It's a Nightmare on My Street!

Enjoy this Halloween classic (inspired by a Halloween classic) from Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince!

31 Nights of Halloween: Happy Halloween!

Sadly, Halloween may be basically cancelled throughout the United States and possibly the world--why I can't figure out, since wearing masks is what Halloween is all about!--but I hope you have some candy on hand, just in case some trick-or-treaters come knocking. And if you don't... well, I hope you fare better than the subject of this tale.

Happy Halloween! (2020)

Starring: Victoria Fratz

Director: Aaron Fradkin

Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

31 Nights of Halloween: The Jester, Chapter 3

The Spirit of Halloween, the Jester, is once again on the prowl, as the 31 Nights of Halloween come to a close for 2020. This is the first of a number of films that we'll be featuring today and tonight. It's a direct continuation of "The Jester, Chapter Two", which helped close out the 2018 festivities.

Writer/director Colin Krawchuck has done something very neat with this three-part series, in addition to making each installment better than the one it followed. If you have seen all three chapters, and have an exceptional memory, you'll notice what it is. If not, I'll reveal what it is after the film.

The Jester: Chapter 3 (2019)
Starring: Aimee Rowan, Mason, Rowan, Kyle Crowder, and Benjamin Rowe
Director: Colin Krawchuck
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

The Jester, while roaming the town in search of those with Halloween Spirit, encounters a little girl who has no one to go trick-or-treating with. He volunteers to escort her around the neighborhood.



There are many things I love about "The Jester: Chapter 3", but foremost among them is the way it loops back around to the beginning the first installment in "The Jester" series. If you go back and watch it here, you'll see that it starts where Chapter 3 ends. I also really loved the little touch that the home of the girl who can't go trick-or-treating already has a Christmas reef hanging on the front door! Maybe, if there's a Chapter 4 to this series, the Jester will be paying those parents a visit...

Saturday Scream Queen: Peculia

Peculia made her first appearance in "Evil Eye" #1 (Fantagraphics 1998), a quarterly anthology title featuring stories written and drawn by Richard Sala. Peculia went onto become one of Sala's signature characters, as well as a favorite of her creator and his fans alike.

Most of Peculia's adventures start with her just going about her day... and end up with her fighting for her life against cultists, monsters, or bodice-ripping villains who have learned some tricks from mad scientists and mad slashers.

Peculia in a world where the horror and thriller movies of the 1920s through the 1950s could all easily have taken place, and where no one thought twice about encountering the supernatural or the by-products of mad science.

Sala never revealed much about Peculia's background. All we ever learn is that she's an orphan who lives alone in a large mansion located on the outskirts of a town. Here, she is looked after and assisted by a short manservant named Ambrose. Meanwhile, a bandage-swathed mystic known as Obscuras watches her from afar--although he and his minions cause almost as much trouble for Peculia as they rescue her from. 

In 2002, nine of Peculia's adventures were collected in "Peculia" (review and some excerpts here, including the history of our heroine's lost shoes). After the cancellation of "Evil Eye" in 2004, Sala revised and expanded the Peculia story from #11 into the graphic novel "Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires" (review here) in 2006.

Sala wrote in 2010 that he had several unpublished Peculia stories and "hundreds" of sketches and drawings involving her, and that he hoped to some day to a book collecting them. Sadly, Richard Sala passed away on May 7, 2020, and the Peculia collection he thought of never came to pass.

While many of Sala's Peculia sketches and drawings have made their way onto the internet over the years, there are at least two Peculia stories that have never been reprinted outside issues of "Evil Eye", and at this point we'll probably never get to see them, nor the treasure trove of unpublished material from his sketch- and notebooks.

But... Peculia lives on, wandering the countryside of the imagination and finding trouble, whether she is looking for it or not.

Finally, if someone has the good taste to make a Peculia movie, "Trouble is a Friend of Mine" MUST be the theme song for it. It's also great music to listen to get you in the mood to read any of Peculia's adventures... and the video has the added benefit that it feels like it could have been animated by Richard Sala!

