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Goth Chick News: The Stranger Things Kids Wrap Gifts for Stranger Things Fans

Goth Chick News: The Stranger Things Kids Wrap Gifts for Stranger Things Fans

Stranger Things cast

This is every bit as awesome as it sounds.

As you likely are aware, we have to wait all the way until summer before getting to binge the next eight episodes of Netflix’s Stranger Things so we’ve spent quite a lot of time scrounging for clues on what to expect. Executive producer Shawn Levy already confirmed that season 3 would take place a year after season 2 during the summer of 1985. Steve has graduated from high school and is working at an ice cream shop in the Starcourt Mall, which is where we see him in the teaser trailer. Levy also indicated the romantic pairings of Eleven-Mike and Max-Lucas remained steady and also revealed this tidbit, “We ended season two with a clear signal that the Shadow Monster was not eliminated, and maybe he’s even identified his foe. And that darkness, and the battle that it requires, only grows in Season Three.”

David Harbour, who plays Sheriff Hopper, told The Hollywood Reporter that everyone on the cast was “taking a lot of risks.” These may or may not include Hopper’s new dynamic as Eleven’s adoptive father.

We also know that much like how Season 2 riffed on the release of the first Ghostbusters movie, Season 3 is aiming for something closer to traditional horror in its focus on movies from directors like John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing), David Cronenberg (The Fly, Videodrome), and George Romero (Night of the Living Dead). We can only guess what that means for the residents of Hawkins, IN.

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Goth Chick News: A Gingerbread House for the Rest of Us

Goth Chick News: A Gingerbread House for the Rest of Us

Gingerbread Overlook Hotel

Honestly, the holidays can be a bit of a slow time here in the underground offices of Goth Chick News. Seeing I was looking a bit down, our Big Cheese John O. conceded to make the boys on staff move their D&D game out of the biggest basement room, so we could give our offices a bit of an upgrade. Though Bob and Ryan groused about being further from the fridge, John graciously explained we could not continue to expect Black Gate photog Chris Z. to work off a laptop in the disused lavatory under the stairs. So, once I get the smell of cigars and Cheetos out of the walls, we’ll be moved in with enough outlets for my blender and Chris’ Nespresso machine.

And just when I thought this would be about as much activity as I could expect at the Black Gate offices in December, this happened…

Three best friends turned filmmakers, Natalie Jones, Aaron Keeling and Austin Keeling, best known for their 2015 breakout horror film The House on Pine Street, just produced something even more entertaining. Probably feeling a bit down as well, these superfans got baking and created what is probably the greatest gingerbread house of all time.

Behold, the Overlook Hotel from The Shining.

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Goth Chick News: Carrie White Joins Twitter and It’s Awesome

Goth Chick News: Carrie White Joins Twitter and It’s Awesome

Carrie at the Prom

Let’s be honest, social media can be a serious bummer sometimes. If you’re active on all the various platforms then you know that for every adorable puppy video there’s at least one or more trolls who can’t help but spread negativity. Between mean-spirited memes and the general lack of empathy for fellow human beings it’s enough to make you pack it in and decide it just isn’t worth being that ‘connected’.

But then something like this happens.

Someone in the Twitterverse decided to create an account and assume the persona of Stephen King’s telekinetic, introverted teenager Carrie, made famous in his very first novel and played by Sissy Spacek in Brian De Palma’s 1976 film adaptation.

The account has only been up since December 4, but it went from having 8 followers a few days ago, to 86 as of this morning, and the goal seems to be to give voice to some of Carrie’s inner musings while reminding us all there are still fun people out there.

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Goth Chick News: Godzilla and Stranger Things 3 or More Reasons to Love Millie Bobby Brown

Goth Chick News: Godzilla and Stranger Things 3 or More Reasons to Love Millie Bobby Brown

Though there is no shortage of great offerings from the likes of Netflix, Hulu, etc, it’s hard to not heave a sigh knowing we’re still a way off from our favs. Game of Thrones final season has been confirmed for an April, 2019 release, though an exact date hasn’t been announced. We also know we’re going to have to wait until sometime in the summer of 2019 to binge season 3 of Stranger Things, though that is about as much detail as has been let out. There is a very amusing teaser trailer which I’ve included above if you haven’t seen it in all its 80’s mall glory, but other than confirming Steve is awesome, it doesn’t say much about what to expect from our friends in Hawkins, IN.

