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?

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Anime

Now, I could do probably a whole list that is just anime, there’s a whole genre of anime, slice of life, that tends to be less heavy and more light hearted. Granted, some of them deal with heavier things, but a lot will be happier. But let’s focus on two of them.

Dagashi Kashi

Now, maybe we shouldn’t be sitting on our couches just eating candy the whole time, but Dagashi Kashi is all about that Dagashi. Dagashi are basically cheap candies and snack foods in Japan. The main character works with his dad in a little Dagashi shop that a big company wants to buy and take over. His dad makes an agreement, but only if the company can convince his son to take over the shop instead of becoming a manga artist. The show takes you into the history of a lot of Dagashi and will make you want to get some, but it’s generally a really good and light hearted romp that is worth checking out.

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun

A new one that we just started recently, this one is about two high schoolers. Chiyo who has a crush on Nozaki, who is in her high school. However, she can’t ever get the words out right to him. She finds out that he’s a manga creator and accidentally gets roped into helping him with his manga. It’s a very cute story and has lots of weird characters and light hearted moments in it. Definitely a bit all over the place, but that’s what so many slice of life anime are.

Movies

I could pick a lot of kids movies in this category because a lot of them do have good wholesome and up lifting messages, and I could pick a lot of animated movies in general because again, they tend to be made more for kids, but I wanted to give a couple of different options, so only one kids movie.

My Neighbor Totoro!

It’s an animated movie from Japan and it definitely has a slice of life feel to it. Two girls move with their father to a place in the country. Life is fine there, but they are really waiting for their mother to get better and join them. However, there are some unique spirits living around them, most notably Totoro. Totoro is a goofy seeming creature, but is often there to help them and to help them through the times ahead. It has some moments that do have some emotion, but mainly this movie floats through on it’s iconic moments and pacing of a story that really doesn’t go anywhere. It’s nice and short as well, which makes it easier to sit down to in an evening.

Stardust

Now this movie is a bit different, based off of a book by Neil Gaiman of the same name. It’s about a fanciful world and the real world where they meet up, and what seems like true love and real true love. The story has some epic fantasy moments, some final face offs of characters, but overall, it’s done very well and tells what is generally a very light hearted story. In the end it’ll definitely leave you feeling like you’ve sat through an enjoyable romp in a crazy fantasy world.

Television Shows

Now, I could just go back to more slice of life anime for feel good watching, but I don’t want to do that, and I split anime out for that reason. So many TV shows focus around some sort of drama, we have a ton of procedural cop shows out there, but what are some shows that leave you feeling like you had a good time after watching them.

Dirk Gentley’s Holistic Detective Agency

Of course, I’m starting out with Douglas Adams, or at least something vaguely adapted off of a couple of books of his. This falls into that camp of completely absurd humor, but it does it in a great way. Add in Elijah Wood whom we know was Frodo from Lord of the Rings, and that’s a fun little addition as well. This show, both seasons, won’t make a ton of sense always, but it does all come together and it is all light hearted fun after a fashion, it just might be a little bit absurd as well. It has a mystery element to it, but that even keeps you wanting more.

The Great British Baking Show

Now, I didn’t mean to do two British shows, but if you are a fan of reality TV, but the drama is getting to you during the winter months, this, and the SyFy channel show Face Off will give you a couple of options to watch, The Great British Baking Show is just on Netflix so easier for me to tell you were to find it. This is a baking competition where they make all sorts of glorious things to eat, but that’s not all that is great. We have shows in the US like that, but generally there is some drama around it, in this show you can genuinely tell that they care about each other and they want to win, but they want everyone to do well as well.

Board Games

You know me, I love my board games, though, this is harder part of the board game section is that not all games are going to work well with a limited player count. While we’ve never been told during the pandemic to see no one in Minnesota, naturally in Minnesota during the winter, less people go visit people because it’s cold, dark early, and often the roads aren’t great. So what are some fun games that can be played with not a ton of players.

Marrying Mr Darcy

Now, being a Jane Austen fan might help for liking this game, but it works well as a light hearted and light little game that can play from two all the way up to six or possibly more. This game is all about playing one of the characters in Pride and Prejudice and getting paired up and marrying your perfect match. The game has very simple mechanics, draw a card and do what it says, and some set collection card play. That’s about it, but the cards keep Jane Austen’s dry and sarcastic humor on them. I think this works better with more players so everyone is laughing about it, but it can play at a lower count and be a lot of fun.

