Welcome to another installment of 31 Days of Halloween! This is our chance to set the mood for the spookiest and scariest month of the year as we focus our attention on horror and Halloween fun. For the month of October we’ll be sharing various pieces of underappreciated scary books, comics, movies, and television to help keep you terrified and entertained all the way up to Halloween.
Muahahahahaha! October is coming to an end, but we still have a couple days left of our special Halloween coverage and now we have the October Staff Picks. This month we have our Media/Content Manager, David Brooke and contributor, Forrest Hollingsworth.
Forrest Hollingsworth: Contributor
What is your current favorite comic series?
Forrest: Woof! Just one is hard. I’m going with Venom from the big two because almost anything Donny Cates touches is awesome but Venom in particular has taken this turn recently into riding the line between heavy metal high octane horror-action and good, somber characterization very well. Outside of the big two either Coda from Simon Spurrier because I think the things the narrative there is doing with its kind of deconstructed Tolkien fantasy world and unreliable narrator are cool, or Gideon Falls from Jeff Lemire because it’s got this Lynchian energy I just can’t stop thinking about.
What is your current favorite TV series?
Between full time work, full time grad school, planning a wedding and writing for this wonderful, wonderful site, I don’t get a ton of time to watch TV. I did just finish up Castle Rock, though, and I will say I was very pleasantly surprised by it. It wasn’t perfect but there was a lot of good there, especially in the visual and audio design. I’m looking forward to whatever they do for season 2.
What is your current gaming addiction?
I’m going to go with Insomniac’s Spider-Man. I know it’s practically ancient in gaming terms now that Assassin’s Creed and Black Ops or whatever are out, but I haven’t finished it yet;the other day I woke up around 5 or 6 A.M. to let my dogs out and thought “Well, I’m up — might as well play Spidey,” which I haven’t done with a game since I was like, ten — so that’s saying something.
What is your coolest recent purchase?
I’ve got two! I picked up a Spider-Punk FiGPiN the other day that I threw on my favorite windbreaker and I’m still absolutely in love with the way it looks on there. It’s a subtle, almost stylish but still noticeable little thing that doesn’t take up room on my increasingly packed bookshelves like a figure would.
And, while it’s not a purchase, I won a Spider-Man print from an artist named Brandon Alvarado that does a series on Instagram called “Venom In Denim” that I really dig a whole lot. He was kind enough to ship it my way for free and I proudly hung it right above my computer monitor like…2 seconds after receiving it.
What was the last good movie that you watched?
Mandy with Nick Cage blew me away. I don’t think it was supposed to be as funny or ridiculous as I felt it was, in fact it seemed like it wanted you to take it very seriously, but I just had so much fun watching it. It’s surprisingly slow for the premise – a kind of heavy metal, acid soaked John Wick revenge-thriller, but once it gets going, it doesn’t hold back and it eventually delivers some of the best, most memorable film moments this year at the very least. A shot of a blood soaked Cage smiling, his pristine white teeth shining through, included.
What is a current song that you can’t get out of your head?
Can I say the entirety of Sleep’s Dopesmoker? That’s what I want to say, because I just set up my record player in my new place and it was the first thing I played. But, a more digestible answer is probably Nick Cave’s “We Real Cool“. We’re about a month out from getting absolutely wrecked with snow here in eastern Washington State, where I live, and what’s better than leaning into those depressive feels? Nick Cave, Neko Case, PJ Harvey, and The Veils will all be my mainstays for the next few months – toss in some Wolves in the Throne Room or Electric Wizard for good measure and baby you’ve got moody, gloomy, doomy stew going.
It’s Halloween! Do you have any traditions that you like to do during the month?
You’re asking this like the obvious answer isn’t “re-watch all of Twin Peaks,” the best spooky show of all time. Barring that, though, I live near the Yakmia Valley – one of the highest hops producing places on Earth – so I love getting out and trying all of the Fall-specific beers and even hop-infused ciders and gins at the local breweries.
What is your favorite horror movie?
Oh this is easy, The Thing. For one reason alone, too, the scene where Bennings turns and lets out that horrible inhuman scream out in the snow. It’s classic, transcendent, horror distilled down to its essentials. I’m also a pretty vocal defender of the 2011 prequel/remake
David Brooke: Media and Content Manager
What is your current favorite comic series?
Pound for pound Scott Snyder’s Justice League has been dense in content and entertainment. I read so many books but that book always seems to highly entertain. 
What is your current favorite TV series?
Haunting of Hill House has been great with episode 5 really making me a believer in the show. Maniac, another Netflix show, has been stellar too. I expect that to come away with a few Emmy’s next year. Jesus, I also finished The Terror over the last week which is a relatively new show on AMC.
What is your current gaming addiction?
I just finished up Spider-Man on the PS4 and completed 100% of the game. Not something I normally do! With that game finished I’m tentatively awaiting Red Dead Redemption 2 and keeping the anticipation down by playing the Blackout mode in COD: Black Ops 4.
What is your coolest recent purchase?
I buy too much stuff, man! I really dig the Fantastic Four collection I have complete with a dope (and very big) Galactus. The Marvel RE:EDIT #05 Hulkbuster is quite awesome. I’ll go with that as I just got it.
What was the last good movie that you watched?
A Star is Born really blew me away. I actually cancelled my tickets for Venom to see this instead since the buzz was so good. Just a top of the line in all categories movie.
What is a current song that you can’t get out of your head?
Aside from a song or two from A Star is Born anything by MØ. I have her on repeat most of the time.
It’s Halloween! Do you have any traditions that you like to do during the month?
I gotta hit up a haunted house or two. I just got back from Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando (my second time in 4 years!) so that itch is mostly scratched.
What is your favorite horror movie?
This is such a hard question because there are so many types of horror movies that do so many different things well. The recent It was fantastic, but I’ll go with Poltergeist as one of my favorites, but ask me tomorrow and I might say Babadook or A Nightmare on Elm Street.
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