2025 October Horror Challenge "52 "They/Them"

The Haunting Reflection of Horror: How They/Them Triggered Memories of Pine Rest

Horror has always been a lens through which I navigate fear and trauma, allowing me to confront danger from a safe distance. As someone who survived institutional abuse, I have relied on horror movies as a coping mechanism, using them to explore fear, powerlessness, and survival without being fully overwhelmed. The Peacock original film They/Them struck me with a force unlike anything I had experienced before. Its depiction of a conversion therapy camp mirrored aspects of my own lived experience, evoking both validation and intense psychological discomfort. Watching the film brought buried memories to the surface and forced me to confront trauma that has shaped my life for decades. To fully understand why They/Them impacted me so profoundly, it is necessary to contextualize my own experiences with institutional abuse and coercive therapy.

My Experience at Pine Rest

At seventeen, while in foster care, I faced a perilous situation at home. My probation officer considered sending me back despite repeated threats to my life from my brother. In a desperate attempt to protect myself, I took an entire bottle of pills, reasoning that if I survived, I would remain under supervision and avoid being returned to an unsafe environment. This led to my hospitalization and subsequent transfer to Pine Rest, an inpatient therapy facility in Grand Rapids, where I endured what they termed “reparative therapy.” The facility claimed it could “cure” deviant behavior, targeting not only my history of self-harm but also my gender-nonconforming presentation. The therapy itself was a combination of mind-control tactics and coercion: I was forced to write lines hundreds of times, obey arbitrary rules, and accept punishment for asserting autonomy. The methods were less about helping me heal and more about enforcing compliance and control.

One night at Pine Rest crystallized the terror and humiliation I experienced there. While attempting to adjust a shower curtain with a wire coat hanger, I was confronted by orderlies, accused of having a plan to harm myself, and escorted to the so-called “quiet room.” There, stripped naked and vulnerable, I faced Dr. Masterson, the head psychiatrist. He berated me while quoting Bible verses and threatened forced medication if I continued to cry. Eventually, I was coerced into taking a combination of powerful antipsychotics and tranquilizers. The psychological and physical disempowerment of that experience—being completely at the mercy of authority figures who could manipulate, punish, and humiliate at will—remains vivid in my memory, even though a dissociative fugue has erased some details. Attempts to report potential sexual assault were dismissed; the adults who should have protected me sided with the perpetrator. The trauma was compounded by the knowledge that no one believed me and that the abuse was normalized within the institution.

Connection to They/Them

They/Them brings these horrors into the cinematic realm, dramatizing a conversion therapy camp where authority figures wield coercive control over vulnerable teenagers. The movie mirrors the power dynamics I experienced at Pine Rest: arbitrary rules, threats of punishment, enforced compliance, and rituals meant to “correct” the natural behavior of queer and gender-nonconforming youth. Specific scenes—such as teenagers being isolated, punished, or coerced to comply with religiously framed rules—resonated deeply with my memories of sitting naked in a sterile room, crying under the scrutiny of a man with the power to dictate my reality. The tension, fear, and helplessness depicted on screen brought my own trauma vividly to life, forcing me to relive the psychological and emotional weight of institutional abuse.

Emotional Impact and Validation

The emotional response I experienced while watching the film was intense and multifaceted. I felt fear, anger, sadness, and grief—emotions that are typical for trauma survivors when confronted with reminders of abuse. Yet alongside these painful emotions, there was a profound sense of validation. Seeing a fictionalized representation of conversion therapy and institutional coercion confirmed that my experiences were neither imagined nor isolated; they were part of a broader, systemic problem that affects many vulnerable youth. Horror, in this case, allowed me to confront the truth of my trauma while providing a controlled environment in which to do so. Unlike my time at Pine Rest, where control was taken from me, watching the film allowed me to observe, process, and reflect with agency.

Representation and Social Implications

The film also underscores the importance of media representation for survivors of abuse. Conversion therapy, especially in institutional settings, is rarely depicted in mainstream media, leaving many survivors without validation. They/Them challenges that erasure, portraying not only the terror and abuse of such camps but also the resilience and humanity of the survivors. For someone like me, who endured coercive control and humiliation, seeing my experiences mirrored on screen was simultaneously triggering and affirming. It reminded me that while the abuse I suffered was deeply personal, it was also part of a larger societal problem, and my survival is a testament to resilience rather than weakness.

Moreover, They/Them invites reflection on the psychological mechanisms that allow survivors to endure trauma. Horror has long been my coping mechanism, a way to externalize fear and confront it safely. The film intensified this process, forcing me to navigate memories that had been compartmentalized or suppressed through dissociation. Each moment of tension, punishment, or threat in the movie echoed the real-life fear I experienced at Pine Rest, highlighting the lasting impact of institutional abuse on survivors’ mental health. It also emphasized the importance of acknowledging trauma rather than silencing it; in the movie, as in life, surviving abuse requires both awareness and resilience.

