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Tideland: The Fantastical Horror Of My Fever Dreams//October 170th, 2025

 I recently saw a post, I believe it was in a Facebook horror group, about a movie from 2005 called Tideland. I had never before heard of this movie, but the post intrigued me to the point where I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it for the past month or so. I would occasionally Google trailers, and reviews, and it got to the point where I was so weirdly hyperfixated on it that I knew I would have to experience it for myself, despite not really being able to pin down exactly what sort of movie it was. It seemed like some kind of horrific fairytale fever dream, and something about it just really spoke to me. Thankfully, it is currently available on Tubi, so I was recently able to watch it for free. I’m going to start this off by saying, while I understand that he is influential, I am not familiar with much of Terry Gilliam’s work. I have specific tastes in media, and the only other movie I’ve seen of his, at least as far as I can tell, is The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, ...
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Where Did It Go?//October 164th, 2025

I went for a walk tonight. My first in a long time. The last walk I went on, there were still pumpkins out there. Many of them lined up for disposal, some even sitting near garbage cans, awaiting their fate. I wished I could have saved them all.  It's always strange to go on walks when I haven't in awhile. The timing is interesting. Usually, as the last pumpkins left out in the world rot, it becomes too cold to go out again until March arrives.  An interesting cycle; a strange coincidence. In my mind's eye, I can see what once was. And as I walk, I feel like I am in some dream state version of my neighborhood. Like when you dream of your home, but it's not quite your home. An extra hallway, a missing window, a gateway to something that isn't really there, or nothingness where there should be something. It's real, but it isn't. It's familiar, but it's foreign.  I think of the movie Skinamarink, where the children ask, 'Where did it go?' as the...

Life In Death//October 157th, 2025

I live in a state of perpetual hunger. A constant craving for things that, for some, only exist once a year.  It gets difficult, living in that constant state of starvation.  But I've learned to search for scraps, everywhere I go.  When I visit Sleepy Hollow, though, that is when I truly feast. A long four months went by between visits, this time. All the way from my actual celebration of Halloween, from October 29th through the morning of November 1st, until March 6th.  Winter was cold, and brought sickness...It wasn't easy to be away for so long. But, at last, there was a day with a favorable temperature, and so it was time to return to the one true home of my heart, under a gloomy sky, on the most autumnal pre-spring day one could ask for.    It felt like a gift from the universe, almost like a do-over of Halloween. Halloween had been so hot, like an August day. It was fun, sure, one of my best if I'm honest, but the fact that it felt like summer did put...

In A Hallowed Hurry//October 153rd, 2025

  It's true that time is precious. I don't delight in getting older. I'm averse to the changes that come with the seasons, not just the weather, but life, in general. I've never been good with change, in any capacity. I'll be 38 this year. I don't know that I ever thought I'd make it this far. Adulthood isn't something I ever wished for as a child. I remember telling my mother that I would purposely flunk school, so I'd never have to grow up. I didn't, obviously. Flunk school, I mean. But I don't know that I really 'grew up' either. Adulthood was never something I identified with, and it still isn't.  I don't feel human most days, never mind adult human.  Maybe my greatest wish would be to stop time. And yet...every year I only long to move forward. To the only time of year that makes sense to me. Perhaps it is the depersonalization I feel through winter, through spring, and through summer, that keeps me longing for autumn.  I...

Skinamarink & The (Almost) Universal Experience Of Childhood Fear//October 146th, 2025

Yesterday morning, I decided to finally watch a movie that's been very controversial and divisive among horror fans:  Skinamarink. I won't lie, I really hadn't heard much of anything positive about this movie, but I'd always been curious about it, and my love of anything dreamcore and liminal wouldn't let me leave it alone. When I saw it was finally available to watch on Hulu, I was excited to finally see it, although I wasn't expecting much based on reviews I've seen. I will start this off by saying, I can most definitely understand why people wouldn't like it. It's shot in a very different sort of way, all angles of spaces in the house, with the characters never really being seen or having real dialogues, and I can see how that would be off-putting to viewers. But, as someone who loves eerie imagery, particularly of the liminal and nightmarish variety, I was loving the strange shots.  What I wasn't expecting to love, though, was the movie itsel...

One Day A Year I Get To Be Me//October 145th, 2025

 We've probably all heard it said that Halloween is the one day of the year where "you don't have to be yourself". It's a tagline of the holiday, ever since I was a child. And I suppose, when I was younger, I felt that my love of Halloween could be connected to my imagination; my desire to play pretend.  I was always big on imaginative play, whether it was physically playing dress-up, or talking to a doll or stuffed animal as if they could hear (I have a very distinct memory of staying up until 11PM one night talking to my Princess Jasmine doll, trying to psychoanalyze my second-grade bullies!) or whether it was a more internal thing, imagining myself in a world outside my own, as a character in a favorite piece of media, or a celebrity in some alternate life. Sometimes I even imagined my own life, but different. Maybe I was best friends with the popular girls, or the first girl in class to have a boyfriend, or even just simply had siblings (such as the twin siste...

Heart Eyes//October 139th, 2025

 As someone with a lifelong love of both Valentine's Day and Halloween, it always excites me when the two things combine.  I talk every year (including in my previous post) about how amazing it's been to see "Valloween" really rise to prominence in recent years. And this year, the release of the Valentine's Day slasher film, Heart Eyes seemed to really solidify that. As you can imagine, I was extremely excited about this movie from the get-go. Slasher films are, currently, my most preferred brand of horror for the most part, and add in the Valentine's Day twist? Sounds like a match made in heaven to me. I'm only aware of two other horror films (or I suppose three if you count one remake) that are set on Valentine's Day, and, I don't know, something about the fact that Heart Eyes was born in the age of the online Halloween community, just makes my heart soar. I feel seen. I finally saw the movie on Valentine's Day morning, and I'm thanking m...