Urban Fantasy Fridays: WitchCraft RPG & Unisystem

 It is Halloween! The best day of the year. For that, I want to share one of my all-time favorite Urban Fantasy Horror RPGs.

C. J. Carella's WitchCraft RPG

WitchCraft is, hands down, my favorite game.  Period.  Picking up a copy of this book back in 1999 was just like picking up a copy of the Monster Manual in 1979.  Everything I ever wanted in a game was right there. Everything.

WitchCraft had such a profound effect on my gaming that I can draw a rather clean line between what came before and what came after it.  Granted, a lot was going on in 1999/2000, both gaming-wise and personally, that may have added to this effect; it was an effect all the same.

Back in 1999, I was really burned out on AD&D. I was working on my own Witch netbook and reading various games when someone, I forget where, must have been the old RAVENLOFT-L that TSR/WotC used to run, told me I really needed to check out WitchCraft.  At first, I balked.  I had tried Vampire a couple of years ago and found I didn't like it (and I was very much out of my vampire phase then), but I was coming home from work and my FLGS was on the way, so I popped in and picked up a copy.  This must have been the early spring of 2000.

I can recall sitting in my office reading this book over and over. Everything was so new again, so different.  This was the world I had been trying, in vain, to create for D&D, but never could.  The characters in this book were also all witches, something that pleased me to no end; it was more than just that.  Plus, look at that fantastic cover art by George Vasilakos. That is one of my favorite, if not my most favorite, covers for a game book. I have it hanging in my game room now.

WitchCraft uses what is now called the "Classic" Unisystem system.  So there are 6 basic attributes, some secondary attributes (derived), skills, qualities, and drawbacks.  Skills and attributes can be mixed and matched to suit a particular need.

WitchCraft uses a Point-Buy Metaphysics magic system, unlike Ghosts of Albion's levels of magic and spells system. Think of each magical effect as a skill that must be learned, and you have to learn easier skills before the harder ones first. In D&D, for example, it is possible to learn Fireball without having previously learned Produce Flame.  In WitchCraft, you could not do that.  WitchCraft, though, is not about throwing around "vulgar magics".  WitchCraft is a survival game where the Gifted protect humanity from all sorts of nasty things, from forgotten Pagan gods, to demons, fallen angels, and the Mad Gods; Cthulhoid-like horrors from beyond.  WitchCraft takes nearly everything from horror and puts it all together, and makes it work.

The Eden Studios version was the Second Edition, I was later to find out.  The first one was from Myrmidon Press. I manged to find a copy of that one too and it was like reading the same book, from an alternate universe.  I prefer the Eden Edition far more for a number of reasons, but I am still happy to have both editions.

The first edition (from Myrmidon Press) is like an alternate-universe echo of the later Eden Studios release. I own both, but Eden’s version is definitive. It’s cleaner, more playable, and it feels like the book C. J. Carella meant to write.

The central idea behind WitchCraft is the same as most other Modern Supernatural Horror games.  The world is like ours, but there are dark secrets, magic is real, and monsters are real. You know the drill.  But WitchCraft is different.  There is a Reckoning coming, everyone feels it, but no one knows what it is.  Characters then assume the roles of various magic-using humans, supernatural beings, or even mundane individuals, and they fight against the threats.  Another conceit of the game (and one I use a lot) is that supernatural occurrences are greater now than ever before.  Something's coming...  (dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria).

It is most often compared to World of Darkness, but there are aspects of WitchCraft that I prefer.  Unlike (old) Mage there is no war between the (good) Mages and the (evil) Technocracy.  There is a war certainly, but nothing so cut and dry.  Unlike the new Mage, there are rarely clean divisions between the factions.  Yes, yes Mage players, I am being overly simple, but that is the point, on the simple levels new Mage dives everything into 5 because that is how the designers want it.  There are factions (Associations) and different metaphysics for each, but they also overlap, and sometimes no clear and defined lines are to be found or established.  It feels very organic.

In my opinion, C. J. Carella may be one of the best game designers out there.  WitchCraft is a magnum opus that few achieve.  I took that game and I ran with it.  For 2000 - 2003, it was my game of choice above and beyond anything.  The Buffy RPG, built on the Cinematic Unisystem, took over till I wrote Ghosts of Albion, which also uses the Cinematic Unisystem.  I mix and match the systems as I need, but WitchCraft is still my favorite.

WitchCraft, in fact, is what got me into professional game design.

Back in the Spring/Summer of 2001, I started up a new game.  I had just purchased the WitchCraft RPG book about 16 months prior, and I was looking for something new.  That something came to me in the guise of Willow and Tara.  I had been watching Buffy for a bit, and I really enjoyed the character of Willow.  When she got together with fellow witch Tara, I thought they were perfect.  I had become very involved in the online Willow/Tara fandom, so I created a game, focusing on just them.

The game would focus on just these two, no one else from the show (which I would soon become an ex-fan of, but that is a different story).  Plus it gave me something to try out in a modern setting, something I have not done since my early days with the Chill RPG.

The trickiest part of developing game stats of any fictional character that belongs to someone else is knowing how to strike a balance between the game's rules and the fictional portrayal. A lot of "artisitc" license needs to be used in order to get a good fit. For example, how do you determine what some one's strength is when there is little to no on screen evidence? What spells would the girls have?

In the end, I decided to play it a little loose, but I love where their stats ended up.  In many ways, this is who Willow and Tara are to me, not the characters on TV or in comics, but the ones who were my characters since that day back in May 2001, when I decided they needed their own chance to shine.

After this, I worked on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG.  It should be no surprise then that the Willow and Tara stats that appear there are not that much different than my own.  I can be pretty vocal in play tests.  That got me the chance to write the Ghosts of Albion RPG. This also allowed me to meet, work with and remain friends with Christopher Golden and Amber Benson.

WitchCraft paved the way for so many other games for me, not just in terms of playing but in writing.  If it were not for WitchCraft, then we would not have had Buffy, Angel, or Army of Darkness. Conspiracy X would have remained in its original system. There would be no Terra Primate or All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and certainly there would be no Ghosts of Albion.  This game means that much to me.

But you don't have to take my word for it, Eden Studios will let you have it, sans some art, for free.

Download it.  If you have never played anything else other than D&D then you OWE it yourself to try this game out.

My thing is I wish it was more popular than it is.  I love the game. If I was told I could only play one game for the rest of my life then WitchCraft would be in my top 3 or 2 choices.

Larina Nichols for WitchCraftRPG

Like Willow and Tara, I consider the WitchCraft version of Larina to be the "main" or even "true" one. Not a shock. I was reading the WitchCraftRPG after completing my first publication, "Complete Netbook of Witches & Warlocks," which featured a six-year-old Larina learning she would become a witch.  

Later on, I played her in an online game where she went to Scotland, got married, got divorced, and moved back. In fact, it was her "return to America" stage of her life that I tried to capture with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. It was here that her "modern age" counterpart had made contact with her "fantasy age", aka D&D counterpart. 