31 Nights of Halloween: The Lonely Slasher

It's the night before Halloween, so it's the perfect time for this little gem about a Slasher who wanted a little more from life. (It's also a nice attempt at a homage to the cheap 1980s slasher films.)

The Lonely Slasher (2017)
Starring: Corey Michael Adams, Ben Smith, Sam Bird, Will Milligan, and Nicola Brown
Director: Jack Bentley
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

The Fear-filled Phantasms of Richard Sala

It's the night before Halloween and monstrous men and women and terrible creatures are gathering in every shadowy ally and every abandoned home and hovel. Soon, the will roam the streets, looking for victims...

The late Richard Sala left behind imaginings of these dark beings...

31 Nights of Halloween: Candy Crash

This literally just-released short film provides a preview of Halloween Night by showing how to Trick or Treat during the Pandemic--if you're a ghost, haunting lonely stretches of highway...

Candy Crash (2020)
Starring: Goulven Kervizic
Director: Simon Guyomard
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

31 Nights of Halloween: Threshold

With Halloween almost upon us, even turning on all the lights might not protect you from the lurking horrors, as Hannah and Charlotte discover when they hear something go bump in the night. (Actresses Charlotte Butcher and Hannah Clark have starred separately in films featured earlier this month, and they unite here as we Halloween is almost upon us! (It's Dylan Clark's fourth film to be featured during these 31 Nights of Halloween.)

Threshold (2017)

Starring: Charlotte Butcher and Hannah Clark

Director: Dylan Clark

Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Tuneful Tuesday: The Song of the Cat People

It's the last Tuesday before Halloween, and we're closing our presentations of cover versions of the immortal song "Cat People" with two different versions--one guitar-driven instrumental by the Breakaways... and a haunting version by Danish band Phosphoric with a female vocalist and a cello, front and center.

Again, there aren't any videos here to speak of--the one for the Phospheric cover is more annoying than anything else, frankly--but the music is great!

The original "Cat People" film was released in 1942.

There was a remake (the version for which David Bowie performed the "Cat People" song) was released in 1982.

Here's hoping there's another remake in the works for release in 2022. It would be great to have a tradition of a "Cat People" remake being released every 40 years...

31 Nights of Halloween: Shadowed

A power failure signals another run-in between the supernatural and the world's unluckiest woman, Lotta Losten. 

(Actually, everyone should probably take tonight's mini-fright film as a cautionary tale. We are at the point in the 31 Nights of Halloween where the shadows just don't hide the monsters... they might be the monsters!)

Shadowed (2020)

Starring: Lotta Losten

Director: David F. Sandberg

Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

31 Nights of Halloween: The Devil's Passenger

Some of the short films featured during the 31 Nights of Halloween leave you with more questions than answers once they're over. Sometimes, it's a flaw in the storytelling. Other times, it's exactly what makes the film so great. Tonight's mini-masterpiece is of the latter kind, and I'm sure you're going to love it. 

(Heck, as I began to write the above paragraph, I was going to raise the criticism that the film relies on Stupid Character Syndrome to work, but they I realized that it didn't. This tale of a woman who follows a van with a kidnap victim in the back is, in fact, perfectly executed. It's one of the best films featured during this year's festival!) 

The Devil's Passenger (2018)

Starring: Colleen Kelly and Gabrielle Niebaur

Director: Dave Bundtzen

Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

(If you're new in these parts, Stupid Character Syndrome is what takes hold when characters do things that are absolutely, blazingly idiotic because otherwise the story wouldn't work. I take it as a sign of lazy writing. In the case of "The Devil's Passenger" there isn't even a whisper of Stupid Character Syndrome.)

31 Nights of Halloween: Klown Skool

Klown Skool (2020)

Starring: Valeska Miller

Director: Aaron Fradkin

Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

A young woman (Miller) becomes the owner of a haunted television set.

