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Goth Chick News: Phantasmagoria the Game Turns 21 and Gets a Movie Treatment (Maybe)

Goth Chick News: Phantasmagoria the Game Turns 21 and Gets a Movie Treatment (Maybe)

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Phantasmagoria-smallAs you know (or can guess) I have publicly declared Phantasmagoria, the horror-themed video game by Sierra On-Line, as one of my all-time-favorites to this day.

Why you ask, when the quality of today’s gaming experiences are movie-like, compared to which Phantasmagoria’s live-actor-against-computer generated-background appears fairly cheesy?

To start, I’ll re-share some stats that my buds over at Bloody Disgusting dug up as part of their own Happy Birthday tribute.

Back in the ‘90’s when point-and-click adventure games reigned supreme, LucasArts and Sierra were the “Nintendo and Sega” of the era. And Roberta Williams was Sierra’s wunderkind; the designer responsible for a number of hit franchises like King’s Quest, Mystery House, and The Colonel’s Bequest. But in spite of the many titles that Williams worked on, she’s said that her sole entry in the horror genre, Phantasmagoria, is her favorite.

Phantasmagoria to this day remains one of the biggest spectacles of gaming. No expense was sparred and the game sprawled across 7 CD-ROMs due to the heavy amount of FMV (Full Motion Video).

Williams wrote a 550-page script for Phantasmagoria, (a typical movie screenplay is around 120 pages, as a point of reference), which required a cast of 25 actors, a production team of over 200 people, took two years to fully develop and four months to film. Phantasmagoria’s initial budget was $800,000, but by the end of production costs had hit a staggering total of $4.5 million (with the game also being filmed in a $1.5 million studio that Sierra built specifically for it).

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Goth Chick News: More Stranger Things – Yes Please!

Goth Chick News: More Stranger Things – Yes Please!

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Stranger Things video gameIn a Goth Chick News first, I am hitting this same topic two weeks in a row. But from the comments last week, I’m pretty sure you won’t mind.

It appears many of us went face down into the new Netflix sci-fi / horror offering Stranger Things and did not come up for air until all eight episodes of season one had been well and truly binged. Sticky-fingered and woozy, some of you even did a convenience store run then came back for a second go to be sure you hadn’t missed anything.

The creators of our latest obsession, Matt and Ross Duffer (aka “The Duffer Brothers”) have made no secret of the fact that they’re hungry to create a season two and speaking with IGN last week (if by chance you haven’t binged, there’s mild spoilers there), they revealed that the next season will likely take place a year after the events of the finale, in order for them to tell the story the way they want to tell it.

And please Netflix, leave them alone and let them do their thing.

But what about that one-year gap, you ask? What will become of us after the third or fourth go through season one, when the air is thick with Aquanet and the withdraw symptoms make us believe we might be able to fit back into those leather pants?

Oh the humanity!

But fear not – the Duffers and Netflix have foreseen this horror and provided for it.

Now gather round…

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Goth Chick News: Our New Netflix Obsession – Stranger Things

Goth Chick News: Our New Netflix Obsession – Stranger Things

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Stranger Things Poster-small

Having begun my career as a lifelong geek quite early, I have learned that if anyone but my closest friends tell me I’m going to love this (book, movie, game, music), I’m probably not going to.

Granted, my adult tastes have widened a bit, but to this day if you ask me to choose between watching a current episode of Grey’s Anatomy or How I Met Your Mother versus MST3K or Twilight Zone, the question is barely valid. This is why the morning coffee-machine-conversations at my “day job” never involve topics to which I pay much attention.

That is until last week, when I overheard a raving endorsement for the Netflix series Stranger Things.

As stated, I would normally have ignored what I heard were it not for the phrase, “…think of it as Goonies, meets Stand by Me, meet It.”

Okay, the speaker knows these three movies well enough to wrap them into a comparison? About one Netflix series?

Stranger Things merited a bit of investigating.

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Goth Chick News: So There Really Was Something In The Woods…?

