October Horror Movie Challenge: Re-Animator (1985, 1991, 2003)

I can't do a Lovecraft film fest and NOT do the Re-Animator series.  Yeah, it is so loosely based on Lovecraft's Herbert West, but it left a long shadow, for good or ill, on all future Lovecraft film adaptions.

Re-Animator (1985)

The first thing I notice about this is how freaking young Jeffery Combs is.  Secondly how much gratuitous nudity there is in this.  Third, re-animated humans are SUPER STRONG!

The scene where they reanimated Rufus the cat has stuck with me for years. Pretty much everyone in this is a little forgettable, save for Jeffery Combs as Herbert West and David Gale as Dr. Carl Hill.  Yes, Barbara Crampton is in it as Meg doing what she does best, screaming and getting naked. 

The version I just watched on the Midnight Pulp did not have the infamous "head giving head" scene, nor did it have the scene where West is injecting some of the reagent into himself like heroin. That might be in the sequel.  Which is for later tonight.  Though this one ends fairly definitively with West, Hill and Meg all dying in the end.  Yeah...I know the title of the movie here.

I have seen this movie, I don't know now, maybe three dozen times.  Never fails to amuse and entertain.  Though it has been a few years since I last saw it and I am surprised which parts seemed to new to me.

I might need to get one of the newer Blu-Ray releases of it.  Though that could just be my tired brain talking.

Bride of Re-Animator (1991)

Taking place after what is being called the Miskatonic Medical School Massacre, Herbert West and Dan Cain are still working on perfecting the re-animation process.   

This movie, along with the first, completes the Lovecraft short story, more or less. 

This one is also less campy than the first, which is interesting since the camp was one of the main features of the first one.  Although West seems a little more unhinged in this movie.  Almost out of character really. 

There is also far less gratuitous nudity and blood in this one. Of it's there, just not the same as the thirst movie.  I am getting the feeling the director and writers were trying to make a more serious horror movie.  The scenes where the "Bride" is reanimated are very reminiscent of the Bride of Frankenstein with Else Lancaster. The lightning and the rain in the scene helps that feeling. 

David Gale is back as Dr. Carl Hill, a fantastic bad guy to have really.  This also marks one of his last roles before dying due to complications from open-heart surgery.  Hill as a bat-winged flying head is really one of the joys of the film.  

The ending though is pretty campy and crazy.

Beyond Re-Animator (2003)

Oh, I am going to be dragging in the morning.  I knew of this movie but did not recall it until I went looking for Bride of Re-Animator on my streaming services.  I found it and figured, let's make a night of it! Plus I need a new watch for this challenge.

This one is different from the other two even if it is supposed to be a direct sequel.  We begin with the last night of the last movie. Young Howard Philips (hehe) is camping out in a tent with a friend when they hear someone go into their house.  They investigate only to find his older sister, but they are quickly attacked by a zombie that kills his sister Emily.  Wandering out of his house he sees the police take Herbert West into custody. West drops one of his re-agents and Howard picks it up.

It's13 years after those events and Herbert West is in prison experimenting on rats. Dr. Howard Philips has joined the prison hospital as the new doctor.  

The movie was made in Spain and sadly has a less than polished feel about it.  I was not surprised to hear it was direct to SciFi production, though I guess it was in some theatres overseas.  The presentation is SD, not HD.

They try for a "Silence of the Lambs" feel to the prison, Arkham State Prison.

Elsa Pataky, aka Liam Hemsworth's wife, appears as Laura Olney a journalist who starts an affair with Dr. Philips.

Philips and West set up a lab space in secret to continue their experiments.  Meanwhile, Laura keeps investigating West's background. The use of the original music for the research/investigation scenes is a nice touch.

West has discovered that the reagent is only half the solution, there is also this "Nano-Plasmic Energy" that jump starts all the cells.  They try it on a pet rat and it comes back to life and 100% fine...well almost.

