Plays Well With Others: Modern Occult Horror Games

Been thinking a lot about all the modern supernatural games I have (and I think I have all of them) and in particular the ones that have come out from the Old-School gaming scene.  These games all cover roughly the same sort of topics and themes but they all do them in different ways that I keep thinking they would all work great together. 

In other words, it sounds like a perfect topic for a Plays Well With Others. 

So the games I am talking about are Dark Places & Demogorgons, We Die Young, Dark Streets & Darker Secrets, and my own NIGHT SHIFT.  These are the big modern supernatural, occult horror games from the OSR. 

I have reviewed these games in the past.

• Review: Survive This! Dark Places & Demogorgons
• SURVIVE THIS!! We Die Young RPG Core Rules (2021)
• Review: Dark Streets & Darker Secrets

Obviously, I have not reviewed NIGHT SHIFT. Reviewing your own game is incredibly tacky and remarkably dishonest. 

I have covered many of these games in other Plays Well With Others too.

• Night Shift and Modern Supernatural Games
• Dark Places & Demogorgons: Cryptid Manual
• Kids Games, Dark Places & Demogorgons (with NIGHT SHIFT)

With the addition of Dark Streets & Darker Secrets to my occult library, I wanted to revisit some of these ideas. Though I want to take a different approach today.

With this Plays Well With Others, I am going to mention each game and talk about what can be used from that game in any of the other three.  In some cases, this is easy like moving from Dark Places & Demogorgons to We Die Young which are essentially the same system.  In others, it will be converting characters from one system to the other. 

At the core of all four games (three systems) is the old-school, the OSR, design.  All of these games have the same "godfather" as it were in Original or Basic D&D.  They have the same uncle (mother's brother), the d20 SRD. And their mother is all the D&D games we all played and the supernatural, occult, horror and urban fantasy media we consumed when not playing. 

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets 

This is the newest game, for me, and the one on my mind the most.  Thankfully it is also the one that has the most to offer all the games.  

For starters, the classes can be imported rather easily into the other three games.  In particular the Tough, the Nimble, and the Smart can be used as subtypes of the Veteran or Survivor in NIGHT SHIFT or as a class in We Die Young.  Maybe not so much for DP&D since those are supposed to be kids. The Gifted of DS&DS is similar to the Supernatural in NS.

The real gift of DS&DS is all the tables.  Someone online described the game as a great toolkit game. Some of the best ones to use in all games are the Complication table (p.20), Weird Items (p.32- 33), almost all the Gear. The Magic and Psychic backlash tables are also fun. ALL the artifact tables. The various "signs" in Chapter 7.  In fact, pretty much all of Chapter 7 to be honest.

Survive This!!

Both Dark Places & Demogorgons and We Die Young from Bloat Games use the same Survive This!! basic rule system, so right out of the gate they are compatible with each other.   Dark Places & Demogorgons focuses on kids in the 1980s and We Die Young on young adults in the 1990s.  So there is a continuum there for any that wish to use it.  There are plenty of "classes" in both games that can be used and mixed and matched.  Like DS&DS there are a lot of great toolbox-like tables and ideas that can be imported into another game.

I can easily see a game then of people in their 30s in the 2000s with large chunks of DS&DS mixed into the Survive This!! system.  Would this game be called "Survive This!! Dark Streets" or "Dark Streets, Dark Places, Darker Secrets & Demogorgons?"  I don't know, but I LOVE the idea of kids experiencing weird shit in the 80s, taking a bunch of drugs to forget them in the 90s (both DS&DS and WDY have these) and finally having to deal with this shit all over again in 2000-2020s as older adults.  Very "It" if you think about it.

The jewel though in the Survive This!! (and there are many) though HAS to be the DP&D Cryptid Manual.  DS&DS takes a toolkit view on monsters.  NIGHT SHIFT has a minimalist view (a very OD&D view if I can add) on monsters.  But the Cryptid Manual gives us a proper monster book.

Of note. Both DS&DS and We Die Young use the newer D&D5-ish Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic. Albeit in slightly different ways.  I have been using this in NIGHT SHIFT as well and find it works better for me than a simple +3 or +5 to rolls. 

Also, both games have a Madness mechanic.  I like the one in We Die Young much better.  Bits from DS&DS could be added to this, but in general, I think I'd use the one in WDY. 

We Die Young also has some really cool races that can help fill out the "Gifted" of DS&DS.

Don't forget you can get the new Hardcover version of Dark Places & Demogorns on Kickstarter now.

NIGHT SHIFT: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

I talk a lot about NIGHT SHIFT here and with good reason, I am quite proud of the work I have done it.  It fills the void in my life left by the Buffy RPG and everything I wanted from all three editions of Chill, but never exactly got (no slight on Chill, fantastic game), a little more approachable and less nihilistic than Kult, and none of the baggage of The World of Darkness (though I do get the urge to play that again.  My oldest want to give it a try sometime).

Dark Places & Demogorgons makes some assumptions in the game that makes it what it is.  The characters are kids and there is also the Jeffersontown setting, all of which are central to the game and make it work.

Dark Street & Darker Secrets is on the other end of the spectrum with no assumed setting other than "The City" which also works fantastic for this game and one of it's great strengths.

In between those two, we have NIGHT SHIFT (and We Die Young, but I'll get to that).  NIGHT SHIFT does not have a default setting. There are different levels of difficulty you can configure the game in, Cinematic, Realistic, or Gritty.  DP&D would be Cinematic, DS&DS is the poster boy for Gritty, and WDY is around Realistic.  So I would use ideas from those games to inform my choices in the three levels of NS and vice-versa. 

What NIGHT SHIFT has to offer these other games are our "Night Worlds" or mini-settings.  Any of these can be used in any of the other games and the other games can be used to add more details.  Jason's "The Noctnurmverse" can be supplemented either by or used in DS&DS.  The "City" in DS&DS becomes the Noctnurmverse's Pittsburgh.  Or dialing back the Way-Back Machine use it with We Die Young in the 1990s.  My own "Generation HEX" benefits from the ideas on playing kids in DP&D.  You could even take Generation HEX and play it as a DP&D setting if you wanted.  My "Ordinary World" can be used in DS&DS IF you ever decide to move out of the city into the suburbs. 