Second Chance

What, I put a roll (flip) and write on the list, who’d have guessed. This game is very peaceful to play. You flip two cards and fill in one of the shapes on your board, you repeat, repeat again, and so on until no one can fill in anything. What adds to the peaceful nature can be how you fill in the shapes. You don’t just box them in because eventually you’d lose track, so I doodle mine in, my wife makes patterns by filling them in in various directions. You can really do whatever you want, and even with the doodling the game plays so quickly, so there’s no need to feel like you’re rushed.

What is Your Nerdy Mood Lifter?

I could have gone into books and comics as well, but these are four things that I know pretty well, so I wanted to focus on them. What are some of your favorite light and fun things to watch, play, or read?

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Now, you’ll quickly realize that I don’t love gore horror and jump scare horror can be done really well and I’ll like it, but I do love me some B horror. So this list might have a little of those on it, but it’s going to be a lot of more monster feature shows that really feel like Halloween to me.

Stranger Things

Got to start off with the classic, if you haven’t watched it, I will say it’s not that scary if that’s what has been holding you back. The way this type of show is described is as “Kids on Bikes”. That means that you’re dealing with almost an adventure story, but with elements of horror thrown in as the kids are trying to figure out everything that is going on. Normally there is some element of the parents not believing them and the kids being right in the end and probably a teenager who is a non-believer who ends up helping in the end. Stranger Things definitely follows a lot of those tropes, but it builds upon them in interesting ways and while a lot of the 80’s Kids on Bikes style horror or just horror in general that this is based off suffered from poorer writing, Stranger things has very solid writing. Overall just a wonderful Halloween feeling show.

The Order

This one is as much a teen drama as a horror show, but you follow Jack Morton as he gets into the Hermetic Order of the Blue Rose, a secret, and magic, organization that his mother had gotten into before her mysterious death. This one is all about the monsters, the crazy magic, college aged kids, and basically anything and everything that could go wrong going wrong. This is not a serious horror show at all, but the monsters in it, the magic in it, if you want campy Halloween that somehow still takes itself seriously, this one is pretty solid for that. Don’t expect anything ground breaking, but sit back and enjoy a pretty convoluted ride.

Supernatural

If you want your Halloween show to take itself a bit more seriously, at least some of the time, Supernatural might be the right show for you. This is still monster of the week, but with CW melodrama. This ranges from a show that is straight up horror as it goes through it’s monster of the week to one that is extremely self aware and back again to horror. There’s a lot of this show, so if you wanted to wrap it up before Halloween, don’t plan on sleeping.

Ghost Hunt

This one is a bit different because it’s an anime. This one, as the name suggests is all about hunting ghosts. Teenagers hunting ghosts to be specific, but it does a good job of blending some wonderful horror elements together with some pretty fast and witty dialog in it as well. This has an interesting feel to it as well because being anime, the horror elements are more Japanese which is something that we have a vague idea of because of things like The Ring or as was hinted at in Cabin the Woods, but even those are an Americanized version of that. If you don’t know if you like anime, but you do like horror this is less “anime” in the sense of what people generally would consider.

Helix

Finale one for the list, and I do like to highlight some different ones, even though Stranger Things and Supernatural should always show up. But Helix takes horror in another direction. Playing off of the vibes of the The Thing, this Sci-Fi channel show is all about surviving in the Antarctic when something is going horribly wrong at the scientific outpost. It has a lot of those, who is or isn’t infected aspect of it going on, and overall, I enjoyed it when I watched it a while back. It’s one that I want to revisit as I know I never completely finished it that second season. If you want something that is more true horror and less Halloween horror, Helix definitely leans into that.

What are some other ones I could have or should have mentioned? I can think of a lot of them, and maybe next year I’ll do a massive Halloween show list or put out some sort of bigger list with a ton of different shows and types of Halloween shows so you can pick the ones that look best to you to watch.