Beyond personal resonance, the movie prompted reflection on broader social issues. Conversion therapy, particularly in institutional settings, is a practice rooted in coercion, fear, and the suppression of identity. My experience at Pine Rest demonstrates the devastating effects of such environments: the erosion of autonomy, psychological trauma, and the lasting struggle with self-blame and shame. They/Them functions not only as entertainment but also as social commentary, shedding light on systemic abuses and validating the experiences of survivors. The film’s portrayal challenges audiences to confront uncomfortable truths about how vulnerable youth are often failed by the very systems designed to protect them.

Conclusion

In conclusion, They/Them impacted me more strongly than most horror films because it reflected the very real horrors I endured at Pine Rest. Its depiction of coercive control, punishment, and conversion therapy brought buried emotions and memories to the surface, allowing me to process them in a way that was both terrifying and validating. Horror, as a genre, has long been a tool for navigating trauma, but this film was different: it forced a confrontation with the past while affirming the reality of my survival. By representing the systemic abuses of conversion therapy camps, They/Them offers both a mirror for survivors and a warning to society, highlighting the dangers of institutional control and the resilience of those who endure it. The film reminded me that the trauma I survived was real, that my responses were human and valid, and that despite the abuse I endured, I continue to live, reflect, and bear witness to these stories.

2025 October Horror Challenge #51 "Tarot"

Tarot is a film that wears its symbolism on its sleeve and invites the audience to do the same: to shuffle through images, meanings, and moods until a pattern — or a warning — emerges. At once intimate and uncanny, the movie trades in quiet dread rather than jump-scare theatrics, choosing instead to let its imagery and performances slowly insinuate themselves under the viewer’s skin. The result is a film that rewards patience and reflection, one that feels less like a narrative punch and more like a slow-reading of a deck that keeps rearranging itself.

On the surface, the plot of Tarot is deceptively simple: a small cast of characters are drawn together around a set of mysterious cards whose presence disturbs the surface reality of their relationships and histories. The movie resists the temptation to spell everything out; it offers fragments — an exchanged glance, a lingering tracking shot, a recurring card — and trusts the viewer to assemble the meanings. That obliqueness is both the film’s greatest strength and its occasional frustration. When the movie is working, ambiguity deepens into atmosphere; when it missteps, it can feel coy.

Visual and stylistic choices are where Tarot really stakes its claim. The cinematography approaches the cards as objects of both intimacy and menace: close-ups linger on texture and edge; shallow depth-of-field pushes faces into dreamy half-focus; and a muted, almost monastic color palette lets pops of crimson, gold, or faded blue command the frame like talismans. The director uses composition like a reader uses spreads — arranging figures and props so that every frame feels like a deliberate layout, a photograph meant to be interpreted. Slow dolly moves and extended takes enhance the sense that the camera itself is riffling through the lives of its subjects, looking for correspondences.

The sound design and score also deserve praise. Rather than relying on a chirpy theme or aggressive stinger cues, the film opts for an ambient, textural soundscape: low drones, distant bells, and a shifting, almost breathing undercurrent that makes silence feel populated. When music appears, it rarely underscores emotional beats directly; instead it tends to comment obliquely, adding layers to scenes without telegraphing their meaning. The cumulative effect is that the movie’s aural world becomes as tarot-like as its visual one — suggestive and resonant rather than prescriptive.

Performances are lean and measured throughout. The actors avoid melodrama, choosing instead to embody characters who are careful with their expressions and speech. This restraint is essential to the film’s mood: in a story about interpretation and projection, small gestures matter. A slight change in a smile or a hand’s hesitation does heavy narrative lifting, and the ensemble trusts the camera to catch those micro-choices. If there is a single standout, it is the lead who anchors the film with a presence that is equal parts fragile and determined; their performance gives the film a human center that makes its more surreal moments feel earned.

Thematically, Tarot plays at the intersection of fate and agency. The cards in the movie function on several registers: as catalysts for action, mirrors for character, and metaphors for the ways people attempt to organize chaos into story. The film is skeptical of simple superstition — it never posits the cards as an external magic that forces action — and instead suggests that ritual and symbol have the power to reveal latent choices and desires. In that way, the movie becomes less about prophecy and more about confession; drawing a card is a way for a character to confront what they already suspect or fear.

What makes the movie linger after the credits is its interest in interpretation — not only of cards, but of other people. Several scenes feel like exercises in reading: characters study one another for clues, misread intentions, and retrofit memories to match a new narrative. That social hermeneutic is where the film finds its modern resonance: in a culture saturated with images and explanations, how do we know when a story is real and when it’s a consoling fiction? Tarot suggests that the line is porous, and that the attempt to fix meaning is, paradoxically, a profoundly human act.

Pacing may be polarizing. The film deliberately avoids procedural momentum; it does not rush to reveal its secrets, and many scenes are allowed to breathe long after a conventional screenplay would have moved on. For viewers accustomed to plot-forward storytelling, this can feel diffuse. For others, the slow-burn approach is precisely the point: the film wants you to dwell, to return to earlier images with new associations, much as a reader revisits a card spread. The patience required is not passive; it activates the viewer’s curiosity and interpretive faculties.

