Ghost Hunt

It’s the only anime on the list, but it’s a good one. This one leans into Japanese horror but is also still an anime. That means that it has some lighter moments in it. However, it also does have some really good horror moments in it. Mai finds herself in a school where there is a ghost. She runs into the president of the SPR, Shibuya Psychic Research, and gets a job with him. She then goes on a lot of adventures and mysteries with ghosts and other monsters. That’s the basics of it, but it’s a nice fast anime to watch that I really enjoyed.

Locke & Key

Locke & Key is a great one to checkout because the second season is coming out tomorrow. Locke & Key follows the Locke family as they return to Rendell’s home after his death. His wife and kids go there, and Bode, the youngest starts to hear weird noises. These lead him to finding keys and to finding Dodge. The keys do amazing things, very fanciful and terrifying in nature, but Dodge doesn’t seem to want to use them for quite as simple things as Bod would want.

Locke & Key is on Netflix and based off of a comic book series by Joe Hill, Stephen King’s son. The comics are much more violent and adult in nature than the show. The show on Netflix is more YA (young adult) focused, which I think works well. It still has that sense of uneasiness and dread in the show, but makes it more accessible to people. Really fun one to watch and not that long a watch.

Dark

Another Netflix show, this one about time travel and murder. I will say immediately that this is a show that is better watched sub titled than dubbed. The difference is fairly jarring while watching dubbed. And it’s a show that at least the first season, I need to watch the others, is really good. The time travel is well done and the mystery that is happening in the town works so well. The whole premise just feels like something different. And the title definitely matches what it is.

The show itself isn’t too violent or really contain many jump scares, but the mystery that is progressing throughout the story is just unsettling. The time travel works to make it even more unsettling as you go along. Aesthetically this just works really well.

Supernatural

It’s hard to make a list like this without putting Supernatural on it. I have not watched all of the show, it is a lot to get through. But it is a good show for Halloween because it is monster of the week a lot of the time. Sam and Dean are brothers who know about all the things that go bump in the night. It also has that element of angels and demons throughout the whole series as well.

Now, this is a series that you could start watching now and probably continue until Halloween of 2022, so much longer than most. And it is repetitive in what it does. But the first couple of seasons are more horror focused and tell an interesting story. Then after that it will get into more spoopy than spooky at times, but it’s still fun. There is just a ton of it so beware.

Helix

This one might be harder to track down, but this was a SyFy channel show that was basically The Thing, but not. An experiment goes wrong on the south pole and this disease or thing is spreading to people on the base. Is it an accident or is there some more nefarious plan behind it. The fact that I’m asking that question means that there is a more nefarious plot behind it, but how it unfolds is good. And who is infected and how they try and avoid getting infected works really well.

This, I think, had two seasons on SyFy. I can’t vouch for the second season, but the first is worth a watch by itself. This horror is all about the suspense of the unknown and is probably more traditional horror and jump scares than almost anything else on the list.

What Are Your Favorite Shows to Watch at Halloween?

I know there are a lot of horror shows out there that I didn’t mention and some that are more spooky than spoopy. There are shows like Grim which I need to watch again that I really liked. But are there any out there, knowing my tastes, that you think I’d like?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

Not Alone

You play as the crew of a spaceship that has crash landed onto a planet. You need to survive long enough, signaling the rescue ship to come and get you. But there is something on the land. You are not alone and there is a monster, maybe even a planet that is trying to kill you. Will you be able to survive long enough or will the player who is the monster and the planet finish off the crew members first?

This game works well because as the crew you have a good tension. You are playing down cards to go to different locations all separately from one another. You can coordinate but you need to talk so that the person playing the monster can here you. Will you try and lead them astray as to what you are doing or not? Plus, the monster can always see all the cards you’ve played. And for the monster, can you surprise them and catch a lot of them at once?

Nemesis

Another space horror game, in Nemesis, you are playing what is basically Aliens. There is an alien infestation aboard your ship and you need to deal with it. But you also need to get back to Earth, but only if there aren’t aliens on the ship. And some players will have different objectives. It might be to have another character die even. But you can’t kill, you need to let them die without it being too obvious.