I already talked a lot about how NIGHT SHIFT and Dark Places & Demogorgons can be used together.  The same logic applies when adding in the other two games.  In fact one place where this might work great is my own Sunny Valley, OH game of the Buffyverse in the 1980s rather than the late 90s/early 2000s.  This works well since a.) NIGHT SHIFT was made to fit the "Buffy-shaped" hole in my life and b.) DS&DS takes a lot of cues from and was influenced by Buffy in all media.  I might just be the best melting pot for all these games. Or crucible. Time will tell.

Putting it All Together

Honestly, there are just too many ways to combine these four games into something you can use.  Start with one and add what you need.  Start with two and be pickier about what you add from the others.  One of the ways I am using it is in my Life-Path Development ideas. Each game represents a different point the characters' lives and each is used to model that time.  The obvious reasons are that DP&D takes place in the 80s with kids, WDY in the 90s with younger adults, and DS&DS and NIGHT SHIFT go beyond that.  To go with personal experience, I was living in Chicago proper in the mid to late 90s and then in the suburbs after that.  To use my ordinary world example my progression would look like this:

DP&D (high school, small town) -> WDY (college, college town) -> DS&DS (grad school, city) -> NIGHT SHIFT (adulthood, suburbs).

In a weird way, it makes sense to me.  But I am not stating up myself. I don't live in a magical world, I live in this one.  BUT I do have my Drosophila melanogaster of these sorts of experiments, Willow and Tara.   I have done stats for them for Dark Places & Demogorgons and NIGHT SHIFT.  Doing ones for We Die Young and Dark Streets & Darker Secrets would be easy enough.  BUT.  Those are not the same characters really. They fall under my "Alternate Reality" versions rather than "Lifespan or Lifepath Development."   Though doing DS&DS versions of Willow and Tara should be in my future.

No for this I need a character that has been around for a while, for that I am going to have to turn to my Iconic Witch Larina.

Fortunately for me, the witch is one of the few character classes/archetypes/concepts that can be found in all these games (the weird psychic is as well, but witches are my thing).  So building a witch feels right.

I worked up all the sheets and this is what I ended up with.  Purple is the color of all of Larina's sheets. Click for larger. 

Dark Places & Demogorgons

It's 1984 and Larina is 14 and 4th level.  She lives in a small town where her mom runs a spice shop and her dad is a Professor of Anthropology and teaches music.  She is called "creepy girl" by the kids in school.  At this point, she is shy and can't quite understand why others can't see the strange things all around them. 

Most of these adventures are of the "Scooby-Doo" sort; short ones that are resolved by the end.  Easily Monster of Week sorts.

We Die Young

We are moving to the early 90s now and she is 7th level. Larina is in grad school and is now Larina Macalester. She was married at age 19 but obviously, it is not working out well.  She is living in Chicago while her estranged husband is still living in Ireland. Her stats nudge up a little but she largely is similar to her 1DP&D version.  There are some differences between the two types of Witch classes (and DP&D still has others) but nothing I consider earth-shattering.  I did get to add her two tattoos. One is a protection tattoo (a large Triple Moon Goddess on her back) and one on her left wrist that allows her to cast a magic bolt. 

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets

Things are getting darker.  Larina is now 35, 10th level, and back to going back to using "Nichols" as her last name.  Her complication is she is hiding from her ex-husband who was in the IRA.  (NOTE: I actually played through this back in the early 2000s.  The big twist was that while she was hiding out, her ex had moved on and was living his own life with his new wife.)  I wanted to use my new idea for Sanity by having it as Intellect +  Willpower /2. BUT for Larina here both scores are 17 giving me an average of 17. 

NIGHT SHIFT

Here is the one closest to my heart, obviously.  She has more spells, but this is expected at 13th level. 

As expected the powers don't always match up right and I could have taken more care in aligning the spells with each version. But I figure that these changes can be chalked up to learning and experiences.  I do feel that all versions reflect the character at the time well.   

Looking forward to trying this with other characters to see how they work out. Also, I am keeping all of these books together to use as needed.  By themselves, they give me a wonderful experience. Together they give me an epic experience.

Review: Dark Streets & Darker Secrets

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets has been on my "To Be Reviewed" pile for a very long time.  I grabbed the PDF when it came out, but set it aside for the longest time because I was working on a bunch of other things and didn't get the chance.  I picked it back up and really enjoyed it. So much so I also picked it up in hardcover Print on Demand.  

A couple of things though to get started.  Dark Streets & Darker Secrets (DS&DS) is a modern occult horror game based on old-school style mechanics. I also have a modern occult horror game based on old-school style mechanics.  So I am aware that any criticism I might lay on this game could come off as sounding self-serving. I want to always be aware of this and have you the reader keep this in mind as you read my review here.  Also the author, Diogo Nogueira, also lists the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG from Eden as one of his inspirations.  This game was also Jason Vey's and my inspiration for NIGHT SHIFT.  Jason and I met while working on Buffy.  NIGHT SHIFT was designed to fit "the Buffy shaped hole" in our lives as I have said before.  So both games come from very, very similar backgrounds with very, very similar goals.  That all being said, DS&DS is NOT in competition with NIGHT SHIFT.  Nor is Diogo a competitor.  I consider him a colleague.   Both Dark Streets & Darker Secrets and NIGHT SHIFT can, and do, live on my shelves and game table in complete peace with each other.  I am going to spend some time tomorrow talking about how both games (and two more) can be used together.   Today though I am going to talk about where DS&DS shines (is that the proper word for a "dark" game?) and what it does. 

So let's get to it.

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets

by Diogo Nogueira.  222 pages, hardcover. Color cover with black and white interior art.  For this review, I am considering both the PDF and the Print on Demand hardcovers from DriveThruRPG. 

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets (DS&DS) is a modern occult horror game from ENnie Award winner Diogo Nogueira. The book is digest size so it fit well with many "old school" style books of the last 10 years.  It not only fits on the shelf physically but thematically as well.  The game is based on Nogueira's earlier works Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells and Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells, so out of the gate there are more resources for this game if you desire.