Laura goes to interview the prisoner that West revived, but is discovered by the Warden. Who promptly gets his ear ripped off. Laura refuses the advances of the Warden and he kills her too.  They bring Laura back to life and use the Warden's NPE to make her normal, but it has some weird side-effects, like making her homicidal.   West also brings back the Warden, but he manages to escape and steal the reagent.  He starts killing prisoners and guards to bring them back to experience death over and over.

A prison riot breaks out and prisoners and the reanimated are all locked in together. 

SWAT teams rush in to stop the rioters. We also learn what happens when a living person injects the pure reagent.  Spoiler, it's messy.

This one ends with Herbert West walking out of the prison into the night.

It wasn't great, but it was fun.

October 2021
Viewed: 7
First Time Views: 3

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Dunwich Horror (1970, 2008)

The Dunwich Horror is one of Lovecraft's most enduring tales.  We get the demented and evil Whately family.  It is the story that gives us the most information on the Old One and Outer God Yog-Sothoth.   There have been a number of movies based on it, but tonight I want to focus on two, both starring Dean Stockwell.

Double the Dunwich Horror and double Dean Stockwell!

The Dunwich Horror (1970)

So from the start, this movie is not 100% sure if it wants to be Lovecraftian horror of more typical 70s occult-themed horror.  

I do love how the Necronomicon is given to a coed to return to the library like it was a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Dean Stockwell is Wilbur in this one.  He is really young and does a good job acting, BUT he is not a good Wilbur.  That is due to the script really, not the acting. I guess they needed someone to charm Sandra Dee, and a deformed 10-year-old would not do the trick.   Ed Begley (in one of his last roles) is our Dr. Armitage and he brings the right amount of pomposity to the role. 

The biggest crime here is that the movie is so slow. The Whateley home in this movie is far nicer than it ever was in the Lovecraft tale.  

The effects are not great, but fun.  The image of Wilbur's brother is kind of cool. 

There is a lot of conflating of the Old Ones with some sort of satanic aspect, which is fairly irritating, to be honest.  But is it more irritating than Wilbur getting a "love interest?" Hard to say.  

Among other things, this movie is notable for a very, very rare, blink and you will miss it, Sandra Dee topless scene. This was also near the end of her very prolific career. She would only appear in a few more TV episodes. 

The movie ends with Dee's character, Nancy Wagner, pregnant with Wilbur's baby.  I guess he would be in his 50s now.  Sounds like a sequel to me!  The Bride of Dunwich!

The Dunwich Horror (2008)

This one has also been called "Witches: The Darkest Horror" and "Witches: The Dunwich Horror." This time the story moves to Louisana. 

Dean Stockwell this time plays Dr. Henry Armitage.  The movie is really not good, to be honest, but it is kind of fun.  It watches like a Call of Cthulhu adventure; exotic locales, strange artifacts, old evil tomes, guest-starring Jeffery Combs (as Wilbur no less).  Even John Dee, Olas Wormius, and the Knights Templar get name-dropped here.  Olas even shows up in a swamp for some reason.

Moving the location to the far south is an interesting one. I am sure in Lovecraft's time New England had its share of strange locales, but now on a larger scale the same "other place" is served by the backwoods southern parts of the country.  Or I might be giving the filmmakers too much credit.  I also can't tell if the effect of Wilbur being "slightly out of this dimension/time" is interesting or irritating. 

While it is not Lovecraft's Dunwich Horror and it is not very good, it kept me watching to the end.

So where are we at now?  I think it is time for another Dunwich Horror movie, this time make it closer to the Lovecraft tale and get Dean Stockwell to play old man Whateley! 

October 2021
Viewed: 4
First Time Views: 2

OSE Spooktacular Bundle

It is that time of year again! Lots of great horror bundles coming out and I am happy to be part of the first for October 2021.  

OSE Spooktacular Bundle
From Third Kingdom Games

Old-School Essentials is pretty much the hottest clone out right now.  My FLGS can't even keep it in stock, it sells out too fast.

