Salem’s Lot

When I first began reading Salem’s Lot I don’t know why but I thought it was about the famous witch trials that took place in Salem in the 17^th century, but this is not the case. This book tells us the story of Ben Mears, a writer that decides to go back to his childhood hometown called Jerusalem’s Lot after many years with the purpose of writing a book about a spooky strange mansion called by everybody Marsten House. Ben will soon learn that his trip there will take a totally different turn and that mysterious things happens over and over again, just like when he was a little boy. I will not write spoilers here, but let’s just say that nothing is what it looks like in the beginning. I think that the beginning of the book looks more like a crime story, but at the end it turns into a fantasy.

I absolutely love Stephen King and many of his books, he is one of the greatest authors of our time, but one thing that I didn’t enjoy so much about this particular book is that there are so many details in the description of the characters, and so many characters, that you somehow are distracted from the main plot of the book. But, I also have to say that one thing that is typical of King’s writing is the amazing way in which he describes everything, and often, in many of his books, the descriptions are mostly in the first part of the book, and only at the end we have the final plot twist. Stephen King himself says in the introduction of the novel that the reading should be indulgent reading the book, because he was only 23 years old when he wrote it and he already had a wife that had a typewriter and loved his stories.

This horror novel is actually the second published book of Stephen King, written in 1975, so it reflects the way of writing King had in his first works.

Halloween Double Chocolate Muffin Recipe

Hi everyone, it’s been a while since last time. Actually, an entire year!  Many things have changed in the last months and I have not had the time to update the blog, but I will try to update it more often in the future. Hope everyone is doing well and that you’ll have some fun tonight, whatever you’re doing for Halloween. If you’ll spending your night watching Halloween movies or doing a Harry potter marathon, or if you’ve plans with your closest friends or family.

Anyways, as you all know, I love Halloween, and one of the things I love the most is making Halloween cakes and carving pumpkins in the afternoon. Today I want to share with you my traditional Halloween chocolate muffin recipe, this has been a classic every year from my childhood, my mom used to bake these and now we have the tradition of baking them together at Halloween afternoon with The Nightmare Before Christmas playlist music in background. Actually, the traditional recipe is simpler, but here I’ll share it adding chocolate, because who doesn’t love chocolate, right? Here it is! :  )

 

Ingredients:

40 gr potato starch

180 gr rice flour

200 gr sugar

60 gr cacao powder

50 gr chocolate drops

100 gr dark chocolate

150 ml milk

3 egg

115 gr butter

8 gr baking soda

 

• Mix in a bowl the sugar, the cacao, the chocolate drops and the dark chocolate.
• Melt the butter and mix it in a different bowl with the eggs and the milk.
• Mix all the liquid ingredients with the solid ones.
• Take the dough in muffins forms and cook in the oven at 180 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

 

You can do all the Halloween decorations you want on them when they’re cooked. You have to try this delicious chocolate recipe if you love strong chocolate flavour like me. Enjoy! :  )

Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

 

 

 

The Grinch

What I love doing before Christmas is watching Christmas movies with a cup of hot chocolate and a plaid. As you surely know there are several great classical Christmas movies to watch during this period, both on TV or Netflix (or, you can also watch DVD’s).

One of my favorites of all time is The Grinch. This comedy Christmas movie is based on a book with the same name written in 1957 by Theodor Seuss (also known as Dr. Seuss), an American cartoonist and writer who wrote several of the most popular children books of all times.

The film is directed by Ron Howard, who was inducted into The Television Hall of Fame in 2013 and has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of fame for his contribution to television and motion pictures (you can remember him from Happy Days, where he played Richie Cunningham).

The Grinch is a beautiful story about the real meaning of Christmas and about Christmas spirit, telling us about a strange green creature living on the rocks in the snow, isolated from the rest of the people, and disappointed by the human kind. But, he will meet a sweet little girl that will change his mind about Christmas and from which everyone can learn important lessons, more than from adults.

In the movie we have all the beautiful Christmas elements, like snow, sleds, Christmas melodies, cozy chimneys, decorations, and a big Christmas tree.

Also, nobody could play the Grinch better than Jim Carrey.

EMP: The Incredible Music, Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction Museum

Almost everyone reading this blog is really interested in fantasy or horror, or both. Magical creatures, supernatural, myths, legends and spooky stories. Now, imagine a place where you can explore in real life the history of fantasy and horror, as well as the history of music, a place where you can find out more about literature and art, walking into a huge fantasy art salon or a gallery, with imaginative depictions of other worlds, from The Wizard of Oz to Harry Potter; this place really exists!

