Something else I don't like so far about Dead Boy Detectives is they took the "clerical error" that landed Edwin in Hell and indicate that if the people WORKING FOR DEATH catch him he'll go back to Hell. "Assignment: Hell." That wasn't his "assignment." He was dragged there by a demon and he wasn't supposed to be there, that's kind of a big deal. Even for plot drama, innocent people in Hell never sit right for me.

Another reason I find the Afterlife Lost and Found jarring and unnecessary in Dead Boy Detectives is Death told us she's omnipresent in The Sandman: Dream Country, The Sandman issue 20, Facade, (Chapter 19 of The Sandman audio drama.

Something that bugged me about episode 3 of Dead Boy Detectives is suggesting a soul can actually be destroyed.

I know it was for drama and tension since this IS a TV show but it directly contradicts both theoretical physics / the law of conservation ("Energy cannot be destroyed. Only changed or transferred.") but it also contradicts what Death said in The Sandman comics issue 20, Façade in The Sandman: Dream Country. "Oblivion is not an option."

A satirical papyrus showing a lady mouse being served wine by a cat while another cat dresses her hair, a third cares for her baby, and a fourth fans her. The mice have hilarious huge, round ears.

Where: Egyptian Museum Cairo

When: New Kingdom

Scars on your body show that you have lived; scars on your heart show that you have loved.

Nina Dul

I'm on episode 3 and I'm liking Dead Boy Detectives so far. I'm not very thrilled with The Afterlife Lost and Found department though. It reminds me too much of edgy late 90s Vertigo comics. And doesn't really meld well with Death with these sort of people working for her.

I do like the strangeness of the show and the entities they encounter. It reminds me a bit of Doom Patrol in that regard.

I'm on episode 3 and I'm liking Dead Boy Detectives so far. I'm not very thrilled with The Afterlife Lost and Found department though. It reminds me too much of edgy late 90s Vertigo comics. And doesn't really meld well with Death with these sort of people working for her. I do like the strangeness of the show and the entities they encounter. It reminds me a bit of Doom Patrol in that regard.

I happen to really love the low budget lesbian mermaid horror movie Mermaid Tales: She-Creature (Sometimes just shortened to "She-Creature") from 2021. (Not to be confused with the 1950s movie of the same name.)

And I noticed the intro to Dead Boy Detectives reminds me of Showtime's old Creature Feature intro which can be seen here at the start of the trailer for She-Creature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8Zh5q1FpfE

The Truth about Lockwood & Co.'s Cancelation and The Dead Boy Detectives!

The Truth about Lockwood & Co.'s cancelation and The Dead Boy Detectives! Well, now that I have your attention, the truth is... And brace yourselves. It's a doozy. They're not related. They just coincidentally deal with teens solving supernatural themed mysteries. This isn't the first time Netflix has had such a show. In 2021 The Irregulars was a Sherlock Holmes story about the street urchins who often helped him solve crimes, with a supernatural twist.

Lockwood & Co. was NOT canceled to make room for The Dead Boy Detectives. The Dead Boy Detectives had been in development since September 2021 when the characters (played by two different actors) appeared in Doom Patrol. The show was originally going to be on HBO Max but after a big shake up at HBO Max (now Max) The Dead Boy Detectives was moved to Netflix to better connect it with The Sandman since they started as characters in The Sandman comics. Yes, the shows are both about supernatural themed mysteries (particularly ghosts) and teens but The Dead Boy Detectives are... well, dead. And it's a spin-off of The Sandman. The Dead Boy Detectives are NOT why Lockwood & Company was canceled. The show was in production before Lockwood was even canceled. Boycotting The Dead Boy Detectives will NOT bring back Lockwood. This is deja vu of when Lucifer finally, properly, ended at season 6 with a grand finale. There were some fans convinced that Lucifer was canceled (a second time) to make room for The Sandman since Lucifer started as a character in The Sandman and in The Sandman Lucifer was to be played by Gwendoline Christie instead of Tom Ellis. Some Lucifer fans boycotted The Sandman out of spite or believed that if they could get The Sandman canceled it would somehow bring back Lucifer. Thankfully nothing ever came of this misguided behavior and the behavior from some Lockwood fans is equally misguided. The Sandman did not cause Lucifer to get canceled. And The Dead Boy Detectives did not cause Lockwood & Co. from getting canceled. The plot similarities are coincidence. The Dead Boy Detectives first appeared in The Sandman in 1991. No one at Netflix said "These shows are too similar, let's axe one to install the other." Do you have any idea how many similar shows are on Fox or on the CW? "Too similar to a show we would rather do" is not a common reason for a show being canceled.

