The Review Show

Episode 81. To cap off October, we watched the British horror movie Ghost Stories, written and directed by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman, based off their stage play. A paranormal investigator is contacted by his hero to debunk the three cases he could never solve himself. These tales of ghosts and demons make the investigator look into his own past, where nothing is what it seems.

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Episode 80. We read the first two volumes of horror comic Harrow County by writer Cullen Bunn and artist Tyler Crook. Decades ago, the townsfolk of Harrow killed a witch who threatened to return one day, and it looks like 18-year-old Emmy is her second coming. Emmy is frightened of her new powers but is determined overcome the looming monstrosity inside her. She may be a witch, but she's going to be a witch her way and keep her life as normal as possible. Helping dad on the farm, exploring the local woods, talking to flaming skeletons in the graveyard -- you know, normal teen things!

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 Episode 79. We watched Paranorman, the 2012 family feature from the stop-motion animators at Studio Laika. A young boy named Norman can talk to ghosts, an ability that his family and the rest of his small New England town don't understand. But when a witch killed there 300 years ago terrorizes the town and brings the dead back to life, Norman is the only one who can talk to the witch, determined to not just stop her but try to bring her peace.

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Episode 78. We read the first two volumes of Scott Synder's American Vampire comics. The outlaw Skinner Sweet is the first vampire made in America, and he possesses a set of powers unknown to the rest of his kind. We follow him through his origins in the Old West, to 1920s Hollywood where he turns a young actress into the second of these incredible new American vampires, and to 1930s Las Vegas where he's a key player in turning that town into "sin city."

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Episode 77. To kick off October, the month of spooks, we watched Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula. In this lavish Gothic tale, Dracula traps young barrister Jonathan Harker in his castle and travels to London to win over Harker's fiance Mina, who he believes is the reincarnation of his dead wife from centuries ago. But when Mina's best friend Lucy falls under his vampiric spell, Dracula's dark activities catch the attention of Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, professional hunter of the supernatural.

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Episode 76. We read the first two volumes of Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth's Stumptown comic, ahead of it premiering as a new TV show! Dex Parios is a Portland-based PI with a history of gambling debt, failed relationships with men and women, and a younger brother at home to take care of. She takes cases on a casino owner's missing granddaughter and a rock star's missing guitar as she tries to make ends meet and keep her life and town in order.

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Episode 75. We watched the truly bizarre 2010 film Rubber, directed by Quentin Dupieux. A tire awakens to sentience and the ability to blow up living creatures with his mind. A group of spectators watch from the hillside with binoculars as he rolls around a small American Southwest desert community, murdering and falling in love. A sheriff struggles to keep control over the tire, the town, and the entire meta-narrative of the movie.

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Episode 74. We read the first two volumes of Dan Slott's 2004 run on She-Hulk. The east coat's top law firm for superhuman cases wants Jennifer Walters on their team -- but not She-Hulk. Jennifer struggles to reconcile her straight-laced bookish old self with the bold green powerhouse she's become, as she wages battles in New York courtrooms as well as the wild reaches of space.

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Episode 73. We watched season one of AMC's historical horror show The Terror. This is an anthology series, so season one is a self-contained story! It's 1845 and two British ships are sailing through arctic Canada, trying to find a waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. They become frozen into the ice, trapped for over a year, and need to start thinking about survival instead of discovery. There's in-fighting among the crew, food shortages, disease, and a rampaging monster with mysterious ties to local Inuit legend. Is everything around them trying to kill these men?

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Episode 72. This week we read volume one of Hip-Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor. It's a non-fiction history lesson on the origins of hip-hop in 1970s New York, from house parties to the first record pressings, through to its introduction to mainstream audiences in the early 1980s. Educate yourselves, and go listen to the "Hip-hop Family Tree vol. 1" Spotify playlist that Kyle complied to accompany the reading!

Check out the playlist here!

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