In honor of October, I'm actually doing a giallo/Italian horror marathon, since that's one area of my film literacy where I'm really lacking.

I figure I'll hit some of the Argento classics (Suspiria, Tenebre, Deep Red, Opera, etc.), a few of the Fulci films (still undecided; maybe City of the Living Dead, Don't Torture…

Hah. You know, I didn't think of it that way, but...yeah, I'd say that's a reasonable parallel.

They could, but that might be a good idea, so the machine would recommend against it.

They could, but that might be a good idea, so the machine would recommend against it.

I'm not so much a Sonic fan as "someone who played Sonic games back in the day".

Really, I don't have anything against it per se; it's just that it actually hurt to see them pumping money into Sonic games that were, at the time, pretty mediocre, while short-changing genuinely interesting or ambitious projects.

But…

Hah, well, like I said...Sinister is a mixed bag. Like a lot of horror movies, it's at its best when it's showing very little.

Really, it starts going downhill as soon as they do the "and then the face in the photograph MOVES!" thing. Then we get "The Creepy Dead Kid Ballet Presents: Swan Lake", and...yeah.

When it's…

Eh, it gives me an opportunity to nurse my grudge against SEGA, so I'm okay with it.

Granted, I hold a grudge over things like Yakuza and how they dicked over Obsidian in favor of Gearbox's terrible Aliens game (all while churning out, at the time, mediocre-to-awful Sonic games).

I admit that I haven't looked at the new Sonic game, because to me, that franchise has been so thoroughly poisoned that it…

Granted, I hold a grudge over things like Yakuza and how they dicked over Obsidian in favor of Gearbox's terrible Aliens game (all while churning out, at the time, mediocre-to-awful Sonic games).

I admit that I haven't looked at the new Sonic game, because to me, that franchise has been so thoroughly poisoned that it…

But that would be a good decision that might make them money, so that's just even more confusing.

Oh, sure. I prefer the DS version myself, for that reason (and because the iOS interface feels subtly slower).

But...copies of some of the games are becoming harder and harder to find, so it's nice to have a fall-back option.

It sometimes seems like Capcom stole SEGA's patented "bad decision machine".

Only, SEGA is still making incredibly bad decisions a lot of the time, so...I dunno, I'm stumped.

Oh thank god, someone else recommending "Behind the Mask".

It does the same thing as "Scream" tried to do, only about 10 times better.

John Dies at the End is one of the funniest and simultaneously most horrifying books I've read in a long time.

I actually liked "This Book is Full of Spiders" as well, though something felt just a little bit...different.

John Dies at the End is one of the funniest and simultaneously most horrifying books I've read in a long time.

I actually liked "This Book is Full of Spiders" as well, though something felt just a little bit...different.

Excellent. Now we're in my wheelhouse.

First, some stuff that's on Netflix (or available via streaming elsewhere):

American Mary - a brilliantly subversive little character piece about a young surgical student who enters the world of underground body modification.

Trick 'r Treat is to Halloween what "A Christmas Story" is to Christmas.

It, along with, well, "Halloween", is a must-see for the season.

Oh, I understand the reasons for the digital download thing, and it's better than not getting the game at all, without a doubt.

I just have original physical copies of all of the previous games, so it'd sorta be nice to have the full set, you know?

Still, I'm not one of those "I am going to boycott Capcom over this!"…

If they would do that, (almost) all would be forgiven.

Just a note, if you want to play the earlier ones without searching for (increasingly hard to find) physical copies:

The first three games are available on the Apple app store, and there's practically no difference between the iOS version and the DS version.