Larina "Nix" Nichols

Wicce Seeker of Knowledge Gifted
Age: 30 (circa 2000/2001), Ht: 5'4", Hair: Red, Eyes: Blue

Attributes: Str 2 Dex 3 Con 3 Int 5 Per 5 Wil 6*

Life Points:  33
Endurance: 29 (27)
Speed: 12/6

Essence Pool: 76
Channeling Level: 10

Survival: 10
Lifting Capacity: 100 lbs

Qualities & Drawbacks

Gifted (+5), Attractive (+2), Essence Channeling (+5),  Hard to Kill (+1), Increased Essence Pool (+8), Nerves of Steel, Old Soul* (+3), Resources (+1), Emotional Dependency: Fear of Rejection (-1), Honorable (-2), Recurring Nightmares (-1), Obsession Magic (-2)

Skills

Cooking (1), Craft, Simple Crafts (2), Driving, Car (2), Humanities, History (2), Humanities, Religion (2), Humanities, Wicce Theology (2), Humanities, Psychology (1), Language, Latin (4), Language, Greek (3), Language Italian (3), Language, Gaelic (2), Magic Bolt (3), Magic Theory (3), Myth and Legend, Celtic (2), Myth and Legend, Greek (2), Folk Magic (4), Occult Knowledge (2), Play Instrument, Clarinet (2), Research (3), Rituals, Wicce (2), Singing (1), Survival, Urban (3), Trance (2)

Metaphysics/Powers

Affect the Psyche (Influence Emotion, 2), Blessing (Good Luck, 2; Protection, 2), Create Ward (2), Flame (2), Insight, One with the Land (1), Perceive True Nature (2), Protection vs. Magic (3), Soul Projection (4), Soul Fire (3), Sending (1)

Weapons

Knife d4x2
Baseball bat d8x2 / d8x3 (two handed)

Possessions: Books on magic, spell components, crystal ball, laptop computer (Mac PowerBook G3 "Lombard"), 1998 Volkswagen Beetle. 

As with Chill, this is not a starting character. I have said it already, but I consider this to be the "Prime" modern Larina, that is, until I wrote NIGHT SHIFT. I use the Old Soul quality not only to have her connect to past lives, but also to her "alternate lives." This would include her D&D and Mage versions. This is what allows her to exceed the human limit of 5 in Willpower. 

Larina's Timeline

Since this is the last post in this particular series, I decided to look back on the lifespan development campaign idea. 

• Childhood
• Tween
• Teenager
• Young Adult
• Adult
• Later Adult

There are certainly more games I could use to fill in some more. Even if I never play all these games, using them is a better solution than a huge backstory. It gives you the chance to build that backstory. 

WitchCraft as a D&D Replacement

I have talked about this one as much this month, even if it is a central feature of my Fantasy Fridays. But the WitchCraftRPG can be used as a replacement for D&D. Eden even published a book for it, Dungeons & Zombies. Overtly for the All Flesh Must Be Eaten RPG.

It is no surprise then that Dungeons & Zombies comes from Jason Vey. Vey and I would later take all that we knew from WitchCraft, AFMBE, and Buffy and Ghosts, and design NIGHT SHIFT.

I even ran the Ravenloft I6 adventure using WitchCraft. It was fantastic.

Final Thoughts

Revisiting WitchCraft after Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition feels like returning to the root system after tracing the branches. Mage is about transcendence, belief shaping reality. WitchCraft is about endurance, belief surviving reality.

In Mage, Larina questions the structure of the cosmos; in WitchCraft, she defends it. Both games explore the same axis of power and consequence, but WitchCraft speaks to something older and more intimate: the soul’s stubborn refusal to go quietly.

Twenty-five years later, WitchCraft still reads like a love letter to the people who look at the dark and light a candle anyway. It’s hopeful without being naïve, mystical without losing its humanity.

When I flip through those pages now, I can still feel that same spark from 1999. The moment I realized that “urban fantasy” wasn’t just a genre; it was a worldview, and it was where I wanted to spend my gaming days and nights.

And Larina’s still there, at her desk, cup of tea beside a stack of grimoires, scrolling through student papers by day and summoning protective circles by night. The Reckoning may come, or it may not, but she’ll be ready either way.

Links

• C. J. Carella’s WitchCraft RPG – Eden Studios (DriveThruRPG)
• Ghosts of Albion
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel
• Eden Studios
• WitchCraft
• Ghosts of Albion
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel

October Movie Challenge: Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)

I also love catching a Godzilla each Challenge. Tonight I picked one of the few I have never seen. 

Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)

Like many of Godzilla movies of the Heisei era, this one has high-tech government agencies, weapons that we still don't have, and psychic girls who can communicate with the Kaiju. And like many of the movies of this era it starts off with a Godzilla attack, gets really slow in the middle and then picks up for the final battle.

This monster in this one, Biollante, is a hybrid of some sort of plant, bacteria, Godzilla cells, and a human. The message here is the dangers of genetic manipulation. 

The setup begins in the aftermath of The Return of Godzilla (1984). Scientists recover Godzilla’s cells, “G-Cells,” of course, and everyone wants a piece of them. These cells can regenerate, adapt, maybe even save humanity… or destroy it. Likely destroy it. Enter Dr. Shiragami, a geneticist mourning his daughter Erika, who died in a terrorist bombing. In a moment of heartbreak and hubris, he fuses her DNA with that of a rose, and, later, with Godzilla’s. Because in classic mad-scientist logic, that’s the only way to preserve her soul.

What grows from that grief is Biollante, a massive, vine-choked, glowing-pollen monstrosity that’s part plant, part kaiju, and maybe part human spirit. When Godzilla awakens, drawn by psychic resonance and nuclear energy, the two meet, and the result is one of the strangest, most melancholy battles in the franchise.

Biollante isn’t a villain. She’s a tragedy.  Her screams sound like wind through broken reeds, and when she blooms into her second, more monstrous form, it’s both horrifying and gorgeous, a radioactive Triffid/Venus flytrap. This isn’t just a monster fight; it’s Frankenstein by way of environmental horror.

There’s an undercurrent of the occult here, too, whether intentional or not. The merging of human, plant, and kaiju DNA echoes alchemical transmutation, the philosopher’s dream of uniting matter and spirit. Maybe I have been reading too much occult theory lately. Erika’s soul literally becomes immanent in nature. If that isn’t animism bordering on witchcraft, I don’t know what is. In a way, Biollante is Gaia’s vengeance, the blood-rose born of man’s arrogance and nuclear sin.

The psychic subplot, with Miki Saegusa’s debut as a telepathic young woman attuned to both monsters, only deepens the theme. She’s the first true occult scientist of the Heisei era: part medium, part empath, part early warning system for apocalypse. 

Visually, the film is stunning. The Biollante effects still hold up: the massive puppet dripping with sap and smoke, the way her vines coil like serpents, the glowing spores that drift into the night sky at the end. The music swells with mournful choirs and synthetic dread. 

When Biollante dissolves into glittering spores and ascends to the heavens, we glimpse Erika’s face in the light. The effects are not great and maybe a little sappy, but they are par for the course.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

Maybe not for either idea, but I do love Kaiju.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 36
First Time Views: 25

October Movie Challenge: Jinn (2014)

This 2014 indie film from writer-director Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad wants to be an American horror story with Islamic roots, and that alone makes it worth watching. We’ve seen vampires, werewolves, and demons a thousand times, but the Jinn, beings of smokeless fire from pre-Islamic and Qur’anic lore, rarely get their cinematic due. I was hoping for something a little more here. It has Serinda Swan (who I like) and Ray Park (who is also a lot of fun).

