This began as a review of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, but I found my critiques were conveyed too harshly by text, so I recorded a podcast discussion on the subject (HERE). After that podcast, this post changed, exploring the popular saying “Frankenstein is the real monster” (which was one of the core ideas of the…
Check out my review of The Black Enforcer at easternKicks. This is a surprisingly good movie, despite a number of production issues. I think it may be my new favorite Ho Meng-Hua film. It is a story of revenge but also the cost of revenge, vividly painted with an artful eye and heart. In the…
One of the methods I started using for playtesting and proofreading games is the Monster Rally adventure. This allows me to take a closer look, with more eyes at the Threats chapter of a book, by having the players assume the role of monsters in a wild creature feature mash-up. For those not familiar with…
My friend and sometimes co-host on the podcast, jim pinto, has a new Mork Borg expansion on kickstarter. Jim is the maker of 100s of games, and the man behind Postworldgames. His new offering is called Hate Stain. Check out the Kickstarter page HERE for a complete overview but here is a quick description of the project:…
I have a new review of Chang Cheh’s 1975 film, The Fantastic Magic Baby HERE. The movie tells the story of Red Boy and his efforts to abduct the Longevity Monk so his parents, Bull King and Princess Iron Fan can eat him and gain immortality. Monkey and his companions must rescue and protect their…
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about running Monster Rally adventures in Strange Tales of New England (or really any horror RPG). I’ve been thinking about it more and ran another monster rally with my weekly group so I wanted to get some of my thoughts out. Art by Jackie Musto Before I start,…
Mobs are a prominent feature of Monster Rally movies and classic horror in general. I came up with these mob rules for Strange Tales of New England. To be clear I am not making a monster rally RPG, but am trying to create a set of monster rally tools for GMs to use in their…
Mad Scientists are often at the heart of Monster Rallies. They are an outgrowth of the Frankenstein movies and many of the plots involve monsters seeking the help of those who followed in Dr. Frankenstein’s footsteps. So here is a monster entry for Mad Scientist. Originally I wanted to use the expert path, but rallies…
Most monster rallies I have run, were one-shots or short campaigns where monsters didn’t advance. But more recently I have been running them longer and wanted a way to both allow for but control growth, because monsters already have so many disparities, that certain monsters became much more powerful as they consumed human life-force or…
This is just a small New England town I made for my monster rally adventures. IN my latest campaign the players decided to go there after receiving this note: Greetings Queen of Snakes: My name is Doctor Horace Brinely of Brinley Castle in Leocester Massachusetts. I am working on a number ground breaking procedures, and…
The Golden Sword is one of the more impressive Cheng Pei Pei and Lo Wei films. Wei directed a number of glorious wuxia movies starring the actress from the late 60s to 1970. They are enormously underrated and include movies like Dragon Swamp (1969) and The Shadow Whip (1970). Peoples impression of Lo Wei is…
This is the index for a series of posts I did for monster mash adventures using the Strange Tales of New England RPG. Monster Rallies allow players to assume the roles of monsters from the rulebook and work together as a party, in the spirit of films like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. INTRODUCTION INFAMOUS…