The game itself is a gritty, modern occult/supernatural horror game.  The normal humans are just slightly above average for the most part and the monsters are way more powerful.  Immediately I thought of it as a bit of Chill mixed in with Kult. The feel is very much "humanity alone against the darkness."

The book is laid out in eight chapters with some appendices.

Chapter 1: Introduction  

This chapter covers the basics of what is in the book.  

Chapter 2: Character Creation  

If you have played any old-school-like game in the last 45+ years you have an idea what this chapter is about.  The differences here fit the tone of the game.  Character attributes are rolled using a 2d6+3 (not a 3d6 or even 4d6 drop the lowest), this creates a narrower band of character attributes, 5-15 but still on the same human range of 3-18.  There is a chance to increase these later on.  The attribute themselves are a simplified version of the Basic 6; Physique (combining Strength and Constitution), Agility (Dexterity), Intellect (Intelligence), and Willpower (Wisdom and Charisma).   Once those are done you create a character concept which is a basic couple word description and not a backstory.

After this, it is time to choose the Archetype or essentially the class of the character.  They are The Tough, The Nimble, The Smart, and The Gifted.  These align with the attributes above. The Gifted is special in that you can be a spell-caster or even a supernatural creature like a vampire, werewolf, or even an alien.  Each archetype also gets a "recovery roll" which decides how quick they can bounce back from injury. 

Since this is a gritty sort of universe all characters have a complication. These can come into play in the game to keep things "difficult and exciting" for the characters.  It includes a d66 table (roll 2d6 and use the rolls like d%.  Traveller people know this one well). 

Then you pick out some gear. If it is mundane gear you have it. You also get some weapons and "weird" gear. These are detailed in the next chapter.

Finally, we have derived scores. Vitality (Physique + Level) are your "hit points."   Sanity, or mental stability, is equal to your Intellect.  Now I have mentioned before I do not like how many games handle insanity or madness.  Sadly this game is not an exception.  I spent a few years working in a mental health facility back when I was in grad school.  There is no relationship between intelligence and mental health.  In fact, I had one guy who was schizophrenic and could speak 3 or 4 languages including German and Swahili. He learned I also spoke German and would use that when he wanted to talk about the other clients "in secret" to me. So yeah. I am not really a fan of this one. I'd rather roll a 2d6 and then add a bonus from Willpower (and maybe Intellect) to get my Sanity score.   There is also Luck points which are like fate points or drama points (everyone starts with 3) and Money.

Chapter 3: Gear  

Covers mundane gear, expendable gear (like ammunition and things that wear out) and even some weird gear.   Weird items are the best part.  Every character has one weird item they start off with.  This is easily explainable either they found it and thus introduced to the weirder world OR they have always had it and the world is waiting for them.  There is a d100 table that covers a bunch of different sorts of items.  Note, we just get the names of the items, what they do will be discovered in-game. 

Additionally, drugs, services, illegal goods, and money points (abstraction of money carried) are also dealt with. 

Chapter 4: Rules of the City  

Here are our basic rules for the game.  Everything is an attribute check (roll under your attribute modified by level and difficulty).  There are some neat quirks.  There is an advantage/disadvantage system here called Positive and Negative rolls. Rolling on your attribute is considered a critical success. You roll lower than your attribute to succeed, BUT higher than the difficulty.  So if something has a difficulty of 8 and my attribute is 12 I have to roll a 12 or lower BUT also higher than an 8. So only rolls of 9, 10, 11, and 12 will get me a success. 

Players can add a Luck roll to their challenges. This is not a matter of just adding points. You have to roll a d6. If it is equal to or lower than their luck score then you get to make a situation more favorable. 

This chapter also covers sanity and madness. You lose Sanity if you encounter something strange and fail a Willpower test. Difficulty set by the situation. Points lost also can vary. When the character's Sanit score reaches 0 then they get a Madness.   Thankfully there is no list of "madnesses" here.  Most game designers get these horribly wrong anyways.  In game you get a minor "quirk" on your first loss.  If you suffer 4 losses then the character has succumbed to madness and can't be played. 

Level advancement is a form of Milestone advancement that looks like it should work rather well.  Again individual GMs can (and should) alter this to fit their needs. 

Chapter 5: Combat  

Like many RPGs combat gets a special chapter even if it is just a particular form of the rules stated above.  But if one is going to fight the armies of darkness then one is expected to actually fight.  Reading through this you get the idea that yes the characters can be tough. You also get the idea that the things they are fighting are a lot tougher.  While there are a few ways the players can save their character's bacon, there are still a lot of grisly ways to die in this game. 

Chapter 6: Sorcery and Psychic Powers  

Ah, now this is the meat of the game in my mind. A Gifted character can be a sorcerer, a witch, a psychic or some other type of creature.  Their powers and how to use them are detailed here.  Regardless of the origin or the nature of the powers, game-wise they are treated in similar manners, the difference largely being different Backlash tables.  How they are played can vary wildly.   I mentioned that this is grittier game than one would see in say a Buffy-like game. The previously mentioned Backlash is one and Corruption is another.  These include simple things like a "witch's mark" to changes to one's body and mind or just getting pulled right into the Abyss.  Pro-tip, don't botch your rolls.

A very nice (and long) list of powers is given with their effects.  While the list is long (60 entries) it is not exhaustive. 

Additionally, Arcane artifacts are covered. How they are made, what they do, powers, cost (to make AND to use), and some samples.

Chapter 7: Running the Game  

This covers the world of DS&DS.  There is a bias (is that the right word? Preference is better) to an urbane game.  Thus the title really.  Outside of this there is no set theme or even setting. This would be a sandbox game if it were a FRPG. What we do get here is a ton of tables full of ideas for a a game, campaign, or an entire world. 

