Tag Archives: horror

Your Weekend Frankenstein, Oct 6-7

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“All them ethical blurry lines point to the same thematic question up in here: are we inherently good, or evil? Are people driven to murder because of society’s sh**, or is it written from Day One that a playa gonna be a cold-hearted killer?” – Sparky Sweets, PhD

I was, of course, born in the wrong decade. Instead of not reading the book for English class, I had those Cliff Notes and what not. But I most definitely didn’t have Thug Notes, narrated by the formidable Sparky Sweets, PhD.

Get the lowdown on Frankenstein like it IS, not like your fastidious English teacher wants it to be. With less pretentious, annoying jargon and with more banging booty. Continue reading →

Lumbering Doofus or Ninja? (Frankenstein, Chapters 22-24)

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Cover of Tor Books edition of Frankenstein by fantasy art master Boris Vallejo

In the home stretch, and here are my takeaways on the end of the novel! Of course, I don’t really have much more to say, not about Vic all of a sudden becoming a self-righteous avenger of justice, dramatically appealing to “spirits” etc etc.  What a drama queen! I don’t have much to say about the showdown in the Arctic, either, except that Vic kills a lot of huskies trying to chase the Monster. Nope, not a whole lotta sympathy from me, gotta tell ya. It also looks like Captain Walton is developing a man-crush or more on Vic. Find another thing, Walton. Continue reading →

Milton, Geo-politics and Romantic Procrastination in Scotland! (Frankenstein, Chapters 15-21)

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Here is one of the most fascinating segments of Shelley’s novel, where the Monster, far from the image of the lumbering idiot that Universal Studios imprinted upon popular culture, eloquently relates his tale and reveals a depth of thought and soul that is heartbreaking. Actually, this all began at around Chapter 10 – where the Monster stalks, helps, learns from and is rejected by a poor and virtuous family, the De Laceys-  but I will address it here.

My takeaways: Continue reading →

Natural Vistas, Child-Care Panic and the Monster Speaks! (Frankenstein, Chapters 8-14)

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1882 cover of the  George Routledge & Sons edition of Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. The Monster is looking like a Yankee Doodle Dandy.

 

My takeaways from Chapters 8 through 14 of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus: Continue reading →

Get Agrippa! Thoughts on Chapters 1-7 of Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

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No plot recaps: that would be tedious reading. For a summary of what happens in these chapters, click here. Instead, I offer what I noticed, what made me curious and what made me react.

Let me add that when I first read Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus I may have been in 7th or 8th grade, and as much as this type of literature can be a pain in the ass to a feckless tween boy in search of horror thrills, I fell head first into it and got through it smoothly. I loved it. Continue reading →

Frankenstein IS…

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Screenshot from The Curse of Frankenstein, 1957 (source: Wikimedia commons)

I settled on a theme for my 31 Days of Halloween blogging project, and it will revolve around a classic monster and one hell of a novel.

I don’t know what kind of place Frankenstein has in modern horror movements (it does have a very important one) but at the dawn of horror cinema and Gothic literature, the man and the monster were there. The novel’s transcendent ideas have seeped into all kinds of fictions, possibly more than we can imagine.

I’m going to take a dive on this blog (not a terribly deep one), but I’ll start with some basic, 9th grade English class research – a Google of all kinds of thematic guides to help you write papers.

Frankenstein is…

Continue reading →

Choosers of the Slain!

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SISTER LUCRETIA DISMAS,

NOIR NUN!

In

CHOOSERS OF THE SLAIN!

(copyright Chillerpop)

He had a carefully styled beard, horn rimmed glasses, a beret and an affected vintage shirt, but his most notable accessory at the moment was the cheap tin fork sticking out of the back of his bloody hand.

The hipster had committed no crime other than trying to make conversation with Sister Lucretia Dismas, who was enjoying a 10 a.m. plate of cheese fries and a shot of patron accompanied by a Belgian lager. But the nun, who considered Rudy’s Bar & Grill on 44th her office, could not take his officious yammering, his thinly veiled condescension and wonder at her being a nun in a bar, his annoying opinions on fashion, film, fat people, religion, music, and his own looks, opinions she neither asked for nor engaged.

When she had enough, with reflexes born of years of fighting crime and supernatural menaces, the nun picked up her fork and put an end to his prattling. Continue reading →

Being A Witch Ain’t One

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October 17, 2017 – Do we have a witch problem in recent horror cinema? Or are some filmmakers taking a mirror to something around us? I’m referencing three semi-recent films that look to me like a brutal, radical trifecta of witchcraft. Are they more Malleus Maleficarum, or more like a horror movie Valerie Solanas might have cared to make? Continue reading →

Druid Rage!

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October 16, 2017 – (originally published October 4, 2012) Tree hugging peaceful pagan hippies, you say?  Perhaps, perhaps…but the horror genre hasn’t always seen it that way.  Given their association with the Celtic S’amhain, our Halloween, it’s only natural that the ancient Celtic priest class would find their way into our tawdry terror tales without any sort of critical eye. Continue reading →

Satan’s School for Girls – The Public Domains of Terror!

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October 14-15, 2017

Do you need any other reason to take in this film beyond the terrifically sleazy title? Did you not catch this psychotronic beauty on your local TV channels before the days of streaming and the Internet, when ANY horror movie would do, no matter how bad?

If either of the above is the case, let me inform you that this 1973 film is highly notable for being an Aaron Spelling production and for featuring not one but two Angels – yes, angels and not devils – Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ladd!   Continue reading →