And can cross running water.

Air through the teeth on that one. And of course, when something I assume is an actual discussion hits the stone wall of name-calling, I check out. So, well done, internet person.

You're right that the Doyle stories aren't the kind to engage in fisticuffs and the like. But that just allows for interpretation. You see Holmes asking the former military man if he's armed as suggesting that Watson is not up to the task of defending himself, while I see it as Watson being the guy who does the dirty…

[Sheepily raises hand.]

Eh, they're not totally divorced from the source material. The films extrapolate a LOT but the basics are there. Doyle explains that Holmes is an expert hand to hand combatant (although he fumbles on the name of the martial art he knows) and whenever there is trouble brewing, Holmes always checks to make sure Watson…

We should form a support group to protect us from all the bullies.

That was the first thing I saw him in where I noticed him. Then he started popping up in tons of stuff, and I looked back at things I'd seen before and he was there but now I recognized him. So at the very least that movie has that going for it: introducing me to a great character actor.

I enjoyed both of them. They do have very little to do with Doyle's stories, but they don't actively contradict any of them.

Horror movies aren't scary. They're only pretend scary. They're good for a few seconds of terror that quickly fade because we all know it's fake.

Religion is the balm that soothes supernatural fears. It completely robs the horror of the horror.

Then you find out that is actually from a story by Ambrose Bierce, and while an effective "scary story" is obviously fucking fiction and nobody should be trying to pass it off as anything else.

Even the story it's based on is intentionally over-the-top and silly while still trying to be disturbing.

Ah, Bess Armstrong. I'd fly the high road to China with her any day.

The rules for dealing with vampires are pretty indelibly stamped in everyone's mind. Dracula is enormously powerful at times - in the book, as Van Helsing lists off the guy's undead powers it just goes on and on and on - but he can be held at bay by a wafer of bread. And done in by a bowie knife.

One thing about practical effects vs. CGI is that, because of the limitations of practical effects, and the fact that they are easier to spot but also clearly in the frame with the actors, they almost always work for me. In that I find them more creepy and otherworldly because they are obviously "off" in a literal…

I was too young to see this movie when it came out. In fact, when I first heard about it, I thought it would be about Ben Grimm.

It might move away from a hot needle, say.

It still hurts.

You can see studio interference all over that film. Somewhere there's a good version of it - but we'll never be able to see it.

More importantly to the themes of this show, although Alan gets his powers from a lump of space rock, he doesn't actually work in space or have alien friends or bosses who call themselves the Guardians of the Universe.