There are moments where the film’s ambiguity feels like a strategy rather than an aesthetic necessity — scenes that end on evocative but inconclusive notes, or plot threads that are hinted at but never fully examined. These choices will annoy some and delight others. Personally, I found that the film’s willingness to withhold answers encouraged repeated viewing; each return offers new connective tissue. Yet, had the screenplay tightened a few arcs or offered clearer emotional payoffs for certain character choices, Tarot might have retained its mystery without occasionally drifting into neat vagueness.

Production design is another quiet hero. Set pieces, props, and costuming carry their own vocabulary: the cards themselves are treated as crafted artifacts, and the domestic spaces the characters inhabit feel lived-in and symbolic in equal measure. Small details — a stained tablecloth, a child’s drawing, an old photograph — become indexical, yielding narrative clues without becoming heavy-handed. This tactile attention grounds the film’s more metaphysical impulses and makes its symbolic flourishes feel earned.

Contextually, Tarot sits comfortably among recent films that privilege mood over exposition and thematic suggestion over plot resolution. It is not a genre exercise in the conventional sense, nor is it strictly arthouse; rather, it walks a liminal line, borrowing from both to create a hybrid that will appeal to discerning viewers who enjoy cinema as puzzle and poetry. Its strengths lie less in immediate thrills and more in the compound resonance of image, sound, and performance.

In conclusion, Tarot is an evocative film that rewards careful attention. Its achievements are many: striking cinematography, nuanced performances, and a thematic core that interrogates how humans make sense of uncertainty. Its limitations — a pacing that demands patience and a fondness for ambiguity that occasionally borders on withholding — will determine whether viewers fall in love with its mysteries or walk away wanting. For those willing to be read, to sit with questions rather than answers, Tarot offers a richly textured cinematic experience that lingers like a remembered dream.

2025 October Horror Challenge #50"I Know What You Did Last Summer"

I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) — A Review and Reflection 1. Revisiting Summer: From the Novel to the Original Film

The 2025 version of I Know What You Did Last Summer arrives as both a tribute and a retread, resurrecting a familiar premise first born in Lois Duncan’s 1973 novel. In her book, Duncan spins a suspenseful, character-driven tale: four teens — Julie, Ray, Helen, and Barry — cover up an accidental hit-and-run and are later terrorized by ominous, anonymous notes warning that someone knows their secret. Unlike a slasher, there is no fisherman with a hook in the novel; the menace is psychological, not physical. Duncan herself was deeply critical of later film adaptations for their sensational violence.

The 1997 film, written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Jim Gillespie, reimagined Duncan’s contemplative mystery as a classic ’90s slasher. Instead of a moral reckoning, the characters are stalked by a masked “Fisherman” wielding a hook — a decidedly more visceral threat than anything in the book. This change not only heightens the tension but shifts the tone: what was once a story about guilt becomes a spectacle of survival. While the movie was never hailed as masterful horror, it found its audience as a slick, campy slasher. Its legacy is inseparable from its era, riding on nostalgia, jump scares, and a memorable villain.<>

2. My Childhood Connection: Reading the Novel as a Little Girl

I first encountered Duncan’s I Know What You Did Last Summer when I was quite young — maybe in middle school. To my younger self, the book was both thrilling and terrifying in a way that few stories were. It wasn’t graphic, but the weight of secrecy, the question of moral responsibility, and the slow-building tension stayed with me. Duncan’s prose moved quickly, and I remember reading late into the night, turning pages on the edge of my bed, heart pounding.

Back then, I had no concept of slasher culture; the idea of a Fisherman with a hook was foreign to me. Instead, I fixated on the “who sent the note?” mystery, on what it means to do something terrible and then pretend it never happened. That innocence made the book’s emotional stakes feel real. Re-reading it years later, I was struck by how little had changed about myself: I was still drawn to tension, to secrets, to the question of whether the past can truly be buried.

3. Christopher Pike’s Chain Letter — Uncredited Echoes

As I grew older, I also devoured teen horror novels of the ’80s and ’90s, including Christopher Pike’s Chain Letter. Though Pike certainly has his own voice, there is no denying thematic overlap: in Chain Letter, a group of young people receive threatening letters after some dark event, and the suspense escalates as the chain continues. (While Pike uses more “rules” around the chain letter concept, the core is similar: guilt, anonymous menace, peer betrayal.)

Some readers and critics have accused Pike of borrowing heavily from Duncan’s premise. While I wouldn’t call it plagiarism — Pike’s book is creative, and it resonated with me deeply — the similarities are striking. Yet Chain Letter stands on its own merits: Pike weaves psychological horror with teenage angst, moral dilemmas, and the reality that secrets don’t stay buried. It was a favorite of mine, even if I recognized, in the back of my mind, echoes of I Know What You Did Last Summer.