Word on the underground grapevine is that a substantial trailer as well as the exact release date for season 3 will come out during Super Bowl 53 on February 3rd. We also know filming wrapped in the fall, from the blurb that star Millie Bobby Brown posted on her Twitter feed for the first official Stranger Things Day which occurred on November 6th (the day Will originally went missing).

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Goth Chick News: Before the Turkey There Was Days of the Dead

Goth Chick News: Before the Turkey There Was Days of the Dead

Days of the Dead 2018-small

For the last six years, Goth Chick News has concluded the haunt season with a final show which rolls through Chicago each November. Days of the Dead (DotD for you cool kids) has always been an interesting experience and the 2018 show which occurred last weekend was no exception.

In past years DotD has resulted in memorable encounters with the likes of Vampire Santa, Carrie Henn who played “Newt” in the movie Aliens, and my spiritual hubby, Brad Miska aka “Mr. Disgusting” owner of the premier horror website Bloody Disgusting. It has also been the source of quite a lot of under-the-breath commentary from Black Gate photog Chris Z such as his whispered “What the f***?” when Sleepy Hollow actress and former Tim Burton muse finally showed up to her press call (click here for why) and his speculation on the cause of Tara Reid’s extreme tardiness which likely wasn’t the “late lunch” her handler offered.

The 2018 event was a little thin on “celebrity” front with the biggest names being Clive Barker, who was quite a score since getting someone out of LA to Chicago in November is no small accomplishment, and the rapper Coolio who I guess was there for his appearance in the 2004 movie Dracula 3000 and not his web foodie show Cooking With Coolio. Nonetheless, there was still a lot of fun stuff to share.

So let’s dive in shall we?

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Goth Chick News: Killing Time Until the 2019 Show Line Up

Goth Chick News: Killing Time Until the 2019 Show Line Up

Ripley and Newt

With the 2018 “season” behind us and cold, dark Chicago winter ahead, it’s time to hunker down with what remains of our current reading list and wait for the start of a new set of Goth Chick News adventures in 2019.

On that note, I told you about three new horror releases a few weeks back, which were currently on my nightstand. I can now report that having finished Dracul, written at least partially by a great, great nephew of Mr. Stoker himself, it’s definitely worth your time. I wasn’t a fan of author Dacre Stoker’s first foray into Uncle Bram’s iconic character via a Dracula sequel entitled Dracula, the Undead. However, this time around Stoker teamed up with a co-author (or was teamed up with one by his editor). J.D. Barker has impressive horror creds and the results for the overall storytelling are definitely better.

Dracul is a pre-quel of sorts with Uncle Bram as the main character. The story concerns the events that inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula, and though it is so slow in places you’ll think perhaps that was when Barker turned his back on the writing process to grab a sandwich, the overall story is clever and connects entertainingly enough to the source material to be a good read for fans of the original Dracula, as well as those who just like a good gothic vampire tale.

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Goth Chick News: The Dark Lord Is Not Amused

Goth Chick News: The Dark Lord Is Not Amused

The Dark Lord is not amused

Last week I told you about my latest Netflix obsession, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, based on the original Archie universe character, introduced in the comics’ storyline back in the 1960’s.

So, how do I tell you this next bit without sounding politically insensitive and perhaps even a tad snarky?

I guess I don’t, so here goes.

Turns out the actual for-real Satanic Temple is a wee bit upset at the cultural appropriation perpetuated by the show runners. Headquartered in (color me shocked) Salem, Massachusetts, the organization, which is not considered a tax-exempt religion in case you were wondering, has started legal proceedings against Netflix, specifically over the statue of the “Dark Lord” on display in the show’s fictional Academy of Unseen Arts.

