Category Archives: Reviews

The Halloween read: the horror of Adrian Ross

Posted on October 31, 2019 by Brian Bixby

It’s my custom around Halloween to dredge up and read a “moldy oldie,” a story of horror or the supernatural written many years ago, which is mostly forgotten today. This year, my choice was the two horror stories written by … Continue reading →

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Review: The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Brian Bixby

Having just read and reviewed The Werewolf of Paris, I decide to tackle its movie version, The Curse of the Werewolf, for my Halloween evening entertainment. In short, read the book. It’s interesting and unusual. The movie is a run-of-the-mill horror flick, … Continue reading →

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Horror for Halloween: The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore

Posted on October 31, 2018 by Brian Bixby

One of the standard criticisms of supernatural horror literature is that it is unreal. Why this isn’t a criticism of all literature is a good question, but supernatural horror literature is condemned for presenting us with unreal horrors when so … Continue reading →

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Review: The Disciples of Cthulhu (1976)

Posted on September 16, 2018 by Brian Bixby

So let me describe to you the typical Cthulhu Mythos story formula. Adult male comes across hints of evil. He does research, uncovering various writings that point to an alien evil that could destroy Mankind. Finally, he confronts the alien … Continue reading →

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Dead authors, live horrors: anthologies by Aickman and Matheson

Posted on July 25, 2018 by Brian Bixby

Of the two men, an American is more likely to recognize the works, if not the name, of Richard Matheson (1926 – 2013), because so many have been adapted to the screen. For example, there is that classic Twilight Zone episode, … Continue reading →

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The Coldest City for an Atomic Blonde

Posted on July 22, 2018 by Brian Bixby

My partner is a cartoonist. So we take a particular interest in movies that are based on comics. For example, no sooner did we see The Death of Stalin, then she was on the phone to France, asking a friend to … Continue reading →

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Walking the line between fantasy and reality: two films from the 1920s

Posted on May 27, 2018 by Brian Bixby

I was recently teaching a course on the Roaring Twenties in the United States. To do this properly, I ended up watching a great many more silent films than I’d ever seen before. Along the way, I stumbled across two … Continue reading →

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Books of wonder: reviewing Ice and Picnic at Hanging Rock

Posted on March 4, 2018 by Brian Bixby

There are stupid ideas. And I had one. Why not review two genre-bending works of fiction, both by female British Commonwealth authors, both published in 1967? Won’t the comparisons be fun and informative? And so I sat down to read … Continue reading →

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Oh You Sexy Monster, You! (NSFW)

Posted on January 23, 2018 by Brian Bixby

It’s time for the “Oh You Sexy Monster, You!” awards, Sillyverse edition. This award post is the result of a conversation over at the Sci-Fi & Scary blog, in which I casually challenged its two authors to come up with … Continue reading →

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Review: uncertain narrators in horror: novels by Hogg and Tryon

Posted on December 31, 2017 by Brian Bixby

We tend to think of the unreliable narrator as a 20th century development. The unreliable narrator rejects the apparent objectivity of the omniscient narrator so beloved by the Victorians, warning us that all knowledge is subjective, all stories told from … Continue reading →

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