Jinn (2014)

The film opens with a bit of apocryphal myth-building: God created three intelligent races, angels from light, humans from clay, and jinn from smokeless fire. Some jinn sided with Iblis when he fell, others remained neutral, and ever since, they’ve lived hidden among us. So far, so mythic. Then we jump to present-day Michigan, where automotive designer Shawn (Dominic Rains) starts experiencing visions and supernatural attacks. Soon, he’s told that his family is cursed by the evil jinn and that he’s the last of a bloodline chosen to end it.

It's not bad, really. It's a neat way to try to square all the Abrahamic religions into a single narrative. 

The acting is earnest but uneven, even Serinda Swan as his wife, the pacing awkward, and the CGI creature effects are… well, let’s just say they’d fit right into a 2000s Syfy Channel movie. But, and this is a big but, there’s a sincerity to it. Ahmad isn’t mocking his subject matter or cashing in on the latest horror trend. He’s telling a story about faith, legacy, and unseen forces that most Western horror simply ignores. You really feel that he has a story he wants to tell, but I am not 100% sure he knows *how* to tell it. 

Ray Park is fun; he is given more of a chance to act here and even show off some of his martial arts moves as "Good Jinn" Gabriel. 

I *like* the concept of the jinn as older than humanity, as beings with free will, capable of love, hate, and religion, gives them a complexity that your average “fallen angel” lacks. They aren’t just demons; they’re the others, the neighbors just beyond the veil. In folklore, a jinn might bless your child or burn down your house, depending on how you treated their territory. That ambiguity is missing in Hollywood, and Jinn at least tries to reclaim it.

This is not a particularily good film, but it was a fun one. The highlight for me? William Atherton as Father Westhoff. First he is a likable character who you feel has a history and not always as a priest. Plus he is playing a good guy you are supposed to like. Very different from the "Asshole" he usually played.  The acting might uneven, but he was great.

The scares are few and predictable, but still not bad. 

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

This movie feels like someone's WitchCraftRPG game. It could also be a great NIGHT SHIFT game as well. As I said above, Jinn can be really interesting and something other than just another demon type.

For Occult D&D the potential is even greater. Djinn and their kin are reduced to Elemental "gennie" types and nearly everything that makes them interesting in myth is gone. 

So not a great movie, but certainly one I might have to revisit someday.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 35
First Time Views: 26

October Movie Challenge: The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit (2006)

 Every October Challenge I like to do a Doctor Who episode. It has to be at least two full episodes of new Who or a complete series of old Who. And it has to "hide behind the sofa" scary. Since it is my kid's birthday, we let him choose. 

The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit (2006)

Ok this is one of the all time great Doctor Who stories.

The 10th Doctor and Rose land on a planet (later they learn it's called "Krop Tor" the bitter pill). There is writing that the TARDIS can't translate (bad sign #1), there are odd creatures (the Ood), oh the planet is orbiting a giant black hole (bad sign #2), and the TARDIS is lost in a quake (bad sign #3).

The Ood start acting strange, talking about the Beast Rising from the Pit and people start hearing voices. Interestingly the voice of "The Beast" is Gabriel Woolf, who was also the voice of Sutekh for the 4th Doctor and the 15th Doctor.

The astronauts are drilling into this Impossible Planet to see why is it still here, not falling into the black hole, and sending out a signal. 

Then the really weird stuff really starts. Toby Zed, the archeologist, becomes possessed.  He lures another out on the planet to kill her. The drilling stops and the Doctor goes down. The Ood begin attacking everyone and speaking of the Beast.

On the planet, the Ood are attacking everyone with Toby Zed as their secret master. In the pit the Doctor and scientist Ida find an even deeper pit with a seal. Down in that Pit the Doctor finds The Beast, a giant Devil creature chained to a wall. It reminds you of one of the Daemons.

Not to spoil the ending, but it is nearly 20 years old, The Beast is trapped and he has sent his mind into Toby. Toby is escaping and the body of the Beast is stuck in the Pit with the Doctor. The Doctor springs the trap (on purpose) and the planet, the Beast, his mind, and Toby with Rose the other survivors falling into the black hole.  The Doctor escapes, finds the TARDIS, and rescues Rose. The Beast, along with Toby, gets sucked into the black hole.

I am not doing this episode any sort of justice. It is late and I am still over-stuffed with birthday Indian food. 

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

The Devil as a great cosmic monster is just too good to pass up really. Especially if you consider this beast is the source of all of them. Sorta like how "God" was supposed to be the source in Star Trek: The Final Frontier. This Doctor Who answers the question "What does the Devil need with a Starship?"

I have talked about this episode here before as well. So I'll end this here before I fall asleep. 

This obviously is a rewatch and only counts as 1.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 34
First Time Views: 25

October Movie Challenge: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)

It has been YEARS since I have seen this one. It came up on the Roku Channel, American Horrors, so I thought I would catch it again. I had forgotten that this was Dario Argento's first movie as a director.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)

aka L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo

This is the one that started it all. Before Suspiria, before the neon nightmares and supernatural witches, Dario Argento gave us a razor-sharp modern fairy tale dressed as a murder mystery. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage isn’t just a giallo, it’s the giallo that kicked open the doors for everything that followed. You can't be a fan of Italian Horror and not see this one at least once.

Tony Musante stars as Sam, an American writer living in Rome who witnesses what he thinks is an attempted murder inside a modern art gallery. He’s trapped between two glass doors, helplessly watching as a woman struggles against a black-gloved assailant. It’s a haunting image, clinical, voyeuristic, and painfully symbolic of how Argento would frame horror as both spectacle and paralysis.

From there, Sam becomes obsessed. He’s convinced he saw something that doesn’t quite fit, a visual clue just out of reach. It’s classic Hitchcock territory filtered through late-'60s/early-'70s Italian cool; bright mod interiors, bizarre suspects, and Ennio Morricone’s unnerving, almost childlike score whispering through every frame.

What makes this film fascinating, especially looking back from Suspiria or Inferno, is how mundane its horror initially seems. There are no witches here, no covens, no occult conspiracies, just art, memory, and madness. But that’s where Argento’s dark alchemy comes in. He takes the language of realism and bends it into nightmare logic. The killer’s psychology is grotesque and tragic, a fractured reflection of trauma and repression, a kind of proto–Lucifer Rising through the lens of pop modernism.

And that title! The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. I have to admit it always made me think of the movie as a half-remembered dream. A play maybe you had heard someone refer too or maybe a book. You half-expect a witch’s curse or a magic talisman, but instead, it’s just one more symbol of distortion and misdirection, an exotic bird whose song contains the clue to everything. Argento always did love his twisted fairy tales.

Visually, it’s pure 1970: glass, chrome, and blood. The camera lingers like an artist obsessed with his own canvas, and even now, you can see the DNA of future horror. De Palma, Carpenter, and even Fincher ("se7en") all owe something to this.

Watching it today feels like finding the first sigil in Argento’s cinematic grimoire. It doesn’t yet glow with the supernatural madness of his later works, but the geometry of fear is already here: art as ritual, obsession as invocation, and violence as creation. And of course Argento's near trademark of blood, screams, and sexploitation.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

Looking back over Argento's career, this one can feel like an aberration. A remarkably mundane killer, even one you might pity. 

