Tag Archives: Occult

When the Folklore Doesn’t Hit Home in Netflix’s Spectros

5 Apr

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Anyone who loves the supernatural flavour which comes out of traditional Japan should tune into Spectros right away! The series blends paranormal with breakfast club mentality from three teens–Pardal (Danilo Mesquita), Carla (Mariana Sena) and Mila (Cláudia Okuno)–coming together to deal with the supernatural coalescing in their neighbourhood of Liberdade in São Paulo, Brazil.

Ultimately, this series is the type of cheesy pulp action style fun expected when showrunner Douglas Petrie was a key figure in the production of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

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Connecting the Dots in the Insidious Series and The Last Key

5 Jan

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

The Insidious series is one of those guilty pleasures where I hope some answers are given about Darth Maul — er, The Red Faced Demon. The previous films, which I had to see again before penning this article, and the latest, The Last Key, do not necessarily follow in a logical order. This franchise is taking just as long as the Paranormal Activity series to offer answers. I fear I will have a complete head of gray hair by the time any will be offered.

One great jump scare is offered with this latest film. I was wondering when it would leap at me. It’s very rare for me to get startled. Specs and Tucker (Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson) are hilarious as always. This movie’s saving grace is with how well-developed the character of Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) is. She defines this franchise.

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How Many Tobin’s Spirit Guides Do We Need?

3 Jul

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By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Ghostbusters fans now have three versions of “Tobin’s Spirit Guide” to tap into for getting caught up in all this film’s paranormal lore. One is an out-of-print role-playing games supplement by West End Games for players to use in games (the ghosts are organized by country of origin) and the other two — one tries to be a complete volume of knowledge (sorted alphabetically) and the other abridged (put into categories of ascending danger). The forward in this latest version by Insight Editions tells readers that this pocket guide is meant to provide the essentials of who is recently haunting New York City and the Eastern Seaboard.

Anyone wishing to gaze at the authoritative edition should make a sanity roll (like in the “Call of Cthulhu” RPG by Chaosium Inc) in order not to prematurely age while spending years to absorb all the knowledge in the 35-pound tome — of which these published editions are based. Between these smaller books, each entity’s origins and classification are offered. For the daring, just where to locate them are also provided. Just who wants to seek them out must be fearless though.

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