Above Average Joe Blogs

Cannily enough, the last time Stephen King's mammoth sized horror epic It got an adaptation it was 1990. Then It was adapted into a tv-movie starring the inimitable, sinister voiced, Tim Curry. Now 27 years later, just like the titular monster's feeding cycle, It is back, and ready to feast on the fears of children. And unfortunately, that's about the only peer group I suspect will find this, whilst wonderfully made bit of 80s retro kids on bikes adventuring throwback, scary. But before we dive deep into that tautologically turgid claim a few side notes. First, I'm not a mega Stephen King fan. That isn't saying I dislike him but I've only read a handful of his books, although considering how vast his body of work is maybe that isn't too bad. The first King book I read was Cell, which I read in high school. That was a twist on the zombie apocalypse genre, where all the mobile phones in the world suddenly let out a phone call which, if answered, turns th...

Loving Lovecraft So life gets in the way every so often and the again planned review of Under the Shadow has fallen by the wayside again (I will not promise to make it the next blog entry's topic as I can't seem to keep it!) but in its place is something I hope you will find equally entertaining.  He looks friendly... When I was around 14 or 15 a video game for Xbox came out call Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. I was instantly intrigued a) by the fact that this was touted as a horror game without zombies or ghosts and goblins but instead about unknowable horrors for the depths of space and the ocean, and b) how on earth to pronounce its title (try Cu-thu-lu). Good luck When I finally got my hands on the game I was not disappointed. The game was set in the early 1900s, following a private investigator investigating (as private investigators a want to do) the disappearance of a boy in the seaside town of Innsmouth. Naturally when he goes looking for the...

Joe's Little Blog of Horrors  "We have such sights to show you..." Vital Stats  Name : Joe McCormack (Joe Kerr if I ever wanted a stage name, that's it) Age : Endless (or 26) Nationality : British-Australian - with the accent of your typical British villain Job : Out of work law graduate, looking for work in criminal law (think mildly less sleazy Saul Goodman) and currently employed as casual at Myer packing up all your pervy orders of g-strings, bras, minimisers (and that's just the men! Ho, how funny!) Why blog : Inspired by my current audiobook - A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay - and his framing device of introducing each part of the book through a horror blogger analysing the fictional documentary that makes up the bulk of the book.  I've been obsessed with horror from an early age. My earliest memories of horror were things like A Nightmare Before Christmas, the Tim Burton film (but not directed by him, that honour goe...