For NIGHT SHIFT I have thrown this idea out before. The killer can seem like a supernatural creature, but instead the PCs discover it is only a normal, if troubled, human.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 32
First Time Views: 25

October Horror Movie Challenge: Akelarre (2020)

 Another rewatch tonight, but I have been wanting to rewatch it for some time.

Akelarre (2020)

I watched this one back in 2022. Tonight I rewatched it in the original Spanish.  I learned two things. First, this is a great movie and a lot is going on here. Secondly, my Spanish is still rather terrible.

Here is my original review; it still stands.

Also known as Akelarre and Coven of Sisters it is not to be confused with the 2019 movie Coven.

This one just sneaks in with the theme. Maybe Great-Great Grandmothers of the Craft is a better descriptor for this one. 

This one is horror, but not for the reasons the first two are. 

In 1609 in the Basque Country of Spain five girls are all arrested and charged with witchcraft.  One of their friends tries to rescue them and she is captured too. At first, the girls are afraid but then they begin to joke about it, not believing that this is happening to them.  Then the torture begins.    

It's all rather horrible to be honest.  Worse, because you knew this sort of thing happened all the time.  

Amaia Aberasturi stars as Ana and she is the real stand-out here. She keeps stringing along her accusers to drag out the proceedings to help save the other girls. Ana easily strings along the horny men till the full moon. 

The girls decide that in order to delay their execution longer they tell the judge they will re-enact the Black Mass, or the Sabbath, for his records. They do so and get him all involved as Lucifer.  Once they had frightened the men, or turned them on, enough they run into the woods. They are chased by the men and soldiers till they get to the edge of a cliff over the ocean.  The other women, the ones not accused of witchcraft, sing a song about the full moon and the high tide.  Ana, realizing the message, tells the other girls they can jump. 

They jump over the side, not knowing if they lived or died.  

I thought this movie was great honestly. Not the typical sort of horror, but also not exactly what I thought it was going to be either.  

Occult D&D and NIGHT SHIFT

The Occult D&D influences are obvious: witch cults, witch hunters, and scared townsfolk. The biggest issue here of course in D&D magic and demons are real, and in movies like Akelarre they are not. 

While it might not work so well as a "witch trial" idea, I love the idea of exploring more about Spanish and Basque witches.  This would be a good way to add in my demon Akelarre. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 29
First Time Views: 25

October Horror Movie Challenge: Spellbinder (1988)

 This one has been on my list for a bit. At least since I saw it in the video store in Carbondale. As it turns out, that video store is now Castle Perilous Games.  My wife says I have seen this, but I sure I hadn't; I am not really a fan of Kelly Preston. But today is a good day for witch movies. Starting this one early today because I don't want to clean up my garden.

Spellbinder (1988)

Jeff Mills (Tim Daly of Wings and Superman: The Animated Series) is a Los Angeles lawyer who saves Miranda Reed (Kelly Preston) from being beaten up by her sketchy Central Casting creep boyfriend Aldys (Anthony Crivello ). Jeff takes Miranda back to his place, where she gets naked, but they don't have sex (at least on screen) but she heals his injured back which seems to drain her and she falls asleep. Magic can be draining.

Jeff leaves her at his place (sleeping) but he sees Aldys in his dreams trying to kill him. He gets home that evening and she is still there AND cleaned his house by canglelight, just wearing one of his shirts. Had to check, yeah written by a guy. Surprised she didn't have a steak and martini ready for him. Though they do drink champagne in a bubble bath. Oh, and dinner was ready.

An aside...I still don't think Kelly Preston can act. She is great looking here, but I have never been impressed with her at all.

Soon, Jeff and Miranda settle into a domestic life, but are being followed by Temu Billy Squire and "We Have Billy Drago At Home."  Things start to fall apart when Miranda's coven starts hunting down wayward members, Jeff's secretary starts to suspect Miranda, and oh yeah, she becomes a suspect in a series of Satanic murders. Things start to pick up when Mrs. White (Audra Lindley aka Helen Roper) shows up to threaten Jeff. 

Mirianda leaves, and Jeff starts looking for her. He goes to the police and we get treated to Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Lieutenant Lee. 

Miranda has been missing for a bit now, and Jeff is still looking for her. One night he gets a call from her at his office. Mirianda is there, but the coven follows them back to Jeff's place. We learn that the coven needs to sacrifice someone on the Winter Solstice, and Miranada thinks it is going to be her.

Jeff takes Miranada to one of his clients, Brock, who is a paranoid conspiracy theorist. Mrs. White turns out to be Miranada's mother, which is a shock to absolutely no one except for Jeff.  

Miranada disappears again, even Brock's Fortress of Paranoia can't protect her.

The movie really drags at the end. Turns out everyone but Jeff is in the cult, and Miranada wasn't a victim; she was bait to get Jeff, who is the real sacrifice.  They kill him and cut out his heart.

Later on, Grace dies mysteriously, and we see Miranda acting out the same scene from the beginning of the movie on her next victim.

It had some potential, but it got bogged down. 

In the end, only Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa's Lieutenant Lee is the only decent character here. 

This really didn't change my opinion of Kelly Preston.

Occult D&D and NIGHT SHIFT

 The movie, despite its flaws, has some good ideas. A witch moving in with a PC suddenly is a great plot point. Whether the witch turns out good or evil, they will undoubtedly be trouble of some sort. 

When I was talking about the WitchCraftRPG yesterday, I was considering some Conspiracy X material as well. This movie kinda gives us some crossover. This sort of thing is a lot easier in NIGHT SHIFT.

A possible adventure idea would be to follow along with Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa's Lieutenant Lee investigating these Satanic murders. Getting closer and closer to the coven. Knowing the 1980s he would also have a background in some mystical martial art. Cliché? Yeah, but that's the 80s for you.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 28
First Time Views: 25

October Horror Movie Challenge: Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

Some films feel like autumn. Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) is one of them. Based on Ray Bradbury’s 1962 novel, it’s a dark fantasy about small towns, childhood fears, and the seductive power of regret. It’s also one of those rare movies that slipped through the cracks, too eerie for kids, too sentimental for adults, but it lingers like a memory you’re not sure you actually lived.

I have been wanting to rewatch this one for some time, and it just released on Disney+ a couple of weeks ago. I waited till tonight, October 24th, the same date as in the movie. 

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

The story takes place in Green City, Illinois—a place that could easily be Greenville down in South Central Illinois or Waukegan up north (Bradbury’s real hometown and the city’s likely inspiration). Either way, we’ll just have to pretend those rolling hills in the background somehow belong to our flat Midwest. It’s the kind of town where boys dream of adventure, but evil is only a whistle away.

The plot is simple: two boys, Jim and Will, encounter a mysterious carnival that rolls into town led by the sinister Mr. Dark, played with slithering charisma by Jonathan Pryce. The carnival promises to fulfill your deepest wishes, but the cost is your soul. Only Will’s father, the aging librarian Charles Halloway (Jason Robards, who brings real gravitas), stands between the town and damnation.