A massive game, Nemesis really focuses on getting a lot of theme into what you do. It’s cooperative, but every time an alien pops up, every time you have to roll for noise to see if you might stumble across one, it could be the queen. Or you might not have ammo for your gun anymore. But you need to press on because you have to find the right room to complete your objective.

Night Cage

You awake to find yourself in a mysterious labyrinth with nothing but a candle. You can’t stand up and if you come across anyone else you can’t get past them. All you know is that there are monsters, keys you need to find to escape and portals to escape from. As you crawl around, the labyrinth twists and disappears behind you when your candle can no longer light it.

Night Cage is the game I immediately thought of for this list. It has horror in spades for such a simple game. You are moving around a grid board placing out tiles for the labyrinth around you that you can see. Every time you remove comes from a stack that is a candle burning down. It is a game that is a race against that candle trying to find a key for everyone and then a way to get them all to the same portal so they all escape. This game really needs to be played in candle light.

Deep Madness

Your submarine submerges as you listen to the message play again. It’s garbled but you can tell something has happened, something very bad. The research facility on the ocean base hasn’t been responding and you and your team are being sent down to find out what has happened. You aren’t sure what you’ll find, but you hope, beyond hope, that it won’t be too bad.

Deep Madness takes the horror to the bottom of the ocean. This cooperative game has you searching through an ocean floor base, fighting monsters, and working together to get what you need to defeat the scenario and possibly get off of this base. This one would be harder in candle light because you need to see everything that is going on, but is still thematic to filled with monsters who are out to get you.

Why These Board Games?

Because I think they provide horror. I am going to do another list coming up here soon for games that give you more of that campy Halloween feel. There games are going to be horror which is something that board games don’t do all that well. Now, you need to provide some of your own suspense and I think doing a proper setting and proper look can create that.

I’d focus on a few things to create that tension. Firstly, keep it darker. Some of these games you can’t go too dark, I’d say Nemesis and Deep madness would be hard if it were too dark. But the Night Cage, you’ll be able to get quite dark with that. Either way, leverage less than normal light and less than normal light sources. Maybe you have a lamp on in the corner to give enough light but the rest of the table has candles around it.

Also think about the ambiance in terms of sound as well. Play spooky music, not Halloween party spooky music, but the stuff at a good haunted house, where doors creak, crows call out, and everything feels like it’s just off. There is enough noise to make it obvious, but still just quiet enough that everything feels out of place when there is a bigger noise.

Which of These Board Games Would Hit Your Table?

Right now the one I really want to get to the table is Night Cage, while the game play is fairly abstracted the tension of the game is a lot of fun. It’s a really enjoyable experience with the lights on, and I can see how in candle light the tension of slipping a tile, figuring out where to put it, hoping it isn’t a monster, it works so well. The candle slowly getting lower and lower as it goes.

Let me know your horror games that you love in the comments below.

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

5- Cabin the Woods
This one falls into a lots of the categories. The story is fairly surreal, but works well in my opinion, as you get your standard cast of horror heroes, but the world of horror seems like it’s a little bit different than normal. I think this film really shines if you’re a fan of horror, because the easter eggs that are dropped in this film come on thick and the story pulls in many a trope. This film also does have a fair amount of gore, so that’s one of those things to watch out for if that’s the part of horror films that you might not like.

4- Descent
Another scary movie, this one is definitely a horror film in the truest sense and my second favorite Neil Marshall film. Descent puts you in that claustrophobic mindset and then there are things in the dark that you don’t know what they truly are. There is an American ending, because the other one was deemed too scary or sad or something like that, don’t watch the American ending, there is much more depth in the other one. And it really raises the creepy factor. It’s a movie that I need to watch again as I really remember it fondly.

3- Nightmare on Elm Street
Here’s that campy movie that we were looking for. Though, it’s only campy because of the age of the film. Wes Craven’s horror series, Nightmare on Elm Street stands up pretty well, and it’s very much a classic. Freddy Krueger is a very good villain and the concept of how he can get you works really well. And there are plenty more cheesy sequels to watch to this film, if you want. Another one that I should watch again as it’s been a while, and I have the great looking box set.