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Earth is in need of help, as is pretty common in sci-fi. So a group of scientist, colonists, and others head out into deep space to find a mysterious object, the volcryn, that seems to be giving off the same energy signature as telepaths on Earth do. Yes, there are telepaths on earth, and there is even one on the ship, Thale, who is dangerous, but also might be their only way to contact the volcryn. However, from the get go, things are not going like they should on the ship, the Captain Royd Eris is hidden away only showing up as a hologram, things are breaking down, and for this mission, everyone is on edge. As they go further into space and get closer to the volcryn, more things go poorly and it is clear that someone on the ship does not want them to reach the volcryn, all while the main character, Karoly d’Branin becomes more and more obsessed with finding reaching their end goal. Will they survive all the way to the end?

This show reminded me a lot of Helix, another SyFy channel show, set in space. It’s about who you can trust, or who you shouldn’t trust on the ship. And if what you’re going after is going to be worth the cost. I think that it Nightflyers, without delving into too much plot detail, is fairly standard in a lot of it’s handling of sci-fi tropes. I don’t think that’s always a bad thing, because there are a lot of interesting story elements, but for the most part, it feels fairly typical to stuff that I’ve already seen and stuff that has been a part of sci-fi for a long time. It does delve into some interesting areas about grief and humanity, but for the most part it leans into the horror and sci-fi elements in ways that you’d expect.

So while the sci-fi elements might not always be the most unique, I thought that it did a good job blending the elements of sci-fi and horror. And in the horror you actually get some more unique things, which tie back into the sci-fi nature of the show. With horror, I do believe that it is a bit all over the place at times. You some where it’s very psychological and other times where people are being frozen or jump scares or a pathogen loose in the air. But I have a soft spot for the blend of horror and sci-fi in my heart, because both of them can really dig into issues that would be too abstracted in a more realistic setting.

I think that the concept of the show works, I think while it is fairly standard, the story of the show works. I feel like they mess up some pacing in the show, there’s a large time jump for no good reason at one point in time, just to set-up the next horrific thing happening. I think the time jump is confusing as well, because it’s a slow burn show. Most of the elements are played out slowly over a long period of time and it works well in the show. You can tell the story is based off of George RR Martin, the Song of Ice and Fire series has a slow burn as well, and this matches it where a lot of the horror is based things and confusion moving slowly and building tension versus jump scares.

Would I recommend this show? It was pretty enjoyable and because it’s one season only, I think there are enough interesting horror and sci-fi elements in it that makes it worth checking out. The world building for something that basically only takes place on a spaceship is done really well. There’s a good amount of depth there, and that depth builds throughout the whole of the show, not just the the start with an info dump, but you never feel like they are info dumping on you and that you don’t have the information that you need. If you enjoy fairly heavy sci-fi with a good dose of horror thrown in, it’s definitely a show that is worth watching.

Have you seen the show, read the novella? How do they compare, is the novella worth reading if you’ve seen the show?

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Audrey Parker is an FBI agent who is sent after a wanted man and she tracks him down to the town of Haven. When part of the road gives way on the coast, she is rescued from her car by Nathan Wuornos, a detective in the police department and someone who is “troubled” (has a special ability) where he can’t feel pain, which as some upsides and downsides. Audrey quickly figures out that there’s a lot of “troubled” people in the town and she figures out that she can help them. Not only that, with being adopted, the two journalists in the small town show her a picture of someone who looks like her mother. She decides to use some of the vacation time that she’s saved up and spend some time in Haven, helping out the police department and see what she can find out about her mother, and that might be what Agent Howard, her superior, really wanted to happen.

That, by the way, is basically the synopsis of the first episode of a five season show and it doesn’t change massively as time goes on. The first couple of seasons are a bit more episodic, but eventually you start to get bigger story arcs as Audrey, Nathan, and Duke (who is introduced in episode one as well), keep having to solve the problems and deal with the troubles. And the troubles can get out there, there’s someone who basically put their soul into the work on their house and keeping their family safe that they took control over their own house and use the mirrors to see, which is pretty horrifying. Or there’s someone with whatever they touch in with their hands, it causes it to explode. Or time travel or mermen. There are so many, and it’s almost one per episode, though we do get to go back and visit. And while we get that, they spend more time building up Audrey Parker’s past and delve into the mystery surrounding her mother and an unexplained Colorado Kid mystery. In the end, I think that they tie it up quite well, though, it ends differently than I would have expected, but it ends smartly. They are given time to wrap up the mystery and complete the full story which is really nice.