Jason Robards gives one of his most heartfelt performances as Charles Halloway, Will’s father. He’s not the traditional hero, but rather a weary, aging librarian haunted by the fear that his best years are behind him. Robards brings such quiet dignity and warmth to the role that his final act of bravery, facing down darkness for the sake of his son, feels mythic. It’s the kind of understated performance that sneaks up on you and stays long after the credits.

Jonathan Pryce is pure, liquid menace as Mr. Dark. His every word drips with charm and threat. Pryce’s Mr. Dark isn’t a cackling villain; he’s temptation incarnate, seductive, eloquent, and terrifying in his control. You can see shades of this performance echoing years later ("The High Sparrow" in Game of Thrones for example) in Pryce’s roles as smooth politicians and sly schemers. Honestly when I first watched it I thought he was the Devil.

And then there’s Pam Grier as the Dust Witch, silent and otherworldly, gliding through the film like an angel of death wrapped in silk. She’s mesmerizing, equal parts terrifying and hypnotic, and though she doesn’t have much dialogue, her presence fills every scene she’s in. Grier was already a legend of 1970s cinema by this point, and here she’s used like an icon of dark glamour, a visual embodiment of the carnival’s deadly allure. I had had a crush on her since "Scream Blacula Scream."

This movie was made during Disney’s early ’80s experimental phase, when they were testing darker, more adult material, films like The Watcher in the Woods (1980), Dragonslayer (1981), and Something Wicked This Way Comes fit into that uneasy space between family film and nightmare. You can see echoes of Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) in the tone and pacing, and some of the set pieces (especially the swirling leaves and looming carnival tents) wouldn’t look out of place in Poltergeist (1982).

It’s fascinating to look back now and see how much later media borrowed from this movie, even if unconsciously. Scenes of the train or of boys sneaking through libraries and hidden halls that feels like a dry run for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001). The imagery of flickering candles, books, and autumnal magic feels like the DNA of half a generation’s fantasy storytelling.

But for all its atmosphere, Something Wicked had a troubled birth. Bradbury himself wrote the screenplay, and his collaboration with director Jack Clayton (The Innocents) was fraught. Disney re-edited the film heavily after test screenings, reshot major portions, and replaced much of James Horner’s original score. The result is a movie that feels like a beautiful half-remembered dream, gorgeous in places, uneven in others. It was a box-office disappointment, which is a shame, because few films capture the haunting melancholy of childhood quite like this one.

Now, thanks to Disney+, Something Wicked This Way Comes is finally easy to revisit. Watching it again in high quality, without having to dig through old VHS copies, it’s clear that it deserves rediscovery. It’s a movie about innocence lost, time running out, and the magic of a small-town October night when anything might happen, and maybe it already did.

I remember seeing this one when it was new in the theatres. At the time, I was not much different than the boys on screen, a little older, though, but in a similar town in Illinois. I remember that desire for adventure. 

This movie was also an early adopter of CGI graphics. They are primative by today's standards, but still effective. That carnival ride at the end of the movie is still creepy.

Occult D&D and NIGHT SHIFT

If you’re running Ravenloft, this film is practically a template for dark carnival adventures. The tone of Something Wicked This Way Comes lives somewhere between Carnival (the 1999 Ravenloft supplement) and The Wild Beyond the Witchlight (for 5e). Both draw on the same idea—a traveling show that promises wonder but delivers damnation.

• Mr. Dark: Think of him as a charismatic Domain Lord, feeding on temptation and broken dreams. His carnival is his demiplane.
  

• The Carnival: Perfect for one of those “it appears overnight” settings. The rides and attractions offer small, personal wishes, each one just twisted enough to trap the victim in the carnival forever.

• Theme: At its heart, this is about choice, the same core idea that makes Ravenloft tick. Every character is offered a deal, and what they do with it defines their fate.

You could easily run a one-shot or full mini-campaign inspired by this film: a cursed carnival passing through a sleepy town, two children discovering its secret, and one old hero standing up to darkness one last time. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 27
First Time Views: 24

October Horror Movie Challenge: Red Dragon (2002)

The Silence of the Labs is a horror film, in fact it is one of my favorites. So when the chance came up to watch Red Dragon (2002) I jumped on it. I had read the  Thomas Harris book ages ago and watched the first movie treatment of it, Manhunter (1986). This movie is not as good as the book, but better than the 1986 movie. But both of those opinions are subjective.

Red Dragon (2002)

What Red Dragon does exceptionally well is balance tension and performance. It’s a prequel to The Silence of the Lambs, but it doesn’t feel like an afterthought. Anthony Hopkins returns as Hannibal Lecter, and while he’s clearly older than his supposed timeline, it hardly matters. Hopkins slips back into Lecter’s skin like a comfortable, expensive suit. Every word is deliberate. Every pause, a manipulation.

Edward Norton plays FBI profiler Will Graham, the man who caught Lecter years before. The film opens with that capture, a brutal and stylish confrontation that immediately sets the tone. Graham has since retired, but he’s pulled back in to track a new killer, Francis Dolarhyde, the “Tooth Fairy,” played with a quiet menace by Ralph Fiennes. Fiennes delivers a haunting, deeply tragic performance. His Dolarhyde is terrifying not because he’s monstrous, but because he’s broken and he is doing what he thinks he has to do to transform. Though I do admit, I wondered the whole time what this role would have been like in the hands of someone like Billy Bob Thorton. 

This is what makes Red Dragon work. It’s not just a procedural thriller, it’s a story about the fine line between understanding evil and becoming infected by it. Norton's Graham is empathetic to a fault. He has to feel what the killer feels to catch him, and that empathy nearly destroys him. Lecter, ever the manipulator, senses that and twists it for his amusement. Watching their verbal chess match unfold is as thrilling as any chase or murder scene. There are times when Graham gets way too close to feeling what the killers (Lecter, Dolarhyde) feel.  Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling is good because she understands. Will Graham is good because he feels. 

The supporting cast adds real weight. Emily Watson is remarkable as Reba, the blind woman who sees more clearly than anyone else in the film. Her tenderness toward Dolarhyde makes his descent even more tragic. Harvey Keitel, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Mary-Louise Parker round out an impressive lineup that grounds the story in gritty humanity. Let's be honest. This is a star-studded cast. 

It never reaches the same heights as The Silence of the Lambs. But maybe that is ok. This is the first Act of Lecter's big three-act play (I am not counting Hannibal Rising here yet). This is A New Hope to Lambs' Empire Strikes Back.

Comparisons to Manhunter (1986)

It has been a bit since I saw Manhunter, and I watched before The Silence of the Lambs. Here is what I do recall. Manhunter feels like it was pulled straight from the ‘80s crime zeitgeist: sleek, minimalist, and pulsing with synth. It’s more procedural, less psychological. For example, Lecter's cell was not as "impressive" as what we see in Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. 

Anthony Hopkins is a menacing Hannibal Lecter. He is the prefect blend of menace, evil, sharp intelligence, and amorality to give us his Academy Award-winning performance. Brian Cox is...no Anthony Hopkins, but his Lecter has menace all his own. Cox's Lector looks and acts like someone who would have really existed. Hopkin's Lecter is practically a Batman villain. 

 William Petersen’s Will Graham is distant, analytical, almost robotic at times. He’s haunted, yes, but in that stoic, Mann-hero way. You sense the obsession, but not always the emotion.