"Klown Skool" is a great example of how to make an effective mini-horror film. Its premise is swiftly and effectively set up in the beginning, and we are given insight into the main character's motivation and personality, as well as that of the film's monster. We also get a complete story, with a beginning, a middle, and and an end. Writer/Director Aaron Fradkin did as more in five minutes than some filmmakers do in ninety... and which only the best makers of short films seem to be able to do at all. I also love the fact the film continues as the credits flash across the screen. (My only complaint is that I wish they'd been a little more legible... and makes me rate it Nine of Ten... but it's a 9.9999 rating.)

"Klown Skool" is one of the best films featuring during this year's 31 Nights of Halloween. Check it out! And be sure to visit Social House Films' YouTube channel by clicking here. Fradkin posts a new short film every month... and he's a filmmaker who is either wasting his talent in that corner of the web, or he's a filmmaker who is destined for great things!

Saturday Scream Queen: Valeska Miller

Valeska Miller was born in Malibu, California, in 1987. She is a classically trained ballerina who has been working as an actress and model since 2008. She has so far mostly appeared in thrillers and comedies, but she completed filming on the fantasy film "Empires of the Deep" (no release date announced yet) and has starred in two excellent horror short films in 2020--both of which you can watch as part of this year's 31 Nights of Halloween celebration. (If you haven't already seen "Shadow", click here. Her second appearance will come later today.)

Some might say it's a bit premature to crown Valeska Miller as a Scream Queen... but we've liked what we've seen of her so much that we hope we'll be seeing her in a lot more horror films to come. Then we'll be able to say, "We knew she was going to be great!"

31 Nights of Halloween: No Caller ID

A woman home alone, a call from an unknown number, a blade-wielding, masked intruder.... These are all things we've seen before during the 31 Nights of Halloween, but they are done extremely well in tonight's selection, and the pay-off is super-scary! 

We hope you enjoy this mini fright-film from one of the Lands Down Under!

No Caller ID (2015)

Starring: Jocelyn Christian and Harley Neville

Director: Guy Pigden

Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Fear-filled Phantasms by Richard Sala

This week's exhibit of Richard Sala art is titled The Perils of Peculia. It features portraits of Sala's reluctant heroine, Peculia, who keeps finding herself in the middle of fights with mad scientists and monsters when all she ever wants is quiet walks and uneventful trips to the park or the store. 

Peculia appeared in a series of short stories in The Evil Eye anthology title from Fantagraphics during the 1990s. Her adventures have been collected in "Peculia" and "Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires". Click on the links to read reviews of those books at our sister blog, Shades of Gray.

31 Nights of Halloween: We Do Fun?

We Do Fun? (2020)
Starring: David Fershtadt
Director: David Fershtadt

Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A young man (Fershtadt) encounters a strange presence in his bathroom.

Straight-to-the-point, completely weird, and ending on a creepy note and with no answers given as to whether the bathroom was haunted by a ghost, or whether the Bathtub Fairy had popped in for a visit... It doesn't matter that we don't know the hows, or whos, or whys of this odd encounter in the bathroom, because the ending is in perfect keeping with the rest of the film. 

Check it out. If nothing else, you can take it as a cautionary tale that nowhere is safe during the 31 Nights of Halloween!

David Fershtadt is a filmmaker who, near as I can tell, is literally at the very beginning of his career. If what we see of his sense of story-telling and ability to frame a shot is any indication of his talent, I think his will be a name we're going to see often in the future.

31 Nights of Halloween: Home Movies

Have you ever watched old movies and felt nostalgic... but also spotted something you don't remember or which seems off? The subject of tonight's mini-fright film can relate. Although she wishes she couldn't...

"Home Movies" is one of the best film's that you'll see during this year's 31 Nights of Halloween. It's the second appearance of writer/director Dylan Clark and his leading lady Hannah Clark... and they top the excellence they've already delivered with this one.

One thing I REALLY like about it? Clark addresses what could have been a manifestation of Stupid Character Syndrome while making the film a whole lot creepier.