Now for a downside of the show, I think that some of the special affects haven’t aged the best, and that’s kind of to be expected. While this show had a solid budget in terms of what they were able to pull of it was still early 2010’s and that’s going to look dated now. I just kind of expect that because some of the other shows I really like from the SyFy channel has the same issue, Eureka and Warehouse 13. Another thing is the early season storytelling, I think that they have a few arcs that are being set-up that would have had great long term potential, and then they rush through them in a couple of episodes. Some of that was the product of the time, and some of that was just poorer storytelling. The issue with the storytelling like that is that you feel like you lose the payoff, but in the early 2010’s, the larger story arcs were generally secondary.

Finally, as a downside and an upside, I want to talk about the acting in this show. I would say that the acting is okay for the show. I don’t think that it’s bad and I don’t think that it’s great. With Audrey, Nathan, and Duke, though, it ends up being good on screen chemistry, it just takes a bit to get there. The early episodes, in fact I’d say through a good chunk of season 1, the acting is quite rough. Now there are some characters, Vince and Dave, the journalist brothers, played by Richard Donat and John Dunsworth who are great from the start. Eventually the acting does get better and I think that’s mainly as the chemistry on screen gets better. Plus, it’s a show where Edge and Christian from the WWE are both in it, and Edge (Aaron Copeland) playing Dwight Hendrickson actually has a big role in the show and does really well with his acting. There are other professional wrestlers who have acted, but he’s one of the best that I’ve seen besides the ones who have gone to Hollywood, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and John Cena.

So, who is this show for? I think that’s a good question, I think that the supernatural element is going to keep some people a way as it dabbles in dimensions, time travel, ghosts, and so much more that would give away a lot of the plot if I continue down that route. I would say that it probably would make sense for fans of Supernatural but maybe aligns itself closer with Locke & Key in terms of feel. Also fans of Eureka and Warehouse 13, while it’s kind of in a different genre, it definitely has some similar feel to those shows.

Overall, I really like this show. I think it suffers a tiny bit from Stephen King syndrome where the ending is a little bit out there, but they build towards that well. There are also some story elements that are just dropped in an odd way, but overall, it’s good. And I think some shows like this, Supernatural, suffer from having the world ending event at the end of every season that needs to be stopped, Haven does a good job of building up the stakes for the seasons as time goes on.

Is this a show that you watched when it came out or one that interests you now? If you’ve seen it, did you enjoy it?

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The Rain is a Netflix Original (aka released in the US). The show is a horror/suspense show that leans more on the suspense side of things than it does horror. The show is based in Denmark, so it also has that different feel to the suspense than you get in a lot of shows from the US.

There is something wrong with the rain, it’s killing everyone. Simone, a teenager, and her younger brother are rushed by her father to a bunker hidden out in the forest with their mother. There, they should be safe, but something happens so that both her parents leave her, and she and her brother have to spend time in the bunker. Six years later, with resources running out, they are forced out of the bunker to face the world as it is now.

That’s a brief synopsis of the show. In a lot of ways, it’s a post apocalyptic survivors show. How much humanity have people held onto and how much are they willing to work together. Those are the questions that The Rain tries to answer. But along with that, since we’ve seen that with the Walking Dead, is why is the rain like it is. What’s the mystery surrounding Apollon the company that Simone and Rasmus’s (her younger brother) father worked for and that built the bunkers.

The suspense in the show works really well. You do wonder what is going on, and you wonder who is going to make it throughout the show as you feel uneasy about any of the characters chances of survival. You also get to question the motives of everyone in the show.

I’d compare this to two different shows with how it handles everything. The first is Helix, a show on the SyFy network from a while back. That show was definitely more horror focused, but there was some mystery and suspense around it as they slowly unfolded what was going on. The Rain does something that I feel is similar, but has a tighter more people focused approach to the show. I could toss The Walking Dead into a comparison, but I haven’t seen much of the show, just read the comics, but Dark, another Netflix Original, has a similar atmospheric presence to the show. The pacing of the show tends not to be all that hectic, and the cinematography, while not as good as Dark, and the scoring, again not quite as good as Dark, does a great job of setting the scene and feel for the world.

