When you are young, there is nothing better than having your birthday party. With friends all around you and more presents than you can swing a stick at, some of your greatest memories start right there.  But there is something that makes your birthday complete and that is the massive cake that gets set before you with as many candles as your age. Blowing out these candles is a rite of passage for many children and while I was never good at doing it, I loved every minute of making my coming of age memorable for everyone that was involved.
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As the sun has set and the party is long over, Libby is still trying to get a little more birthday cake into her stomach before bed time. Being called out by her father for doing so, Libby’s mother spots another present that has yet to be opened. Removing the bow to the massive package, Libby and her mother are shocked to see that it is empty, but with her birthday being a great success, Libby is far from upset and loads all the rest of her presents into the box and heads off to her room to go to bed.

When unloading her box of goodies, Libby finds that all of her new presents are covered in blood, but that is not the only thing that the box has in store for her. Seeing a light coming from the box, Libby is shocked to see the hands of a demon coming out and grabbing her. Arriving in a yard full of children with bandages over their hands, Libby is greeted by the Cakeman who is ready to receive his due. With her fingers on fire, Libby screams for her life and the Cakeman does what he does best, taking his prize from the six-year-old girl. Trying to find out what her daughter is fussing about, Libby’s mother enters the room to find out that the empty box she saw earlier has a much more sinister purpose.

Never take candy from strangers’, right? That is something that was hardwired into our minds as children and I believe that idea translates very well in this film, albeit in this case it’s a present and not candy. The spookiness that the package has in store for anyone around it is just great and the Cakeman character is the stuff of nightmares. I must admit that I was cracking up at the father throughout this film, mainly because he is the do as I say, not as I do type, but he did get some cake as well. I must admit that I am not one to take anything from someone that I do not know, but now I surely never will, because there can be frightening things in big packages. Stay Scared.

There is something frightening about the dark and that fear can stay with people for a lifetime. Not knowing what is moving in the shadows may be the scariest thing of all and that’s why many people like to have a night light on during these hours. There is nothing wrong with wanting to know what is hidden in the shadows, especially if there is someone or something looking to scare you. If you want to see the thing that is lurking in the shadows, prepare yourself, because what the light exposes could be the stuff of nightmares.
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Waking up and hearing someone meandering outside of his door, the kid gets up and tries to find out who it is. Seeing the shadows coming in from under his door, he asks if there is anyone out there, but gets no response. Thinking to himself if whomever is out there will not talk, maybe they will be able to write a response, the kid grabs some paper and pencils and passes a note under the door. Finding out that there is indeed someone outside of his door, the kid wants to know who it is.

Getting a response that he did not expect, the kid wants the creepy fingered thing to leave, but this is something that will not happen. Yelling out for his mother and telling her that there is someone in the hallway, she comes right back at him, scolding the kid for still believing in the boogeyman. Telling her son to go back to sleep, the kid tries to, but opening the door has allowed something straight out of his nightmares to come into his room and he will never be the same again.

I mean come on now, this is a thing of nightmares coming true and I may never open my door in the middle of the night again. I liked how the shadows coming from under the door were so haunting and showing some sort of figure in the hall that does not look human. The kid’s reaction is priceless, especially when he reads the final note that the boogeyman passes under the door. The mom was great, she really gives you the feel of a real mother who is sick and tired of hearing the screams at night while she is trying to sleep as well. It is always fun to wonder what could be hiding in the shadows during the dead of night, but finding out that there could be evil waiting to take advantage of you, well, that is something that we all have to cope with in our own ways. Stay Scared.

Throughout my years, I am lucky enough to have met many people along the way and some of the most interesting people to talk to are police officers. With more stories than you can wave a stick at, it seems like they have seen it all. Not able to repeat most of the stories that have been told by my friends, there is a line that I will never forget, ‘we found the bottle just stuck there’, you can try to figure out the rest. Having an idea of what they will encounter when arriving at the scene, they are all too often surprised, as there are plenty of other things that people do that are unexplainable.
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Arriving at an abandoned house, the cop gets out of his car and turns on his body camera. Slowly entering the house, he notices that it has been torn to shreds with no explanation. Following his instincts he moves towards what appears to be a room to find what appears to be a dead body covered by a white sheet. Hearing moaning coming from somewhere, he starts to bark out orders for the person to make themselves known.

Seeing someone else in the house moving around, the officer continues to shout out for them to make themselves known. Disappearing behind the dark corners inside of the house, the officer is not able to get a clear view of who or what he is trying to apprehend. Finally getting a clear view of what appears to be a woman in her room, the cop orders her to get down on the ground and starts to call it in. But taking his eyes off of the woman will be his undoing as she has other things in mind.