4. The 2025 Film: A “Requel” With Nostalgia and New Ambition

The 2025 film doesn’t just reboot — it requels. Rather than ignoring the past, it leans into legacy: Jennifer Love Hewitt (Julie) and Freddie Prinze Jr. (Ray) reprise their roles — older, scarred, and haunted by their history. The new protagonists — Ava, Danica, Milo, Teddy, and Stevie — replicate the moral predicament of the original: they cause an accident on July 4, swear secrecy, and a year later, someone is making sure they pay.

This approach to legacy feels deliberate. According to Roger Ebert, the writers hint at deeper themes — corruption, class, and privilege — suggesting that the sins of the past are part of a larger system. There’s also a meta angle: true crime podcasts, power dynamics, and a generational reckoning. But for all its ambition, many reviewers argue that the film fails to deliver on these ideas.

5. Strengths and Missed Opportunities

One of the film’s strongest features is its balance of fan service and fresh faces. Returning stars lend nostalgia, while the new cast brings energy. Entertainment Geekly notes that the legacy actors’ appearances feel “more like fan service than meaningful story beats,” but suggests they do anchor the film emotionally. Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, and the rest often shine, but critics argue the script underutilizes them.

Pacing is another common criticism. According to TheMovieBlog, the opening is rushed, the middle drags, and the final act’s payoff feels anticlimactic. Roger Ebert echoes this, calling the editing disjointed and the tonal shifts jarring: some kills are cartoonishly gory; others are emotionally hollow. The cinematography and score are competent but unremarkable, leaning on genre conventions without surprising the viewer. Entertainment Geekly points out that often when the movie tries to signal deeper meaning — through class critique or generational trauma — it retreats into nostalgia and gore. Moreover, the killer reveal and motive do not land for many. Hollywood Insider says the twist is telegraphed yet unsatisfying, calling the script “uneven” in tone. The intention to explore power or institutional neglect feels undercooked. Even when the film teases larger social commentary, it often reverts to slasher mechanics.

6. How the Requel Echoes—And Diverges From—Its Roots

In terms of structure, the 2025 film mirrors the 1997 original: a group of privileged young people makes a deadly mistake, then suffers the consequences. But the requel also recontextualizes that structure. By bringing Julie and Ray back, the film creates continuity — their trauma is not just past, but present. Their survival becomes part of the myth, and their regrets carry forward.

Unlike the original movie, which leaned into slasher tropes exclusively, the requel flirts with a broader palette: true crime commentary, class critique, and the legacy of violence. Yet, as critics note, these ambitions are not fully realized. Roger Ebert argues that the film “feints” at meaning but lacks the courage to fully challenge the structures it hints at. Instead of a clean slasher film or a sharp social satire, the requel resides somewhere in between — and sometimes that in-betweenness feels like diluted identity.

Still, the film gets points for bravery. It doesn’t erase the past; it demands that characters reckon with it. The fact that Julie and Ray have aged, changed, and carry their scars adds emotional texture. And by positioning the new generation against that legacy, the movie suggests that some secrets cast long shadows.

7. Comparing the Requel to the Novel and to Pike’s Chain Letter

From my perspective as someone who read the novel as a child and grew up reading Pike, the 2025 film is the most novelistic of the cinematic adaptations — not because it abandons slasher violence, but because it centers its conflict around legacy, secrecy, and guilt. While Duncan’s original was quietly psychological, the requel ramps up the horror; yet it also channels her deeper themes of regret and moral responsibility more than the 1997 movie did.

Regarding Pike, there’s something almost poetic in how the requel mirrors the structure of Chain Letter even as it hearkens back to Duncan. The letters, the group’s secret, the sense that someone is watching — these are motifs both Pike and Duncan explored, and the new film weaves them together with a self-awareness that feels almost modern. Unlike Pike, who built his own mythology, the 2025 IKWYDLS feels like a conversation with the past: with Duncan’s guilt-driven mystery, with the slasher lineage, and even with Pike’s psychological tension.

8. Personal Reflection: Nostalgia, Growth, and What We Did

Watching the requel felt deeply personal to me. As someone who first read Duncan’s book as a little girl, I saw echoes of the guilt that haunted the teens, but I also felt a longing for more: more risk, more insight, more emotional weight. The movie reminds me that the past is not static — that the choices we made long ago still ripple.

I also felt a pang of disappointment: the requel could have leaned harder into its thematic ambitions. The commentary on privilege, power, and forgotten trauma is tantalizing, but I wished it had more teeth. That said, the legacy aspects — revisiting Julie and Ray, honoring their survival — gave me a bittersweet satisfaction.

As for Pike, I recognized his ghost in the letters, in the secrecy, in the twisted sense that someone is punishing you for what you thought you buried. The requel doesn’t copy Chain Letter; it dialogues with it, acknowledging its influence even as it reclaims the original narrative.

9. Verdict: A Mixed But Meaningful Legacy

Ultimately, I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) is not a perfect film. It struggles with pacing, tone, and ambition, and some of its thematic threads feel half-baked. Critics have noted that it leans heavily on nostalgia and doesn’t always justify its existence beyond fan service. But it is meaningful. As a requel, it succeeds in honoring its roots — the novel, the original film, the emotional core — while attempting to say something new about history, grief, and the price of secrecy. For me, it’s not just another slasher: it’s a reckoning. If you loved Duncan’s book for its moral weight, or Pike’s Chain Letter for its psychological chill, or the original 1997 movie for its hook-laden thrills, there is something here to chew on. The new IKWYDLS may not rewrite the past, but it asks us to consider how much of that past we carry — and whether ghosts ever truly let go.