This does get to the biggest thing that I really love about the show. The pacing of The Rain, and Dark, is so different from your standard American show. While The Rain does wrap up story more so at the end of each episode, there doesn’t feel like the rush that you get from the American shows. You can really sink into the show and just experience it as compared to basically any other show. I think some would say that Game of Thrones does that as well, because it isn’t action focused, but Game of Thrones spreads itself way to thin character wise, and loses a good chunk of the humanity that you get from The Rain. They do it so much with the scoring which tends to be haunting, not grand, which is another thing that feels different than American television shows.

It’s tricky to explain how that experience makes you feel, and for me that was one of the driving forces that made the show really good. The writing on the show is solid, but nothing earth shattering. They do a good job of creating moments for each character. Kristen can attest so the fact that it might not be the most original writing as I’ve been able to predict several things in the show a ways ahead of where they happened at. I don’t consider that a major downside to the show as that tended to be episode focus, and one of them was done to great effect still and amazingly well written.

Another good thing about the show is that the acting is strong. There are no names that you’ll have heard of, but the acting is very good. The writing for the characters is really well done which helps a lot as well. Again, I think some of the characters can venture into stereotypes, but they have enough depth to the character that you can see beyond that. It’s also really interesting to stop and think about the motivations for the characters because you can really break it down and see why the characters might be the bit of a stereotype that they are, for better or worse, basically always worse.

Overall, this is a really well done show. It isn’t without a few little hiccups, but they are over fast, with the exception of one episode that had some very interesting moments in it, but was the most cliched of all the episodes. This could be a tough show for some people to watch because there are some highly emotionally intense moments in the show. There aren’t always a ton of them, but when they do show up it’s very tough to watch. Still, I will recommend this show, because sometimes watching something tough and watching people process through that is very interesting.

Have you watched The Rain? What are your thoughts on it, do you like shows that build up so much through the atmosphere?

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The Obvious Ones:

Supernatural

This show has been going seemingly forever at this point, but it’s a classic monster of the week show. They have developed a nice cast of characters for the show and really found a groove. The first few seasons are definitely leaning more into the horror aspect, but even some of the goofier episodes in later seasons still is a solid hit for Halloween. While the show can be a bit repetitive, Sam and Dean Winchester more than make up for it by being fun characters to watch.

Stranger Things

Last year, the second season came out around Halloween, so it makes perfect sense that this is on the list. The show has a decent amount of suspense and the monsters from the upsidedown are pretty classic for horror. What makes Stranger Things so good is the feel of nostalgia that you get form it as the Duffer brothers reference the 80’s a ton and have pulled from horror and Halloween masters like Stephen King and John Carpenter. The first season especially has that tightly constructed story feel to it, and you are on the edge of your seat wondering what is going to happen next. And because it’s only two seasons and not long seasons at that, it’s certainly a digestible show to jump in and watch.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This definitely falls into the campier area, especially now looking back at hos Joss Whedon tried to add drama into the show. But it’s a classic monster of the week show at this point and has some completely amazing episodes. There are some weaker seasons in the show, and the show itself kind of tapers off, though it did have a final season, in terms of it being worth watching. The musical episode is definitely a standout episode.

So now some deeper cuts for Halloween shows. They probably will still be somewhat known, but there might be a few odd ones in there that people might not have heard of.

Dark

Another show that can be found on Netflix, like Stranger Things, Dark doesn’t have the typical horror elements, but leans much more into suspense. It’s a German show that can be watched in English, but I’d personally recommend it in German with subtitles, just because of matching out up the mouths with the words and the issues that you can get in German with that. Dark is deeply thematic, and the time travel in the story keep you on the edge of your seat. It’s a very heavy show but it always leaves you wanting more of it. For some this show will be too stressful, but I personally found it engaging in a great way. Also, the music in this show is amazing and would work really well for a Halloween party.

The Rain

The final Netflix show on the list. The Rain is a Danish show that has some aesthetic similarities Dark. In this case, The Rain walks more on horror theme, but has some feel of The Walking Dead and a show that’ll be further down on the list, from what I can tell, I’ve only seen some of The Walking Dead (it isn’t on my list). The Rain deals more with people living in a tough world after a plague that has killed most of the population of at least Denmark because of something in the rain. Simone and her younger brother Rasmus are left on their own for years in a bunker while their father, who seems to be tied to the plague that has happened is out searching for a cure. Eventually Simone and Rasmus have to return to the surface to deal with the “humanity” that is left. There’s a little bit of a 28 Days Later feel to it, now that I think about it. I haven’t finished the show yet, but from what I’ve seen, I’m loving the show and the on the edge of your seat feel that it gives.