2- Tucker & Dale vs Evil
Yes, even more campy movies, this is just a straight up spoof of horror films while keeping in basically every horror trope that you’d expect. It would be easy to say that this is more comedy than it is a scary movie, but it definitely fits into that Halloween vibe as you see tropes get played out repeatedly, just with a slight twist on them. This film is probably the best for the non-horror fans on the list because it leans more into comedy, there is some gore again, but that is done for comedy as well.

1- Dog Soldiers
Neil Marshall is back on the list, and for me, this is his best film. It has a great amount of suspense, you don’t have your incompetent group of teens in this film, but it still feels tense the whole time. Like Descent, this film limits where the characters can go, and that just adds to the tension by a long ways. It’s also a werewolf film, and normally I’ve found those to not be that scary and more in the area of camp, but this movie is scary, and it does it while not having a ton of special effects or big names in it. I’d highly recommend this film as one of the better Halloween scary movies out there.

There are so many more movies I could have put on this list, maybe I’ll do a larger horror movie list at some point in time. I watched the “classic” My Name is Bruce recently, there are movies like Repulsion and The Fearless Vampire Killers that are great. And there are many more that I need to check out as well, such as having the original IT on the self and IT Chapter 1 that I could and should watch this Halloween season.

What are some films that really scream Halloween to you? Do you even like scary movies?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

So can a board game bring in a feeling of horror or can a board game be scary?

Obligatory joke, if the rules are bad it can be scary.

But the game itself can a board game be scary, possibly, and it elicit a sense of horror in a game? I don’t think that they can.

Board game are inherently social by nature. Sure, there is a huge push towards solo gaming, but with the exception of a few games, they aren’t only built for a solo audience. So you are experiencing something as a group. When you do that, things are generally less horrifying. Even when something scares you, you can talk about it and joke about it with the group. In fact, this is why when I go into haunted houses, I tend not to interact with my group or at least speak. I want the more immersive experience, but in a board game, it’s not built to work that way. Board games, in cooperative ones that could really draw out the most horror for the group, have you planning and discussing.

But board games can do a few other emotions that you can experience that get close to horror. Good board games should have a feeling of tension. Again, going to cooperative games, you can have a game where you are looking for that one card before a timer runs out. Or in Pandemic, you know that an epidemic is probably going to be coming up shortly and you hope that you get what you need or you can abate a situation before it happens in what could be that next card flip. You can also have a sense of dread. I think that Arkham Horror does a decent job of this as does the card game, you are pulling a chit from a bag and you are worrying that it is going to be something that makes the situation much worse. Or you are pulling a card and you know that there is something that might cause the big bad guy to win or at least show up and make the game way more difficult. And you know that it’s going to happen eventually and as you pull more good cards, the closer you are to that very bad thing happening and the more likely it is that the next pull is going to be that bad one. I think that Betrayal at House on the Hill does a solid job of this as you roll for the haunt after every omen.

What are board games missing, then, to keep them from feeling horrifying and can they get there?

This actually goes back to my apps in games or technology in games. Something like Chronicles of Crime isn’t horrifying with it’s VR technology as you look at a crime scene. Yes, it is a crime scene and they could make it easily horrifying if they wanted to, but they haven’t. Plus, that asks the question, is that part of the board game. You can look back into the archives and find that article if you want to discuss that more. But I think that’s an obvious way that you could create a jump scare, but I’m not sure that it would be a lasting sense of horror still.

Again, board games are such as social experience for me, and even when I solo game, that is basically always done on the stream, so I feel like I’m still engaged with an audience. So you’d have to get the whole group feeling horrified at the same time. I think another thing that is often missing that really can create a sense or horror and might work for a group is the ambiance. So you could turn down the lights, add in some spooky noise or music in the background and I think that would help create a bit more of a sense or horror, but I feel like it is still going to fall short. I feel like dread is the best word to describe it as you worry about the bad thing that is going to happen.

Now, it’s hard to say that dread is horror though, it might touch on that because you are getting a sense of fear from the card pull, but I think with horror, most of the time you are having fear but you don’t know of what. With dread, you are fearing what is inevitably going to happen. And again, with an app, you might be able to create more fear because you don’t know what is going to happen as you unfold a story.

