Stranger Things 2 is a slayer of pedestrian sequels. Ducking and weaving past the sophomore curse like a demogorgon on the hunt – or you’re Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matazrazzo), a “demo-dog” (yeah, no, it didn’t catch on) – the sequel to the Duffer Brothers zeitgeist-busting, watercooler-overwhelming show of 2016 Continue Reading
#Halloween cartoon: Guillermo del Toro’s Treehouse of Horror Couch Gag #Simpsons
Now this is how you mark Halloween everyone! Particularly if you’re Matt Groening and you want your then-latest Treehouse of Horror intro – this was for the 2013 special – to include everything from zombies to mummies to mutants and apocalyptic visions of a hellish future. Hire master storyteller Continue Reading
George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo is a genuinely startling novel (curated article)
Adam Kelly, University of York I am someone who reads, teaches, and writes about contemporary American fiction for a living. Knowing this, you might expect that fresh, experimental novels would constantly be arriving on my desk, that I would be inundated with literary innovation. But it is in fact Continue Reading
Meow … BOO! Simon’s Cat finds some creepy crawlies #Halloween
SNAPSHOT A curious cat uncovers a coven of creepy crawlies. Simon’s Cat FINALLY gets into the attic and gives Simon a spooky surprise! (synopsis via Laughing Squid) Gotta say I’m with Simon on the sheer evilness of spiders. Forget the zombies, ghosts and demented sprites – it’s spiders that Continue Reading
Monster in the Mirror: Grover delightfully goes all wubba wubba wubba woo woo woo
Grover, my favourite monster in the world – yeah sorry Godzilla and the Demagorgon, you’re not even in the running – is a lot braver than most people think. Sure he may be spooked by monsters at the end of books, and get a little nervous when he is Continue Reading
Movie review: Thor Ragnarok
Thor: Ragnarok is, quite simply put, a hoot. Yes, you heard me correctly, A … HOOT. If this quirky little word promising a thousand idiosyncratic absurdities doesn’t sound like the kind of word you would normally associate with an earnest, sprawling Marvel film where good stands gravely against evil Continue Reading
Control your fear: The intriguing mind games of Alien Invasion: S.U.M. 1
SNAPSHOT The film centers on S.U.M.1 (Iwan Rheon, Game of Thrones), a committed young soldier who has lived his whole life underground. He enters a dark and desolate forest, his mission: to keep at bay the Nonesuch, a breed of hostile alien creatures. As reports circulate of frequent, devastating Continue Reading
Comics review: Animosity (issues 1-9) #Halloween
Any way you slice it, and to date it has been sliced more times than a munched orange, the apocalypse is going to be a harrowing, end of-the-world existential nightmare. How can it not be? You’re losing everything, and quite possibly, everyone that matters to you, with all the Continue Reading
The Constellation Chronicle: Go to the dark, creepy reaches of space this #Halloween
It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that it’s almost Halloween. Now you could do what most people do to mark this most spooky of holidays – spray your house with fake cobwebs, stick up a Jack o’ Lantern on your front steps and wait for trick-or-treaters to visit seeking Continue Reading
Movie review: Blade Runner 2049
Viewing the future through the lens of science fiction is often an either/or proposition. You are either regaled with an idealised utopia where want, need and hunger are banished, where humanity has found its zenith and fulfilment its apotheosis; or you are confronted in the most brutal and nihilistic Continue Reading