Grimm

This show is more main stream as it was on NBC for a while, however, now that it’s off the air, I think it’s less of a known. It’s a bit monster of the week as it follows around a cop who finds out that he has a connection to a world that he never knew existed. It’s another show that I’ve heard drops off a bit, but from the parts of it I’ve seen, the first three seasons I want to say, it was very enjoyable. Definitely less tense than the previous shows on the list, but none the less, very enjoyable.

Helix

This gets back into more of the harder horror show feel. This is the show that The Rain, for me, feels like it’s borrowed some from the feel of it. Though Helix focuses primarily on the scientists and trying to figure out who might be infected with the disease that is ravaging their Antarctic base, where the disease even comes from, and why it is being worked on. There’s a vibe that I’m pretty sure is similar to The Thing, I just haven’t seen that movie yet, somehow. I believe that Helix only had a two season run on SyFy and I only watched the first season. Even as a single season show, the tension and twists that happened made this into a very solid show and definitely one that is binge worthy to watch the first season around Halloween.

What are some of your favorite shows to watch around Halloween? I haven’t seen much of The Walking Dead, but that show, Fear the Walking Dead, and American Horror Story seem like prime candidates for Halloween watching, as well as The Strain.

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These are all games that Fantasy Flight has taken from a license and turned into a ton of products. I’m pretty sure I’m evening missing a game. There are also other games like the Game of Thrones living card game or the new game that came out from CMON, Song of Ice and Fire. There’s a whole system of games, the Legendary Encounters based off of Marvel Legendary (another licensed property) for Alien, Predator, Firefly, Big Trouble in Little China, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and now X-Files. The point of writing all of that was that there are a ton of board games that have cool properties behind them and there are more coming out all of the time.

Unlike Robin Hood and Lovecraft’s work which can be slapped on anything because they are public domain, there are a lot that need to be licensed. So, what are some of these other stories that I can to see board games made out of?

I’m going to give the title of the book, TV show, movie, and some description of what I think would make it an interesting game or how I might go about building a game. I’m also going to be avoiding things that I know are already board games, you might not know there is a Kung-Fu Panda game, but there is, so I won’t be making my own for that.

R.I.P.D.

R.I.P.D. is a movie and comic about a cop who dies and then becomes a cop in the after life taking crazy bad guys. I like the theme for this one and think that with a bunch of minis and different cops who you could play, it could be a fun game playing against a scenario(s). You’d be trying to defeat different bad guys, or maybe a scenario would have you get information while trying to survive long enough to get back out. There’s a good number of stories that you could do with it, and while it is a lot of the current meta, I’d lean into the supernatural. Give the players and monsters abilities that they can use that are a bit game breaking, but come at a cost to the monsters of the players. That would then give the game a unique feel as compared to other scenario based games because it’s the last ditch sort of move instead of other variable player powers.

Kingkiller Chronicle

Now, there is something coming out that can have some tie in to this series by Patrick Rothfuss, but I want to take it in a different direction than that game. That one looks like it is more about the whole fantasy world, and like I said, it isn’t an actual game on the series, it just has a module for it, so it counts for me. I’d focus on the time at the university. People could take on different students, doing different things for different classes and the game would be split into four or five parts which would be different years at the school. Each turn you’d take an action to either study, go to classes, make money, or if you are playing a character who has money, just get money. You’d play as different characters who are studying at the university and at the end of each round you’d score points and depending on how you did and your income, you’d get your tuition set for the next year which would take money from you, and you’d repeat the process. If you didn’t have enough money, you’d be limited to actions in town or going and taking out a loan to be able to stay in school, but that would be costly for you. I think you could make this game interesting by having characters increase in skills, do sneaky things, and complete missions for teachers. I think I’d then have the players try and get as many points as they could in completing their education or at least advancing in it.

Killjoys

Killjoys is a space television series about a crew who picks up criminals and turns them in and deals generally with all the problems that are going on in their world. I don’t think I’d make my game as dramatic as the show, but I do think I’d set it up so that it really focuses on bringing in those criminals like the earlier part of the show does. It would somewhat be a pick-up and deliver game where you fly to a planet, pick up what you need, and deliver it back for money. However, the longer you go, the more troubles you are going to run into completing missions and also the more events and worse events that will be happening to the Quad, the area of planets you are working in. In the end, the winner would have the most money at the end of the game from bringing in criminals, but you have to decide how to use it because you might want to upgrade your ship, weapons, or crew to make the jobs easier.