Yikes is all I can say about this film, because you are experiencing this first hand, just like the cop. The most frightening thing about this is the unknown in the walls of the house and seeing what might be a dead body huddled up in a corner just makes it extremely creepy. I liked the little glitches that the camera goes through, while some of the time it is working fine, when the chase of the woman takes place, it starts acting up. Is this just a normal woman who committed a murder, or is it something other worldly, I guess that you will have to decide for yourself. Stay Scared.

Hope, is a powerful thing. In fact, one might even say it's one of the core driving forces of a human being simply because, it's essential to our survival. After all, when we're having a bad day, it's the hope of a better tomorrow that allows for us to let that kind of day slip away and if our life is in a tough place, it is hope that keeps us going as the promise of a better life and a better future propel us toward those goals with a determination we honestly had no clue we were capable of. 

However, if there is one avenue we prefer to never go down when it comes to hope, it's imagining what life is like without it. What kind of person would we become if there was no chance of a better tomorrow or if the work we put in to make our lives better ...turns out to be all for naught? It's a concept most stories shy away from but not Fear the Walking Dead. Because season three of this series has been a grand experiment in what a lack of hope does to people, and while it has only flirted with the concept, last night's episode, 'El Matadero', dove right into the matter, showing us what life is like without hope, and what happens to people when they are robbed of it, all while throwing in an important notion that has permeated this series from the get go...the dangers that come with holding on to the past. 

If anything, those two concepts worked hand in hand last night, simply because what the Clark family has been looking for ever since the dead began to walk the earth, is a sense of normalcy. They seem to understand that the world they knew is gone, but they want the safety and comfort of it back and that's simply not ever going to return and really, the dangers that come with not letting go of said past was explored in depth by way of Alicia and Nick, who oddly enough found their answer to it by way of two vastly different journeys in this story.  

For Alicia, she simply immersed herself into a dead world for the first time since it ended, and while she fully understands it is a dangerous place now, the sheer brutality and severity of it wasn't at the top of her mind until she truly spent time alone within it and in her dangerous travels she encountered a tough-as-nails stranger who made a point to explain to Alicia that killing and death are now a part of this world whether she likes it or not, and it's time for her to deal with the fact that this is how life is going to be for the foreseeable future, and the best way to move forward in this tough new world, is to forget about yesterday and start thinking about tomorrow...

While it seems as though Alicia will eventually figure this out, it looks as though her brother will not. Nick is still a man locked in his past and if anything, hope is what he has needed the most. The idea of a better life, one free from his past and the pain that caused him to use and abuse drugs is what helped him detox, and heck, he put a lot of faith into his mother and her promise to keep him safe and pain free over the past year...to the point where's done some incredibly dark things to help her out and to save lives, but last night..Nick finally reached his breaking point. 

Because once he learned that Ofelia was bitten while trying to save the people of Broke Jaw Ranch, and that in reality, his mother had failed him in her promises...he relapsed and relapsed hard, putting himself and Troy at great risk to simply enjoy a solid high and a good time and it was simply heartbreaking to see Nick fall like this after making so much progress. But there is no hope left in his heart, and rather than spend another waking moment with his mother, he's opted to stay behind at the Trading Post with Troy and see where the void will take him.

However, while it's one thing to see characters suffer with impunity when it comes to stories that are devoid of hope, it's quote another thing to find a way to drag the audience into that kind of pain as well, but this story managed to pull that off by way of Ofelia's exit. After all, we all know what a bite means, and well...to see Ofelia say her goodbyes, and miss out on reuniting with her father was devastating to say the least and it's clear that neither Madison, nor Daniel will ever quite the be the same after this incident and speaking of Madison...it also seems as though she's losing hope as well.

After all, she dedicated so much time and effort to making Broke Jaw Ranch work, and she did some horrible and questionable things to keep the peace there and now...with her family turning their backs upon her, and everything she's worked for falling to pieces before her eyes, we are about to find out just how strong Madison really is...and whether or not she can find hope in a dire situation. Either way, this was an utterly devastating episode. The kind that gives you pause after its ended to clear your mind of all darkness and I get the bad feeling that next week's season three finale will be just as brutal. Until next time.

While I still do not fully understand how the legend of the Slenderman started, I must admit that he has really made a name for himself. Coming after children and taking them to places unknown is a pretty freaky thing for kids to think about. With different theories about what he actually does with the children, one thing is consistent about his story, he has no face and people should fear him when they see him, but that is all I can really gather. Hopefully one day we will fully understand the Slenderman and what his intentions are for us, because like all stories, there may be a shred of truth behind them.
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Running through the woods with his sister Emily, Cole has no idea what he is facing off against. The strange form of a man with no face and elongated limbs is after him and his sister and there seems to be no escape. Trying his hardest to protect his little sister, Cole is shocked when she mysteriously vanishes from his side. Seeing her walking hand and hand with the strange man, Cole takes a shot, making the mysterious man upset and he gets into a fight that he cannot win.