2025 October Horror Challenge #49 "Beetlejuice"

“Beetlejuice”: Finding Companionship in the Afterlife of the Imagination

Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice (1988) is one of those rare films that manages to blend the macabre with the hilarious, the gothic with the heartfelt. For many viewers, it’s a bizarre, unforgettable ride through the afterlife; for me, it was something even more intimate. Watching Beetlejuice as a lonely and isolated child, I found in its ghostly world the companionship and magic I longed for but could never quite reach in real life. Burton’s strange and wonderful creation showed me that even the misunderstood, the dead, and the outcast can find their place—and perhaps even their people—somewhere in the in-between.

At first glance, Beetlejuice is a comedy about death, but beneath its eccentric humor lies a surprisingly tender story about belonging. The film begins with Barbara and Adam Maitland (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin), a young married couple who die suddenly in a car accident and return home as ghosts. Their cozy Connecticut house, once a peaceful haven, is soon invaded by a loud, tasteless New York family—the Deetzes—and their darkly dressed teenage daughter Lydia, played by a young Winona Ryder. The Maitlands are horrified by the Deetzes’ attempts to redecorate and “modernize” their home, and they seek to scare them away. But the Maitlands aren’t very good at haunting, so they turn to a “bio-exorcist,” the wild and chaotic Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), for help. What follows is a gothic carnival of hauntings, possessions, and otherworldly bureaucracy—all underscored by Burton’s unmistakable visual style.

As a child, I didn’t understand all the adult jokes or the satire of suburban culture, but what I did understand was loneliness. Like Lydia, I was often isolated, cut off from other children and from the normal rhythms of life. I didn’t go to school, didn’t have playdates, and didn’t know what it was like to be part of a crowd. My world was small and silent, filled mostly with books, imagination, and longing. When I first saw Beetlejuice, it felt like someone had opened a secret door into a place where loneliness wasn’t a curse—it was a kind of magic. Lydia wasn’t afraid of ghosts; she welcomed them. She could see the dead when others couldn’t, and that ability made her special rather than strange. Watching her form a friendship with Barbara and Adam felt like watching my own wish come true: the dream of finding kindred spirits, even if they came from the other side.

The ghosts in Beetlejuice aren’t malicious or frightening; they’re simply lost. They’re trying to make sense of the strange, bureaucratic world of the afterlife, flipping through manuals and attending appointments with the same kind of bewilderment I often felt trying to navigate the real world. As a child who had to teach myself things—reading, writing, understanding people—I recognized something familiar in the Maitlands’ confusion. They wanted to do the right thing but didn’t know how. They were, in their own way, like me: well-meaning but out of place. The tenderness with which Burton portrays them reminded me that kindness can exist even in unlikely places, and that sometimes, the most misunderstood souls are also the most generous.

Visually, Beetlejuice is a masterpiece of creative chaos. Burton’s use of exaggerated sets, vivid colors, and surreal design elements creates a world that feels both cartoonish and deeply emotional. The afterlife scenes—complete with sandworms, skeletal civil servants, and waiting-room ghosts—are a playground for the imagination. For me, that imaginative world was everything. It showed that the bizarre could be beautiful, that even the grotesque could be comforting. When I was a child with few real connections, the film’s haunted house became a kind of home for my mind. I wanted to wander through its hallways, to meet the Maitlands and have them teach me how to float above my fears. I even wanted to sit on the couch in the waiting room for the dead, because at least there, everyone seemed to have a story.

What makes Beetlejuice endure is not just its strangeness, but its heart. Beneath the jokes and special effects is a message about family and acceptance. Lydia, who begins the film feeling alienated from her shallow parents, finds love and protection in the ghosts next door. Barbara and Adam, who can’t have children in life, find in Lydia the daughter they never had. Their connection crosses the boundaries between life and death, proving that belonging is not about where you are—it’s about who sees you and understands you. For a lonely child watching from the outside, that message was a lifeline. It told me that even if I didn’t fit in with the living, there might still be a place for me somewhere, with someone.

Michael Keaton’s performance as Beetlejuice is a chaotic force of nature, but even his character, for all his vulgarity and madness, fits into this theme of outsiders seeking connection. He is desperate to be noticed, to be called upon, to be included. In some strange way, his manic energy reflects the darker side of loneliness—the craving for attention that can twist into mischief when left unchecked. Watching him, I understood that loneliness can make you both creative and chaotic, playful and destructive. Yet in the end, the film suggests that redemption, or at least understanding, is possible.