The EMP museum in Seattle is a structure made of several electric guitars sliced into pieces and used as building blocks to create a structure that evokes the history of rock ‘n’ roll, designed by internationally acclaimed architect Frank O’ Gehry, reminding the audiences of the evolution of music and culture.

This is one of the most amazing museums in the entire world! EMP has a rich collection of pop culture content and the purpose of the museum is to inspire creativity to everyone and to create a positive change in the society, as well as inform and pay tribute to different genres, such as fantasy, science fiction and horror literature and art in general.

Here you can view an original manuscript page from Game of Thrones, several weapons used in The Lord of the Rings movies, and real costumes from The Chronicles of Narnia, among other things. You really lose track of reality here and you enter into another world.

But, if you’re more interested in horror, the EMP museum offers an exhibition where you can learn more about how horror is expressed through cinema, biology, history and contemporary culture; you will not be disappointed: in fact, you can find the original axe from The Shining here, the Nighthawk stake from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the artifacts from Alien. Plus, three horror experts and iconic horror directors, Roger Corman, John Landis and Eli Roth, have made a selection of the best cinematic horror from its origins, until today.

If you’re interested in music as well, at EMP you can find an exhibition called Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses, where you can explore the story through many objects and music,  of one the most iconic  groups and musical artists in the world: more than 150 instruments, artwork, photographs, albums, films and much more, this is the world’s most extensive exhibition of memorabilia celebrating Nirvana.

Here is the link to EMP’s website, where you can find more info about this beautiful cultural place. 

http://www.empmuseum.org/

October Board Games Must-Have

Board games are a huge part of autumn evenings, when you can sit at home with your boyfriend/girlfriend, friends or family with a cup of warm chocolate and have fun together playing. There are so many now on the market, that you just have to pick the best for you.

Some games are based on pure strategy, and they can last hours before you finish; some are purely based on chance. They are always based on defeating opposing players. Some plays are very simple, but others are amazing! Sometimes entire universes are represented in a board game, with great stories behind.

In this period the most fun board games you can find are obviously Horror or Fantasy board games. Here are my favorite ones.

 

Betrayal at House on the Hill

 

This is an amazing board game in which you explore a haunted mansion encountering spirits and frightening omens. You will build your own haunted house, room by room. There are maximum six characters, so this game is conformed for three to six players. Many great designers and artists have had a collaboration to create this board game: Rob Daviau, Bruce Glassco, Bill Mc Quillan, Mike Selinker, Teeuwynn Woodruff, Dennis MC Clain, Christopher Moeller, and Peter Whitley.

One of the characters betrays the rest of the players, and the purpose is to discover who it is before it’s too late. This game quickly builds suspense, excitement and a spooky atmosphere, so you can have fun with it and play especially on Halloween!

 

The Witches

I’m currently reading a book called Witches Abroad, the twelfth Discworld novel of the English writer Terry Pratchett, known worldwide for his fantasy-comical novels. The Discworld is one of the most famous comical fantasy novel series. The books frequently parody or takes inspiration from other famous authors, like J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare.

This board game draws on some of the characters and situations described by Pratchett.

This is one of the most amazing games on the market, that’s the creation of an entire world. You have a huge map, where the players move while playing, and several cards with different meanings. The design of this game is stunning!

In the game you take on the part of a young trainee witch, and being a witch you are stuck in different situations, like solve other people’s problems, or fighting back an invasion of elves.

This is an amazing adventure game, and the story behind is fantastic. Absolutely recommended to read some of Pratchett’s books before playing, so you can understand perfectly the world in which you’re in when you’re playing.

And look at the dices, aren’t they cool?

The amazing artists that created the board game are Martin Wallace and Peter Dennis.

This one I have is the second of three games by Martin Wallace. Can’t wait to have the other two games!

Betrayal at House on the Hill and The Witches are two professional board games, where you have everything: strategy, an amazing story behind, suspense, and sometimes you need to have a bit of luck while playing.

And, as I said, October is the perfect period for those kind of games.

Horror Art and Legendary Ghost Ships: The Flying Dutchman

For many artists, their art has a very strong correlation with horror; this is because the purpose of paintings is always to represent feelings, whatever they are good or bad: they can represent for example fear, sadness, scary moments in life, or spooky legends.  

Albert Ryder (1847 – 1917) was an American allegorical painter with a very eccentric personality that used to paint beautiful seascapes; his most amazing work represent an ancient myth from nautical folklore: The Flying Dutchman.

 Legend has it that a Dutch man-of-war was lost in the stormy weather in front of the Cape of Good Hope and couldn’t make port; the entire crew died onboard, stricken with pestilence; there are common superstitions of mariners of a divine punishment for a dreadful crime of the men; many claims it was a pirate ship.