Forty years later, Cole is still trying to find out what happened on that day. With reports of missing children all over the world, he believes that this strange man is behind it all. Knowing that the man moved in a way that did not follow the rules of our reality, this man has to be a being that can exist across different worlds. With all of the information he has gathered over the years, Cole will stop at nothing to find out what this man is doing with the children and he may finally get the chance to ask the man face to face when he sees the mark on his wall indicating that the creature has returned.

Interesting little story, based on the Slenderman. I liked the effects that were put into play in this film, mainly because the jumping of the screen is very effective when you want to make a creature move in an otherworldly fashion. The storytelling is great, as you have a narrator telling you what he believes is real in this world and it is not something that anyone should believe, because it is not real. The grief that the old Cole feels in looking for his sister is seen and heard as the story plays on, but the smile on Emily’s face when walking with the strange man may be what kills him the most inside. I must admit that I will want to do some more reading into the Slenderman legend when I get some time, but until then, this story will help tide anyone over looking to get their fix. Stay Scared.

Seeing things out the corner of your eyes is nothing unusual, in fact we all have done it enough times and do double takes when it happens to make sure that what we are seeing is real. While sometimes what we think we saw was something completely different, there are some occasions that it was exactly what we thought it was. During these occasions, it takes us time to process what we are seeing and while we do not want to believe it, we trust our eyes over everything else. We may believe what we are seeing all of the time, but we must remember that sometimes our eyes have been known to play tricks on us.
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Turning on the news and sitting down to eat breakfast, Larry hears a frantic knock at the door. Opening it up and seeing his elderly neighbor Zach who is obviously upset, Larry is convinced to head over to his house to see what is disturbing him. Listening to Zach’s story about his wife being in Cleveland and upstairs at the same time, Larry takes it with a grain of salt, but when looking up the staircase, he sees the face of Zach’s wife peeking around the corner.

Desperate to prove that his wife is not home, Zach calls her once again and she confirms that she is still in Cleveland. Being beside himself, Larry asks if the old woman is alright and she only has one thing to say. Telling her younger neighbor to ‘play’ with her, the old woman is not willing to say or do anything else. Telling Zach that he is going to leave due to the creepiness that he is witnessing, Larry sees the old man suddenly doing the exact same thing. Peeking around the corner in the kitchen, Zach wants his neighbor to play with him as well. Escaping the craziness of his elderly neighbors, Larry has no idea that this creepy game is far from over, in fact it has just begun.

If you’re trying to find a short film that will make your skin crawl, there is nothing creepier than sweet old people acting out in disturbing fashion. I must admit that their actions gave me the chills and I will never look at old people the same way again. Just the look on the faces of those peeking around the corners is creepy enough, but when you add in that they want to play and not tell you what the game is, well, damn. Playing a game with someone that does not know the rules is just not fair, but if you explain everything to them and then they want to play, well, I guess that means that all bets are off the table. Stay Scared.

With my love for horror movies and now fully understanding that the Independent circuit is the way to go to get my scares in, I have been neglecting a wonderful addition to this legendary genre, the horror shorts. It has nothing to do with the film makers behind these movies, I just believed for so long that there would not be enough substance in these movies to write a full review for them. Knowing now that I was completely wrong with my thinking, it is time to start my very own Horror Short Showcase and I would like to start with Jeffrey Reddick’s first directing job, Good Samaritan.
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After videotaping a man getting brutally beaten outside of his window, Nathan Rome has agreed to be a guest on the news, but has little idea what the reporter, George Reed, has in store for him. Getting a five-thousand-dollar appearance fee, Reed will not pull any punches when it comes to asking the agoraphobic man why he would rather film the event instead of calling the police. Believing that somebody else that was around would have done that, Nathan tries to convince himself that he has done the right thing.

With news coming in that two other witnesses of the assault have died, Nathan fears for his life and for good reason. As he tries to keep a low profile in the house, he is met with a vision of the victim and witnesses his beating once again first hand. Waking up from what he believes is a dream, Nathan starts to get tormented by his own words as his television starts to play and replay what he said in the interview. Turning off the television, Nathan does not believe that he is alone in the house and tries to protect himself, but there is no protection from his conscience and facing the fact that he failed to do the right thing.

This is a great short film that showcases that doing that right thing, albeit not profitable, could help you live a long and happy life. It seems like you see this kind of event happening on a daily basis as people love to record the violent world around them, yet never try to help an innocent bystander. Watching as Nathan’s conscience takes over after his interview, he seems to understand that what he has done is wrong and he cannot escape his fate. What I love about this short is not only the scare factor of not being able to control one’s mind, but seeing what it could do to you for not doing the right thing. Stay Scared.