Looking back as an adult, I realize how much Beetlejuice shaped my imagination and my empathy. It taught me that the strange parts of ourselves aren’t something to hide—they can be sources of connection. It also reminded me that family doesn’t have to mean blood relations; sometimes, it means finding people (or ghosts) who see your light in the dark. Even today, when I hear the opening notes of Danny Elfman’s iconic score, I’m transported back to that first feeling of recognition—the sense that I wasn’t entirely alone, that somewhere out there, even in the afterlife, there might be friends waiting to welcome me home. Ultimately, Beetlejuice is more than just a cult classic; it’s a story about loneliness transformed into laughter, fear turned into friendship, and death reimagined as a gateway to belonging. For those of us who grew up isolated, it offered not just escapism but hope—a colorful, chaotic reminder that even ghosts crave connection, and that maybe, just maybe, they’re listening when we call their names.

2035 October Horror Challenge #48 "Weapons"

A Review of Weapons: A Haunting, Compassionate Symphony of Trauma and Power

From the very first moments of Weapons, director Zach Cregger proves he is a bold storyteller, unafraid to wrestle with deep grief, supernatural dread, and fractured innocence. What begins as a mysterious disappearance of 17 children turns into a multilayered exploration of how trauma, power, and neglect fester beneath the surface of a quiet suburban town. The film’s structure — shifting perspectives, character-driven chapters — gives it a mosaic quality that is emotionally rich, intellectually unsettling, and ultimately cathartic.

One of the greatest strengths of Weapons is its refusal to spell everything out. As Roger Ebert noted, Cregger “abjectly refuses to connect every dot,” leaving room for metaphor, interpretation, and even discomfort. This ambiguity isn’t accidental: it mirrors the way real trauma is fragmented, how truth can be suppressed or misremembered, and how the most horrifying things sometimes defy tidy explanation.

Performances in Weapons are uniformly excellent. Julia Garner, as Justine Gandy, anchors the film with a performance that is both fragile and fierce. Her Justine carries the weight of suspicion, isolation, and hidden knowledge, and Garner imbues her with humanity even when the world around her treats her like an outsider or a witch. Josh Brolin’s Archer — a grieving father whose anger and confusion fuel one of the film’s most emotionally wrenching arcs — is also deeply compelling. The ensemble cast around them, including a haunted principal (Benedict Wong) and other characters with secret pasts, helps weave a tapestry of loss and longing.

Cregger’s screenplay is both daring and deeply metaphorical. As Esquire points out, he tackles themes like “toxic family relationships, domestic abuse, and our appalling ineptitude regarding caring for our children.” But unlike some films that treat metaphor lightly, Weapons earns its weight: the horror in this movie does not come simply from cheap jump scares, but from the unsettling idea that the real threat may lie in neglect, in unloved children, or in adults too broken to heal.

Visually, the film is evocative. The tone shifts between eerie, fairy-tale horror and gritty realism. These shifts make the more surreal, supernatural scenes — particularly those involving the sinister figure of Gladys — feel both shocking and inevitable. Some parts feel like a modern nightmare; others feel like quiet, painful memories surfacing.

The emotional core of Weapons resonated with me deeply, especially through a personal lens I carry. When I watched the story of these children vanishing, of a teacher ostracized and blamed, of parents unraveling under grief, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own past. As a little girl, I was not allowed to go to school. I taught myself to read and write in secret, piece by piece, longing for what other children took for granted. I was constantly jealous of those who could sit at desks, raise their hands, learn in a classroom. Seeing a teacher like Justine, who becomes a target — not because she is guilty, but because the town needs someone to blame — hit me in a personal way. I understood what it means to be excluded, to teach yourself, to carry a hunger for the kind of acceptance and education that others receive so freely.

That personal echo made Weapons feel more than just a horror movie. It felt like a meditation on powerlessness and resilience, on the way society weaponizes blame, and on what happens when no one protects the most vulnerable. Through Justine and Archer and others, the film shows that trauma isn’t neat — it’s jagged, stubborn, and sometimes impossible to fully eradicate, but it can also be faced and understood.

The pacing of Weapons is deliberate. While some viewers might argue that the ambiguity slows things down or that certain character arcs feel underdeveloped, I see this as a strength. The movie doesn’t rush to a tidy resolution. Instead, it allows its characters (and us) to sit in discomfort, to contemplate what it means to lose innocence, and to reckon with the cost of holding onto power. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes echo this, noting the film’s “originality” and “genre-bending” ambition.

There is also a kind of dark beauty in how Cregger frames the horror: it is not always external. Sometimes, the scariest weapon is grief itself, or the neglect that seeps into daily life. As Esquire writes, Weapons is “a killing machine that livens up an otherwise bummer summer for horror,” but beyond the gore, its real power lies in its emotional core.

The film’s structure — shifting character perspectives, interwoven timelines — supports this thematic complexity. By telling the story in chapters, Cregger lets each character’s trauma unfold on its own terms, and then shows how these individual pains connect. Justine’s journey, Archer’s grief, the principal’s shame, and even the sinister manifestations of Gladys’ power all feel interdependent. This layered storytelling gives the film a richness that lingers long after the credits roll.