How they Botched The Vampire Lestat audio book

For audio book readers the most grievously edited audio book I can think of is The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice as read by Michael York. The Michael York version makes it seem like the novel ends after Lestat finishes telling his back story (which is where the Lestat musical ends too).

Here's how it really ends... In the novel after Lestat tells his backstory he's back in 1985 in his house and he senses a vampire near. So he shuts down his security system and goes outside to find Louis there. They embrace and Louis tells him he heard his songs and tells Lestat he knows he wrote out their story as music videos to get the attention off of him (Louis), so the other vampires will target Lestat instead of him (because Louis was essentially on a to-kill list for telling his story and Lestat saved him by doing worse, becoming a rock star and telling all their secrets on 80s MTV music videos). They walk together and Lestat asks Louis if he'll come with him to his big concert. And Lestat teases him for his ragged sweater.

Lestat has his concert where he sings a song called Age of Innocence (the whole song lyrics are in the book). And then the vampires in the audience there to murder Lestat start bursting into flame, one by one. Akasha has woken and she wants Lestat. Lestat and Louis flee the chaos and are almost cornered by vampires that mean to kill them (and have syths like Louis used in the theatre of the vampires). But then those vampires burst into flames and a f--king mini-van shows up. Lestat's mother (Gabrielle) is driving. (Yes, Lestat made his soccor Mom into a vampire.) "Get in! What are you waiting for? The pope to declare it a miracle? Get in!"

Lestat, Gabrielle, and Louis flee the concert and dawn is approaching so they go to rest but while Lestat is drifting to sleep Akasha finds him and takes him, leaving Louis and Gabrielle unharmed. That's where The Vampire Lestat novel ends, Lestat's abduction and a "To be continued..."

I was really looking forward to all of that in the audio version but very disappointed at how botched the editing was since none of it was there. I know there are newer unabridged audio books of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles but the abridged versions were the most common ones you could find in the early to mid-90s. My copy had been on cassette tape, two tapes each book. I bought it in that format for the novelty of pretending I was listening to the recordings of Louis's interview from Interview with The Vampire.

I absolutely LOVE the opening credits sequence for Dead Boy Detectives. It has the vibe of the intro to 80s or 90s Creature features. Visually it even reminds me of the stop motion sequences from Oingo Boingo's Dead Man's Party music video. With this intro and the intro to Wednesday (which won Danny Elfman) an Emmy I feel all the more that The Sandman was cheated. Also I like the first episode's use of David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust era "Hang on to yourself."

You're perpetuating exactly what's wrong with the house system.

First. Real schools don't divide up houses by personality traits at age eleven. They don't do personality quizzes even if they have dorms or houses in the boarding school. Second, you just accidentally stated the problem. The Ravenclaw entrance encourages problem solving, something they seem to innately already like. The ones that would need to be encouraged for that sort of thing are the ones who don't already have that desire. Also desires and drives and interests change all the time with kids, especially at age eleven. I know eleven-year-olds who want to be stunt drivers and then later realize they want to be a doctor. You should never stagnate the definition of who a person is and what they are interested in based on what they were into when they were eleven. That's the problem. It doesn't allow for growth and assumes the main interest will always be perpetual for each student.

I won't stop telling everyone how much fun Monster Mash is. I know Sharknado is Asylum's most popular movie but I feel this deserves the same level of cult status for Gothic horror fans. This is my new favorite bad movie.

A question about Asylum's Monster Mash. This is, hands down, my favorite Asylum mockbuster but how come there was no aquatic monster? They had The Mummy, Invisible Man, werewolf, Dracula, and Frankenstein's monster but no aquatic monster. No love for The Creature? I know the specific title "Creature from The Black Lagoon" is under copyright but not the idea of an aquatic monster, himself. (See: Shape of Water.)

Code Orange

If you are new to Halloween (seasonal) collecting as a hobby you may have recently heard or seen the term "Code Orange" In regard to Home Depot getting a limited supply of their popular twelve foot tall skeleton, Frankenstein Monster, and other new, large Halloween decorations, being put on sale to celebrate the half-way mark to Halloween. Code orange is a term for Halloween collectors to alert other Halloween collectors that a well-known store is putting out Halloween merchandise for sale in the off-season or early part of "Spooky Season" / Halloween season. This is usually for big stores like Walmart and not tiny local shops. It's a way saying "Heads up, Boils and Ghouls, this store that might be in your own neighborhood has Halloween merch."