If there is one thing I've always found incredibly fascinating when it comes to end of the world themed fiction, is the sheer fact that these disturbing and harrowing tales tend to focus on two key things; the end itself and what it takes for humanity to start over, and while these elements are of course extremely fascinating in their own right, by dropping us at the beginning of the end, or long after the end has come they tend to skip over the nuances and trials and tribulations that the characters have to go through in order to become strong survivors. However, a grand exception to that rule, is Fear the Walking Dead. 

I say that, simply because Fear is a series that takes us right into the grey area that most of these stories avoid like the plague they introduce. Where the world has disappeared and characters that are used to comfortable living and simplicity are forced to make tough decisions day in and day out to see tomorrow and in the process, those decisions change them on a fundamental level, for better or for worse and as it turns out, last night's episode, 'This Land is Your Land', was a story that focused heavily on those elements, by putting the citizens of Broke Jaw Ranch on a countdown to doom, and in doing so, it put the proverbial spotlight on Alicia, and the tough decisions she made to ensure survival for this fledging community.

The danger in question came by way of the lack of a precious resource that everyone on the ranch needs to survive...air. Somehow fresh air was no longer being pumped into the bunker where everyone was taking shelter and in order to get the air going again, Ofelia and Crazy Dog climb into the duct work to clear the blockage and get the air flowing, leaving everyone in the bunker on borrowed time. After all, with so many people in one place the air supply is limited, which forces Alicia to step up and become the quality leader that this community has been desperately waiting for, and make an incredibly tough call...by asking for anyone who was bitten in the mad scramble to get to the pantry to surrender their lives so that there is enough oxygen for everyone to share.

Such a decision was stunning in just about every single sense of the word and what made this moment all the more fascinating was the fact that the initial resistance that came forth from the bitten/infected spoke volumes to how the living dead were able to take over since it's clear that no one wanted to face the fact that a bite meant a fate worse than death. But thankfully, they acquiesced and one by one, Alicia put them down with morphine shortly before plunging a blade into the base of their brains and my goodness...was this one difficult sequence to watch. It's one thing to see rotten and hungry corpses be put down on this show, but to see everyday people, sick with the virus but still in control of their humanity be put down even in merciful fashion, well it was quite the sobering and unsettling sight indeed and not only did it have an impact on the audience, it fundamentally changed Alicia.

In fact, I'm not sure she will ever be the same after this episode, because despite knowing this was for the greater good, and the right thing to do, she struggled with it all supremely and it was fascinating to watch this incredibly strong character finally see the true savageness of this scary new world and it was equally intriguing to see her perspective on life and how it should be lived fundamentally, change before our eyes. Granted, her friend Christine helped shape some of her new perspective, but after seeing that her best efforts failed, since the people of Broke Jaw Ranch suffocated in that bunker, it's clear now that Alicia firmly believes that there has to be more at the end of the world, what that is exactly, we don't quite know yet, but it's nice to see that someone is trying their damndest to figure it out. 

However, lost in the quagmire of Alicia's plight, is the sheer fact that Broke Jaw Ranch is gone forever, and there's something equally sobering about that as well because Madison and Walker really did give it their all when it came to trying to keep this place together and to see it burning in the distance with the knowledge that everyone beneath that cloud of smoke perished was a tough sight to say the least. It in a way, spoke to Alicia's thoughts, in that there's nowhere safe in this ugly new world and one has to wonder, since we've seen the Clark family wander about the past three seasons, will they ever actually find a safe place to call home? Or is this their life now, drifting from place to place, hoping for the best but expecting the worst and really...is that any way to survive? 

Yet what's equally as disconcerting when it comes to this episode, are the loose ends left hanging in this story. After all, Nick is still doing his best to keep Troy and his stupidity safe since it was the younger Otto's fault that the horde destroyed Broke Jaw to begin with, and it seems Alicia is fully aware of this fact, and one has to wonder if and when this will be addressed and whether or not Troy will survive when more people discover the truth when it comes to his psychotic transgressions. Plus, there's the whole matter of Madison's desire to return to the Dam since the reception she and her friends received the first time around was anything but warm and considering that they now have nothing to bargain with, will they be able to even make it past the gates? 

Regardless, this was quite the devastating episode. Usually a television show saves this kind of collapse and despair for the mid season or season finale, but here we are, two weeks before the end of season three and everything has fallen to pieces. There's really nowhere safe for the Clark family at the moment, and their future is about as uncertain as it gets and when all is said and done, this was an utterly brilliant episode. You so rarely get to see the effects a world such as this will have on the human mind and it was just heartbreaking to see Alicia's strength fade before our eyes with every single life she took. I'm extremely curious to see where her story is going to go from here since she's been shattered at her core from this mess and I'm quite curious to see what lies ahead for Madison and her friends and family as well as we continue on this dark road toward the season three finale. Until next time.