Goth Chick News: So There Really Was Something In The Woods…?

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The Woods movie banner

In spite of the fact John O will not allow us to borrow the Black Gate dirigible for a road trip (air trip?) out to the San Diego ComicCon, we followed all the many developments of last week from afar, with maniacal interest. After all, this is where we see what we have to look forward to on the entertainment front as we slog through another Midwest winter.

From world-class cosplay to the many celebrity appearances it was difficult to decide where to look first – unless of course you’re obsessed with a good horror movie, in which case the place to look was the many trailers which made their debut during the week.

We had glimpses of Justice League, Kong: Skull Island, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman and a television-series version of The Exorcist starring Gina Davis, which actually looks pretty interesting if you don’t mind priests fighting demons with guns instead of holy water.

But an unexpected treat came in the form of the screening of an upcoming found-footage horror film called The Woods.

From what we are told, during the screening the posters for The Woods in the theater lobby were swapped out for ones simply titled Blair Witch, and audiences were informed that they were about to watch a direct sequel to the 1999 horror blockbuster that started the craze: The Blair Witch Project.

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Goth Chick News: Marvel and Ghosties and Disney, Oh My

Goth Chick News: Marvel and Ghosties and Disney, Oh My

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Marvel The Haunted Mansion-smallBack in March I explained the odyssey undertaken by Black Gate photog Chris Z and I to obtain copies of Marvel Comics’ just released Haunted Mansion #1, a one-off series of five issues inspired by my favorite ride in the park.

No shocker there.

But now that the fifth and final issue is about to be released on July 27th, it’s time to explain why all you pseudo-grownups need to own this collection and not pass them over thinking they’re targeted only at the kiddies.

You see, early in the first issue readers encounter a ghost. This part is expected of course, as Haunted Mansion lore tells us there are 999 of them living inside the manor.

Only this ghost isn’t of the “grim, grinning” sort, as described in the attraction’s theme song. No siree, this ghost is serious, horror-comic stuff; all bones and menace and flailing sword.

Remember, this is Marvel as much as Disney.

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Goth Chick News: Kiefer Sutherland and Hollywood Both Flatline

Goth Chick News: Kiefer Sutherland and Hollywood Both Flatline

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Flatliners-small

Back in 1988 a then-unknown Boston screenwriter Peter Filardi had an idea for a story based on a very personal source; a close friend of his suffered a severe allergic reaction to the anesthesia after an operation and had a near-death experience.

Filardi went on to write The Craft and Salem’s Lot, but in 1990 he and director Joel Schumacher (St. Elmo’s Fire) turned that potential tragedy into the very lucrative film Flatliners.

The original Flatliners followed a group of medical students and close friends who conduct experiments with near death experiences. Each one has their heart stopped before being revived instantly, which causes them nightmarish visions, reflecting either sins they have committed or sins committed against them.

As you can imagine, their unorthodox extracurricular studies have very dark consequences, as the supernatural apparitions they experience during their “deaths” begin to follow them into the living world.

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Goth Chick News Reviews: End of Watch — Stephen King Wraps Up a Trilogy

Goth Chick News Reviews: End of Watch — Stephen King Wraps Up a Trilogy

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Stephen King Mr Mercedes-small Stephen King Finders Keepers-small Stephen King End of Watch 2-small

As you may know from past articles, my literary relationship with Stephen King has seen more horror-themed infidelities and follow-on love fests than Ozzy Osbourne’s marriage. Frankly, I had pretty much thrown King over permanently for his more intellectually acrobatic son Joseph King (aka Joe Hill) until nearly three years when in a fit of nostalgia over The Shining, I picked up Doctor Sleep.

And just like that, Stephen King moved back into my library.

So when the first book in King’s new Detective Bill Hodges trilogy called Mr. Mercedes was released the following year, the warm glow from meeting the adult Danny Torrance was still evident and I decided to give the new series a try, even though mystery / serial killer stories are not really my thing.

