Pirate Evan and the Ghosts of Terror Town

Last Halloween, I was a pirate (again). We had urban legend time at school, and it was a blast. There's an amazing urban legend called "Sam's New Pet." Please check it out.

Volcano Explodes All Over Your Face!

Apocalypse Pompeii: Looks awful, doesn't it? Well, against all odds, it's actually pretty fun. Check it out!

Weird Cartoons

For the last eighty years, Walt Disney Studios has been the dominant force in animated musicals. Since 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney has churned out cartoons about singing flowers, singing rats, singing fish, singing frogs, and all sorts of other lovable vermin who can’t stop themselves from bursting into song.

Sure, there have been other studios who’ve tried to break into Disney’s cartoon musical monopoly, but they typically came off as slightly off-brand variations on the Disney standard—1997’s Anastasia, for example, or 1998’s Quest for Camelot. Both exemplify the uncanny valley of movie musicals that are almost-but-not-quite Disney. These films typically fade from memory in a few years, like the last few notes of a Russian music box from an amnesiac princess.

These copycat cartoons aren't particularly interesting, though. The interesting movies are the ones that actively reject the Disney model,  the musicals that decide to get a little weirder, a little creepier. These are the movies about plant-magic trolls and mute swans and the distant relatives of Marco Polo. If you want to read my TOP TEN list of weird cartoons, go to Taste of Cinema. This is my first listicle with them, but there will be many more to come!

Wedding Bells

This is me at my very first traditional Zanzibari wedding. I'm the one in blue.

Handcuffs and Martians

"I hate my agent."

               
Did you watch Fifty Shades of Grey and wish it had more long, boring scenes about real estate? Yeah? Well, then you'll love BOUND, the S&M mockbuster that the world absolutely needed. Watch it! Or better yet, check out my article about the film.

R.I.P. Daft Punk

       
And if that's a little too high-brow for you, then there's always MARTIAN LAND, the mockbuster of Ridley Scott's The Martian. While it may not be as well-received as its Oscar-nominated sister film, it does have a Martian super-storm, so that's that.

Is there a doctor in the school?

In my work as headmaster of a small school in Zanzibar, I see some pretty adorable things every day. However, this week was the cutest one on record. It was the end of the term, so we had special dress-up days. This is from "Future Day," when students dressed like what they want to be when they grow up. This is our smallest doctor, complete with her Princess Sophia medicine bag.

Almighty Thor

Have you seen Thor, the action film about a Marvel superhero who gets stranded in New Mexico and falls in love with Natalie Portman?

Yeah. Probably.

Well, have you seen Almighty Thor, the action film that came out three days earlier, and ends with the titular hero punching lava into the shape of a hammer so that he can protect a magic tree from Richard Grieco?

No?

Well, you need to.

With the latest entry in my Mockbusters series of articles, I'm discussing Almighty Thor, one of the strangest movies I've seen in a long time. Go read my article. Then watch the movie. Then rinse your eyes out with soap. It'll be fun.

Australian Shadows Awards

Do you remember Midnight Echo, the awesome Australian magazine I was in last year? It was such a cool issue, and I was flattered to have my story "Uninvited Guest" featured alongside some of the creepiest, spookiest stories I've ever read. (My story was about a child's birthday party that gets crashed by a mysterious clown that only our narrator can see.)

Anyway, I woke up this morning to some great news! Our issue was just nominated for the Australian Shadows Awards, which is the big horror fiction award from Down Under. On April 22, we'll find out if we win anything, but in the meantime... fingers crossed! I hope our stories scared the pants off the judges!