Chapter 8: Monsters  

Our Monster chapter differs from other games in that there is not a bestiary here per se, but example creatures and the means to make others of a similar nature.  So for example there is a Cultis section that covers some sample cultists from 1-3 HD to demon-possessed leaders of 4-8 HD.  This includes a table of "What are They Doing?" and "What do They Want?"  A very effective means of repurposing content.  The more powerful the creature the more detail they need obviously, but there is not a lot of detail in most cases.  This works well here since the players (mostly the GM) provide all the details.  There are powers listed for random creatures as well.

Appendix O: Optional Rules 

Here are a group of optional rules you can add to your game. Things like Drunken Luck, Daring Points, Single Hero games and Multi-Archetype (Multi-Class) Characters. 

Appendix I: Inspirational Materials  

Covers the various books, movies, TV Shows, and other RPGs for inspiration. 

Appendix S: Simple Scenario Structure  

This discusses how to build a quick scenario and an example.

We end with a Character Sheet (and a Form Fillable one is provided with the PDF) and the OGL statement.  I do feel the need to point out that Nogueira has released this game as 100% Open Gaming Content.

Dark Streets & Darker Secrets certainly lives up to the hype and has a lot going for it.  If you have a world already in your mind and just need a system to flesh it out then this is a great choice for you.  In this respect, it is very similar to old-school D&D. No default world type, just the tools to play in the world of your imagination with some assumptions built-in. 

If you are looking for huge meta-plotting like the World of Darkness or even the baked-in mythology of Buffy the Vampire Slayer you find that here, which is refreshing. The players all have maximum flexibility to do what they want and that is the key strength of this game.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Witchcraft Documentaries

Last year I did a few documentaries and I rather enjoyed it.  I am WAY over the requirements for the challenge, so these are fine in my book.  Given all the streaming choices I have, I collected a nice list of these.  Hope to get through them all. 

The Witch of Kings Cross (2020)

I mentioned this one earlier the week.  This is documentary from Sonia Bible about surealist occult artist ] Rosaleen Norton. It is quite good really and an interesting look into an interesting life.  There is horror here, but the normal kind of what humans will do to each other when they are afraid of what they don't know or understand.

Vampira and Me (2012)

A look at a contemporary of Norton, though on the other side of the world. This one covers the career and life of Maila Nurmi, aka Vampira. Writen, directed and produced by Ray Greene, this documentary doesn't shy away from the problems Nurmi faced in her life, but this is obviously a piece made by someone that considers Nurmi a friend.  Completed a few years after her death it features archival footage of Nurmi being interviewed by Greene for another project. I was sad to hear, though not surprised, that no material from her Vampira days still exist.   

Parallels can be drawn between Nurmi and Norton, women that bucked and went against the trend of what was expected of women in the 1950s.  Both embracing something darker in their own psyche I suppose to give us something entirely new.

I also read "Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark" by Cassandra Peterson this past month and there are plenty of parallels between Nurmi and Petersen as well as Vampiria and Elvira.  I heard the tale of of how Vampiria was involved, then not, with what would become Elvira Mistress of the Dark from both sides.  Again it is a tale where a woman is not given any agency for her creative efforts and how it turns out. Poorly in the case Nurmi and Vampiria.  Or what happens when she takes control and how it turns out. Well in the case of Petersen and Elviria. 

Ultimately Nurmi's tale is a sad one and one I fear is not all that uncommon.

Magic: Witchcraft and Magic (2004)

This one featured Patrick Macnee of The Avengers. Not the Marvel ones, the BBC ones.  This might have been made in 2004, but it feels like something out of the 80s or 90s.  There is not a lot of substance here.  In fact, pretty much anyone that reads this blog knows everything already knows all the material presented.  I was annoyed by some of it with some out right wrong information and other things, like talking to a white "magic shop" owner as their expert on Voodoo.  I supposed it is fine given how much of it they got wrong.   Can't recommend it all. 

Witchcraft: A History of Dark Arts (2020)

From writer/director Kim Harrington.  The narration is from Deryn Oliver.  

It covers all sorts of witch-related topics, but none in detail.  The video is made up of a bunch of clips that have all the feel of "stock art."  They often never line up with what is being spoken about.  For example, a discussion of the Salem witch trials features an image of what appears to be a Bronze Age Rabbinical tribunal. Many of the images/clips are often reused. 

In general, the research is pretty good, this one might have more information that the readers here may or may not know.  If you have read most of my books then likely not.  Though there is more about Luciferian Witches than I typically talk about.

Deryn Oliver gives a great narration and her voice reminds me of Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins. 

Ghosts and Witches of Olde England (2001)

This one largely focuses on stories of witches and ghosts of England. 

We cover ghosts like the ones from Dickens to evil ghosts in Cornwall.  Plenty of ghosts of priests were killed in the conversion of England from Catholicism to the Church of England. 

It was a fun watch, but there was not all that much that was new for me here.  I guess I should not be surprised at this point.

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Here we are. The end of another October and Halloween.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN from The Other Side!

October 2021
Viewed: 62
First Time Views: 48

October Horror Movie Challenge: Halloween-eve Marathon

Hit a bunch of movies all day. One repeat, a couple are new, and couple are not very good.

Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981)

Also known as Night Warning is a fairly terrible movie I always remembered from the salacious cover. Baby Billy is left with his aunt while his parents drive out to start their new lives and jobs with plans to get Billy in a little bit.  Good thing because their breaks give out and they are killed. 

Move forward 15 years later and Billy is not a high school senior with a girlfriend and still living with his aunt.  I could go on, but the movie is like I said terrible. Aunt wants to bang Billy. So bad that she is killing everyone to keep him with her.

Man Beast (1956)

This was on Midnight Pulp while I was looking for something else.  Bigfoot-like creature in the Himalayas.  I watched it to double-check to see if I still dislike horror from the 1950s.   Yeah. Still do.  I nearly fell asleep.

Wicked Lake (2008)

Rewatched this one with the DVD commentary.  The cast had a blast doing this one.  Was sorting through all my horror DVDs to see which ones I can unload at Half-Price books.  It's still fun. It starts out looking like an "I Spit on Your Grave" rip off but at midnight the women turn the tables and kill everyone.  They are all witches and have powers.