In conclusion, Weapons is more than a horror movie — it’s a deeply human film about loss, blame, and survival. Zach Cregger demonstrates that he is not just a master of scares, but a thoughtful writer-director who understands how to make metaphor matter. The performances are moving, the writing is brave, and the emotional resonance is real. For someone like me, who missed out on school, who learned in quiet isolation, and who always carried a private ache for belonging and education, Weapons hit a note of truth: trauma isn’t just something that happens to “others,” and healing isn’t always obvious or clean. But it is possible to face the darkness, to name the wounds, and to strive for something like peace. If you’re a fan of horror with heart — horror that doesn’t just frighten, but also makes you think and feel — Weapons is absolutely worth your time. It’s a haunting, hopeful, and deeply affecting film that lingers in the mind long after the final frame.

2025 October Horror Challenge Personal Essay: Someone Saved My Life Tonight

When I was a teenager, I lived in an abusive home. My mother thought that she wasn't abusive because she didn't hit me or my brother, but what she did to us was worse. She pulled us out of school after I finished kindergarten and he finished first grade, and she paid tuition at an accredited home school so she would have paperwork proving that we were in school if anyone ever called protective services on her, which happened from ti.e to time, but she didn't teach us. I had to smuggle a textbook into my room when I was 10 years old and teach myself to read and write, because I knew if I ever could escape from my home life, I wouldn't survive in the world unless I knew how to read and write. Reading also helped me escape the crushing confines of my home life. I soon discovered that reading about people fighting fake monsters helped me survive the real monsters all around me, and I became a die hard horror fan who devoured Stephen King books as fast as he could write them. He soon became my favorite author, because he has a gift of saying things I've felt for years but couldn't put into words. Over the years reading his books, I saw him dedicate books to his three children, Naomi, Joe, and Owen. As years passed the kids grew up, and Joe and Owen started their own writing careers. Now, I love a good horror story no matter who writes it, and I loved Joe Hill's book "Horns," and I've heard great things about his other books, so I know he's a good author. But when Stephen King said in an interview once that Joe writes just like him, I disagreed with that statement. I mean, come on, Joe Hill is good, but he's never written anything that literally saved my life, and Stephen King has. In Stephen King's book "Rose Madder," he said something that stuck in my head and wouldn'teave, and it echoed within me until I finally did what it said, and because of that, I'm alive today.

In "Rose Madder," a woman is being abused by her husband, and she realizes one day after one beating (that isn't even as bad as some of the others) that if she stays in this relationship, she's going to die, because he's going to kill her, and if she wants to survive, she has to run away. So she does, and the book unfolds from there. But that passage wouldn't leave my head. You see, my brother was always the favored child. When we fought, if he ran to my mother crying, she would hug him and punish me. This worked from a very young age. He would sit for hours on the couch with his head in my mother's lap and she would stroke his hair, and they would talk, and she loved him and despised me. This went on for years, and while I was trying to learn to read and write, my brother was busy bonding with the enemy. Which meant they had a very special relationship, but it also meant he couldn't take out his anger on her because he would lose his favored position, but he had to put that anger somewhere, so he took it out on me. He beat me, choked me, stabbed knives into the wall next to my head, threatened to slit my throat and leave me bleeding in the bathtub. He would unlock the door while I was showering and whisper that he could get to me anytime. So I lived in fear, and I dreamed most every night that one day, he would snap and kill me. And then he'd go crying to my mother, and she would hug him and cry, and help him cover it up, and I would disappear and no one would ever know my story. I knew in my soul that this would happen. It was only a matter of time. So I lived, and I didn't fight back because he was so much bigger and stronger than me, and I knew one day I would have to do something, but I was terrified of leaving the only home I'd ever known, then one day he hit me, just a slap, didn't even leave a mark, and he told me he'd never given me "permission to speak" so he didn't want to hear a word out of me all day, or what I'd get would be ten times worse. And that made my blood run cold. Because my mother was standing right next to him when he did it, and I knew she wouldn't stop him. I had to stop him. I had to get away if I wanted to live. So I ran to a payphone outside a local store (we didn't have a phone in my home) and I called a hotline and got connected with an emergency foster care organization, and they got me out of the home that night.

Everything I've been able to do in my life is a result of that act, and I wouldn't have been able to do it without Stephen King and his book. Every time I wanted to give up in the years following that act, I would repeat the story to myself, and tell myself it was time to get busy living or get busy dying. And I wanted to give up a LOT. I encountered a lot of struggles, and I handled some of them very badly. I managed to get my GED and pass my ACT with the ambient knowledge I had obtained and soaked up in my two years in high school in emergency foster care, and I went to college and graduated with a 4.0

I've struggled a lot over the years, mostly due to undiagnosed mental health issues, but I've always clawed my way back and fought to survive, and Stephen King's words helped make it all possible. So when I say I wouldn't be alive today without his books, I really mean that. And I have a hard time being objective about his books and his writing, because he saved my life. So I really liked Joe Hill's book "Horns," but I didn't think he could write like Stephen King. Until I read "Black Phone." That's the one that gave me pause, because it's soul-ztirring in the best ways. Well done, Joe Hill. Maybe someday someone will tell you a story about how you saved their life. Great writing can do that.