Even my family who has passed on other clones has taken to this one.  My wife loves the art and my oldest is really enjoying the rules. The layout really helps.  My youngest...well they are playing a fighter that thinks they are a cleric.  So it has been great.

The OSE Spooktacular Bundle is full of some great OSE content. 

I have two products in it that are perfect for this bundle. 

Included in this bundle are the following titles:

• DD-01 The Darkness Beneath Dalentown for 1st Edition and BX
• DD-02 The Darkness Beneath Brightwell Manor for 1st Edition and BX
• Fantasy Stock Art: Demons
• Fantasy Stock Art: Undead
• Hex 18.24 -- The Deadwoods
• Octhorrorfest!
• PHM Hex 55.68 -- Entrance to the Valley of Kings (pt. 1)
• Solar Sanctuary of the Cannibal Corpse
• The Deadly Mine of Pantanga
• The Warlock (mine)
• Witch Character Sheet - Basic era (mine)

So grab this. It's a ton of fun. 

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Nightmare Gallery (2018)

This one was on my list last year but I didn't get to it.  It stars Amber Benson, so that was a huge plus, but the reviews of it were pretty terrible.   

Well, one neat thing, the movie let me know at the start that there was a post-credits scene. 

The Nightmare Gallery (2018)

We start off with a grad student, Sanjay, who gets access to a book about Hermes Trismegistus. He excitedly calls his professor, Samantha Rand (Amber Benson).  She tells him she is on his way.  She shows up and he is not there.

Three years later, Sanjay is still missing and Prof. Rand is celebrating her anniversary with her wife, Dawn.   She gets a weird package in the mail from Sanjay with a note "Follow Me."  She stays up trying to figure it out but instead falls asleep at the table. 

One of her other students, Chloe Bishop, offers to help since her sister had also gone missing a few years ago.

They discover an image that might be a link, but call it a night. Rand falls asleep and has another nightmare of playing a dice game (the dice in the box from Sanjay) with Dawn, Sanjay, and Chole's sister (who she has never met).  She wakes up, coughing blood. 

She visits the psychiatrist and learns that his patient is drawing more of the symbols.  She feels she is about at a breakthrough but she keeps slipping in and out of nightmares, and her nightmares are slipping in and out of her reality.   She spends her time going between dream and reality.

And...maybe too much back and forth.  We learn that Sanjay and Colton (patient) knew each other and knew what was going on.  I have to give Amber credit here, she plays a downward spiral into madness well. 

Eventually, she finds her way to an extra-dimensional museum. Here she finds Sanjay who thinks he has been here for 10 years, not 3.  Sanjay has discovered the means to summon Thoth himself (half of Hermes Trismegistus).   Sam stops the ritual, but not before Thoth grabs her.

We next see Sam in the mental institution.  She is visited by Chloe but she only keeps repeating the same thing about knowledge. 

In the post-credits scene, we learn that Chloe was working with Colton, and he is not as crazy as he seems.  Maybe they are hoping to make a sequel.

Well. There are some neat ideas here for sure. Amber was great, but the movie was only so-so.

October 2021
Viewed: 2
First Time Views: 2

October Horror Movie Challenge: Tragic Ceremony (1972)

Time for another October Horror Movie Challenge.   My goal this year is as in previous years, to watch 31 horror movies with at least 20 new ones. This year I am going to try a Lovecraft film fest, know full well it is (or I am) likely doomed to failure on it.  Lovecraft does not translate well onto the big (or small) screens.

But before that gets started I have (as in previous years) some "leftovers" of movies I wanted to see but did not get around to watching.  Tonight is the first.

Tragic Ceremony (1972)

Last year I spent a lot of time watching European, especially Italian, horror films released before 1973.  I wanted to get a good feel for what was going on in horror before The Exorcist changed everything.  

Tragic Ceremony is a Spanish/Italian flick starring American actress Camille Keaton years before her defining role in "I Spit on Your Grave" in 1978.

