Looking Back At Last Month's Blogging...

Image by Ana Carolina Franco from Pixabay

Last month was, of course, the month I decided to "retire" from blogging and so November saw a record low number of posts pop up on HeroPress.

I still posted a write-up of the latest escapades of The Tuesday Knights in Pete's Hollow Earth Expedition game (of which more later), and some promotional pieces for Film Masters (a preview of their next Roger Corman double-bill and a number of Saturday Morning Matinee films that they've shared).

When I announced (suddenly) that I was stepping away from HeroPress, I was touched and uplifted by the outpouring of understanding and supportive comments here, on Facebook, and even Twitter.

I've taken onboard everything that was said, but it's too early yet to say if my regular blogging days might not be as over as I declared on Halloween.

One thing I have noticed in the last month is that the few times that something has appeared on the blog it has garnered more attention than if it had been just one post among four or five dropped in a day... so that's maybe something I need to consider should I ever return to this blog (or another).

So, what have I been doing with all this new "free" time? I've been watching a LOT of television, that's what. 

The day after I "retired" from blogging, the BBC released the Whoniverse: that is (nearly) every episode of Doctor Who and its official spin-offs on the BBC iPlayer.

On top of that I've been watching movies and bingeing serials; the most recent being The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, which creeped me out in a delicious fashion. I'd tried to watch it before (as I love The Haunting from 1963, it's one of my all-time favourite horror movies), but it didn't click with me then.

This time round I was coming off the superb Fall of The House of Usher, the latest adaptation by horror auteur Mike Flanagan, and Paul had been telling me how great Hill House was. I'm so glad I listened to him.

Flanagan's Netflix work also reminded me that I have a copy of Shirley Jackson's original novel, which I've now queued up to read after I finish Agatha Christie's Murder on The Orient Express.

Yes, I've also been reading and am ploughing through my first Agatha Christie novel. I did a ton of investigating to see which I was most likely to enjoy and eventually settled on Murder on The Orient Express, even though I know the twist, because it involves trains, foreign countries, and snow.

I'm also kind of justifying all this goggleboxing by telling myself it's "research" for some nebulous gaming project.

I'm currently leaning towards the investigative horror genre, which makes Call of Cthulhu a very strong candidate. This is a game I've been collecting since it first came out (I'd discovered Lovecraft just before the RPG erupted into the geek consciousness of the 1980s), but I've only run it once and played it once in all those years.

It's a genre very close to my heart, but I've never really had the confidence to try and run it before, fearing it would simply devolve into a D&D meatgrinder.

But now - if I can get a grip on my aphasia - I think I might be in a position to give it a shot.

As I've been saying for years, I would love to run a "forever campaign", and contemplating that goal got me reviewing the three major campaigns that the Tuesday Knights have been fortunate enough to play through.

Although we've been gaming as a group since August 2008, and have played a fair number of medium-length campaigns, our first real long-running game was my own Chronicles of Cidri, a Heroes & Other Worlds fantasy campaign which ran for 28 sessions from May 2014 to October 2016 (29 months).

Next was Simon's 5e Dungeons & Dragons Curse of Strahd/Ravenloft campaign, which also spanned 28 sessions, running from September 2018 to January 2021 (28 months) and eventually falling foul of the pandemic (despite our fortnightly Zoom sessions).

Currently we're heading towards session 31 of Pete's "weird science" campaign, which started as GURPS Atomic Horror then shifted to Hollow Earth Expedition when Pete sent our player-characters into a parallel world (slipping from a 1950s setting to a 1930s setting).

We've been playing this campaign since January 2021, having picked up straight after Simon put Ravenloft on hiatus. That's 34 months and counting.

There's talk that this next session could be the end of this chapter of the campaign and then I would be given the opportunity to step back behind the gamesmaster's screen.

I'd talked a lot about running a superhero game in my Knight City setting, but I've lost my enthusiasm for that idea in the last couple of months.

Past experience has shown - when I've tried to run supers games for my group before - that it's a genre where we all have wildly conflicting ideas about what it should entail. 

