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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 1h

But, hey—Obama took his coat off in the Oval Office once.

trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 10h

I’m reminded of the old joke, released or escaped?

trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 22h

Day 18

1. Shock Waves
2. The Fog
3. The Changeling

See my letterbox for 🌟-ratings and reviews; also alt-text…
boxd.it/b3JeX

#31DAYHORRORCHALLENGE
@nofspodcast.bsky.social #filmsky #horrorsky

Wet Ghosts Day 18 placard for the 31 Days of Halloween Horror Challenge 2025. A cemetery silhouette backlit with a green tint suggesting sunset.

My Letterbox Diary.
1. Shock Waves. Wet zombies that can think and plan when triggered. I wanted to see this movie and felt it counted as a wet ghost movie albeit they’re corporeal ghosts. It’s different than a normal reanimated dead scenario.
2. The Fog. In my top 10 ghost movies, Hal Holbrook does an admirable job selling ghost pirate lore in this John Carpenter classic.
3. The Changeling. A ghost story dripping in foreshadowing, before drowning us in Backstory; watery imagery pervades, an element with many deathly connotations. Perhaps the wettest ghost until the Devil’s Backbone.

A Nazis wet ghost/zombie/Frankenstein’s monster lies submerged in shallow ocean water until emerging to attack. His hand sticks out of the rippling water.

A ghost ship, also featured in Shock Waves, that strands our characters when it crashes into their pleasure cruise vessel.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 22h

Day 17

1. Baby Oopsie
2. Cooties
3. Little Monsters
4. Sometimes They Come Back Again
5. Sweet 16

See my letterbox for 🌟-ratings and reviews; also alt-text…
boxd.it/b3JeX

#31DAYHORRORCHALLENGE
@nofspodcast.bsky.social #filmsky #horrorsky

Killer Kids Day 17 placard from the 31 Days of Halloween Horror Challenge 2025. A cemetery silhouette backlit by a setting sun tinted orange.

Baby Oopsie charges with a chain saw, mouth and eyes gaping like ominous black holes!

Baby Oopsie drops an electronic in a bathtub (not pictured) and we see it leaning over the steamy smokey aftermath in a blue baby doll nightgown.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 3d

The Revenant still and a skull from Mexico.

Started on Western Wednesday (weird Western Wednesday in October)—the Revenant, a still where Leo gets his leg bitten by a bear, not Toby Maguire or a 19 year old supermodel.

trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 3d

The Town that Dreaded Sundown stills.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown title card, on a black sky with red setting sun.

Ever wonder what it would be like if Jason from part 2 boned someone with a knife tied to a trombone slide? Wah-wah. This killer, the phantom, really toots his own horn. I could write for Svengoolie.

“Now this one’s called Little Lizza Jane!”

A slasher killer plays a trombone by a high school senior tied in a white formal dress to a tree with blood on her face and arm.

The man in yellow searches down in Louisiana, just in Texarkana for the phantom, murder victims, and curious George. He’s found a murder victim tied to a tree.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 3d

Primeval stills.

A paper and headline shown in the movie Primeval updating the public about Gustave’s man-eating mission.

A true statement in 2007 albeit perhaps less likely today, Primeval tells us that the Gus got away!

Gustave hunts the only almost likeable character in the movie. The American man in a red shirt stands in shallow rust-colored water in Burundi’s Rusizi tributary, and Gustave hunts open mouthed in the tall grass, under an orange cloud and jungle covered mountain that looms in the background. We have ground eye view.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 3d

Day 16

1. The Revenant.
2. The Town that Dreaded Sundown.
3. Primeval.
4. Stephen King: A Necessary Evil. (True story seemed a good prompt for a horror doc).

See my letterbox for 🌟-ratings and reviews; also alt-text…
boxd.it/b3JeX

#31DAYHORRORCHALLENGE
@nofspodcast.bsky.social #filmsky #horrorsky

Scary Story Come To Life Day 16 placard for the 31 Days of Halloween Horror Challenge 2025. The background has a cemetery silhouette tinted purple, suggesting dusk.

