it lives up to my expectations for what this book should be. 

Mail Call Tuesday: Red Sonja Unconquered

 Another Holy Grail item acquired this past week. My own copy of the AD&D 1st Edition Module, RS1: Red Sonja Unconquered.  I am a big Red Sonja and Clyde Caldwell fan, so this is perfect.

You won't find this one (or the Conan ones) on DriveThruRPG, so having a real copy is something I have wanted for a while.

I got it, and it is in really good shape. It's not every day that I can say I bought a new AD&D 1st edition book.

We just don't get enough Clyde Caldwell succubi.

I don't have CB1, but I'm not actively looking for it either.

It also dawns on me that I have not stated Red Sonja for the Wasted Lands game. I am implying no ownership here of Sonja, Wasted Lands, or them to each other. Just a fun exercise. 

Red Sonja of Hyrkania

Class: Warrior
Level: 11
Species: Human
Alignment: Light Good
Background: Barbarian
Homeland: Hyrkania

Abilities
Strength: 14 (+1) A
Agility: 17 (+2)
Toughness: 11 (0)
Intelligence: 17 (+2) 
Wits: 10 (+0) 
Persona: 18 (+3) 

Fate Points: 1d10
Defense Value: 4 (Improved Defense, Gift of Scáthach)
Vitality: 75
Degeneracy: 0
Corruption: 0

Check Bonus (A/N/D): +5/+3/+1
Melee Bonus: +4 (base)
Ranged Bonus: +4 (base)
+1 to melee attacks and damage
+2 to ranged attacks

Saves: +4 to all Saves

Warrior Abilities
Combat expertise, Improved Defense (-3), Extra attacks (3), Extra damage die, Master of Battle, Master of Weapons, Magic Resistance 40%, Supernatural Attacks, Tracking

Divine/Heroic Touchstones

First Level: Gift of Scáthach, -2 to DV*

I could give her more, but she is already pretty powerful. This Sonja is quite capable. 

The model for Red Sonja was Jeanne Stanley, who had also been his model for the ranger Alerelean on the cover of Dragon #94, among other modeling for Caldwell.