14/50 Books
- Cable & Deadpool, Volume 1: If Looks Could Kill by Fabian Nicieza (GN)
Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1) by Hugh Howey
Wrapped-Up FoxTrot: A Treasury with the Final Daily Strips by Bill Amend
Space Unicorn Blues by T.J. Berry
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - The Original Screenplay by J.K. Rowling
Breach (Cold War Magic #1) by W.L. Goodwater
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse by Steve Behling
Hark! the Herald Angels Scream: An Anthology by Christopher Golden (Editor)
Atomic Marriage by Curtis Sittenfeld (AB)
The Winter of Frankie Machine by Don Winslow (AB)
Seed by Ania Ahlborn (AB)
Dark Corners Collection by Various (AB)
- Oak Avenue (Dark Corners Collection #7) by Brandi Reeds (AB)
The Remedy (Dark Corners Collection #6) by Adam Haslett (AB)
The Tangled Woods (Dark Corners Collection #5) by Emily Raboteau (AB)
Miao Dao (Dark Corners Collection #4) by Joyce Carol Oates (AB)
There's a Giant Trapdoor Spider Under Your Bed (Dark Corners Collection #3) by Edgar Cantero (AB)
The Sleep Tight Motel (Dark Corners Collection #2) by Lisa Unger (AB)
Hannah-Beast (Dark Corners Collection #1) by Jennifer McMahon (AB)
Wool: The Graphic Novel by Hugh Howey (GN)
Out of Spite, Out of Mind (Magic 2.0 #5) by Scott Meyer (AB)
Oak Avenue was not a good story, and the terrible narrator did not help things. Her guy voice made it sound like the voice you'd use back in the 90's to make fun of retarded people* and it was really jarring.
The Remedy had a better narrator and was just OK right up to the end where the Remedy is realized. Bold choice.
The Tangled Woods was also pretty bad but the description of the hell that is Great Wolf Lodge was pretty spot on. Like, I could see them suing him for how close it comes to being libel. Also the main character made me think of LV for some reason.
Poison-tongued film critic Reginald Wright is known for his creative insults and intolerance for the garbage culture, insufferable rudeness, and thoughtless racism of predictably common people.
Also the ending would have been much better if the kid had killed the guy instead of the guy committing suicide. Would have been a stronger horror story instead of a really bad Black Mirror episode.
Miao Dao I completely get what the story was trying to do and it succeeded in that (holy crap did I feel uncomfortable) but the overarching 'part of a scary story collection' was lost on me. Chekov's gun was in the beginning and so I was expecting it to go off and yup, there it is. Oh there's a spooky cat! But nope, just a cat with a weird eye affliction. I will fully grant that one of my problems I had was with the narrator. I don't know what kind of editing they did but some sentences sound like they are pieced together poorly from different takes because the delivery just changes, or there's an awkward pause between words. It was a very frustrating thing to listen to.
There's a Giant Trapdoor Spider Under Your Bed was wild. Still not 100% if it was real or just a good imagination on the kids but it was a great story.
I quite liked The Sleep Tight Motel. I figured out the twist fairly quickly as ghosts don't eat but that's OK, it was still a fun story. Well, "fun"...the guy character and some of the scenes were more than a little rapey so if that would disturb you - especially the more than a little detailed descriptions offered here - maybe head somewhere else for a lighthearted ghost story.
Hannah-Beast was all over the place for me. I liked the time jumps, but also it's not a story about a haunting - more a story about someone who suddenly (and inexplicably, if you think about the fact she's only now thinking about that night
34 years later) thinking about her childhood friend. She gets drunk and her imagination gets the better of her and she ends up killing the "ghost" she imagined. Whoops. Spoiler: it was her daughter.
Wool GN was such a condensed version of the story, but also had one or two little tidbits that weren't in the book. But then again the novel was huge and this...was not.
Spite/Mind was hard for me. I really wanted to like it because I love the series and I adore the narrator but this one was just bad. Actually ties into my dislike of the Umbrella Academy except in this one they beat to death how time is a flat circle and what happens will happen because that's the way it happened the first time and you can't change that. Cue three hours later and they're still having the conversation except now everyone's angry and fighting each other (literally, since time travel is involved) and I still don't get why this was a book instead of a short story.
22/50 Movies
- Hogfather (2006)
Adventures in Babysitting (1987)
Brigsby Bear (2017)
Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)
Better Off Dead... (1985)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes: Aquaman - Rage of Atlantis (2018)
¡Three Amigos! (1986)
For Your Consideration (2006)
Bumblebee (2018)
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
Blood Father (2016)
Seven Psychopaths (2012)
Sicario (2015)
Bronson (2008)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017)
Christopher Robin (2018)
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Top Secret! (1984)
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)
Captain Marvel (2019)
Watched Spider-Verse again, still loved it.
I'll have to put those in the queue as well.
