Have you ever psychoanalyzed an alien? That’s the premise behind the Russian film “Sputnik” which was released in 2020. How does this situation come about? Two Russian cosmonauts are floating in space in the 1980s when their ship encounters… something. It’s never really clear what, and not really necessary to understand. Later, when they crash…

Early on in my viewing of “Hell of a Summer” I took a note that read: This is as if Woody Allen made a slasher. As the film went on, I realized that summation wasn’t quite right, but it wasn’t totally off. The film is definitely in the comedy/horror space, and the comedy is mostly…

Many years back, with films like “Hostel” and the “Saw” series, we had the advent of what was called torture porn. This basically involved scenes of people being strapped down and gruesomely mutilated. With 2017’s “Truth or Dare“, we have what I would call “self torture porn.“ The plot is basic enough. Several college students…

If you’ve been following the world of horror entertainment, you’re aware  there’s been a rise of films that take intellectual property recently deposited into the public domain as their source material. There was, for instance, a “Winnie the Pooh as a monster” film recently, and also something involving Popeye.  I was not aware that Mickey…

Here’s the link https://bibliophiliatemplum.wordpress.com/2025/06/30/the-mirror-man/

I recently learned about a concept in the world of philosophy, called the regression of interpretation. Essentially, it’s the idea that to define a word, you need to use other words, which themselves need to be defined. I could say a tree is a “cylindrical plant with limbs and leaves,” but then I need to…

A few interesting thoughts related to storytelling hit me this morning. I did some research on it, and I’m far from the first to come up with this stuff, but it seems worth considering. Part of human evolution involved developing the ability to track the social status of members of small groups/tribes, etc. So, knowing…

So I’m currently reading a rather dense introduction to the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. (Or maybe I’m the dense one. I’m not sure.) I’ve known about him for years, and have always been interested in his phrase “the meaning is the use,” which I took to mean that a word’s meaning does not come from…

Horror sequels can be tough to pull off. Often the original lays out a series of perplexing events (teenagers dying in their dreams, for example) and then provides an explanation (Freddy Krueger was killed by those teenager’s parents and seeks revenge.) When you get to the sequel, the mystery is gone.  Sometimes screenwriters handle this…

You’ve encountered killer weed, but killer weeds? Cat and her husband take residence in a summer cabin on a lake. Various tensions start to flare (her husband’s a real dbag) and Cat finds herself drawn to… something in the water. This story has a kind of “simmering cool” that reminded me of a Steven Soderbergh…

Gather round, young ones, and let me tell you about a mysterious bygone era known as the eighties. This was before all your newfangled internet and AI chatbots. Movies were a trip back then. If you missed them when they played in the theater, you had to wait and hope they showed up at your…

AI horror is gonna lure me every time. You might recall my rave review for the critically maligned “evil Alexa” movie “AfrAId” a while back. Stories about the fears of AI just really tickle my philosophical funny bone. As a result, I knew I would eventually see “Companion” (about an intelligent sexbot) when I saw…

Many people are probably familiar with the Satanic Panic of the 80s and 90s where at least dozens of people across the country were accused and convicted of committing fantastical crimes – child sacrifices, weird sexual abuse – then shown to be innocent. It’s a fascinating instance of mob mentality gone bad (I guess it…

There’s a timeless premise for horror movies: young people do something horrible and are punished for it. It’s the conceit of “I Know What You Did Last Summer”, “Soriority Row”, “Carrie” and even my new novel “The Mirror Man.” (How’s that for subtle advertising?) 2020’s “The Call” follows this path as well. New kid in…

I’m pleased to announce my second horror novel, The Mirror Man,” is arriving at Amazon on May 1st, 2025. Pre-orders available now. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DYBKTX7Y Blurb: What you don’t say can still kill you. When a viral sex video humiliates a small-town beauty queen, college student Mason Gutierrez’s friends join in the online mockery. Mason stays quiet,…