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Monsters: 30 DAYS OF NIGHT: The importance of Setting in Fiction Writing

In the small Alaskan town of Barrow, the sun does not rise for 30 days—there is literally 30 days of night.  Is there a better place to set a vampire story?  Well, yes perhaps in those few places where the sun doesn’t rise for six whole months, but that is …

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Monsters: Preston & Child’s Relic: An intriguing writing match-up

This week’s adventure in horror genre reading: Relic by Preston and Childs. Is Relic, really a horror novel? I didn’t think so. I Thought It Was More of a Supernatural Mystery – Thriller.  But a monster story? Definitely. There are a few things about Relic that appealed. First, I love …

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Monster Movie: The Blob (1988) review

What do you do when you must watch cheesy 80’s horror movies on Friday night?  You torture a few 14-year-old boys too!  Convincing my son and his friend to watch the film with me was easy, getting these two to shut up for even a single second of the movie …

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Monsters: A Review of Lovecraft Short Stories

I can see why Lovecraft is the father of horror writing.  He writes the best monsters.  This week I’ve read three Lovecraft short stories, “Pickman,” “The Outsider,” and “The Call of Cthulhu.”  Lovecraft’s monsters worked for me on many levels.  Foremost, they are the supernatural horror monsters that are right …

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Monsters: Godzilla the Movie (2014) A Truly Sympathetic Monster

  Godzilla as the hero, I love it! An enjoyable movie—more of an action flick, I think, than a horror movie.  But is Godzilla a monster? I don’t think so. Not in the traditional sense.  Godzilla is the hero of this movie, or at least, he should have been. Admittedly, …

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Monsters: Book Review: SNOW by Ronald Malfi

That’ll teach you to pick up hitchhikers! After have a difficult time putting my hands on a physical copy of the book Snow, I settled on the audiobook. I’m glad I did even though it ran 8.5 hours. I finished listening in just two sittings. It is around this time …

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Monster Movie: The THING is, I couldn’t quite get into THE THING

This week’s horror 80’s horror flick, John Carpenter’s THE THING was a tough thing for me to watch. The premise of an alien frozen in the Arctic warming enough to take over the bodies of human and animal is frightening. One of the most frightening aspects of the movie as …

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Monsters: An American Werewolf in London—A Werewolf can only be killed by someone he loves

This week’s movie was a mass of horror and comedy. Two boys, David and Jack, backpack through the English countryside and happen upon a tiny English pub with a host of strange folk. The weirdness is amplified when Jack cannot stop himself from asking about a pentagram on the wall. …

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Monster Movie: Aliens (1979) Coffee, Cats, and Headbands in Space

This week’s assignment, as you can tell from the title of this post, watch and respond to the 1970 movies, “Aliens” with Sigourney Weaver.  This is the second on my list of horror movies to view this semester. Hubby declared he is done watching with me (yeah, we will see!). …

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Monsters: World War Z: Tools & Talent: We are Critically Low on Talent!

Thankfully, World War Z saved my Zombie week! It took me a little bit of processing to really understand what it was about World War Z that resonated with me. You might thinking, serious? How in the world can a zombie novel resonate with anyone? Well, I’ll tell you because …

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