Four "hippies" spend some time goofing off in the country when their car runs out of gas.  They end up staying at the manor of Lord and Lady Alexander (Luciana Paluzzi).   Lady Alexander takes a particular interest in Jane (Keaton) of course.  The other three dudes witness a black mass where Lord and Lady Alexander attempt to sacrifice Jane. They stop it and everyone goes insane and they all kill each other. 

Jane and her dudes drive away (thought their dune buggy was out of gas?) and they head back to Bill's (one of the guys) home.  Soon everyone starts getting killed and no one knows who is doing it.

Eventually, only Jane is left alive, she had been killing them all.  She is committed to an asylum but is visited by Lady Alexander (who survived the massacre).  Jane walks out of the asylum and into a waiting car where she is transformed into Lady Alexander.  Jane's body remains in the asylum where the doctor matter of factly tells us she had been dead this whole time and possessed by LAdy Alexander.

There was a moment there where I thought I had found my "mystery movie" from the 70s. But it turned out not to be it.

I watched this one with my kids, but yeah it is not good. Though I will comment that Camille Keaton's Italian seem to me to be pretty good.  I thought it was pretty good in last year's Il Sesso Della Strega (1973) as well. 

October 2021
Viewed: 1
First Time Views: 1

Character Creation Challenge: D&D 5th Edition, Van Richten's and Tasha's

 It's the 1st of October and that means a new Character! 

The Game: D&D 5th Edition
Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft & Tasha's Cauldron of Everything

While I did 5e way back in January, I wanted to revisit character creation with the new details from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.   This is also the closest I can get right now to what might be the standards for D&D 5 Revised. 

For this build, I went with the Soulknife Rogue from Tasha's and the Dhampir from Van Richten's. Yes. I had something in mind already.

The Character: BloodRayne

One of the best ways for me to test out a character in a new system is to take a character I already know well.   If I am going to test out the Dhampir rules in D&D then I am going to need a dhampir I know well, and that means Rayne.

I have done stats for Rayne, the titular character of the BloodRayne video game series (and movie series from Uwe Boll), for both Unisystem and Superbabes.  She does have a D&D 5e connection with Laura "Jester" Bailey voicing the character in the video games long before she rose to geek fame in Critical Role.

Rebuilding Rayne with the new features in both Tasha's and Van Richten's was actually rather easy.  I had a concept in mind and the rules allowed me to re-create her with no issues.  Mind you this is a "D&D Rayne" not the BloodRayne from the video games.  Despite the grief D&D 5 gets for being "superheroic" I could not emulate all her moves or powers.  I suppose I could have gone with a little bit of warlock and in particular a Hexblade (and I still might). But I wanted something that would fit in well enough with a D&D party. 

I wanted to take advantage of all the new features, so I used D&D Beyond.  You can see her character sheets here and PDF version here.

October is Horror Month

Hello and WELCOME to The Other Side.  October is a big deal around here.  I spend the month talking about horror.  Both in terms of horror RPGs, horror movies, and anything else that strikes my interest.

This month I am honored to be hosting my first ever RPG Blog Carnival.  Of course, I am going to be talking about horror and all the great things you can do in your RPGs.

All this month I am going to be talking about adding horror elements to your games. Whether you play D&D or Kult or Bunnies & Burrows, any game can have elements of horror to them.  I hope to give you the means to add these AND also provide you a place to discuss your own horror elements.

How to Participate

Simple. Write a blog post, vlog, social media post, tweet, or what have you.  The topic can be about horror, about adding horror elements to a game, or even as simple as what you are going to do for a Halloween game.  Have a scary RPG-related story? Post it and post the link below!

I do have Comment Moderation turned on to help keep the spam out, so if you don't see your post just give me a bit and it will show up.

Come back here all month long to see what others are posting and linking here.

Come back to my blog all month long to see what I am posting as well!

Here's the Spookiest month of the year and my favorite time of the year.