Stranger Things

I’m a little surprised I haven’t heard of one besides some company branding an ouija board with Stranger Things, because of money. For those who don’t know, Stranger things is about a girl who escapes from the grasp of an evil company that is messing around with her abilities and is also looking into another dimension, the Upside Down where there are monsters that start bleeding over into this small town. I would make this as an asymmetric game for up to five people as that’s about how it works in the game. There are the kids, the teenagers, the adults, the company, and the upside down. The upside down and the kids would be required to play the game, but the rest could be optional. As the kids, you are trying to keep Eleven safe and close the portal to the Upside Down, as the Upside Down, you are trying to capture all the kids or get enough monsters into the world that you win. If you were the adults, your goal would to find one of the kids who gets lost in the upside down, and as the teens your goal is to kill as many monsters as possible. Finally, as the company, your goal would be to keep Eleven alive, but have her under your control, and not have anyone else win for a certain number of rounds. I could also see cutting it down to three factions and having the people of the town, adults, teens, and kids, all be the same person. But I think it could be interesting, each group having their own special powers and goals that they are going for in the game.

What are some stories that you think would turn into a good board game? What are some of your favorites that are already board games?

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For those of you who might not know what Eureka is, it’s a show about a small town that is full of geniuses and the normal sheriff who has to deal with all of the crazy problems that they cause. There’s never a normal day in Eureka. There’s also a restaurant called Cafe Diem that does crazy foods.

Drinks:

Coffee
Cocktails
Beer

The coffee and the cocktails need to be fancy. Cafe Diem wouldn’t serve just any sort of drink, you would have to use lavender infused simple syrup and with a cardamom whipped cream for the coffee. Cocktails would ideally use some dry ice in them somehow so that you get that smoking scientific effect, and if you want to go all out, you serve it from a beaker. Then you have beer as well for the Sheriff Carter’s of the group who just want a nice and normal drink. This is going to be a theme that you come across probably in most of these, there are going to be a fancy options and more standard options.

Appetizers:

Pigs in a Blanket

Okay, so I just went from saying that there would be multiple options to having a single one, but I realized that this is an example of how you can spice up something that seems pretty normal. First, you start by rolling the dough that’s around the hotdog section or better yet Little Smokies (they’re fancier) and adding everything bagel seasoning to them. You can either put together the seasoning yourself or Trader Joes sells that mixed. Then you create a bunch of fun dipping sauces. I’d recommend a blackberry ketchup mix, stone ground mustard, and a balsamic onion jam. Now you’ve taken something that is normal and brought it to the next level.

Main Course:

Spicy Glazed Carrots
Meatloaf
Corn Bread

So another pretty straightforward meal. The spicy glazed carrots I would go with a chipotle and ginger glaze on them. We’ve done something like that at home before, and it turns out very tasty. There are recipes out there that explain the whole process, but thankfully it’s not that hard to do. Then with the meatloaf, it’s pretty plain, but I needed something that would match with the appetizer, otherwise I would have gone a bit crazier with it. However, meatloaf is good because it’s a pretty blank canvas. Think about what would work well with the carrots and corn bread, and then go crazy with the meatloaf. You could lean more into a BBQ and cheese feel or if you wanted to go a bit further afield than a normal meatloaf, you could go with something like a Cajun style meatloaf or Caribbean. The corn bread is going to give you a chance as well to do something that’s more creative by creating a compound butter for it. I’d lean into just doing a simple whipped honey butter and not going too crazy with this as you want it to cleanse your palate between bites, but you could give a few different options here as well, like you did for the Pigs in a Blanket.

Dessert:

Ice Cream Sundae Bar

Again pretty normal, but you can have a ton of a fun with a lot of crazy toppings for it. Everyone can make their own experiment with various toppings. I’d stick primarily with normal toppings, sprinkles, hot fudge, nuts, etc, but I’d try and find some unique toppings as well that people might not think about. A balsamic reduction/glaze would probably drizzle nicely over the top and paired with raspberries and a little mint would make a very tasty combination and dessert. Have some fun with this and let you creativity run wild as you come up with ideas. Hopefully none of them will cause the world to almost end, and if they do, you’re on your own.