My letterbox diary.
1. the Revenant. The true story of Hugh Glass adapted from a 2002 novel into a magical realism horror story; the title supports the read that Hugh Glass returns as a dead, corporeal spirit in this weird western revengematic.
2. The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Jason’s character design in Friday the 13th Part II owes a huge debt to this movie. Set in the 1940s, the documentary style seems proto-found footage, and reports the story of a lover’s lane killer similar to Fincher’s Zodiac. No Country For Old Men’s resolution also owes this film a debt, learning how to frustrate audiences for the better.
3. Primeval. A well-shot film that gives a serviceable African safari adventure, but tries to tell the story of the Burundi Civil War through the white lens of a documentary tv crew who are trying to make a documentary about capturing Gustave, the most deadly man-eating animal recorded in the last few hundred years, responsible for as many, hundreds, of deaths. The film would have done a better job focusing on Gustave primarily as a creature feature eco-horror, nature-strikes-back movie. It’s a middling drama film and a middling horror movie combined.
4. A documentary about Stephen King that told the true story of one of the greatest horror writers beside Joe R Lansdale, King being an author only beat in adaptations by Agatha Christie, Chekhov, Shakespeare, and maybe Charles Dickens and Edgar Wallace. He’s one of the most prolific and best selling writers ever.

Gustave the man eating crocodile as depicted in Primeval.

The real Gustave, a giant no-neck crocodile shows its cavernous teeth lined mouth, and bullet wounds from prior encounters. He’s a crocodile who strikes fear into the heart of other crocodiles he’s so ugly. Although Gustave has reached his 60s, and perhaps the end of his natural life, many believe this legendary man eater who has swallowed hundreds still hunts Burundi and Rwanda’s Rusizi River.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 4d

They’re busy seeking a posthumous pardon for their parents from the appeal’s court in Nuremberg?

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 4d

Stills from Re-Animator and Return of the Living Dead…

Jeffrey Combs as Dr Herbert West the Re-Animator holds a severed head in a blood splattered white medical lab coat, also wearing a black tie and large wire glasses, and holding the glowing green syringe needle channeling a young Bill Paxton in Mortuary.

A young Barbara Crampton sits on a morgue table in Re-Animator, her arms wrapped under her knees, hugging them together, as if trying to rid herself of the memory of having the severed head in a steel tray also on the table between her legs.

[Bowie voice]
There’s a tar man,
No longer contained,
He’s stained with Trioxin
And he’d like to eat your brain 🧠 🧠 🧠

The melting face of the zombie known as Tarman by fans from Return of the Living Dead, opens his mouth to flash his Joe Biden white veneers.

trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 4d

Mortuary stills.

Bill Paxton stands over a drugged girl with a hypodermic needle in a black turtleneck, channeling Steve Jobs and the Re-Animator Herbert West.

Bill Paxton looks down at a drugged woman on an embalming table.

The embalming room in a mortuary, a morgue adjacent setting. Chemical bottles set on a table in the foreground, while a tall blond protagonist stands next to a young Mortician assistant son played by Bill Paxton.

The blonde hero and his love interest holding a single flower stand next to Bill Paxton, in a suit carrying a bouquet of flowers for his mother’s grave at a cemetery during the day.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 4d

Friday the 13th: the Final Chapter stills.

A paramedic stands with her arms crossed to the left a gurney where Jason Voorhees lies covered in a white shroud and strapped down. An older paramedic with grey hair stands behind the front of the gurney and the intake physician at the morgue stands with his cheek stuffed with food to the right, his nitrate gloved hand on top of the body. The room looks like a basement hospital room with a medical poster on the wall and medical supplies visible.

The Wessex County Medical center morgue gets a shout out on the tv of the WCMC morgue.

A nurse rhodes Axel in a white medical dress uniform, him under her on a gurney, both below a gurney occupied by Jason’s corpse, albeit it’s not visible beneath a white sheet.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 4d

Day 15

1. Lifeforce
2. Friday the 13th: the Final Chapter
3. Mortuary
4. The Return of the Living Dead
5. Re-Animator

See my letterbox for 🌟-ratings and reviews; also alt-text…
boxd.it/b3JeX

#31DAYHORRORCHALLENGE
@nofspodcast.bsky.social #filmsky #horrorsky

Morgue Mayhem Day 15 placard for the 31 Days of Halloween Horror Challenge 2025. The background has the silhouette of a cemetery’s grave markers tinted green suggesting sunset.