2025 October Horror Challenge Book Review: "The Clatter Man" by Janelle Schiecke

Review of The Clatter Man

By Janelle Schiecke

As someone who has adored slasher movies ever since my first glimpse of a masked figure in the shadows, I went into The Clatter Man with high expectations. Slashers are my favorite subgenre of horror because they combine adrenaline, suspense, and an oddly comforting sense of familiarity—there are rules, rhythms, and archetypes that make the chaos strangely satisfying. Janelle Schiecke’s The Clatter Man captures all of that magic in novel form. It feels less like reading a story and more like stepping directly into one of those terrifying late-night movies that make you check the locks twice before going to bed.

A Love Letter to the Slasher Formula

Schiecke opens the story with an atmosphere of nostalgic menace: a group of friends traveling to an isolated cabin by a remote lake. The setup evokes the spirit of Friday the 13th, The Burning, and Cabin in the Woods—a classic scenario that instantly cues you to expect bloodshed. But before the first scream, she takes her time letting the reader sink into the camaraderie of the group. We hear the teasing between old friends, the whispered romantic tension, the bravado that masks private fears. That slice of realism makes the later horror hit harder.

What really grabbed me, though, was the way the book builds tension through sound. The name “Clatter Man” comes from the eerie, rhythmic clinking that announces his presence—something between a wind chime and chains dragged over gravel. One early scene captures this perfectly: the group is sitting by the fire, telling stories, when a faint clatter echoes across the lake. No one can tell where it’s coming from. It could be the wind, or it could be something else. It’s such a simple, cinematic moment, and it reminded me of the best jump-scare setups in slasher cinema—quiet, suspenseful, letting dread bloom before the violence begins.

When the Legend Comes Alive

The transition from campfire tale to waking nightmare is executed beautifully. There’s a scene in which one of the friends, restless and half-drunk, wanders away from the cabin at night to prove that the legend isn’t real. Schiecke writes it in a way that mimics a slow-motion camera pan: the flashlight beam sweeping through trees, the rustle of leaves, the echo of breathing. When the first clatter sounds behind him, you can practically hear the theater audience gasp. As a longtime slasher fan, I knew what was coming—and still, it got me. That’s the mark of great horror: when a predictable setup can still make your heart pound.

Character Work That Matters

Unlike many slashers that rush through character development to get to the kills, The Clatter Man invests in its cast. Each person has a distinct personality and motivation: the skeptic, the leader, the comic relief, the romantic, the reluctant believer. The author gives us just enough time with each that when the violence begins, it genuinely hurts to see them go. This isn’t just a parade of victims—it’s a group of people whose friendships and flaws feel real. I especially appreciated how one character’s emotional arc parallels the “final girl” trope but with modern nuance. She isn’t just surviving because she’s pure or lucky; she survives because she’s smart, angry, and refuses to let trauma define her.

Atmosphere and Symbolism

Schiecke’s prose is cinematic. She uses sensory detail—crickets gone silent, wind chimes swaying without wind, the metallic smell of fear—to immerse the reader fully. There’s also subtle symbolism at play: the sound of “clattering” mirrors the collapse of emotional barriers, the disintegration of friendship, and the noise of guilt echoing through the survivors. The Clatter Man becomes more than a monster; he’s a manifestation of secrets and things left unsaid. It’s that extra layer of meaning that elevates the book from a fun horror romp to something haunting.

A Scary Great Time

From a pacing standpoint, this book moves like a perfect slasher movie—tight, relentless, and visually evocative. Each chapter feels like a new scene cut from a film reel, complete with establishing shots, rising tension, and sharp climaxes. The action sequences are brutal but not gratuitous, described with enough restraint to make them unsettling without veering into pure gore. I found myself reacting exactly the way I do when watching my favorite slashers: one moment grinning at the clever setup, the next gripping the edge of my seat in dread.

By the time the story reaches its bloody finale, you can feel both exhaustion and exhilaration—just like walking out of a late-night horror marathon. The final reveal ties everything together with a satisfying blend of tragedy and terror, proving that Schiecke understands that the best slashers aren’t just about death; they’re about survival, memory, and the cost of fear.

Final Thoughts

Reading The Clatter Man felt like rediscovering why I fell in love with horror in the first place. It’s equal parts nostalgia and nightmare—a book that embraces slasher tradition while carving out its own identity. The atmosphere is chilling, the pacing impeccable, and the villain iconic enough to haunt your imagination long after the last page.

For anyone who loves slashers—the dark woods, the doomed weekend getaway, the steady build toward chaos—this is a must-read. It’s a scary, great time that proves you don’t have to be on a movie screen to feel the thrill of being hunted. Janelle Schiecke’s The Clatter Man is everything I want from horror: fast, frightening, and unforgettable. I absolutely loved it.

Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5 Stars)

Perfect for fans of: Friday the 13th, The Strangers, The Ritual, and anyone who’s ever wanted to step inside their favorite slasher movie.