SeñorScary.com

Thank you for visiting my blog and Halloween site. May your night be a silent one and may Krampus be nowhere in sight. via GIPHY

FX’s gritty take on A Christmas Carol is neither a holiday classic reborn, nor meant for audiences fond of the heartwarming adaptations based on Charles Dicken’s novella. This is a new story about the cost of being good. It’s relentlessly bleak & grim with problematic moments that will distress many audiences at the peak of the yuletide season. There’s also some unexpected nudity & gore including scenes with a ripped off jaw, a mouse beheading, and bloody explosion. The movie presents an unpleasant reality of life and it’s a world far away from a Norman Rockwell commemorative dinner plate. So the question is why take a well-known story and push it to such dark corners? There’s definitely some counter programming from the FX network for those oversaturated with saccharine holiday fare. More pointedly though, is the vexing need to understand our monsters. Our world is full of them from the White House to the mall shootings. It’s not simply enough to know that someone is bad.

Nightmare Before Christmas is the perfect inspiration to bridge Halloween with the yuletide season, especially for someone who like to keep things scary year-round. This year I finally also made a Man Eating Wreath that appeared only a few seconds in the film but utilized prominently in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion Holiday. If you're a fan of the film, you must get to Anaheim, CA during the autumn to see Jack Skellington's takeover of the Haunted Mansion ride. The imagineers dress up every corner of the spooky house ride with whimsical, Burton-esque flair (see below for ride through video of the 2019 version from LMG Vids).

Wounds spirals an earnest cast down a dark tunnel of compounding dread. The anxious sound design & bizarre effects cast a harsh, unsettling spell. It’s confounding niche horror with a Lovecraftian touch that will leave some unsatisfied & others unspeakably terrified. The Nightingale is a somber, grueling & enraging piece of artwork with deeply realized characters overcome with vengeance. Its paper thin story reveals an aimless third act that struggles to get to a peak. But well-crafted filmmaking & relevancy make a bold & impactful statement. NOS4A2 , Joe Hill’s take on vampires and metaphysical psychic abilities was a wacky, weird ride in book form with rich characters, a twisty & episodic plot, and an undeniable thin vein of humor. The TV series based on the book was not as much fun, retained the darker elements with a simplified plot, and inexplicably added heaps of bland melodrama. This drama wasn’t organic. It felt like the show crea