It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve been busy, and it looks like things won’t slow down anytime soon, but it’s all good. Why? Because it looks like I’ll be done with Dr. Morbid this week, and I aim to buckle down and make sure it happens. :D
Yep, I’m still on a horror kick, and it looks like it’s not going away anytime soon. This year seems to be the year for me to rediscover my roots, and that’s not only with regard to genre (horror), but also fiction form (short stories). Lately, I’ve been reading nothing but anthologies, both literary fiction and genre fiction, and it’s a refreshing change of pace.
So I’m going back and doing some retreads of comfortable and familiar things – never mind the fact that they make me shit my pants every time I watch or read them. Like this one, which I’m dedicating to Lisa, who swore to watch it when I recommended it to her.
Yeah, yeah, you can make a laundry list of haunted house clichés just from seeing the trailer, but this movie remains my top haunted house film ever because of how well-made it is. Setting, atmosphere, the use of background music and sounds (like disembodied voices), acting (it’s George C. Scott, fer chrissakes!), and above all, pacing and subtlety, which I didn’t see in the more recent The Woman in Black. I think aspiring horror filmmakers intent on pursuing ghost stories should study The Changeling.
And for everyone else who haven’t seen this movie:
Spanish with subtitles produced by Guillermo Del Toro and directed by Juan Bayona. Another movie that uses horror elements incredibly well despite plot holes, and it’s genuinely frightening as well as sad and heartbreaking. I’d share links to a couple of the freakiest scenes in this movie, but I’d be spoiling things for you. It’s very much an underrated horror film that doesn’t rely on gore and violence.
And those are today’s retreads. Once my brain finally catches up with me, I’ll post something more substantial, but I enjoy sharing stuff like this even if those of you who’ve been following my blog for a while now are likely bored to death with them (har!).

