I like movies. If you've hung around me long enough, I've probably talked your ear off about one film or another. The only thing I like more than talking about the movies I've seen is talking about ones that were never made. Not lost films, or the scripts that never found a director, but rather … Continue reading Blacula Lives
Author: Josh Reynolds
The Low House
My grandmomma used to warn me about low houses and what might be living in them. Something worse than any drug house or den of sin. A predatory, slinky sort of place that was always just where you least expected it. The sort of place you might catch out of the corner of your eye … Continue reading The Low House
The Enemy of Evil
Sic pereant inimici tui, Domine. - John Thunstone, Rouse Him Not, 1982 Manly Wade Wellman is responsible for the creation of a number of supernatural sleuths, occult detectives and werewolf punchers, including Judge Pursuivant. But, arguably one of the more well-known of Wellman’s coterie of heroes is John Thunstone. Big and blocky, with a well-groomed … Continue reading The Enemy of Evil
Ghost Dance 1894
Another entry from my zibaldone to start the month off, but just a short one, though, as I'm a busy fellow this week. Enjoy! In 1894, James Mooney, an ethnographer, recorded a series of Ghost Dance songs, performed by the Kiowa and the Arapaho, among others. Several of the recordings are still available, via the … Continue reading Ghost Dance 1894
The Amateur’s Amateur
Today's look at the world of the Royal Occultist centres on one of Charles St. Cyprian's better-known associates, the amateur occultist, Philip Wendy-Smythe. Philip Wendy-Smythe is the last of a once-proud line. Avowed orientalist and amateur occultist, he has amassed a substantial collection of mostly fake, but occasionally extremely dangerous artefacts, grimoires and statuary. Over … Continue reading The Amateur’s Amateur
These Cold Eyes
I don't like things I can't understand.- Danny Foster A shaggy shape prowls the night, hunting for victims. Men and women are slaughtered by simian hands, their spines shattered, the fluid within…stolen. Is it an escapee from the low rent circus that just left town under a cloud of misgivings, or something worse? The camera … Continue reading These Cold Eyes
Physician Extraordinary
“Learn how to THINK and you have learned to tap power at its source.”- Dr. J. Silence, A Psychical Invasion, 1908 ‘Rich by accident and a doctor by choice, John Silence took only those cases which interested him.’ The above is from “A Psychical Invasion” (1908), the first of Algernon Blackwood’s stories to feature Dr. … Continue reading Physician Extraordinary
No One Ever Goes There
Jackapo County has Greece beat for ruins. Forgotten houses and stores, burnt out shells of places that no one owns - or no one will admit to owning. Claimed now only by the night birds and the kudzu. The old store in this story, and its odd decorations, is a real place. As far as … Continue reading No One Ever Goes There
Swamplands
“South Carolina is too small for a republic, but too large for an insane asylum.” - James Louis Petigru, 1860 South Carolina has a sort of dark magnetism to it. It's hard to explain, unless the person you're talking to has lived there. There's a cosmic wrongness to it, amongst all the right. Streets that crack in … Continue reading Swamplands
Marceline, Marceline
I read a thing, not long ago, and it got me to thinking, and making notes for a story I'll probably never write. I do that a lot. Ideas, and the notes that come with them, are a dime a dozen. I get five ideas before breakfast and five more after my first cup of … Continue reading Marceline, Marceline