October 2021
Viewed: 57
First Time Views: 43

Sword & Sorcery & Cinema / October Horror Movie Challenge: Vlad the Impaler (2018)

Found a good movie for double duty today, though it is a bit light on the Sorcery and Horror.

Vlad the Impaler aka Deliler (2018) 

This is a Turkish movie detailing the battle between the Turks and Prince Vlad of Wallachia in the 15th century.  It is pretty obvious from the start that this movie is very pro-Turkish and paints Vlad as not just evil, but the embodiment of evil.

The Deliler of the Turkish title refers to the band of elite warriors of the Sultan Mehmed sent to stop Vlad. A bit like the 15th-century SAS.  There is seven total, and they are all portrayed as bad-asses, but bad -asses in the service of the side of good. They are also kind to widows, small children, and babies. They are featured on the cover (the top three anyway, Gökkurt is the one with the wings) and Vlad on the lower right is the obvious bad guy.

Vlad is seen killing his own people, working with an alchemist to devise weaponized rats, and even having his men kill the beggars that help them collect the rats.   All the while claiming to be the Son of God.

They are not going for subtlety here. 

Despite what the American covers of the movie might have you think, this movie is about the Deliler, not so much about Vlad. Throughout the movie, the Deliler seem to have a sort of supernatural connection to each other and their Sultan.  Not to mention their near-supernatural fighting ability. 

It takes a while but we finally get to the big battle at the end.  Six Deliler against all of Vlad's army.  How do you think it will go?  Well more of the Sultan's men show up just in time. 

A lot of reviews online claim this movie is nothing more than a propaganda piece by the Turks. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know enough about Turkish politics to be able to say for sure.  The movie is very obviously pro-Turk and anti...anti bad guy? I am not sure what it is against.  I suppose it must be like seeing an American movie with a Rambo like figure, or seven of them, fighting some Commie, or Nazi, or whomever we are mad at today.  I guess this is "Team America: World Police."

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Game content.  Well, it would not be bad to get a good feel for how you could run Barovia with a more 15th-century feel as opposed to the Hammer-Horror filter of the 15th to 19th Century.  How about this. A group of elite, obviously Good, warriors (fighters, barbarians, bards, a ranger, and paladin) whose only purpose is to destroy vampires and Strahd in particular.  Maybe something like the Order of St. Johan. 

Are there better, more historically accurate tales? Of course. But this is a place to start for some D&D background. 

October 2021
Viewed: 54
First Time Views: 41

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Tim Knight of Hero Press and Pun Isaac of Halls of the Nephilim along with myself are getting together at the Facebook Group I'd Rather Be Killing Monsters to discuss these movies.  Follow along with the hashtag #IdRatherBeWatchingMonsters.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Draug (2018)

This one was interesting. I was looking for a movie about one of my favorite topics, the last stand of Paganism against the rising tide of Christianity.  I was looking for something with witches, or even vampires.  If it was Swedish or Norwegian even better.  I was rather pleased to find this one.  It is in Swedish, so that is another language that I can add to my list this month.

Draug (2018)

In the 11th century, a missionary goes missing in the forests and Hakon (Ralf Beck) and his fosterling Nanna (Elna Karlsson) who is on her first mission.  They travel with the local Lord and Sherif Kettil (Thomas Hedengran), who feels a little like a Viking Lord of old.   We are told that there is something "old and evil" in the forests.

Kettil would like to torture all the villagers he encounters to get them to tell them where the missionaries are, later revealed to be a bishop, but Hakon, formerly "Hakon the Terrible" convinces him they don't have to. 

They travel through the dark Ödmården forest in Hälsingland on Sweden's east coast when they are attacked by bandits. The normal, human, kind, but it is still a horrific battle.  

While torturing one of the captives Nanna thinks she sees a body that later moves.  She then notices carrion birds that lead them to the dead bishop.

During the night Odd, one of the party that was wounded, is woken up by what looks like a dead body.  It attacks him and Deja, Kettil's slave and healer, sees it and screams. 

The Draugr attack in the night and kill most of the group leaving only Kettil, Nanna, Gunder, and Kol. They try to leave by a boat they find, but Kettil attacks Nanna thinking she is the witch that summoned the draugr.  Nanna has figured out how to stop the draugr and wants to try before they leave.  She enters some sort of trance where she is confronted by a witch (Lina Hedlund), who may or may not be her real mother. 

Nanna stays in the trance till dark. Gunder tries to wake her, and get everyone onto the boat. But he is killed by a draugr.  The boat capsizes leaving only Kettil and Nanna.  He kills Nanna, but only to late does he discover she isn't controlling the draugr and they kill him. 

In the post-credits scene we see Kol survive the boat wreck and he swims to shore.

Not a bad flick with some good scares, but the plotting could have been a little tighter.

October 2021
Viewed: 53
First Time Views: 40

 

October Horror Movie Challenge: Another aka Mark of the Witch (2014) and Sorceress (2017)

This is another couple of movies that came recommended. Not sure if the recommendation though panned out.  These two have a lot in common. Both movies deal with dead mothers of witch girls, family curses, insanity, and both movies are way, way damn slow.

Another aka Mark of the Witch (2014) 

On her 18th birthday, Jordyn (Paulie Rojas) begins to notice some strange things going on around her, starting with her Aunt harming herself.   Turns out that her mother was in some sort of cult with her sister and Jordyn was conceived during some ritual.   Her mother died in childbirth and her aunt has protected her this entire time.

Jordyn is going crazy seeing all sorts of strange things, but mostly someone that looks just like her doing evil acts.  As the movie, slowly, develops, we learn her doppelgänger, is the spirit of her mother trying to take over her life. 

The movie is 80 mins long, but if all the slow-motion scenes were played at normal speeds it would have only been an hour long, tops.

I wanted to like this movie more. It had a lot of good ideas going into it, but they never quite jelled in my mind.

Sorceress (2017)

So, oddly enough a lot of similar elements here.  We have girl, this time Nina (Naama Kates, also the writer and director) who's mother just died by suicide.  Nina has traveled to Russia to visit her mother's family.  Nina was told her life that she was a witch like her mother.  While she does not get along with her uncle and his family she does meet Katya.  Katya (Oona Airola) flirts with Nina and soon both women are living together.  Nina though is either going crazy, like her mother did, or does have magic, also...like her mother did. 