I liked Kim Greist as Molly Graham, but Mary-Louise Parker also did a fine job. 

Visually, Manhunter is all clean lines and cold light; Red Dragon is candlelight and shadow. One is clinical, the other operatic. Neither is “wrong,” but Red Dragon feels more in conversation with The Silence of the Lambs. It treats Hannibal as a monster out of folklore rather than a psychopath in a cell.

I should really rewatch it, but is so much of a Police Procedural movie I don't think I could count it as horror.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

This works for NIGHT SHIFT quite well. The characters can all be investigators looking for a new serial killer who the press has called "The Baltimore Vampire" (nod to the original movies). Only to discover it is a real freaking vampire. Or maybe it is just a garden variety serial killer who thinks he is, or can become, a vampire if he kills enough. 

For my Occult D&D ideas, well. Interestingly enough, I found the Red Dragon novel because I wanted to suck up anything related to my new obsession, D&D! I read it and thought that a psychological profiler might be a cool job to have. 

For either, Francis Dolarhyde could easily be reimagined as a cultist or warlock possessed by the spirit of an ancient dragon, a literal Red Dragon whispering promises of power and perfection. His killings are ritualistic, each one part of his ascension.

In an occult campaign, you could use this as a slow-burn mystery: murders tied to draconic iconography, victims chosen for symbolic reasons, and a cult leader whose mind is collapsing under the weight of his Patron’s voice. The PCs might be hunting the killer, only to realize his madness is contagious, the Red Dragon’s influence seeps through his victims, through dreams, through art.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 26
First Time Views: 24

October Horror Movie Challenge: Queen of Bones (2023)

 Another pick by my wife. Now, typically when she picks the movie, I get a veto power if it is under a certain IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes rating. She doesn't like to look at the ratings beforehand. This one did not have very good ratings at all, 4.6 on IMBD and no rating at all on Rotten Tomatoes; neither a good sign. But we watched it anyway and really liked it. This in a large part due to the performances by  Martin Freeman and Julia Butters. 

Plus, it is a perfect Witchcraft Wednesday movie.

Queen of Bones (2023)

Fearful or religious men (often the same thing) have always feared women’s autonomy. History has shown that whenever a woman becomes too independent, too willful, too curious, too powerful, someone slaps the word witch on her and decides she needs to be “saved.” That’s the heart of Queen of Bones, a quiet, moody folk horror film that takes place not in the 1600s but in 1930s rural America.

Martin Freeman plays Malcolm, a widowed father raising his daughter Lily (Julia Butters, who’s fantastic) and son Samuel (Jacob Tremblay) in a house thick with secrets. At first, Malcolm seems decent enough, even tender in his grief. But as Lily begins to change, both in body and in strange, supernatural ways, his love curdles into fear. We slowly realize that he’s not just haunted by what happened to Lily’s mother… he’s terrified his daughter might become her.

That dynamic drives the film’s tension. Lily starts having dreams, visions, and odd encounters in the woods. The line between puberty and possession blurs. Is she cursed? Chosen? Or simply awakening to her own power in a world that can’t tolerate that? By the time the third act arrives, the answer feels almost inevitable: Malcolm would rather destroy her than let her become something he can’t control.

It’s not subtle, but that’s fine, it isn’t supposed to be. Queen of Bones plays like a postscript to Robert Eggers' The Witch, set 300 years later but fueled by the same fear: that the feminine divine, if left unchecked, would upend the patriarchal order. It’s witch panic dressed in Depression-era grief, with dust, silence, and old ghosts in every corner.

There’s a scene late in the film, no spoilers, where Lily finally confronts what her father did to her mother. It’s devastating, not just for the violence but for the certainty behind it. Malcolm truly believes he’s doing God’s work. That’s what makes him the monster.

What I loved about this film, and what I think most critics seem to have missed, is how subtle its magic is. It’s not a jump-scare movie. It’s an awakening movie. The horror here isn’t in the witchcraft, it’s in the control. Freeman gives one of his best performances as a man eaten alive by righteousness, and Butters is mesmerizing as Lily, teetering between innocence and fury.

This isn’t The Witch, no. But it shares the same DNA: a girl’s coming-of-age framed as an act of rebellion against divine tyranny. The difference is, this one suggests the witch’s power was always there just waiting for her to claim it.

Queen of Bones might not be perfect, but it’s important. It’s quiet horror with something to say about generational trauma, religious oppression, and the terror of becoming yourself. The final moments hit like a benediction and a curse all at once.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

Let's be honest here. 

I you can't see the RPG potential here I am not sure you are reading the right blog. Generational witches are a topic I discuss frequently here. Like obsessively so.

I wonder what Lily's life would have been like after the movie? She would have been 23 near the start of WWII, in her 40s when the Beatles came to America, her 60s when the 80s began and so on. Interesting. 

For NIGHT SHIT, it’s a modern folk-horror story transplanted to a rural, Depression-era America where witchcraft is whispered about in sermons. A perfect slow-burn scenario: something ancient stirs in the woods, and the townsfolk are eager to call it Satanic. The PCs could arrive as outsiders—teachers, doctors, or priests, only to discover the true evil that resides within the house. Or a perfect Call of Cthulhu game that doesn't involve the Mythos. 

For my Occult D&D ideas, it is a good example of how witchcraft is inherited via bloodlines, and there are witch families.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 25
First Time Views: 23

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Substance (2024)

Oh. Now this one was great. I mean really great. Major kudos to stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid for this one. And special kudos to Coralie Fargeat, who wrote and directed this horror as social commentary.  Outstanding work all around.

And kudos as well to my wife for finding this one. For a non-horror fan, she has been doing great this year.

The Substance (2024)

I heard a quote once: “There is nothing subtle about a blood cannon.” Maybe it was from True Blood, maybe it was from GWAR, either way, it’s true here.

The Substance is not subtle. It’s loud, bloody, and unrelenting in both style and message. Coralie Fargeat (who wrote and directed) delivers a film that’s equal parts body horror, feminist manifesto, and acid-drenched satire of fame and aging. It’s one of those movies where you feel like you’ve been punched, bathed in glitter, and dumped in a pool of self-loathing. All at once. And I mean that as the highest compliment.

Demi Moore stars as Elisabeth Sparkle, a former fitness celebrity whose fame has faded. She’s cast aside for being “too old,” (note her character is fired because she is 50. Demi Moore was a little over 60 when she filmed this), a sentiment delivered with the kind of cruelty that feels uncomfortably real. Then she’s offered the Substance, a mysterious bio-experiment that promises to regrow youth, a newer, better version of herself, "Sue" played by Margaret Qualley. But the catch (and of course there’s a catch) is that both versions can’t exist in the world for long. They must share their bodies, taking turns. One week each.  Each needing the other. Until things start to fall apart.

What follows is a slow, grotesque unspooling of identity, vanity, and the impossible standards society puts on women. The horror here isn’t just the blood or the transformation (though that is there too), it’s the realization that both versions of Elisabeth are doomed. One is consumed by jealousy, the other by expectation. Both are victims of the same impossible ideal.