I think that’s the final way that you can help create a sense of horror. I think with a good story that you can get a sense of horror in a game. Again, I’m going to say that an app is going to be helpful. A good narrator in the app is going to be able to read some part of the story in the right tone with the right background noises to make it feel more horrifying. If I were to read it myself, and I didn’t want to spoil what is coming up, I wouldn’t be able to intone correctly to create that sense of building tension and dread that you’d want. Even with that, I feel like it’s less horrifying, because you are still part of that group.

So, no, I’m not sure that a board game could ever truly be horrifying by itself. I think even with an app that is playing the right music and telling the right story that are part of the game, you are still part of the group. The other things, like dimming lights and creating a spooky feel, those are outside of the game that you can use to enhance a feeling of horror. Now, I think that’s probably a fine thing, I think the tension of a roll or a card draw and the sense of impending doom, those can be enough for a board game, because you don’t always want to be terrified. But because you can’t really do a jump scare, unless you are adding in VR to the mix, the game feels like it’s never going to be truly horrifying because you’re never truly afraid of what is around the next corner.

What do you think, can a game be horrifying or scary? What is the game that gets the closest for you?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.Facebook 

This show lives up to its name, being a very dark show and very atmospheric. On their own, the shots of the forest surrounding Winden and the slow pacing give the viewer a feeling of always being on edge; this is then enhanced greatly by the soundtrack. Dark is a slow burn, but in the best way possible. Everything about it aesthetically builds into this, and you connect pieces and see how 2019 ties into 1986. You get to see characters as they were growing up, and then as they are now, and you see things in a different way than you often do for a TV show. There is also an idea in this show of not really knowing who people are, so as you explore more in 1986, you start to really see how the characters in 2019 became the way that they are.

Dark is a show that needs to be watched in German with subtitles though, in my opinion, in order to get the full feeling of the show. It’s too distracting when something that takes a couple of words to say in German takes five in English, or vice versa. I can watch dubbed anime most of the time because the mouths don’t really match up with the words anyway, but in this show, with the difference between German to English being more obvious, it was too jarring. And as it is a well paced show and a slow burner, there aren’t many moments that are just rushed through — because of that, you never feel like you’re rushing through reading the subtitles and missing what is happening on the screen, so I really would recommend using the subtitles.

Another thing that I’ve seen as a criticism of Dark is that it doesn’t wrap up more than a couple of the mysteries very satisfyingly. I liken this to a number of Brandon Sanderson books, in which one orverarching story is split into four or five parts. There’s almost always some payoff for each part of the story, and you feel like you’ve wrapped up that part, but it doesn’t wrap up the story as a whole. Dark is very much like that as well, and the only annoying thing about that is that I really want the next part of the story to be available now. For some, this might be annoying and might make it worth waiting for the second season to come out before watching the first (apparently, 2019 is when season two will reach Netflix, though I’m hoping it will sooner). However, if you’re looking for a new show that’s intense, creepy, and eerie, I wouldn’t bother waiting, as Dark is probably the best show I know of for that.

Overall, I loved this show. It hits the right notes for me — it’s a creepy show without being focused on jump scares or anything like that. It feels intense, it draws you in, and the characters are compelling. It’s a show where all the characters feel like they are some level of grey, where they aren’t bad, but aren’t entirely good. They also aren’t just grey for the sake of being grey, because that often just makes a character feel like a bad guy; they all have specific motivations that are tough, and they genuinely believe that they are doing the right thing or are doing something out of deep and strong emotions. Dark tugs at your heartstrings and keeps you wanting to know what will happen next.

I’d recommend Dark for most people. For some people it is going to be too intense; for some it is going to be too creepy. Kristen half-watched it because she thought it would be too creepy and scary, and I think with what it deals with, it might have been too much for her in some ways. It doesn’t go overboard on the scary or creepy aspects, but it also doesn’t let up on them. So watch the trailer before you watch the show if you are someone who isn’t sure about creepy shows, because this one is dark and intense.

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.