Abigail review

A few nights ago I watched the new vampire film Abigail. It was a good vampire movie. There were some predictable moments and tropes that bordered on cliche but sometimes cliches are good. They're familiar and comfortable and it's fun to see those sort of trope-like manifestations in new or different situations from the norm. Cliches aren't bad by default. They can be fun. It all depends on how they are used. Abigail was a good popcorn movie. It reminded me of vampire movies from the late-80s to early-90s. Abigail deals with the little daughter of a crime boss who is implied to be Dracula himself. The hints of this fact are more subtle than in The Invitation (2022) but they are still there. The child is kidnapped by a ragtag group of would-be criminals eager to get rich quick. Little do they know this is actually a trap and they are the intended victims of this child vampire / hitman ...hitwoman. The most sympathetic character in the movie is a recovering drug addict we come to know as Joey. She has an estranged relationship with her young son and she is actually very maternal and sympathetic to the vampire. She also has a Sherlock-like skill at deduction that is combined with genuine empathy for the emotions and situations of others. It's a cliche but it is so seldom used that it is has become a refreshing combination. The ending is (to me) as strange yet satisfying as the Grandfather showing up at the end of Lost Boys. And there are a few funny quips in the movie. I liked Abigail, I find little I would change about it other than be brave enough to acknowledge that the vampire father is Dracula and not just leave tiny breadcrumbs about it. I liked Abigail but I must confess I actually had more fun watching the Asylum mockbuster of Abigail, Monster Mash (2024 film) which was more of a low budget cross between Abigail, House of Frankenstein, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or eve Avengers. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Abigail, Monster Mash... I am delighted to see so much spooky fun at the half-way -point to Halloween. This is usually the off-season for those sort of films. And I'm not complaining. As a Gothic Horror fan I love this. I love that they were brave enough to release these films in the spring instead of using the Halloween season as a crutch. I am grateful for these films and the thorough end of the Twilight backlash. The annoying polarization of the pretty boy boy emo vampire vs. the mindless killing machine vampire has calmed down and returned to the traditional depictions of characters like Dracula in The Invitation, Renfield, Last Voyage of The Demeter, Monster Mash, and Abigail. Characters that are charming yet fiercely predatory. I am grateful for this shift back in the vampire-sub genre of Gothic Horror. And also the return of acknowledging Dracula's more traditional powers such as shapeshifting into a bat or wolf or mist. I am finding all of these new movies very satisfying. And I will likely watch Abigail again with friends to enjoy the vampiric (and slightly ham-fisted) allegory on Then There were none. Credit where credit is due, I previously came across a werewolf version of "And then there were none" (The Beast Must Die from 1974) and a previous vampire version of And then there were None novel "Dying of the Light" by William Massa.

I watched Abigail last night. There were supposedly hints that her father was Dracula but mostly they were just hints that her father is a vampire, a very powerful and high ranking vampire, mind you.

The biggest overt clues that he's Dracula, himself, are as follows.

The Mural in the house depicts either Poenari or Bran Castle in Romania. I forget which. Poenari is the real Castle Dracula that has fallen into disrepair. Bran Castle is the "Castle Dracula" used for tourism in Romania because it's pretty and easy to access. The real Vlad lived in Poenari, not Bran. He may have stayed in Bran briefly when he was a hostage at age eleven but it wasn't voluntary. That would be like calling a hotel room you stayed in once when you were eleven your home.

There's hints that Abigail could turn into a rat at will. Dracula, in the novel could turn into a rat, bat, wolf, mist, etc.

Her father is called the anti-Christ at one point. This is VERY subtle. The Anti-Christ is supposed to be the son of the Devil. Son of the Devil is one of the two ways you can translate Dracula though Son of The Dragon is more accurate.

He has the same teeth as Nicolas Cage as Dracula in the Renfield movie. As well as similar fashion sense. I guess that's going to be a thing now. Dracula and all of his teeth being pointed instead of just the eye teeth, one apart from the front teeth. But the biggest clue is just the blink-and-you'll-miss-it mural depicting one of the two real Castle Draculas in Romania. (As I said, I forget which one they used). I thought there would be more since there were many. may clues that Walter Deville was actually Dracula in The Invitation (2022). They practically spelt it out for you in tat one. This one was a LOT more subtle.