LITERAL REMAINS

From all of us at Literal Remains, we hope you have a Happy and Safe Halloween.  See you in a week.  Howl at the moon as much as you can.

Autumn, for me, has always been a reflective time of year.  Maybe it’s the leaves changing, or the heated hustle of Summer being left behind for the crisp new chill in air, knowing Winter isn’t long to follow.  It’s perfectly natural, I suppose, especially since October 31st was the New Year’s Eve of the Celts. [...]

…and his whole life’s focus came down to either kicking the habit or giving into it. Alex Decker is an undercover vice cop working the mean streets of Los Angeles.  Mean streets is an understatement, really.  It’s been three years since the new President had enacted laws to keep America pure and moral.  Part of [...]

Ingredients 1 (10 ounce) package frozen raspberries, thawed 2 1/2 cups cranberry juice 2 envelopes unflavored gelatin 2 liters ginger ale 2 liters sparkling apple cider (non-alcoholic) 6 gummi worms candy Directions 1.  To make the frozen hand: Wash and rinse the outside of a rubber glove. Turn glove inside out and set aside. In [...]

I can understand the hate some people have for Rob Zombie’s remake of John Carpenter’s classic 1978 stalk ‘n’ slash Halloween.  Carpenter’s version has class, a sense of suspense.  Zombie’s version, it doesn’t really have any class, it doesn’t really generate suspense.  But how many films are able to scare us horror hounds?  Carpenter reportedly [...]

Choose a Material Styrofoam is good because you can buy it in larger thicknesses (2″ or more) at your local crafts store and it’s already textured so it looks more like a grave stone from the start. Sheets of styrofoam insulation from a building supply store can also be used. Styrofoam can be tricky to do [...]

Montague Rhodes James was a highly respected medieval scholar.  In 1902, he discovered a manuscript fragment that led to an excavation in the ruins of the abbey at Bury St. Edmunds, West Suffolk.  This excavation uncovered the graves of 12th Century abbots that had been lost since the 1500s.  He did Latin translations, and even translated the New [...]

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill house, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks [...]

I don’t know about you, but when I hear the term “sin-eater”, a rather poor Heath Ledger film pops in my head.  But I don’t want to share with you my thoughts on that disappointing motion picture, I want to share a little about real sin-eaters.  There actually were sin-eaters, and, even though they reached [...]

Lawrence Talbot, yes, that Lawrence Talbot afflicted with the curse of the werewolf, has a special request of a friend.  Not just any friend, though– his friend is a scientist with a great intellect and some powerful connections.  Talbot is looking for something very specific:  his soul. Harlan Ellison’s Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: [...]

Original Butterbeer 1 cup butterscotch schnapps 7 cups cream soda (almost one 2 liter bottle) Carefully mix just before serving, adding the schnapps to the soda then stirring gently to mix well, or the fizz will dissipate too soon. To keep butterbeer on hand, pour 1 cup cream soda out of the 2-liter bottle, quickly [...]

Josh and Renai Lambert have moved into a new house.  It’s a big house, with plenty of rooms for them and their three children (the youngest still in-diapers new) and an attic.  The attic proves a little treacherous for their son Dalton, who likes to wear a cape and play superhero.  Dalton takes a spill [...]

Materials Needed 2 braids of 12 inch brown crepe hair (found at craft supply stores) A pair of werewolf ears A set of werewolf teeth (or any kind of fake fangs) 1 elastic dog nose 1 pair of old jeans 1 old shirt 1 pair of brown gloves 1 pair of brown socks 1 set [...]

From the beginning of his literary career, Machen espoused a mystical belief that the humdrum ordinary world hid a more mysterious and strange world beyond. His gothic and decadent works of the 1890s concluded that the lifting of this veil could lead to madness, sex, or death, and usually a combination of all three. Machen’s later works became somewhat [...]

A young boy, his older brother Jim, and his younger sister Mary, become witnesses to strange happenings in their 1960s Long Island neighborhood.  There is a Peeping Tom roaming the streets, looking in the windows of the unsuspecting; a neighborhood kid goes missing; and a elderly man from down the street is eventually found dead. [...]