Home Movies (2020)

Starring: Hannah Clark

Director: Dylan Clark

Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

31 Nights of Halloween: Hoxie

Hoxie (2018)

Starring: Natasha Hindmarsh and Jared Rienfeld

Director: Jared Rienfeld

Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A filmmaker (Hindmarsh) has a strange encounter on a bridge that is believed to be haunted.

I always watch films with the intention of wanting to like them--why waste time on something that's not worth the time?--but in the case of "Hoxie" I REALLY wanted to like it. It takes place on what is rumored to be a spot that's haunted in real life (click here for details) and it stars a real filmmaker (click here to visit Natasha Hindmarsh's YouTube Channel), and I think that's an incredibly clever set-up for the film.

Unfortunately, although it's very nicely filmed and it's expertly scored and is otherwise very technically competent, it's plain to see that Hindmarsh isn't just being humble when she says she belongs behind the camera and not in front of it. Her complete lack of showing ANY emotion at any point during the film sort of derails it. It also doesn't help the mystery/atmosphere that the ghost (?) she encounters (played by writer/director Jared Rienfeld) is wearing a jacket with the Columbia logo on it.

But.. take a look and let me know if I am being unfair. Maybe I went in with too high expectations, since I had ideas of what this film could be before I'd even watched it.

Tuneful Tuesday: The Song of the Cat People

This week's cover of Georgio Morodor and David Bowie's theme song for the 1982 movie "Cat Peope" is by rock band Electric Six. There is no video, but it's another great version of this spectacular song, with the band making it completely their own. (It feels both old and completely new, which is fitting, since it came from Electric Six's 2015 album titled "Mimicry and Memories".)

31 Nights of Halloween: Persecuted

If you're an experienced watcher of horror films, you've undoubtedly been irritated by "Stupid Character Syndrome"--where a character does something contrary to all sense and logic, just because the plot dictates it and because "horror." 

While watching tonight's selection, you may feel some annoyance creeping in, but stick with this one. You'll be glad you did!

Persecuted (2020)

Starring: Jelena Martinovic and Miroslav Radovic
Director: Dario Radusin
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

(This is the second appearance of the bearded wonder from Croatia, Miroslav Radovic, during this year's 31 Nights of Halloween, as well as the second film directed by Dario Radusin. I think Radusin may be an emerging master of the twist ending!)

31 Nights of Halloween: Hounded

Tonight's mini-fright film is a suspenseful bit of psychological terror about a woman being stalked by her past. Unfortunately, it ends on a whimper instead of a scream. (I'm not a fan of predictable "surprise shock endings", but I'm even less of a fan of predictable endings that cause an otherwise good film to just fizzle out in the closing moments.

I don't how I would have ended "Hounded" to make it better... and neither did the writer/director. It's a shame, because I like everything else about it, so I still think it's worth checking out. Who knows; you may even disagree with me about the ending.

Hounded (2019)

Starring: Brittany Goodwin and Kelly Lynn Sekuterski

Director: Jonathan Everette

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

31 Nights of Halloween: Window Dressing

Looking for work? Accepting a job during the 31 Nights of Halloween might not be the best of ideas, as the subject of tonight's morbid morsel of terror discovers...

Window Dressing (2019)

Starring: Colleen Kelly and Elaine Partnow

Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

This is the first of two short films starring Colleen Kelly that we'll be featuring during this years 31 Nights of Halloween. Watch for next one!

Saturday Scream Queen: Colleen Kelly

Colleen Kelly is an American model and actress who gets most of her bread-and-butter from appearing in television commercial, but has also from 2012 onward been front-and-center in some very excellent horror short films, such as "Overly Possessive" (2017), "The Devil's Passenger" (2018), and "Window Dressing" (2019). Other horror credits include in the 2012 micro-television horror series "Kisses", the Twilight Zone tribute film "Mr. and Mrs. Kill" (2012), and the feature length fright film "Clawed" (2017).