This one looks great; I find there is a bleak beauty to Russia, I find it oddly fascinating.  Sadly this is not enough to save this movie.

There is something about the intersection of madness and witchcraft.  Something that I think Rosaleen Norton was tapping into.  I was hoping for more with both movies to be honest. I am going to need to find more on this topic.  Hopefully ones that won't put me to sleep.

October 2021
Viewed: 52
First Time Views: 39

October Horror Movie Challenge: Coven of Evil (2020)

I wanted to get in more witch movies this Challenge, but I am running out of days.  I added this one early one and just never got around to it till now.  Many of the reviews for it online are fairly bad but a couple suggests checking out for yourself. So I did.

Coven of Evil (2020)

Joe is a journalist and he just published his first article about a coven of witches in England.  He is later approached by the high priestess Evie asking him if he wants to come to one of their rituals so he could correct some inaccuracies he published.

He meets many of the members including Evie's jerk husband Zander and a few other guys who all live in the house.  There is also a woman upstairs that no one acknowledges.  

He agrees and is soon joining a ritual where he gets high and ends up having sex with one of the other girls, Talia (we think).  The next morning Joe wants to leave until he sees one of the other guys hitting one of the other girls. 

Joe finally runs into Alice, the girl he saw in the upstairs room. She later returns to her room where she is beaten with a belt by Zander.  He does it again when she sleepwalks out. The guy is a sadist.   For some reason, they don't want or let Alice join the coven.  

Some errors in the plot/script.   The night after she gets beaten by Zander so bad she needs a healing spell, she is walking around the house with a low-cut dress in the back.  No scars.  

We learn they are planning on sacrificing Alice, so they practice by killing Talia.

While all of this is going on Joe and Alice end up having sex, or at least trying. Turns out that when Joe had sex with "Talia" it was actually a drugged-out Alice. 

We get to the sacrifice and learn that Alice is no longer suitable for sacrifice but her unborn baby will be. 

The eclipse comes and Alice sees herself talking to herself telling her not to be weak.   She wakes up from her stupor and turns the knife onto Evie, who she ends up killing.   Turns out they summon the "Gate Keeper" anyway and he is pissed off that the sacrifices were inadequate. 

The Gatekeeper takes everyone to hell (or wherever) and leaving Alice and Joe.

A year later the baby is born and it might be evil.

They try for a "Wicker Man" vibe here and more or less get it.  The movie is independent, so don't expect great special effects, acting, or production values.   The biggest issue is the movie is slow and the script for the most part makes little sense at times.

October 2021
Viewed: 50
First Time Views: 37

October Horror Movie Challenge: Carmilla (2019)

"I'll never let the devil into this house Lara."

- Miss Fontaine

Not too long after saying this, she does exactly that.

One would think I had seen every version of Carmilla out there. And in truth I had, until very recently.  This is a new one and one that came highly recommended to me. 

The cast is pretty amazing with a personal favorite of mine Jessica Raine as Miss Fontaine, the Mademoiselle De Lafontaine character from the novella.  Tobias Menzies of Game of Thrones and Outlander fame as The Doctor (Spielsberg).

It also includes new(-sh)commers, Hannah Rae as Lara "Bauer" (not sure why the name is changed), and Devrim Lingnau as Carmilla.

The movie more or less follows the basic story novella but also takes a few liberties.  It is atmospheric and gothic and sadly dreadfully slow. It does play up the tension between Carmilla and Miss Fontaine more.

The story is fine, not a lot of horrors though and some of my favorite lines from the book are gone.

Not really a fan of how it ended.

October 2021
Viewed: 49
First Time Views: 36

 

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Queen of Black Magic (1981, 2019)

Believe it or not, I did not get the streaming channel Shudder, until really recently.  I was building my list and I saw one I knew of but had not seen yet, 1981's The Queen of Black Magic, also known as Ratu Ilmu Hitam or Queen of the Dark Arts. I also saw there was a Shudder exclusive, 2019's The Queen of Black Magic.  Thinking they might be the same I opted to make a night of it.  

The Queen of Black Magic (1981)

This one came highly recommended.  

Baedah is getting married, but something is wrong.  She sees maggots, snakes, and the groom as a corpse and his men as demons. Something also is attacking the local shaman.  The groom, Kohar, quickly decides that it must be Murni's fault because she is a witch. She is a witch because this is all her fault. Solid logic!  We learn that he had seduced Murni and took "her dignity" (virginity) but would not marry her. 

Murni is played by Indonesian horror queen Suzzanna (Suzzanna Martha Frederika van Osch).  "Murni" by the way means "Pure" in Indonesian.  Kohar and his mean go to her home and lynch her. He even slaps her old mother and sets their home on fire.  They toss her off the side of a cliff to make sure to "get rid of her black magic" but she is caught by a strange man.   

The man rescues her and nurses her back to health.  He tells her if they accuse of her black magic then she should use black magic to get her revenge. She will be the Queen of Black Magic.  

We get a "training montage" which involves Murni doing naked backflips under a full moon until smoke comes out of her head.  This had to be near-pornographic for Indonesia in the early 80s.

Murni returns to her village, much to the shock of the men that tried to kill her.  They try to warn Kohar, but she summons bees to kill one of them.  She then causes huge boils to form on another and they explode, filled with blood.   Gruesome, yet satisfying.  Lots of great examples of sympathetic magic here too.  

An Indonesian Lionel Richie-looking dude shows up to the village. He seems very religious and immune to the effects of black magic. 

Murni killing Kohar by getting him to rip off his own head is worth the price of admission alone.  Then watching Kohar's head fly around is just great. 

The becomes a battle between black magic and the power of the new stranger, Permana, invoking god. 

In their battle, we learn that Permana is Murni's older brother to learn from a holy man far away.  Makes sense since they both can do the same backflips.