Basically, it's never worked before, so why am I wasting time trying to convince myself it will work this time?

Fantasy - particularly old school Dungeons & Dragons style - seems to be our lingua franca but I really don't want to run such a game, unless it was a grounded, swords-and-sorcery affair rather than the ultra high fantasy of modern D&D. 

That's what I tried to cook up with my Frankengame, but I rather suspect that in my quest for a gritty verisimilitude of my own making I created an overcomplicated beast that's exactly the sort of game system I rail against. 

I'm also shit at creating fantasy worlds.

My current reading/to be read shelf

The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1939)

The Mystery of Mr. Wong is a thrilling mystery made at the height of Hollywood's fascination with Asian sleuths.

In the second of what would be a six film series from Monogram, the methodical Mr. Wong (Boris Karloff) investigates the murder of an antiques collector.

Along the way he deals with curses, smugglers, and an ever-evolving cast of suspects.

Featuring a cast that includes Grant Withers and Lotus Long, the film was directed by William Nigh, the creative force behind such Monogram favorites as The Ape and Black Dragons!

Thanks, as ever, to Film Masters

It's Gazpacho Soup Day!!!

You Had Me At "Roger Corman"...

The duality of Roger Corman is on display, showcasing his spooky gothic side with The Terror (1963) - marking the 60th anniversary of its release this year - and his more whimsical side with The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) in this double-feature, special-edition, two-disc, collector’s set, on Blu-ray and DVD on December 12 from Film Masters.

In The Terror - with an all-new HD restoration from 35mm archival elements - an 18th century French Lieutenant in Napoleon's army encounters the ghostly apparition of a young woman (Sandra Knight).

Curiosity leads Lt. Andre Duvalier (Jack Nicholson) to the castle of Baron Von Leppe (Boris Karloff), where he notices a painting of the Baron's late wife Ilsa, who looks identical to the ghostly woman.

Determined to unravel the castle's mystery, Duvalier learns that the Baron has many terrifying secrets.

Though officially credited to Corman, The Terror had a total of five collaborative directors, including Nicholson, Monte Hellman and Francis Ford Coppola.

Film Masters President Phil Hopkins said:

"The Terror has languished in the public domain for decades. We’re delighted to have put together a celebratory and thought-provoking version with an award-winning team of contributors. Fans of the film will appreciate the editorial bonus features, which take a much-needed deep dive into this infamous Corman classic."

The Terror is being released by Film Masters as a double-feature with the legendary The Little Shop of Horrors.

If you're young enough, this tale of a man-eating plant might scare you … If you're old enough, it'll make you laugh!

In a newly restored HD version, The Little Shop of Horrors is the insane story of Seymour (Jonathan Haze), a lonely florist, and his hungry plant, Audrey, for whom he goes to great lengths to ensure that his green friend is fed and happy.

With a cast that also includes Dick Miller, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles and a very young Jack Nicholson as a scene-stealing dental patient with a high threshold for pain, Corman and screenwriter Charles Griffith give us a comic horror masterpiece for the ages.

A film so enduring that it inspired a Broadway musical, which led to a remake of the film that was nominated for two Oscars. See the original that started it all!

The twin-packs' special features include:

• C. Courtney Joyner and Dr. Steve Haberman providee a commentary track on The Terror and author Justin Humphreys with the film’s star, Jonathan Haze, provide commentary for The Little Shop of Horrors;
• C. Courtney Joyner provides an essay on the Karloff/Poe connection;
• Mark McGee pens liner notes for The Little Shop of Horrors;
• Ballyhoo Motion Pictures continues Hollywood Intruders: The Filmgroup Story with part two of the featurette;
• a featurette by Howard S. Berger, Ghosts in the Machine: Art & Artifice in Roger Corman’s Celluloid Castle provides a fresh look at The Terror;
• and recut trailers, based on the original theatrical trailers.

Both films are presented with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Discs are region free and include English SDH. Audio is DTS-HD/Dolby AC3s.