October 29, 2026 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

(courtesy Hachette Australia) OOOO OOOO OOOO OOOO OOOO OOOO

Let’s get Halloween animated! Scooby-Doo! and the Curse of the 13th Ghost

(courtesy IMDb) I have been watching Scooby-Doo! cartoons in their multitudinous iterations since the 1970s – not that long after the franchise debited in 1969 so yes I am hauntingly old, thank you – and one thing that has struck all the way through is the way the show manages Continue Reading

Hoops & Yoyo’s Haunted #Halloween: A frightfully funny adventure (review)

What’s the number one certainty when it comes to big seasonal events? (Wells, besides calmly accepting that you will eat too much and that your calendar will never be big enough to accommodate all of them so FOMO is real, my friends, it is REAL). Why it’s that you don’t Continue Reading

Halloween TV review: Something’s in the Water … Thoughts on Below

(courtesy IMDb (c) Netflix) Is there anything even remotely connecting, in narrative spirit at least, the wild Atlantic shores of Newfoundland and the startlingly beautifully and empty desert landscapes of Arizona? You may not think so, but if you’ve watched both The Boroughs and Below on Netflix, you may have Continue Reading

New release October book review: Time Travel for Beginners by Jaclyn Moriarty

(courtesy Ultimo Press) Good lord but I love books which go deep and hard and yet which still manage to feel light and accessible too. There’s a real art to investing huge amounts of meaningful heart and drama into stories with a fantastical airy premise and it’s clear pretty much Continue Reading

Yummy baked scary delights … or are they? Is It Cake? Halloween 2026

(courtesy Showbiz Junkies (c) Netflix) Cake is something that you presume you will be far happier munching on than evaluating since surely all the pleasure is in the creamy, gnashy, fondanty taste and not the look, no matter how artistic and hyperealistic. But it turns out that watching people bake Continue Reading

Peanuts Halloween special review: The Snoopy Show: The Curse of the Fuzzy Face

(courtesy Halloween Specials Wiki) While Snoopy remains as culturally ubiquitous as ever and Peanuts is still one of the most popular comic strips out there, that has more to do these days with the number of specials and TV shows that keep popping up on AppleTV than anything else these Continue Reading

New releases October book review: Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus

(courtesy Allen & Unwin – Australia) It’s an interesting exercise diving into the sophomore follow-up to the debut effort of an author which was globally super popular and a phenomenon on all kinds of levels unto itself. For a start, millions of people around the world have been waiting eagerly Continue Reading

Float away and save the planet with Cloud Girl

(courtesy Animation Magazine) SNAPSHOTCloud Girl tells the story of an 11-year-old avid reader entrusted with a magical quill that can grant any wish it writes. When she wishes to fly and for her guinea pig, Airbag, to talk, the duo embark on a dangerous adventure to save the planet. The Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #146: U2, Bash Croft, The Linda Lindas, New Constellations + Lykke Li

(via Shutterstock) The glorious thing about music is that you’re constantly finding and discovering new artists to add to the ones you’ve known for ages and ages, all of them mixing together into a lifelong playlist which soundtracks who you are every step of the way. In this post’s selection, Continue Reading

Want some hilariously hellish hospitality? Thoughts on Haunted Hotel returns S2

(courtesy IMP Awards) It may come as a surprise to those seeing a blog full-to-bursting of Halloween posts this October that this reviewer is not one for horror. That may seem to be a small and niggling liability in a season devoted to horror, both its manifestation and banishment, but Continue Reading