Mighty Thursday #21: House of Penance

House of Penance

By Peter J. Tomasi (Story & Words), Ian Bertram (Art), Dave Stewart (Colours); Dark Horse Comics; 2017

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Summary

A horrific story of a haunted house and one woman’s mission to wash away the blood curse of her husband’s invention from claiming her own life and soul.

This is a tale about guilt, ghosts, and guns…of how fortune brings misfortune, as a grim and determined woman oversees the construction of a house twenty-four hours a day for twenty years with the simple motto of keep busy building or get busy dying.Read More »

Book Review – Song of Susannah by Stephen King

Summary

Susannah Dean is possessed, her body a living vessel for the demon-mother Mia. Something is growing inside Susannah’s belly, something terrible, and soon she will give birth to Mia’s “chap.” But three unlikely allies are following them to New York City from the border of End World, hoping to prevent the unthinkable. Meanwhile, Eddie and Roland have tumbled into the state of Maine — where the author of a novel called ‘Salem’s Lot is about to meet his destiny….

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Song of Susannah was an exciting change of pace for the Dark Tower series. As much as I liked Wolves of the Calla, it was a massive tome that took its time, mostly keeping the characters in a singular place for about a month over the course of the book. Song of Susannah drastically shifts the momentum of the story, propelling its characters toward the climax of their quest in a series of events that span a roughly 24 hour period. Even at a page-count of over 400, the plot felt like it breezed by in seemly no time at all.Read More »

Mighty Thursday #17

Aliens: Salvation

By Dave Gibbons (Writer), Mike Mignola (Artist), Kevin Nowlan (Inker), Matt Hollingsworth (Colourist), & Clem Robins (Letterer); Dark Horse Comics; 2015

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Summary

When the God-fearing Selkirk is forced by his insane captain to abandon the space freighter Nova Maru, he finds himself marooned on an inhospitable and remote world. Faced with starvation and madness, Selkirk believes that his salvation lies in the Maru’s planet-fallen payload, but uncovering the cargo could unleash hell itself…Read More »

Mighty Thursday #13

Hellboy: Wake the Devil

By Mike Mignola (Story & Art), James Sinclair (Colours), Pat Brosseau (Letters), & Dave Stewart (Cover Colours); 2004

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Summary from Dark Horse

A murder in a New York wax museum and a missing corpse lead Hellboy and the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense into ancient Romanian castles on the trail of a sleeping legend: the nobleman vampire, Vladimir Guirescu. Nazi scientists, revived in Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, prepare for the return of Rasputin and the end of the world, and Hellboy confronts his purpose on Earth.Read More »

Book Review – The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Summary

In this ingenious and captivating reimagining of Rudyard Kipling’s classic adventure The Jungle Book, Neil Gaiman tells the unforgettable story of Nobody Owens, a living, breathing boy whose home is a graveyard, raised by a guardian who belongs neither to the mortal world nor the realm of the dead. Among the mausoleums and headstones of his home, Bod experiences things most mortals can barely imagine. But real, flesh-and-blood danger waits just outside the cemetery walls: the man who murdered the infant Bod’s family will not rest until he finds Nobody Owens and finishes the job he began many years ago.

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The Graveyard Book is one of a number of works by Neil Gaiman that I frequently heard about, even before I was a fan of his. This was one of the reasons why I chose to read it next amongst the works of his I have. I’d thought I had a general idea of what to expect from it going in, but that changed a little when I discovered it’s a re-imagining of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. Unfortunately, I’ve only really experienced the Disney adaptations of that story, as I expect is the case with most people, but that didn’t stop this knowledge from influencing my reading experience.Read More »

Why Didn’t I Like The Witch?

As is traditional around Halloween, I’ve been watching a lot more horror movies in celebration of the season. One I’d been looking forward to seeing for quite a while was The Witch, the 2015 film directed by Robert Eggers. After watching it, I thought it was very good indeed. It’s finely crafted with good atmosphere, interesting characters, and genuinely creepy moments set in a wonderfully gloomy historical setting. What I’ve been trying to wrap my head around, despite all this and more, is the fact that I didn’t really like watching it.Read More »

Short Story Review – The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft

Summary from Goodreads

In the degenerate, unliked backwater of Dunwich, Wilbur Whately, a most unusual child, is born. Of unnatural parentage, he grows at an uncanny pace to an unsettling height, but the boy’s arrival simply precedes that of a true horror: one of the Old Ones, that forces the people of the town to hole up by night.

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“The Dunwich Horror” is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft first published in 1929. I read this story in Necronomicon, a large collection of Lovecraft’s “Best Weird Tales” including the complete Cthulhu Mythos cycle. I’ve always liked the idea of Lovecraft’s horror, telling of otherworldly monstrosities too terrible to behold or comprehend, but I’d never gotten around to reading any. I chose “The Dunwich Horror” because unlike other well known stories like “The Call of Cthulhu” or “At the Mountains of Madness,” which I’m intent on reading, I’d heard of this story but knew nothing of what it’s about.Read More »

Mighty Thursday #9

Hellboy: Seed of Destruction

By Mike Mignola (Story & Art); John Byrne (Script); Mark Chiarello (Colours); 2004

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Summary from Goodreads

When strangeness threatens to engulf the world, a strange man will come to save it. Sent to investigate a mystery with supernatural overtones, Hellboy discovers the secrets of his own origins, and his link to the Nazi occultists who promised Hitler a final solution in the form of a demonic avatar.Read More »

Book Review – Thirteen Degrees: 13 Scary Stories and Tales of Horror by Brenden Dean

Summary from Goodreads

Welcome the dreadful cold of terror with 13 original stories by Brenden Dean. Bring a blanket, huddle around the fire, and try to keep warm as you encounter psychotic abductors, deadly spirits and demons of the woods.

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Thirteen Degrees is one of the two horror anthologies I purchased months ago to get myself reading more of the genre. The book collects thirteen short horror stories by Brenden Dean, some as short as a few pages, others a fair bit longer. I won’t be going into anything too specific plot-wise, especially considering the book as a whole is a rather quick read.Read More »

Movie Review – Don’t Breathe

IMDB Summary

Rocky, a young woman wanting to start a better life for her and her sister, agrees to take part in the robbery of a house owned by a wealthy blind man with her boyfriend Money and their friend Alex. But when the blind man turns out to be a more ruthless adversary than he seems, the group must find a way to escape his home before they become his newest victims.

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Directed by Fede Alvarez and starring Jane Levy, Stephen Lang, Dylan Minnette and Danial Zovatto, Don’t Breathe is an American horror thriller film released on August 26, 2016.

Before I knew anything about the film I noticed its unassuming poster at the theatre. It caught my eye, but otherwise seemed to be generic horror movie fare. As can uncannily happen, however, soon afterwards I started to hear a lot of the buzz that the movie started generating. This got my butt into a theatre seat and I am very happy with how things turned out.Read More »