Book Report: Damnation Game & The Reaping

Posted on by TJDietsch

As anyone who was paying attention to UM in the fall will know, I plunged deeply into the world of horror for most of September and October. By the time I finished up the epic undertaking of It’s All Connected 2020, I took a break from watching a lot of horror movies throughout most of November, but kept on making my way through my daunting To Read boxes. To that end, I pulled out an old paperback I scored from the library’s free table several years ago as well as the next Paperbacks From Hell reprint from my favorite publisher Valancourt!

Read on!

It’s All Connected: The Legacy (1978)

Posted on by TJDietsch

I fully intended to have this final It’s All Connected post for 2020 ready to roll last week, but then 2020 kept on 2020ing, so I got a little (completely) distracted. Anyway, here we are, after two months of watching, I made it through 33 feature films! I might still go through and do a By The Numbers post mortem kind of thing on the movies I made my way through getting from Swamp Thing to The Legacy, but that’ll be a post for another day.

Enter, if you dare…

Halloween Scene Trade Post: A Mike Mignola Trio

Posted on by TJDietsch

I’ve spilled a lot of digital ink this season talking about how much I love Kelley Jones’ work, especially on Batman (in posts here and here), but there’s another artist whose work is synonymous with horror in my mind: Mike Mignola. The genius behind Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. has done all sorts of work in the comics world and this post will give some love to a few of his other works that are lots of spooky fun! Here are some interesting comics you might want to check out if you don’t want to dive too deeply into those sprawling epics.

Enter, if you dare…

It’s All Connected: Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park (1978)

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After really hating Gordon Hessler’s Cry Of The Banshee, I was worried that the other two movies of his I planned on watching would fall flat. Luckily, I’ve had a much better It’s All Connected experience with his 1978 TV movie KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park. Less of a horror movie and more of a live action Scooby-Doo episode with a costume-loving rock band filling in for the kids and a talking dog, this is still a super enjoyable movie…if you don’t mind the title characters being VERY bad actors.

Enter, if you dare…

Halloween Scene: Batman By Doug Moench & Kelley Jones Part 2

Posted on by TJDietsch

I’ve been having a great time watching connected films and a variety of horror books this season, but it’s very possible that re-visiting the Batman run by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones has been one of my favorite experiences so far. As I mentioned in the first part, these post-KnightFall books were bedrock-forming for my knowledge of not just the Dark Knight, but also the imagery of horror as put through Jones’ incredibly capable lens. As good as the Batman developments are in these issues as he regains his life after the Bane and Azrael incidents, it’s equally exciting to see these two creators work their magic on a variety of villains and co-stars.

Enter, if you dare…

Halloween Scene: Animal Man Vol 5 & Red Thorn!

Posted on by TJDietsch

My journey this fall through the weird worlds of Vertigo  has taken me to some strange corners of the comics world and I couldn’t be happier about it. This time around I tackled another volume in the proto-Vertigo post-Grant Morrison Animal Man saga and also made my way through a series based on Scottish mythology that was fun and bloody.

Continue reading Halloween Scene: Animal Man Vol 5 & Red Thorn!

A Few Thoughts On The World’s End, Dark Forces & Six String Samurai

Posted on by TJDietsch

Between a mix of business and less-than-desirable equipment, I’m bummed to say I haven’t done nearly as much blogging as I wanted to this year. However, as I sit here under my brand new laptop — one with the luxurious benefit of a fully working keyboard — I wanted to get into a trio of movies I’ve seen recently that I really enjoyed!

Continue reading A Few Thoughts On The World’s End, Dark Forces & Six String Samurai

Halloween Scene: The Raven (1963) & The Tower Of London (1962)

Posted on by TJDietsch

Over the weekend I found myself in an increasingly rare place: looking for something to watch on a Saturday night. Of course, I flipped through Netflix, Amazon Video and Hulu trying to figure out what to watch, but it was a trip to my trusty DVD rack that finally helped me figure out what to put in my brain: Vincent Price flicks!

Continue reading Halloween Scene: The Raven (1963) & The Tower Of London (1962)

My Favorite Older Horror Discoveries Of 2017

Posted on by TJDietsch

All in all, I had pretty great luck with newer horror films during 2017, as I wrote about in a post last week. When it comes to older films, especially horror ones, I tend to have lower — or at least different — expectations. If a movie’s off-the-wall bonkers, but made with effort, I’ll probably love it. That accounts for about half of the movies on this list. However, I also discovered a few that I now very much consider new-to-me classics that I hope to watch again and again. To find out which ones, you’ve got to hit that jump!

Continue reading My Favorite Older Horror Discoveries Of 2017

The Midnight Comic Club Episode 11 – Gateway Horror Comics

Posted on by TJDietsch

I call together this first meeting of The Midnight Comic Club in 2018 to order! This time around, I assembled a Frightful Five of gateway horror comics that are good for kids of various ages. As always, I recommend you read the books first before passing them to the young reader in your life, but I think there’s some solid options in here!

Here are the Amazon links for the first four which have both digital and analog versions to chose from: Scooby-Doo Team-Up Volume 1, The Creeps Volume One: Night Of The Frankenfrogs, Ghosts and Ghostopolis. And then here’s a link to the MyComicShop.com page for Leave It To Chance!