My Letterbox Diary.
1. Lifeforce. I’m shocked any vampire movie cracked my top 10 ranked vampire movies, but I’m not surprised Toby Hooper would be the man to crack the top 10, in one of the most original and ambitious films of his career.
2. Friday the 13th: the Final Chapter. Jason comes back to life in the famous morgue opening.
3. Mortuary. New-to-me, fun to see, enjoyed it for what it was, and to see a young Bill Paxton play (spoiler 🚨) —proto-ghost face.
4. The Return of the Living Dead. One of my favorite movies, in my letterbox top 4.
5. Re-Animator. Another favorite with one of the best zombie morgue scenes of all time.

Blood floats out of a bald corpse’s face, being drawn into the air by a vampiric force.

The futuristic, luminescent space morgue in Lifeforce, where a corpse lies on a clear slab with lights embedded.

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Reposted

NPR @npr.org · 4d

The artist and illustrator created iconic posters for movie franchises like Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Back to the Future. n.pr/4n1dfOB

Drew Struzan, artist of iconic movie posters, dies at 78

The artist and illustrator created iconic posters for movie franchises like Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Back to the Future.

n.pr

5 100 500

trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 5d

Cheryl is a Florida woman podcaster who made her pod’s catchphrase “there’s no way of knowing,” a refrain meant to mock her stunning and disturbing inability to retain basic facts from the documentaries she discussed.

trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 5d

Fin

Joe Bob announces Dee Wallace in the Drive-in totals wearing a hoodie and pimp shoes (out of frame)…or dressed as a Druid. A grim reaper sets behind Joe Bob.

trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 5d

A movie theater with tile lettering marquee at night, powered off, lists a horror film festival from the movie Popcorn.

The movie marquee changes and turns on to promote Brandon Cronenberg’s first movie in 1991’s Popcorn.

Dee Wallace approaches a phantom box office that has powered up and printed out a movie ticket on its own as she clutches a handgun.

The light of a projector from a balcony sets above Dee Wallace, facing the unseen movie screen in the movie Popcorn.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 5d

The elevator operator in El Superbeasto, with the credits listing Dee Wallace as Trixie. Greats Ken Foree and Elvira aka Cassandra Peterson also have cameo credits.

The art deco throwback designed movie title to Rob Zombie presents The Haunted World of El Superbeasto. A black and white cartoon of a demon’s top half of its head sets in the background.

Superbeasto tries to get Michael Myers splatter off his dragula windshield after Myers slammed into the front of the dragula.

Michael Myers stands in the middle of the street after failing to look both ways as Superbeasto hurdles towards him. In the background a gothic city sets.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 5d

The family in Critters stand with their backs facing camera in Critters. The father has on a pink and blue bowling shirt with a pin ghost in a banned symbol mimicking ghost busters.

Dee Wallace wears a blue and pink pastel shirt that matches her husband’s Bowling Jacket in Critters while talking to her daughter in Popcorn (the still is from 🍿) who looks Lydia-Deetz coded.

My shirt for Dee Wallace day; I had already watched the Howling and Cujo and Lords of Salem this year so I didn’t revisit those. Instead I went for “new to me” and rewatched the Joe Bob Popcorn for the 3rd or 4th time.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 5d

Day 14: Dee Wallace

1. Critters
2. The Haunted World of El Superbeasto
3. Popcorn (1991)

My letterbox for 🌟-ratings and reviews; also alt-text…
boxd.it/b3JeX

#31DAYHORRORCHALLENGE
@nofspodcast.bsky.social #filmsky #horrorsky

Dee Wallace Day 14 placard from the 31 Days of Halloween Horror Challenge 2025. The background image of a cemetery silhouette has an orange tint of fading dusk.

My letterbox for Dee Wallace day.

Critters was a fun knockoff Gremlins with some critters that Farmer Vincent from Motel Hell would have loved to make into critter fritters; one critter attacks an E.T. toy meaning Dee Wallace’s character also exists in a world where she can watch her doppelgänger in a Spielberg movie. It’s a fun kiddie horror.

The Haunted World of El Superbeasto. One of the few Rob Zombie movies I hadn’t seen turned out to be one part Animaniacs and one part Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz the Cat but all parts Rob Zombie. I had a lot of fun with it. Dee has a voice cameo.

Popcorn. The early 90s classic slasher that’s sort of the American Demons (Bava’s); both involve young adults releasing evil forces via movie in a movie palace during a movie festival resulting in a supernatural slasher. I watched the Last Drive In presentation by using Just Joe Bob and a physical copy. Dee Wallace has a part as the mom withholding a secret that starts to cross over to affecting her daughter.

