Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

As each evening creeps slightly deeper into the afternoon and bratwurst is back on the menu at Wienerschnitzel, I find autumn on my mind, and in honor of the encroaching Halloween season, I feel the need to give a bit of praise to one of the preeminent old school horror story anthologies. And for once, I’m not referring to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark . No, despite Scary Stories being the king of the hell hill in this particular genre, there was another notable series concurrently haunting the pages of the Scholastic Book Club flyer alongside it. In fact, the first volume of this series even predates the original Scary Stories by several years!      I’m speaking, of course of Tales for the Midnight Hour , J.B. Stamper’s seminal quadrilogy of terror that caused many a juvenile some sleepless nights with its harrowing depictions of murder, monsters and madness. I used to think of Stamper as a bit of an enigma, an author who dropped their magnum opus, followed it up with a lesser-k

Back around early 2015, I became aware of a project that sounded absolutely incredible: a documentary about Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark . Talk about a movie after my own heart! I was only too happy to donate to the film's Indiegogo, and eagerly awaited what was sure to be an enlightening look at my favorite series of books. I was not disappointed. Scary Stories is an engaging profile of the infamous horror trilogy, and has something to offer for both longtime fans of the books and newbies to the series. Though it definitely seems more geared toward people already familiar with Alvin Schwartz's work, the film does an admirable job of explaining just what these books are and the sort of impact they've had over the years. From the outset, it becomes clear that writer/producer/director Cody Meirick has done his homework, and the film's opening credits sequence features not only an acoustic version of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 's "The Hearse Song,&quo

At this point, there's basically no debating that 2020 has been an atrocious year .Yet within the roiling cauldron of human misery that has been life for the last several months, there is a lone spot of light: it hasn't been this good of a time to be a fan of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark since Scary Stories 3 came out in 1991. The past year of so has been a boom time for Scary Stories fans, seeing the release of a beastly bevy of material beyond anything we could have ever imagined. There was a successful film adaptation , and a tie-in book that came out alongside it. There's Scary Stories: A Tribute to Terror , a fan-made passion project that does an incredible job of recreating the aesthetics and feel of the original trilogy. There's even a documentary about the Scary Stories phenomenon , and the history and impact of the books (which I will finally get around to covering soon, I promise). And then there's the latest release, and the one I was probabl

Happy October! I'm kicking off Halloween season today by writing about...well, pretty much the same type of stuff I write about the rest of the year. Anyway, as I mentioned in my recent-ish review of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark movie , a book was released in conjunction with the film called Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: The Haunted Notebook of Sarah Bellows . Given my propensity for writing about anything and everything Scary Stories -related , it's only natural that I'd wanted to discuss this latest creepy collection of terrifying tales. Now, to get the most obvious question out of the way: is this a new Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark book in anything other than the most literal, pedantic terms? Frankly, no. The stories are all moviefied versions of material from the original books, enhanced by concept artwork, photos and notes from the film’s production. Yet, oddly, these are exactly the qualities that make this book perfect for wha

        I have to say, it's a pretty great time to be a Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark fan. After an ill-advised decision by the publisher years ago to replace the books' iconically eerie Stephen Gammell illustrations with tamer, less disturbing artwork by Brett Helquist, the original versions have been reissued to bookstores everywhere. Hollywood wants a piece of that sweet Scary Stories pie (don't ask what's in it), and there's a major motion picture produced by Guillermo Del Toro on the way which, judging by the teasers, looks amazing . There's even a documentary coming out chronicling the creation of the series and examining its lasting cultural impact. 38 years after Alvin Schwartz's first volume began shocking the senses of countless readers, the series' legacy is still going strong.      Perhaps most unexpectedly, there was a recent announcement that a new volume of the series is coming soon! Well, sort of. New Scary Stories to Tell in t

It's an annual tradition: when October rolls around, it's officially Oingo Boingo season. Well, let me back up a bit. For me, it's always Oingo Boingo season. They're my favorite band of all time, despite being defunct since the late 90's. For the uninitiated, Oingo Boingo is the brainchild of Danny Elfman, who is better known these days as the composer of the score of pretty much every Tim Burton film, the guy who created the theme for both Batman and The Simpsons , and just basically a divine gift from the heavens above that none of us are worthy of. Before all that, there was Oingo Boingo and their weird, anarchic new wave/ska/surf/punk sound that sounds like it should be absolutely terrible when I describe it that way. They were far greater than the sum of their parts. Basically, they skewered social mores and explored strange and dark topics with biting humor, infectious hooks and more trumpet and saxophone than you can shake a Cherry Poppin' Daddy at. A

In 1981, Alvin Schwartz unleashed his horror classic Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark upon the world, and it and its two sequels would scar psyches for generations to come. 1984 saw the release of In a Dark, Dark Room , a similar book that Schwartz had tailored to somewhat younger readers. Unlike the Scary Stories books, though, this one never got a sequel...or did it? Ghosts! , published in 1991, is an oft-overlooked installment in Alvin Schwartz's oeuvre that serves in many ways as a spiritual successor to In a Dark, Dark Room . In belongs to the somewhat redundantly named "I Can Read" book series, like Dark Room , so it is targeted at a similarly young audience, and of course it shares the supernatural theme of the aforementioned works. But how does this one stack up against the veritable murderer's row of Schwartz's earlier classics? Let's find out. The first thing that jumps out at you is the artwork. Victoria Chess has a strikingly different st