What would you do with a Eureka themed party and meal? Is there something obvious that I missed? I was trying to keep it simple enough that it could actually be done, but weird enough that it would do Cafe Diem proud.

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This is, what I would call, the early 2000’s TV Sci-Fi version of Cloverfield. The plot tries to be pretty dramatic with the earth in a power crisis. They need to go into space to test out a machine that would be capable of solving earths power crisis. The best and the brightest are sent up and spend almost two years trying to get it to work while things get worse and worse on earth. Eventually, they get the machine up and running, but something is out of balance and things start to go hay-wire on the space station. Can they figure out what is happening and correct it in time to save earth, or will they all die?

Cloverfield Paradox is weird, and the style is just oddly done. Like I said, it is very reminiscent of an early 2000’s TV movie. The acting isn’t great, the style isn’t great, but it is still pretty enjoyable.There was something about the camera that reminded me of shows like Dark Matter and Helix on SyFy, and while it is kind of enjoyable to watch a movie with that look and feel, it was also kind of disappointing simply because the other Cloverfield movies have been such a high quality and well thought out. Because of that, it doesn’t feel like it quite matches with the rest of the series.

As for the writing, it also has that below par feel as compared to the other Cloverfield films. It is fairly hokey and while they try and keep a level of drama up, it doesn’t work. It also doesn’t help that the acting isn’t able to live up to the writing. Even though the writing isn’t great, there are two characters that are pretty solid, maybe three. Jensen and Monk, played by Elizabeth Debicki and John Ortiz respectively, are two characters that seem to have the most and best motivation and they actually live into that motivation more so than the other characters. Unfortunately, the main character, Hamilton, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, is a stiff character that they try and give depth to but it doesn’t work with her acting. Roger Davies, playing Michael and Daniel Bruhl as Schmidt are the other two best acted characters. The one surprisingly poor performance was Chris O’Dowd, from The It Crowd, it wasn’t that it was bad, but this seemed to be more of paycheck role than anything else.

Overall, this is a pretty basic Sci-Fi popcorn flick which isn’t as good as the others. If I didn’t have expectations and hopes for it, and if the Super Bowl teasers hadn’t made it look better, I think I would have been more inclined to enjoy it. It’s too oddly goofy at times and too poorly acted to be anything more than a bridge to what should hopefully be a good fourth and final Cloverfield movie.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Do not read below if you don’t want it spoiled.

I like a lot of the concepts for this movie. The idea of parallel dimensions and possibly even them not being from our Earth is interesting. However, that aspect is kind of glossed over as they look at it. It’s about getting home or then not getting home for the main character, and the motivations are a little bit weak. While it makes sense that they are capable of jumping back into action very quickly, it feels like it is rushed at times and compared to the first two Cloverfield films, in this one the characters aren’t allowed to breath and develop as much. I do think, as I talked about above, a fair amount of that can be attributed to acting as well. But the whole concept of parallel dimensions is something that’s interesting and it opens up a lot of questions for me as I think about it.

The biggest question about this movie, for me, is where does it fit into the Cloverfield universe and timeline. We don’t see monsters much like the first two, until late in the film when we see the typical shot of the giant Cloverfield monster. But that doesn’t help us place it in time. It seems probable that this is a while after the first two Cloverfield films, except for the monster shot. It opens up the possibility that the first two parallel universes they go to, the one where they start and the one which is where they transport to the first time, might be different Earths, because there is the power crisis, and in the first two Cloverfield movies, there isn’t a power crisis. I don’t remember it well enough to remember if it is possible that the last spot they go is truly Earth from the first two movies. It seems more likely that this is 10 to 15 years after the first two movies. But it is definitely open for some speculation as to when and where this one takes place.

Final, more spoilery focused thoughts. Would I watch this again, probably, because it’s part of the Cloverfield movies, but I wouldn’t randomly watch it again as I would with the other Cloverfield movies. I think that this movie gets the acting wrong and the style wrong as compared to the other movies. The slapstick nature at times, such as when Chris O’Dowd’s character loses an arm is just weird as compared to a lot of the rest of the story they are trying to tell. Should you watch it, only if you care to watch all the Cloverfield films.

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