I wrote some stuff! About things! Mostly about how great Judith Light is in One Life to Live, plus some other officially ‘quite good’ stuff, like Casablanca. wp.me/pgpnV3-bG

Hot film (and book, and TV show) summer

The films, books and television I’ve been enjoying in recent months I haven’t done one of these in a while, mostly because life finds a way (to get in the way) and, like everyone else i…

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A little revisit to a great Dark Shadows episode, 210 (the one before Barnabas arrives). Some quality scripting, direction and framing, a cast nailing it, proper foreshadowing of its impending villain, and my favourite thing: a swaggering John Karlen graverobbing his way into television history.

Three more days to see if I can sell four more copies to reach my goal of seven for this month!! \o/ See if it's the book for you! Or boost! because so many people who do not necessarily follow me have asked for a paperback over the years that I don't know how to ensure they all know there is one!!

Vex Corvine@vexcorvine.itch.io · last mo.

If you're the kind of goth that enjoys summer weather, you probably need a sickass beach read in the form of a fast-paced, foul-mouthed pulp about vampires, werewolves, and B-movie evil scientists performing monster eugenics. (If you're not goth, that's okay! You can get one, too.) 🌈📚💙🩸📚

One of my favourite comedy genres is ‘sketches that fall apart because the straight man can’t keep their shit together’ youtu.be/uau2DK4kwyo

The Bob Newhart Toupee Sketch That Broke Dean Martin

YouTube video by Dean Martin

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Tonight’s 📽️ He Who Gets Slapped (1924, dir. Victor Sjöström). Filled in more of my Lon Chaney filmography with this wild tale of a scientist betrayed by his benefactor and his wife finding a new home in a circus as a clown who gets slapped, until the unlikely opportunity for revenge presents itself.

YouTube keeps trying to push that Ebenezer trailer at me and buddy, no, I simply refuse to believe that film exists

Been a while since a good horror 📽️ so went for a favourite: House of Dark Shadows (1970, dir. Dan Curtis). Borderline incoherent, it’s a bloody treat for those familiar with the show. Gloriously unhinged, with beautiful production design and yet looking like it was shot in 48hrs, it’s a delight.

Apparently, so I’ve been repeatedly told, I’m ‘weird’ and not like ‘normal’ people, but if it’s these ’normal’ people the BBC et al are getting to share their fuckwitted, baffling opinions on the news, you can keep the lot of them

It does mean new book day, and even if anyone dies in something like this, there’s a good chance they’ll pop up later on alive in the shower

You: a refined adult who breakfasts on muesli and fresh fruit Me: technically grown up, eating alphabet cereal in the middle of the day

Meeting doodle.

Touché, charity book store I just dropped about 50 books off with, touché. It would be rude not to.

Launching my anti-energy drink Fucking Knackered soon, in a blank can, have a swig and feel like me

Today's cemetery names: Ettle, Gerrish, Hermitt, Martifee, Munckton, Pebworth, Stiff, and, of course, Edna Beak. “A bitter grief, a shock severe/ To part with one we loved so dear.” #CemeteryNames [Video description: A fast zoom in on a headstone with an angel, grainy and analogueish.]

Pictured: me and my friends hanging out

Not a ghost story exactly, but as a young ‘un, watching for the first time a fully uncut VHS of The Evil Dead, when in Australia, in a house on my own, the clock in the room chimed at the same point, for the same number of times, as it did in the film. Never been the same since…

Ray Newman@raynewman.bsky.social · 3w ago

I am once again prompted to ask: what's your personal ghost story?

Happy BOTD…uh…day to Tod Browning (in 1880), one of the great, genuinely weird American filmmakers. Treat yourself to one of his silent pictures today, maybe one with Lon Chaney in it, but not this one, because it doesn’t exist anymore. Then read how fucked up Browning’s life was. You know, for fun.

As promised to link to my first actual Hookland book. It is only small, but covers a lot of the ghost soil. If enough of you buy it and like it there will be a Volume Two. www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1068598123 It will also be available in an actual bookshop soon.

Reminds me of the joys of General Hospital spin-off Port Charles, which took a turn halfway through its run, enthusiastically ditching logic, instead throwing vampires and all kinds of supernatural shenanigans at daytime television for the second half of its run youtu.be/2SHQZUa9y3w

Elizabeth Turns Ian

YouTube video by VampireBites Collection

youtu.be

Josephine "beckbook.com" Riesman@josie.zone · 4w ago

In better news, John Oliver's three-day stint/stunt as a corporate villain on legendary soap opera "General Hospital" appears to be going... fucking brilliantly?? I have watched this clip on a loop for like 20 mins I really, truly need to see the full episodes NOW

Love this only remaining still from a children’s version of the Ring legend, BBC, late 1970s

This, no joke, is why it was enormously sad that we lost Doctors over here. Sometimes daytime soap is the most experimental TV there is.

Josephine "beckbook.com" Riesman@josie.zone · 4w ago

In better news, John Oliver's three-day stint/stunt as a corporate villain on legendary soap opera "General Hospital" appears to be going... fucking brilliantly?? I have watched this clip on a loop for like 20 mins I really, truly need to see the full episodes NOW

My new goal is to sell 7 copies this month. It's supposed to be disability pride month, so buy a copy if you're uhhhh proud of me for being disabled? Idk, the book is real good; you probably don't need another reason.

Vex Corvine@vexcorvine.itch.io · last mo.

If you're the kind of goth that enjoys summer weather, you probably need a sickass beach read in the form of a fast-paced, foul-mouthed pulp about vampires, werewolves, and B-movie evil scientists performing monster eugenics. (If you're not goth, that's okay! You can get one, too.) 🌈📚💙🩸📚

On a little journey through the original The Addams Family, and (by no means a novel thought) the way they love each other and are completely, thrillingly comfortable and comfortable in who they are - particularly Morticia and Gomez, apart and together- is beautiful. But, you know, with gags.

This is going to be so unspeakably good, you should definitely get it

Saoirse Ní Chiaragáin@miseryvulture.bsky.social · last mo.

Coming soon from @filthyloot.bsky.social 9 stories collected from 2020-2025.

Still mulling over the weekend’s 📽️ Murder in Coweta County (1983, dir. Gary Nelson), a fascinating, unusual television movie retelling of a true crime story, with Andy Griffith in a heel turn as a thoroughly bad guy and Johnny Cash as the sheriff who won’t let him get away with murder.

I promised you a book cover for Hookland Fragments Volume One at Midsummer and here it is:

You gotta love a good niche topic book

🧵The great James Burrows died today. I owe my TV career to him and to the Charles brothers. They read my first book and invited me to write a pilot. The result, Gloria Vane, was about a 1930s movie star. Jimmy directed. What does a great comedy director add that’s not on the page? One example: 1/

Up to the ‘Freaks, Geeks & Outsiders’ episode on a run through of History of the Sitcom, about the importance of different stories being seen, and apparently The Munsters and The Addams Family are about ‘freaks’ and ‘outsiders’? Not blueprints for how to live. Huh.