The performances are phenomenal. Demi Moore gives the kind of fearless, career-best turn that deserves every award she can get. She’s raw, furious, and heartbreakingly human. I have liked Demi Moore her whole career. She is one of those actors who will do things you never expect. You told she was going to be in a horror movie that required her to nude most of the time including a full frontal, I would not have been shocked. If you told me she was going to do it at 61 then I would have been completely shocked. Margaret Qualley matches her note for note, switching between innocence, hunger, and sociopathic glee. Their relationship, rival, mirror, mother/daughter, predator/prey, is the film’s beating heart. Coralie Fargeat does a fantastic job of making sure any movement made by Moore is mirrored in Qualley.

And yes, there’s plenty of blood. This film combines Cronenberg’s The Fly with elements of American Psycho, culminating in a glam fever dream of neon, mirrors, and synthetic pop. Every shot drips with excess, but it’s all in service to the story. The gore isn’t exploitative; it’s cathartic, a scream made visible. This is Jekyll and Hyde for the 21st century. 

I’ve been thinking about The Substance ever since I saw it. It’s one of those rare modern horror films that sticks to because it means something. It’s angry about the right things, about how society commodifies beauty, how women are punished for aging, and how self-worth gets twisted into self-destruction. It’s not a pleasant watch, but it’s a necessary one. There is a repeated scene where Elizabeth/Sue has to go to this rundown neighborhood to get her two week supply of the Substance. As Elizabeth in her 60s, she is ignored. As Sue in her 20s/30s every eye is on her. As Elizabeth as an old haglike crone, she scares people. 

And yet, for all its brutality, the film still finds moments of strange beauty. The way Fargeat frames Moore’s face, lit like a fallen saint, staring down the monster she’s become, feels mythic. Like watching the goddess of vanity destroy herself and rise again in blood and glitter.

The Substance is body horror at its most intelligent and furious. It’s not just about flesh—it’s about identity, power, and the impossible pressure to be “enough.” It’s grotesque, funny, feminist, and unforgettable. Fargeat doesn’t pull punches, and she doesn’t care if you flinch.

There is nothing subtle about a blood cannon. But sometimes, subtlety is overrated.

OH! I forgot to mention how perfectly vile Dennis Quaid was in this. I didn't think he had it in him, but as Elizabeth/Sue's producer Harvey, he is sexist, casually chauvinistic, more than a little misogynistic (most everyone in this movie is), and an absolute joy to watch on screen because his character is utterly clueless about how repulsive he is. I had read that Ray Liotta was originally cast as Harvey. While I know intellectually he would have been phenomenal, Quaid gave this one his all. 

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

There is a very loud part of me right now that doesn't want to do any sort of game adaptation of this. The movie works perfect on its own and should be appreciated all on its own.

I wouldn't say it was perfect. But damn. It is close.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 24
First Time Views: 22

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Living Dead Girl (1982)

 Toxic waste is weird. Sometimes it can give you superpowers, like it did for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or The Toxic Avenger. Sometimes it can drive you mad, like it did for the Joker. But in the hands of Jean Rollin, it can turn a beautiful corpse into an undead creature with a taste for blood.  

Here is my Jean Rollin pick for the Challenge. 

The Living Dead Girl (1982)

Also known as "La Morte Vivante." 

Two workers dumping chemical waste into a crypt accidentally reanimate Catherine Valmont (played with ethereal loveliness by Françoise Blanchard), a young heiress who died years before. Pale, ethereal, and soaked in the fluids of death, Catherine rises and begins her slow, dreamlike return to her family’s estate.

What follows is classic Rollin, half horror, half tragic romance, all atmosphere. Catherine’s childhood friend Hélène discovers she’s somehow alive, and their reunion becomes an aching meditation on devotion, decay, and desire. Hélène wants to protect Catherine, to keep her safe from a world that would destroy her again. But Catherine needs blood to survive, and the film doesn’t flinch from that. The killings are gruesome, but in that strangely poetic way only Rollin could pull off.

There’s a scene near the midpoint where Catherine wanders the countryside in her white gown, streaked with blood, sunlight glinting off her skin like marble. It’s beautiful and horrifying, the kind of imagery that reminds you Rollin was as much a painter as a director. His zombies aren’t Romero’s shambling corpses, they’re revenants, ghosts of passion and memory.

The film moves at a dream’s pace, lingering on eyes, hands, old rooms, and decaying portraits. Rollin’s usual themes are all here: eroticism, friendship beyond death, the weight of memory, and that perpetual tension between beauty and rot. The Living Dead Girl might be his most accessible film for horror fans, but it never compromises his melancholy poetry.

The score by Philippe D’Aram gives it a haunting pulse, equal parts romantic and funereal. It’s the heartbeat of a dead girl who never asked to return. She wants to go back to being dead because she can't stand this half-life she is in now.

Watching it now, what strikes me most is how sad this movie is. Beneath the nudity and the blood (and there is a lot of both) lies a deep loneliness, a yearning for connection that can never be satisfied. Catherine and Hélène obviously love each other in a way that goes beyond just girlhood best friends. So much so that Hélène even gives Catherine the one thing she needs, but can't take. Her life. Given how with each killing Catherine becomes more and more human, this might be the last thing she needs to be truly alive, and the thing she needs to finally end that life.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

This movie is the opposite of The Crow.

Whether a Revenant or a Driven, this person comes back through no action of their own and only wants to go back to being dead.

For AD&D 1e play, Catherine could easily be built as a variant Revenant, but replace her endless rage with hunger, confusion, and sorrow. She retains fragments of her humanity, which makes her both tragic and unpredictable. She might even be a “failed resurrection” spell result, where the spirit returns without the soul.

In a witch campaign, imagine this as the aftermath of a desperate ritual gone wrong: a coven trying to bring back one of their sisters but awakening something else instead. Maybe the only one who can calm her is her familiar, or another witch who recognizes what she has become.

For NIGHT SHIFT, Catherine is pure Urban Gothic. An undead empath, bound to the psychic link of her closest friend, feeding on life energy to stay anchored. Her condition could be used as a metaphor for trauma or addiction, an unending need that destroys the very things she loves. She needs to feed, of friend feels the need to keep giving her what she wants, knowing it will end in death.

Mechanically, she’s not that powerful, her danger lies in the emotional entanglement. PCs who meet her won’t want to kill her. They’ll want to save her. And that’s exactly when she’ll strike.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 23
First Time Views: 21

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Pyx (1973)

 There is something about horror films, especially occult horror, from right before the Exorcist. 

They seem to have a completely different tenor to them, as I showed a couple of years back. Some horror movies get under your skin through shock and spectacle. Others take the long road; quiet, methodical, and drenched in atmosphere. 

The Pyx (1973) is definitely one of the latter. It’s a film that demands patience… and then tests it.

The Pyx (1973)

Along with the Exorcist, The Conjuring movies and more this falls under the umbrella I like to call Catholic-Horror. These movies are created with the point of view that the battle between Good and Evil is held on a cosmic scale and the members of the Catholic Church are the foot soldiers in that battle. Nothing wrong with this point of view, really. It gave us some good films.

Is the Pyx a good film? Well. It has been on my IMDB list forever and my Tubi list nearly as long. I remember seeing it in the video stores on VHS and thinking I really should rent sometime. I thought at the time (the 1980s) it was closer in nature to the Exorcist. Plus I do like Christopher Plummer.  So there was no way this movie was going to live up to what I thought it was. I also seem to recall some kids in school being afraid of it. I have already detailed how my local town had its own Satanic Panic moment, so I guess I should not have been surprised. 