There have been many reported and alleged sightings in the 19^th and 20^th centuries of other ships; people claim to have seen a ship glowing with a ghostly light, or even real presences onboard, screaming for justice and help.

The scientific explanation given by experts is that it probably was a mirage seen at sea by several people, and that this kind of phenomena was common when they sailed for days and days in the ocean. But, no one could ever explain how it’s possible that several people in different ships saw the exactly same scene in the same period of time and wrote it down in different diaries and books.

Ryder is not the only one who represented this legend, in fact it was also represented by illustrators, and described by different authors in different period, such as George Barrington in his volume A Voyage to Botany Bay in 1795.

This is one of the most known ship ghost stories, but we have many more. It’s an important part of ancient literature, and as we analyze horror we cannot avoid to talk about how many sea legends there are.

The Flying Dutchman also inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, his longest major poem.

The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

The Fall of the House of Usher is a short story written by the amazing Edgar Allan Poe, one of my favorites and a perfect October reading.

The book was published in 1839, when Poe lived in Philadelphia, and reading it you find all the most important features of gothic literature, mixed with the main characters’ psychological analysis, one of Poe’s most popular characteristics.

The author describes as a first person narrator the story of his stay at the House of Usher, home of one of his best friends.

The narrator receives an unexpected letter from his dear Roderick Usher in which he tells that he is not well, having severe mental issues. The friend then decides to go visit him to help him face this difficult time.

When he arrives, the setting is really scary and disturbing; the House is characterized by gloomy and faded walls; around the house there are several dark reeds, rotten trunks and a very dark little lake that reflected everything around it.

After being received by house’s butler, the two friends meet in a large and mystic room, full of books, paintings and ancient instruments. Roderick is very pale, and he tells to his friend that his presence will for sure help him. Roderick has a sister, Lady Madeleine, who is as well very ill.

In the Fall of the House of Usher you experience how a haunted house is, secret crypts and stunning storms. You have adventure, horror and drama all together.

Halloween Movie Night: REC

Usually the best scary movies are American, but this is not the case: REC is a Spanish zombie horror film shot in Barcelona, Spain, and directed by Spanish producer Jaume Balaguerò. The movie has the same “shaky camera” techniques as The Blair Witch Project, and this makes the film really realistic. REC is filmed as a found footage movie, in which the protagonists are trapped in a scary house where strange and horrible things happen. A reporter and her cameraman manage to record everything that happens; apparently, there is an infection and they cannot be rescued from the situation.

The film was shown on several Festivals around the world (also at the famous Venice International Film Festival), and when the producer was interviewed, he said that the most important influence for their movie wasn’t other movies, as it usually is, but TV; in fact, they wanted to create an original horror movie, played like a TV Show, and analyzing the aspects of not being able to escape from your fears.

This movie has received very positive critics and is considered a really original movie, that catches the attention of the audience during the entire experience.

This is a movie recommended for Halloween night, because there is a solid story behind and it’s realistic.

Thanks to the success of the first movie, the crew was able to do a sequel in 2009, portraying the events that followed after the end of the previous film.

 

 

Halloween Must-See: The Addams Family

This is a brilliant show that can be considered a real classic Gothic Horror TV series. If you have not seen it yet, you just have to, and this is the perfect period; The Addams Family is an iconic TV show, and its enduring popularity had led to numerous references in popular culture, and has inspired artwork, music, films, games and musicals.

 

Charles Addams (1912 – 1988), has become one of the most popular American cartoonists after creating the first sketches of The Addams Family in 1938, that was published for the first time in the American magazine of reportage and satire The New Yorker. His idea was that of creating a satirical inversion of the classical American family, but with darkly humorous and macabre characters. The family lives near a graveyard in a Victorian mansion, sharing macabre interests. But, they are not depicted as an evil family, on the opposite, they are very kind with each other, and friendly with their visitors; the only thing is that they are very strange. And that’s the feature that makes this TV show so hilarious.

There have been several TV series productions during the years; the first of them was all shot in black and white and was produced in 1964 by the ABC TV network. The New Addams Family was filmed in 1998 in Canada. The original story was proposed, but with more modern elements and jokes.

 There have also been several film productions, as Halloween with The Addams Family, in 1977, where the family celebrates Halloween together.

The music is also a very important part of the show, and a CD compilation of The Addams Family TV series was released in 1981; there have been several musicals, and there will be more: in 2017 a brand new musical of the Addams Family will be played in the UK.

In 2010 it was announced that a film of The Addams Family would have been produced by the brilliant Tim Burton, a stop-motion animated film based on Charles Addams’s original drawings, but unfortunately, it has been cancelled. Let’s hope they will get again on this idea in the future because it would be awesome if Tim Burton directed a movie like this.