They fight, but when the evil priest/magician that trains Murni shows up to kill Permana, Murni turns on him instead.  She blows him up with magic, but it is implied she dies as well.

Some great effects really, given the time and budget, and a fun story.

The Queen of Black Magic (2019)

This one is also Indonesian and described as a loose-remake of the first. 

This one starts out strong. A family is driving back to visit the orphanage the father grew up in.  While talking they hit something. Getting out they find a deer on the side of the road, but it seems like it has been there a bit.  As they drive off we see a bloody girl on the other side of the road that they missed. 

They meet at the orphanage and others are also here to see the old caretaker., Mr. Bandi.

We learn that one of the kids from the orphanage was a girl named Murni. But no idea if it is the same one. Obviously, there is something about Murni that makes the adults very squeamish.  

Hanif, the father, is getting food from his car when he notices the blood on the car but also the black hair.  The deer he hit was brown.  Driving back he and one of his brothers, Jefri, find the girl.  They also find a bus full of the orphans and they are all dead. Murdered. 

They let their other brother Anton know and he drives back to see and go get the police.  He gets trapped on the bus and attacked by bugs. So many that his eyes pop out of their sockets.  Back at the orphanage the same thing is happening to his wife Eva.  Lina, believing she is too fat due to hormone treatments and begins cutting off bits of her flesh.   Eva rips off some of her skin and bugs come crawling out.

We learn the three boys as orphans discovered that Ms. Mirah had abducted a girl and was using black magic. So they locked her in a room where she banged her head against a door until she split her own skull open.  So with Mr. Bandi's help, they tore up the floor, put her body in, and covered it in cement. 

We see her ghost at one point. Damn. The Indonesians have some scary-ass monsters.

Nadya, Hanif's wife, discovers a bunch of photos of half-dressed underage girls that apparently Mr. Bandi took.  One of the girls is Siti, the woman married to Maman who invited them all there.   When confronted with the photos Siti tells everyone he did it with all the girls. When three were going to tell, he locked them in a room and poisoned them.  It seems that Ms. Mirah was protecting the girls and she was going to kill Mr. Bandi.   

Nif finds another picture and we learn that Murni was Ms. Mirah's daughter.

Something, Murni likely, begins to torture everyone. Eva is clawing her skin off, the orphans are being scalded with steaming water. Nif's children are getting whipped. It's all pretty brutal. 

Murni gets her head cut off, but puts it back on in an obvious nod to the first movie.  Nadya sets Murni on fire.

Later Nadya is picking Haniq from school but thinks she sees Murni. 

The movie ends with scenes from the 1981 original. 

--

Both movies were pretty good with some good scares and a good story.  Glad I watched them back to back. 

October 2021
Viewed: 48
First Time Views: 35

October Horror Movie Challenge: Astaroth (2017)

This one came up as a suggested movie on Tubi so I had to check it out.   I have long been fascinated by the Goddess Astarte and her literal demonization to the male demon Astaroth. This movie covers some of that and adds some neat little tidbits as well. 

Astaroth (2017)

The movie is Brazilian and completely in Portuguese.  Thankfully the captions are in English.  Not that it would matter much, it's not a difficult one to follow.

Our stars are three college students living together whose primary interests seem to be tattoos and metal.  There is tattoo artist Dri (Ju Calaf),  guitarist Lia (played by former top Brazilian porn star Monica Mattos), and martial artist Mai.  Dri and Lia meet up with tattoo artist Gregório (Janderson Tucunduva) who has been communing with the demon Astaroth (also played by Mattos).

Gregório has been tattooing sigils on to people so Astaroth can claim them.  Once she has enough she can come into the mortal world.

All in all not a bad premise.  The movie feels like an American horror movie circa 1995, only a lot less sex and nudity if you can believe that.  The movie doesn't really get going until the half-way mark. 

Eventually, Lia gets possessed by Astaroth kills Dri, but not before Mai can find out.  Mai figures out what Astaroth is and kills Gregório and the possessed Lia to send Astaroth to hell.

The movie is quite obsessed with metal with the bands getting top billing right after the actresses. Not a bad thing really; demons, metal, horror, it all fits together.  The trouble is sometimes it comes across as an 80s training video.  If it had been made in the 80s there would have been a larger body count and at least one song by Dokken.

It wasn't a bad flick really, it just had the feel of some people doing this on a budget and they got all their friends over to do it. 

October 2021
Viewed: 46
First Time Views: 33

October Horror Movie Challenge: Mother of Tears (2007)

The third of Dario Argento's "Three Mothers" series that began with Suspiria (1977) and followed into Inferno (1980). This one deals with the Mother of Tears, Matter Lachymarum, the most beautiful and cruelest of all the mothers. 

Mother of Tears (2007)

A crypt is uncovered in an ancient Italian graveyard with a coffin and a reliquary.  Inside the reliquary are little stone carvings of demons and a red vest that they keep calling a talisman.  It is sent to the Museum of Ancient Art in Rome to be studied by the curator Michael Pierce. He is out so it is opened by art student (and Pierce's girlfriend) Sarah Mandy (director's daughter Asia Argento).  She lets out some demons that attack and kill her colleague. Sarah manages to escape by listening to a voice that tells her where to go.

Soon Rome descends into violence as more witches from all over the world begin to come to town. We learn that they have heard the call of Matter Lachymarum. She has returned from the dead with her red talisman. Sarah is watched by the police for her colleague's disappearance and by all the witches for reasons we don't know yet.  The voice she hears keeps getting her out of trouble. 

We learn that Sarah is the daughter of a powerful white witch that dealt a serious blow to Mater Suspiriorum (Suspiria). It is implied that she was one of the dancers.  Sarah also has power and that is why Matter Lachymarum is seeking her out. 

The witches coming to Rome manage to kill pretty much everyone that Sarah knows. 

Sarah finds Matter Lachymarum's home and before she can be sacrificed she uses a spear to rip off Matter Lachymarum red talisman and burns it.  All the witches panic and Matter Lachymarum is killed.

--

So. It's not a great movie. There are some good moments. I think what I should do is watch all three back to back sometime to get Argento's full experience.

