At the World Fantasy Convention in Maryland This Weekend

I'm in Baltimore, Maryland this weekend for the World Fantasy Convention. It's a lovely convention packed with brilliant writers. I'll be out in public as much as possible, and I'll also be on a special panel Saturday afternoon.

Monsters and the Monstrous

Saturday, 4:00 PM

Hannah Strom-Martin (Moderator), Julie C. Day, Aliette de Bodard, Teresa Frohock, John Wiswell

Monsters have existed as long as humans have made myths. But what makes a monster truly horrifying? A look at the lines between myth, horror, privilege, class, gender, and more. Discuss the panel online using the hashtah #MonsterMonstrous.

Hope to see you all here!

Reviewing The Mummy, The Mummy, The Mummy, and The Mummy

My first memories of The Mummy are parody. It feels like every syndicated cartoon had an episode with a pyramid and an angry zombie in bandages shambling after the heroes. It's one of the aesthetics up there with Dracula's fangs and cape, or Jason's machete and hockey mask, that you know some store will try to sell you every October.

But I'd never actually seen the movies that popularized the concept. To end my Halloween List this year, I visited the four big Mummy movies: the 1932 original, Christopher Lee's 1959 remake, the Branden Fraser 1999 action film, and Tom Cruise's most recent mistake.

Friends, there were surprises.

The Mummy (1932)

The Halloween List: Veronica and... Veronica?

Let's talk about two great movies.

They both came out in 2017.

They both came out in August of 2017.

They're Spanish-language.

They're both Horror movies.

They're both called "Veronica."

Yeah, somehow a Horror movie got a doppleganger. They caused a SEO nightmare for any of us not in their home countries. One came out in Spain and the other in Mexico, and both were extremely difficult to import to the U.S. until Netflix added them. The thing is that these two movies are utterly excellent and nothing alike.

And Netflix added them both in the same month, just to further the doppleganger curse.