Season of the Witch
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Happy Halloween! Thank you all for joining us for the 2022 Halloween Special! We hope you have enjoyed our stories and come back soon for news and updates on what’s next from the PRL.
Before we say goodbye to 2022, we’ve got one more set of recommendations. We all watched Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities this weekend and we wanted to share our favorites and the reasons we liked them. We hope you enjoy your Halloween and we can’t wait to see you all again soon!
Max: Hands down, the best of this Anthology was The Autopsy (Ep. 3). Even if it was a bit predictable, I felt that my expectations for the story made the execution that much better. I assumed there was an alien involved, and it seemed like the narrative was just working toward that reveal, but the last minutes or so of the story really set it apart and made it surprising. F. Murray Abraham and Glynn Thurman were awesome in it as well.
Wes: The Viewing (Ep. 7) had some weird camera shots and it’s probably the visuals more than anything else that made me really like the story. It reminded me of the recent Blade Runner sequel and the recent Dune movie; both movies are very stylish and rely on visual storytelling and the score to convey a lot of the story’s emotional heft. There is significant dialogue in the story and I did enjoy all of the characters. I love Eric André and Charlyne Yi’s characters in the story, and I love how their triumph is undercut by the implications of the ending.
Roy: I enjoyed Graveyard Rats (Ep. 2) the most. It was creepy with its use of rats and underground tunnels and an abandoned underground temple, but it managed good humor as well. It felt very much like a period piece and the main character was very charismatic. There were hints at a larger mythology in the story that was interesting, but ultimately I think did a disservice to the Anthology as a whole because the recurring Lovecraftian elements in multiple stories gave the impression that there was a larger narrative where there wasn’t one. But this story was a lot of fun, and the big rat will haunt my nightmares.
VIV: By far, the most unique thing in this Anthology that is really just a masturbatory celebration of notorious xenophobe HP Lovecraft, is The Outside (Ep. 4). It doesn’t feel influenced by Lovecraft like many of the stories that aren’t directly based on his work do. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate Lovecraft’s influence on quality horror, but much of the work in this series is derivative without pushing the subject matter anywhere new. The Outside does a good job with a fairly predictable premise and manages to avoid being predictable despite the familiarity of the narrative. The scenes of the main character talking to her tv gave me goosebumps. The story leaves a lot up in the air by the end, but the mysteries add to the horror in my opinion.
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Tonight:
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Halloween is here! It’s time for the block party, and Jim was hoping to offer hayrides, but the weather isn’t cooperating. Maybe he can do something with all the deer in town all of a sudden. If the block party is even still on given the intensifying weather.
The Witching Hour: “He had just passed the sign welcoming him to his town when he saw the mangled deer carcass splayed across both lanes of the road. He stood next to his truck and shook his head, wondering what the car that hit the large animal must have looked like and he was surprised that it was able to drive off.He had just passed the sign welcoming him to his town when he saw the mangled deer carcass splayed across both lanes of the road. He stood next to his truck and shook his head, wondering what the car that hit the large animal must have looked like and he was surprised that it was able to drive off.”
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Miriro steps up to show her fellow witches how it’s done. As she enacts the incantation to bring the Witch Moon, Wazad the Wonderful arrives to put a stop to it. But is there any stopping Miriro this close to achieving her goal?
Witch Moon: “Miriro was ready. She stood under the waxing crescent moon that was obscured by rain clouds and she was no longer the stunning woman she had been under the moonlight. She looked her age as she stood while the shadows gathered around her.”
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Gregory tries to keep up with Paul as he intercepts the razews summoned by the witch. But Paul is more than mere man and Gregory struggles. Until Zacchaeus arrives. Is there any hope left to prevent the Witch Moon?
Remarkable: “Paul Young stood in the dense woods as the rain and winds raged through the tree trunks. Despite the chaos around him, his senses were finely turned to detecting the presence of a razew. He knew their scent, and he could feel the heat generated by their bodies over long distances.”
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PRL Serials 