Asia Argento is not a great actress.  She was ok in this, but someone with more skill would have been better. 

The witches coming to Rome though were great. One of the things I loved here was that the witches all spoke a language they alone understood. I have seen this in Motherland, Coven, and Emerald City.  Now I really want to try and implement it in a game somehow. 

Creating a language though. That is WAY beyond my skillset. 

October 2021
Viewed: 45
First Time Views: 32

October Horror Movie Challenge: Lady Bathory Night

I have seen a lot of attempts of telling the Bathory story.  This one focuses more on the history than the vampire retellings. Though it gets some of that wrong as well.

The Blood Queen (2015)

The acting by the young stars,  Isabelle Allen as Aletta and Lucas Bond as her brother Mischa, is quite good really.  I expect to see more of them in the future.

Equally, Svetlana Khodchenkova is hypnotic as Bathory. Watching her on-screen you really want her to be something other than the monster we know her to be. 

Aletta and Mischa get arrested for being thieves but are soon rescued by the Countess' aides, Dorata and Ilona.  Both children are taken to the castle.

The Countess takes an interest in Aletta, and it is not entirely a wholesome one.  

While Aletta is getting more involved with the castle, and the more Mischa is getting beat up, we discover that kids go missing all the time from the castle.

Mischa is caught stealing Bathory's book and is thrown in the dungeons.  The book is Bathory's diary of the children she tortured, mutilated, and killed.  

Mischa manages to escape and get back to the judge to tell him about Bathory, but the judge decides that Mischa is lying and sentences him to death.    Aletta also tries to escape, thinking that Mischa has left her.  She runs into Katja, the gypsy girl we saw in the beginning.  Katja is Aletta's older sister that went missing the year before.  She had been at Castle Csejte but had escaped.   Katja almost gets away with Aletta, but is killed by Dorata.

Bathory has Aletta chained up above her bath to drain her, but Mischa arrives with Bear, the jailer that Mischa had impressed with his ability to get out of any locks.   Bear saves Aletta, but not before Bathory kills Mischa.  The King's men arrive in time to arrest Bathory. 

After this, the story follows what history tells us.   It's not a bad flick at all, but not a great one either. Light on the explicit horror but heavy on the implied.  They changed Bathory's victims to boys and girls instead of just girls.  I suppose they needed to do this to allow Mischa in.   There was just so much more they could have done with it I feel.

The movie was very stylish. It scene was great to look at and Svetlana Khodchenkova was great as Bathory.  It reminded me a lot of the Daughters of Darkness.  Then I recalled I had a brand new Ultra 4k BluRay I had gotten for my birthday!  I figured I should pop it in.

Daughters of Darkness (1971)

This is still one of my favorite horror films from the 70s. This new Ultra 4k transfer is fantastic looking.  Blue Underground does a great job as always.  This one is a 3-disc set. An Ultra 4k BlueRay, a regular BluRay, and a soundtrack CD.  

I did Daughters of Darkness in 2019. So watching it now I still have my DVD version in mind.  This one is so much clearer, so much sharper.    For example, when Valerie (Danielle Ouimet) is reading the newspaper you can actually see the page she is reading.   The scene where Stefan beats Valerie is also much, unnecessarily so, clearer.  The car crash at the end is so much brighter and clearer you can see all the skid marks on the road from the other takes. 

Plus it is great watching this right after The Blood Queen is kind of fun.  Both movies featured a haunting portrayal of Ezerabet Bathory as a blonde from two fantastic actresses. Both movies also feature her servant Ilona.  

I have not checked out all the special features yet, but they look interesting. There are two features I did check out are the interviews with Danielle Ouimet "Valerie" and Andrea Rau "Ilona."  Danielle Ouimet's was fantastic and a lot of fun.   Andrea Rau's was also great and also great to hear sounding excited in this.   They look like they were filmed in 2006. Both actresses have nothing but wonderful things to say about Delphine Seyrig.

Each time I watch this I am just fascinated by Delphine Seyrig.  She seems like she is much classier than this movie should be allowed to have. I think about a modern remake of this and I can't think of anyone who could play her the same way.  Though I do admit that Svetlana Khodchenkova came very, very close.

Eternal (2004)

I figure lets keep going.  I had seen most of the other adaptations of the Bathory story from her time period, I had often wondered though what filmmakers had in mind for her post-1971.  I guess the answer is "Canada."  Or at least that is the way that filmmaker Wilhelm Liebenberg sees it in 2004's Eternal. Here we get Caroline Néron as Elizabeth Kane aka Erszabet Bathory.  We don't have an Ilona character, well and Irinia, but there is an actress whose real name is Ilona. 

We open with a woman,"Wildcat" played by Sarah Manninen, who goes to see Elizabeth for some pre-arranged sexual hook-up.  Elizabeth promptly kills her and asks her assistant to prepare her bath.

Soon we learn that the woman was the wife of cop, Raymond Pope (played by Conrad Pla). Raymond is not what you call a faithful husband.  He is having sex with another woman (who we learn is Nancy, the wife of his friend) when he gets the call about his wife's car.  Pope goes to see Erszabet/Elizabeth.  BTW Conrad Pla is not a great actor.  His son Joey Pla, who plays his son Nathan, is a better actor.  Now to be fair the role he is playing is not supposed to be subtle.   Caroline Néron on the other hand is much better. 

Ray continues to investigate Bathory while she kills Nancy.   Ray investigates and drinks and spends time in strip clubs while his friend and son's babysitter Lisa is killed by Irina. 

Ray follows Bathory to Venice (despite being wanted for murder and having a kid to watch)  where he ends up at Bathory's house. Here he hunts her down during her orgy but is shot and stabbed.  He is saved by the Interpol Detective he talked to in Montreal, Inspector Thurzo. Somehow Thurzo, who also seems to be a priest of some sort, has everything cleared up for him. Of course like an idiot Raymond drinks the wine Elizabeth gives him. It is hinted he will go rescue her when she is transferred to a clinic in Switzerland. 

The movie is not great, not by any stretch of the imagination. 

October 2021
Viewed: 44
First Time Views: 31