protean depravity

I have been spending this last weekend mostly at the Fantasy Filmfest White Nights, and this year is the most movies I have seen during White Nights ever, a personal record! I was thinking that the really good movies were reserved for the Nights section in April and the main festival in September, but, wow, was I wrong... A shout-out to the organizers and the Zoo Palast crew, the festival was amazing as always, and a heart warming highlight in this dark, cold and icy winter. I put the films in the order of my personal delight, ranking from least to most, with the movie at the bottom of the page being my favorite of the festival. It doesn't mean that the lower ranking movies are bad or not worth watching, on the contrary, in this year's White Nights selection there wasn't one movie that wasn't worthwhile, but I will explain for each movie why they didn't make my personal best. The good news is, they all made it into the top ten! I missed two films and saw seven from ...

  Welcome to part three of Cult Classics! It seems like cults are everywhere right now; in the independent news, in conspiracy theories, in media we consume, in movies we watch... Whether an organized group of powerful extremists controlling our lives really exists, or it is the mere paranoid fear thereof mirroring into horror fiction, it is worth to take a look at this phenomenon and the way it is represented in recent horror movies. In this installment we'll study the cults in The Void (2016), Last Shift (2014), Kill List (2011), The House of the Devil (2009) and Martyrs (2008). The titles are linked to their respective imdb pages for full film information and stills. I do presuppose that you watched the movies discussed here, so I will only give the shortest plot summary. It would make sense to watch the movies before reading my cult descriptions, as I SPOILER EVERYTHING. I also decided to add an additional part 4 to this series as I ended up finding more cults that ...

Let's start the year 2026 with the hope that these empty cinema seats will be the only places to witness horrors and that horror will stay strictly confined to fiction. And the first opportunity to fill those seats will be during the upcoming film season - our first station is the  Fantasy Filmfest White Nights  on January 24 and 25, which is like a mini winter break weekend for horror fans. I usually only watch a couple of films during the White Nights, but this year I feel like 2025 wasn't that great of a year for horror, and I feel somewhat starved for more movies. So I decided to take a leave from Hammett on that Saturday and to watch all the films on the first day, and three films on Sunday. Let's take a look at the trailers and talk about them, in order of their appearance at the FFF.

Hello back with the first short reviews in the new year 2026, a year who saw a turbulent start already, but will hopefully be better for us all (later 😭). Enjoy!

Here we are again, standing at the end of the year, taking a last look back before moving on. Moving on has been the motto for the entire last year, honestly, as I feel like I was standing before a heap of shards and rubble from the year before and decided to completely concentrate on myself and, fitting the Chinese year of the snake, shed my skin, I let go - I removed many many things that are unnecessary and superfluous in my life, and focused on my healing and well-being, but also let older things back in that I feel are important to who I am and that I have been neglecting. So overall I feel good about myself and this past year. Of course, everything around the world is still going south and the rage that ensues from watching stupid politicians and death and destruction and fear makes it hard to find inner balance. I have no idea where the world is heading and I'm not very optimistic nor very enthusiastic to find out but there's nothing else to do but go with it. There'...

All right, friends, can you already hear the snare drums rolling in the distance? Before announcing the bests of the year 2025, I need to come to a closure with all the challenges I plead to finish this year though. It didn't look very rosy until this morning, but I made use of my Sunday to finish some books and rearrange my prompts as well as I can, so that I have finished most of my challenges of the year, except for one. Can you guess which one?

After breaking routine in the last installment of "The Short Story Lover's Guide to Stephen King" and comparing a novella with its film adaptation, here we are back to our usual, continuing discussing the short stories in the second King collection Skeleton Crew . It would be good if you read along, or at least know or be familiar with the stories because I will spoil everything! Let's go!

  End of the year also means deciding which books to take along into the new year and which ones can find their way to new owners who will appreciate them more than I do. Before they wander into the second hand sections of the Hammett or Otherland Bookstores, or the phone booth little free library at the end of my street, I'm giving you guys the choice to take any of the books in the picture you may want. 👉 These are mostly review copies, but I included some books I bought myself, some I have never read, and presumably never will read, or some I want to listen as audiobook rather than eye read. It's better and only fair someone who will actually read them takes them, and not just lets them sit around. Please don't hesitate at all and seize the opportunity!