Dee Wallace clutches the barrel of a rifle to use as a club while looking afraid in Critters.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 5d

A Buddhist priestess from Snow Woman blesses her community in a ceremony that drives away our title monster.

Frostbiter’s cabin has an evil dead poster to let us know what they’re going for. A man in flannel and big glasses throws a can of water at the camera.

Lloyd Kaufman says, “Uncle Lloyd can make you an evil dead… look! I even put the poster of the evil dead you like in my evil dead that you also like, right kids? Wait, wait! Don’t go! I also added more T&A from Miss October! Now I have your pre-internet attention!” 🙃

Frostbiter still of a man being attacked by Chilli! Chillllli! Chilllllli!

trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 5d

Lake Michigan Monster, our four eccentrically dressed crew of characters scour out the fathom deep (6 ft) where their mission leader claims to have been attacked by a sea monster. They stand on the lake’s rocky beach, the captain leader pointing at the water from its edge. A sailor and man in a Sherpa jacket carry a canoe in the foreground. A woman standing parallel to the sailor caries a suitcase radar device.

A sign showing the location of the Wendingo, another monster movie set in Michigan!

The Wendingo rules get explained in a drawing of a cabin surrounded by skulls on spikes.

A character from Frostbite dressed in hunting flannel speaks for humanity in a cabin with saws on the walls.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 5d

Frogman still of a closeup of the love interest’s face with a fateful CC.

The title to Johnny Gruesome written over trees in front of a bridge where Johnny might have met his demise. The red Capitol letters of the title drip with blood, have a white outline, and skulls for Os

Frogman peeks from the trees in grainy footage taken by a ten year old who decides as an adult to make a documentary proving it was real.

Crows fly around a zombie Indonesian father with a hole in his head in Vera Wang dang doodle demon.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 5d

Day 13:

1. Johnny Gruesome
2. Frogman
3. Hagazussa
4. The Snow Woman
5. The Yorkie Werewolf
6. Perewangan
7. Lake Michigan Monster
8. Frostbiter: Wrath of the Wendingo

🥶 😵💀 🪦

My letterbox for 🌟-ratings and reviews…
boxd.it/b3JeX

#31DAYHORRORCHALLENGE
@nofspodcast.bsky.social #filmsky #horrorsky

Monster in the Title Day 13 placard for the 31 Days of Halloween Horror Challenge, over a cemetery silhouette tinted purple at dusk.

My letterbox diary.
Johnny Gruesome — a decent metalsploitation adjacent zombie revenant 🧟 slacker comes back to revengematic the friends who killed and covered up his death.
Frogman — a fun found footage movie in the vein of Willow Creek but with a Frogman legend in Ohio instead of a Skunk Ape.
Hagazussa — a beautifully shot Bavarian alpine answer to the VVitch that’s “deliberately or stately” paced ie slow, stunning vistas juxtaposed against body horror and cannibalistic witchery.
The Snow Woman — the best monster in the title movie from this roundup that’s a truly wonderful and original Japanese folk horror tale that’s way more accessible than the usual albeit wonderful Japanese nonsense; it’s a demon of a nature spirit who takes a woman’s form.
The Yorkie Werewolf — I had it on my watchlist for a while but found it an unwatchable disappointment, I abandoned after watching more than half. The worst of this packed day.
Perewangan — not the best Indonesian horror movie, yet it still had many memorable sequences.
Lake Michigan Monster — a horror comedy that’s rotoscopic magic; I really enjoyed this as much if not more than the 2024 top Letterbox comedy follow-up Hundreds of Beavers. It’s like Eggers’ the Lighthouse turned into a lowbrow Wes Anderson meets David Lynch absurdist master thesis, but with Tina Fey or Seth Rogan style jokes.
Frostbiter: Wrath of the Wendigo. Uncle Lloyd Kaufman’s Wendigo evil dead rip off with a chili monster who has an infectious theme song, and plenty of campy, gross out Troma fun.

Hagazussa still where weird figures stand with torches and folk animal monster masks.

The Snow Woman starts to take corporeal form in a snowy doorway.

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trwesterman.bsky.social @trwesterman.bsky.social · 6d

Heroines legal in England? I thought they’d already banned smacking.