And what do you know? Like the younger, more energetic version of himself in those heady days of Salem’s Lot and Carrie, King delivered a second white-knuckled nail-biter of a tale, equal to his previous work.

Retired police detective Bill Hodges, the unlikely hero of Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers (book two of the trilogy), now runs an investigation agency with his partner, Holly Gibney. Holly is the sister of Hodges’ great love who died at the hands of serial killer Brady Hartsfield and also happens to be the woman who delivered the blow to Brady’s head that put him in a vegetative state.

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Goth Chick News: A Series of Unfortunate Events, or This Is Where I Came In

Goth Chick News: A Series of Unfortunate Events, or This Is Where I Came In

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A Series of Unfortuante Events-smallWay back in 2000, I submitted a book review to Black Gate magazine on a dare.

I had recently fallen in love with the first three installments of the newly published Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (aka Dan Handler) and was going on about them at work to anyone who would listen. Finally, a coworker dared me to tell someone who might actually care and send my annoyingly enthusiastic review to his favorite publication, Black Gate – assuming, I am sure, that head honcho John O’ would effectively tell me to shut it, in writing.

But sixteen years later, thanks to that annoyed coworker and the high tolerant nature of our editor-in-chief, I continue to occupy a subterranean office at Black Gate where I perpetually maintain a small shrine to Handler beside the blender: not only because his work is where Goth Chick News began, but because he remains to this day, just that entertaining.

In 2004, five years after the first book in the Series of Unfortunate Events was published, Hollywood made what I deem a truly disastrous attempt to bring them to life on the big screen; “disastrous” because rather than focusing on the three, young protagonists, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, Paramount Pictures offered it up as a vehicle for Jim Carey. And pulling out every facial expression and delivery shtick from every one of his past characterizations all the way back to In Living Color, Carey dealt the potential franchise an agonizingly slow, 108-minute death.

At least that is what I say happened.

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Goth Chick News: This Will Not End Well…

Goth Chick News: This Will Not End Well…

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This seems like a great idea zombieYou don’t need to have spent thousands of hours sitting in front of horror movies to know this is an extremely bad idea.

US biotech company Bioquark and its ReAnima project has been granted authorization and ethical permission to use 20 brain-dead patients for what is sure to be a highly controversial study: Starting next year, they plan to stimulate their nervous systems in order to restart the brains. Bioquark is hoping that its part in the groundbreaking ReAnima project will reveal if people can at least partly be brought back from the dead.

Zombies anyone…?

The idea here is that several different techniques, such as, “…injecting the brain with stem cells, giving the spinal cord infusions of beneficial chemicals, and nerve stimulation techniques” will all be tested to see if reanimation is possible.

According to the Bioquark website:

Our definitions of death may have to change in the very near future, as well as our understanding of consciousness and the stability of memory persistence.

So let’s ponder this for a moment.

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Goth Chick News Reviews: Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge by Paul Krueger

Goth Chick News Reviews: Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge by Paul Krueger

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Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge-smallBartenders are magical.

Yes, alright – you already knew that in a metaphorical sort of way. But as we will all soon learn from native Chicago author Paul Krueger, bartenders are also very magical in a literal way.

Or at least they are here in Chi-town.

Krueger’s debut novel, Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge is about a secret society of bartenders who fight demons with alcohol-magic, which is something most of us had a feeling was probably true, but usually around 2 a.m when we start thinking to confirm our hunch, the ability to do so is pretty much beyond our reach.

No need to worry though, Krueger is about to clear it all up for us.

College grad Bailey Chen has the typical, Midwestern, twenty-something issues: no job, no parental support, and a rocky relationship with Zane, the only friend who’s around when she moves back home. But Bailey’s issues are about to get a lot less classic.

It turns out supernatural creatures are stalking the streets of Chicago, and they can be hunted only with the help of magically mixed cocktails: vodka grants super-strength, whiskey offers the power of telekinesis and tequila gives its drinker fiery blasts of elemental energy.

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