You'll see Kelly in two short films during this year's 31 Nights of Halloween, and, now that she's on our radar, she'll probably also pop up during the "off-season" Terror on the Thirteenth posts.

31 Nights of Halloween: The Pretty Thing

If you're going to stay overnight in the summer cabin during the 31 Nights of Halloween, you better make sure all the doors and windows have locks that work... as two young ladies learn the hard way in tonight's offering

The Pretty Thing (2018)

Starring: Charlotte Butcher

Director: Dylan Clark

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Fear-filled Phantasms from Richard Sala

The Cult of the Great Pumpkin is on the prowl. The are performing sacrifices and summoning the unholy minions of their dark master. Beware what may be lurking in the shadows near that pumpkin patch!

31 Nights of Halloween: Bathroom Troll

Tonight's feature may well be the best short film to ever be featured during the 31 Nights of Halloween.

Bathroom Troll (2018)

Starring: Bianca Sanchez, Melissa Connell, Hannah Gold, Kara McGee, and Cassidy Sanders

Director: Aaron Immediato

Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

After Brielle (McGee) and her clique of other popular girls the popular girls bully and torment the boyish Cassie (Sanchez) one time too many, Cassie's mother (Connell) pushes her daughter into taking revenge of the most extreme kind: She allows her rage to be given shape through a demon (Gold).

"Bathroom Troll" has everything a great horror movie needs. Its through-line is a morality tale where characters have a chance to redeem themselves (if not always save themselves), bad people get what's coming to them, and there's comic relief mixed in with the tension and horror. What's more, it's delivered via a great script that's performed by fine actors. Rarely has a high-school supernatural revenge tale been delivered so perfectly. (I really don't want to go into too many more details, because I'll spoil some of the fun twists in this film... but I will mention that the reactions of the characters during the demon summoning scene are PERFECT. Watch the faces of both Sanchez and Connell as it begins and straight through to the fade-out. I think you'll agree that you've rarely seen something like that performed as well as it was here.)

I do have one complaint about this film. As much as I enjoyed Bianca Sanchez's performance, I had a very hard time getting past the fact that she must be at least 30 years old. Even allowing for the fact that having an overbearing mother and being bullied at school might cause a girl to look haggard, this was way beyond my ability to suspend disbelief. It got even harder when Sanchez and Connell were together in two-shots, since they looked to be about the same age. (Cassidy Sanders, as one of the bullies/"mean girls", likewise looked a little old for the part she was playing.)

But, despite my minor casting complaints, I still loved everything about "Bathroom Troll"... and I think you will, too. The Ten-Star Rating I'm giving it is well deserved!

Fourteen at 14:14 on the 14th

It's the 14th, it's 14:14, so here's a 14-second fragment of horror posted for you to watch.

See You Soon (2014)

Starring: Lotta Losten

Director: David Sandberg

31 Nights of Halloween: Dinah

Have you ever wondered what sort of person clicks Dislike on YouTube videos that only have a handful of views, fewer likes, and are clearly the heartfelt product of an amateur? I have--and so has writer/director James Williams... as you'll see in this, his second contribution to the 31 Nights of Halloween. 

"Dinah" is an expertly crafted film, with some fine acting by star Scott E. Brosius; you can feel his fear... and man do you want the angry ghost to give him what-for. This film is also a great example of how horror stories, perhaps more-so than any other genre, keep pace with the forward march of technology. The basic ideas here are as old as ghost stories themselves, but the way they are presented is pure 21st Century.


Dinah (2019)
Starring: Scott E. Brosius and Sofia Plass
Director: James Williams
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Tuneful Tuesday: The Song of the Catpeople

 Well... frankly, if the video is anything to go by, Bella Wagner's fantastic cover of the theme song for the 1982 film "Cat People", "Cat People (Putting out Fire)", is about Fish People. One has to wonder what they're doing with fire OR gasoline or why they even have the saying. 

As is fitting, this cover is renamed "Putting Out Fire"--since there are no cat people anywhere in sight. With that said, sit back and enjoy the great music and the intriguing visuals!