Lucien Greaves (I’m not smiling, you’re smiling), the co-founder and spokesperson for the Satanic Temple, took to Twitter to make it clear he and the congregation are not amused.

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Goth Chick News: Netflix Bring It for Halloween

Goth Chick News: Netflix Bring It for Halloween

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

As “the season” officially ended yesterday as it always does, with me getting in the coffin that’s been sitting in my front yard all month, and jumping out of it to scare the snot out of the neighbor kids, I’m a bit behind schedule on this. But it’s okay, because these two new Netflix shows are well worth a binge, regardless if we’re now all supposed to put away all the fun, scary stuff because its ‘not appropriate’ and go back to being ‘normal’ and get right onto the rest of the holidays with little elves on the f…

Sorry, lost my head there for a minute.

First up is The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. This story line harkens back to the original Archie comic, circa 1962 when Sabrina Spellman first appeared as a friend of the Archie gang. Sabrina didn’t go to Riverdale High, but Greendale, a nearby town where Sabrina lived with her two aunts and her cat familiar, Salem. In the original comic Sabrina mainly dealt with problems associated with not being able to tell her friends or her boyfriend that she’s a “half-witch” (her father was a famous warlock and her mother was a human) and just being a normal teenager, using her powers to do generally good things for others.

The Netflix version is much, much darker and it’s awesome.

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Goth Chick News Visits HellsGate

Goth Chick News Visits HellsGate

HellsGate the House-small

HellsGate — the house

Most of us grew up with a local Jaycees or some other community organization putting together their annual ‘haunted house’ every October. With tickets in the neighborhood of $5 each, my friends and I would make the rounds, hitting several in a weekend as more of a social event than the adrenaline rush of real scares, which were hard to come by when your best friend’s parent or older sibling was behind the semi-cheesy mask and resale-shop costumes.

These days however, haunted attractions are decidedly more elaborate and sometimes permanent establishments. Instead of ‘haunted walks’ through the local forest preserve, or forays through mazes of black Glad bags and PVC, Halloween season thrill-seekers can expect to treat themselves to multi-thousand-dollar special effects and real actors in Hollywood-worthy costumes. Of course, tickets are closer to $50 than $5, but you get what you pay for.

And did we ever when over the weekend Black Gate photog Chris Z and I road tripped nearly two hours to visit HellsGate Haunted House, ranked #11 in the industry magazine HauntWorld’s annual list of the Scariest Haunted Houses in the Nation – and that is out of 5000 entries. Obviously, you don’t rank that high on the list without some impressive moves, and we were particularly interested to see an effect in use which we first saw on the show floor at the Haunted Association and Attractions Show last March. The owner of HellsGate, John LaFlamboy, purchased one of the biggest show effects, a $16K, ‘life size’ animatronic dragon, right off the show floor and we couldn’t wait to see how it turned out.

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Goth Chick News: Three New Horror Stories to Chill Your October Nights

Goth Chick News: Three New Horror Stories to Chill Your October Nights

The Dark Beneath the Ice-small The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein-small Dracul Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker-small

With our favorite month of the year nearly half over, and the last two weeks of “the season” in full swing, we here at Goth Chick News have been living on a diet of adult beverages, caffeine and Pez. From making the rounds to Chicagoland’s best haunted attractions, to hosting our biennial Halloween bash for 200 (this year’s theme was Freak Show), there has been very little time to sleep as we work to cram in every last drop of fun before November 1st.

So, normally I would bring you these three new releases one at a time. But as it’s 3 a.m. here in the Midwest and I’ve had quite a lot of espresso, you’re getting them all in one go.

The Dark Beneath the Ice by Amelinda Bérubé was released in August and is the Canadian author’s first book. Technically it is considered YA, but as I didn’t know that going in, I honestly wouldn’t have guessed. Though I wouldn’t exactly bill it the way the publisher did, as “Black Swan meets Paranormal Activity,” The Dark Beneath the Ice is a terrific, creepy story that poses many questions, one of which is: can an inner demon summon the supernatural?

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