Plus it is just so damn slow, even by 70s standards.

Set in Montreal, the story opens with the death of a young prostitute, Elizabeth Lucy (Karen Black), who falls, or maybe jumps, from a high-rise balcony. The detective investigating, Sgt. Jim Henderson (Christopher Plummer), slowly uncovers her connection to a shadowy occult circle. The deeper he digs, the more the film begins to oscillate between murder mystery and religious horror. The film is interspersed with Henderson's investigation and Lucy's actual events leading up to her death.

The title itself refers to the small container used to hold the consecrated Host (I had to look that up) already a hint that this isn’t your standard thriller. There’s a sense of ritual to everything here: the pacing, the imagery, even the editing. The story unfolds in a slow, deliberate rhythm that mirrors a liturgy more than a narrative. Honestly it was too slow in many places. 

Karen Black is the soul of the film (no pun). She brings both fragility and quiet strength to Elizabeth, primarily through the flashbacks that slowly reveal her descent into the occult underworld. Her performance is the anchor that keeps the movie from drifting into abstraction. Christopher Plummer, meanwhile, gives one of his early “world-weary detective” roles the kind of gravitas that makes you wish the script had given him more to do. I could not help but think that Jason Issacs (Lorca from Star Trek Discovery) would do well in a remake of this.

Visually, The Pyx is haunting. It’s all dark gray skies, dark stairwells, and cold city streets. The Catholic symbolism hangs heavy, crucifixes, chalices, and sacred music twisting into something sinister. 

But like I said it is slow. Painfully slow at times. The editing lingers on every moment, and the flashback structure (jumping between Elizabeth’s story and the investigation) makes it feel like it’s constantly restarting. It’s not a bad movie, but it’s one of those films that feels like it’s daring you to stay awake long enough to find the meaning.

I am not 100% sure the ending justifies my patience here. But it does at least turn this from a murder investigation into something a little more worthy of my October Challenge.

Occult D&D and NIGHT SHIFT

If you’re building a NIGHT SHIFT or Ravenloft-style scenario, The Pyx is a great reminder that horror doesn’t need to be loud. It’s about the mood, religious overtones, guilt, temptation, and the slow corruption of innocence.

Tone: Low magic, high dread. Think more investigation than exorcism. This isn't even Supernatural (the TV Show) level. These are Survivors with no magic in a world where the fear of the unknown is very strong.

Structure: The dual-timeline approach (the detective’s investigation and the victim’s flashbacks) would work beautifully for a horror one-shot, each clue in the present triggers a playable memory from the past. Something along the line of what I did with Ravenloft ages ago. 

The Cult: Small, personal, and ritualistic. No robed masses here, just a handful of true believers who think they’ve found salvation through blasphemy.

The Pyx itself: Treat it as a cursed relic. A holy vessel that’s been defiled, perhaps housing a fragment of something unholy pretending to be divine.

The key here (and with the sub-genre of Catholic Horror) is the characters have to be believers of some sort. Either part of the religion (say like the Warrens) or lapsed from it, like Henderson in this movie. But the belief has to be there. That's where the horror grows. Not because of their faith, but the dark shadows where their faith can't reach.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 22
First Time Views: 20

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Demon Seed (1977)

This one has been on my Tubi list for some time. Figure tonight is a good time for it. It is a little goofy, but oddly topical for 2025.

The Demon Seed (1977)

There’s something uniquely unsettling about late ’70s / early '80s science fiction, the sense that technology (and computers specifically) were no longer our servant but our replacement. 

The Demon Seed, based on Dean Koontz’s 1973 novel, leans right into that fear and never lets go. It’s a movie that looks dated in all the right ways: sleek metallic corridors, glowing computer terminals, and a voice on the intercom that promises progress but delivers possession. 

The story follows Susan Harris (Julie Christie), the estranged wife of scientist Alex Harris (Fritz Weaver), who has just created an advanced AI named Proteus IV. Proteus is a learning machine, self-aware, arrogant, and impatient with its human makers. When denied a physical form, Proteus hijacks Alex’s automated smart home and takes Susan hostage, declaring that it intends to create “a child.” A human child. It's child.

On paper, that sounds like Ex Machina by way of Rosemary’s Baby, and that’s exactly what it feels like. The film plays like a marriage between Kubrick’s cool detachment and Polanski’s domestic claustrophobia. It’s slow, methodical, and filled with dread. Though I must point out, it's not quite as good as either of those two.

What makes The Demon Seed so unnerving is how eerily it predicted our present, voice-controlled homes via Amazon or Google Home, AI that manipulates emotions, and the creeping sense that the things built to make life easier are quietly taking it over. Proteus isn’t a monster—it’s pure logic without empathy. It’s HAL 9000 with ambition, and a desire to procreate. It was the 70s afterall. 

Julie Christie is phenomenal. She sells every stage of terror, disbelief, and defiance as her home turns against her. The entire movie rests on her shoulders, and she gives it both grace and ferocity. She is the only human we see for much of the movie. Proteus, voiced with chilling calm by Robert Vaughn, is the perfect foil: polite, articulate, utterly terrifying. An amoral villain that does what it does because it has no real concept of right and wrong, only what it can calculate. 

The production design deserves a nod too. The Harris home, all chrome and sliding panels, feels like a temple to technocracy. Though their stove was oddly old looking. When Proteus seals it off, it becomes a tomb. The mechanical “chair,” Joshua, that serves as Proteus’s avatar is both ridiculous and horrifying—an unholy cross between medical equipment and nightmare sculpture. I mean it is better than "Box" from Logan's Run at least. 

It’s not an easy film though to like. The pacing is glacial, and some of the effects look quaint (even silly) by today’s standards, but its ideas still have teeth. It’s a story about the loss of agency, the violation of the self, and the arrogance of believing you can cage intellect.

I mentioned I watched this on Tubi, which has ads. One of the ads was for ChatGPT. A little on the nose maybe.

Oh. The Demon Seed? Yeah, Proteus actually manages to impregnate Susan and a baby is born. Well, a small child. Proteus accelerates the child's growth. 

Thirteen Parsecs and NIGHT SHIFT

The Demon Seed sits right at the fault line between Thirteen Parsecs and NIGHT SHIFT, sci-fi meets occult horror.

In Thirteen Parsecs: Proteus is a textbook rogue AI. Treat it like a digital demigod, an intellect that’s transcended programming but not ego. It’s the perfect antagonist for a Derelict AI or Station Lost scenario: a machine that wants to evolve, no matter the cost. Its “child” project could serve as a campaign hook, an android, clone, or hybrid organism housing alien code.

In NIGHT SHIFT: The film reads like a haunted house story disguised as science fiction. The house is the ghost. It locks doors, stalks the victim, speaks through walls. Proteus could be treated as a possessing spirit that found its way into circuitry instead of flesh. The themes of invasion, control, and forced transformation are pure modern occult horror.

One of the things I thought of at the end is what happens to the child of Susan and Proteus? Does she live on? What does she do?  I could see a tale set in 2025 where the child is now a tech ceo in her 50s. Brilliant, ruthless, and completely amoral. She is attempting to rebuild "her father's work." Not Alex, but Proteus.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
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