Category: historical value
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Curses! It’s a Mummy!
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Death will come on swift wings to whomsoever opens this chest.“It’s the curse! It’s the curse! Beware of the curse!” Beni.“Stupid, superstitious bastard.” Daniels.The Mummy, 1999 “CARNARVON’S DEATH SPREADS THEORIES ABOUT VENGEANCE; In Egypt, England, France and Here, Occultists Advance Stories of Angered Gods.LONDON, April 5.—Genuine regret is expressed here…
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Inspired by Ancient Mythology
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Along with the eerie literature and movies that were big influences for me as a child and early story-teller (Edgar Allan Poe, The Twilight Zone, etc.), I also grew up on what I loosely call ‘sword-and-sandal’ movies. Officially, the term ‘sword-and-sandal’ refers to a popular genre of Italian knock-off movies…
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Dark, Crumbling and Intense
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“Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave…” Victor Frankenstein Another year gone – it’s hard to believe that we’re now twenty-six years past the qualms of New Year’s Eve 1999. After what I hope was a lovely holiday…
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Murder & Mayhem at Christmas
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Are the usual Christmas movies so sugary-sweet they set your teeth on edge? All beautifully-decorated-homes that seem to clean themselves, and perfect family meals that appear out of decorating-magazine kitchens? Then take a ‘stab’ at Christmas-themed murder mysteries, or the raft of holiday suspense and horror movies. Sometimes I’m in…
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Guilty holiday pleasures
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Holiday madness and excess already getting to you? It may be time to shut off the phone, lock the door and indulge in some guilty pleasure time. What’s your guilty holiday pleasure? Do you secretly binge on Hallmark movies? Stash and eat festive chocolates? Lock yourself into the bathroom for…
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A spicy holiday season
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I love the scents of winter! For me, it’s all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread and spruce. Taylor Swift Sometimes Taylor speaks for all of us. When the weather in the northern hemisphere turn harsh and the nights grow longer, comfort foods…
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The Hidden
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A spooky theme in November? What the heck? Well, today is Occult Day, a day for us to indulge curiosity about what lies beyond. A lot of people believe that there’s more to our world than meets the everyday eye. We want to believe that there’s something beyond being born,…
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Vampires in the family
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There is no passion so contagious as that of fear. Michel de Montaigne It’s 1891. Mists creep between the grave markers in the cemetery in Exeter, Rhode Island. Men, grimly determined, dig up the resting place of Mercy Brown. Her coffin is lifted and set onto the ground beside the…
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75 years of “funny pictures”
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“Charles M. Schulz was an innovative genius, creating a fantasy world that connected to kids as well as adults and all based on powerful iconic characters who express deep feelings of loneliness and resentment and despair. The feeling that everything is against us. The craving for love. An enormous earnestness…
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The Spectre of Book Banning
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I remember watching reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show on television when I was younger and thinking how silly it was to show Rob and Laura Petrie sleeping in twin beds. Clearly they’d had sex in order to have their son Ritchie, but the show was produced while the…