10 Horror Movies to watch on Halloween

 Hello, hello!

Happy Halloween! 

When the real world is so full of horrors, do we really need another day to remind us of the existence of all kinds of scary things? Maybe, maybe not. 

Irrespective of whether you celebrate Halloween or not, here are 10 solid horror movies and shows that you can enjoy on this spooky day. 

1. The Pale Blue Eye (Netflix) is a horror-thriller-suspence series that has Edgar Allen Poe as a detective (of sorts) as he investigates murders of cadets at a military school in upstate New York. A spooky and atmospheric watch, which is very nicely done. 

2. The Wonder (Netflix) is an interesting and atmospheric movie about a young girl, who has not been eating for over a couple of months. The village elders call upon a trained nurse and a nun to observe the girl to see it is a miracle or a hoax. An interesting one to watch if you don't want to watch something too spooky or scary. 

3. Bodies Bodies Bodies (Netflix) is a slasher-comedy-horror movies where a group of friends find themselves being hunted by an unknown killer in one of their homes. A funny yet spooky movie with a twist of sorts. 

4. The Invitation (Netflix) is a horror movie, which is kinda predictable but still pretty decent. It is not very scary and so, perfect for those of us who want to watch something spooky but not be scared out of their minds. 

5. Scream 6 (Netflix) is the sixth instalment in the highly popular slasher franchise and it delivers on all the tropes that the slasher genre is loved for! :) Watch this or binge all six movies if you are so inclined-  always a fun time!

6. Shwetkali (Zee5) is a Bengali horror-thriller series and is so, so, so good! It is atmospheric, scary and has a murder mystery to boot! Watch it! 

7. Polaroid (Prime) is a teen horror movie where a group of classmates find themselves being targeted by an entity after they find a vintage polaroid camera. Spooky and interesting. 

8. The Blackening (Google Play) is a horror comedy set during a reunion of close college friends. Since they're all Black, they must keep their wits about them to ensure that they don't get murdered by an unknown slasher. Super fun! 

9. I See You (Prime) is a horror movie with a nice twist! Don't want to give anything else away, just watch it! 

10. Talk to Me (Lionsgate Play) is a spooky, scary movie and is the perfect thing to watch if you want to get properly scared! A group of teenagers find a hand that lets them commune with the dead, but only for 90 seconds. When one of them holds on to the hand for more than that, scary things begin to happen. 

Let us know if you end up watching any of these movies/ shows and how you liked it! 

Book Review: Kill for Me, Kill for You by Steve Cavanagh

 

Book: Kill for Me, Kill for You

Author: Steve Cavanagh 

Pages: 368

Read on: Kindle 

Read in: ~3.5 hours 

Plot Summary: One dark evening on New York City’s Upper West Side, two strangers meet by chance. Over drinks, Amanda and Wendy realize they have much in common, especially loneliness and an intense desire for revenge against the men who destroyed their families. As they talk into the night, they come up with the perfect if you kill for me, I’ll kill for you.

In another part of the city, Ruth is home alone when the beautiful brownstone she shares with her husband, Scott, is invaded. She’s attacked by a man with piercing blue eyes, who disappears into the night. Will she ever be able to feel safe again while the blue-eyed stranger is out there?

Things I Liked:

1. The very inspired-by-Strangers-on-a-Train premise is what got me interested. It is not that I haven't read or watched movies with a similar premise but I do enjoy it when authors add their own take to this age-old premise. In this book, Steve Cavanagh has added his own little twisty-and-turn-y take on this simple 'swapping of murders' plot, which is what makes this book so, so good! 

2. I love when we get to know our protagonists in crime thrillers- get to know them a little beyond that surface that ~300 pages allows in this genre. Amanda's story is just heartbreaking. She is struggling to survive after her daughter and husband died in quick succession and her grief is compounded by the fact that her daughter's killer is free and thriving in spite of fairly solid evidence against him. Amanda wants revenge once justice is denied to her but in spite of wanting that man dead, she is not able to take that big step of killing him. Her struggles with grief and desire for justice are both very well depicted in the book. 

Wendy is also an interesting character. She has let her grief fester for longer and is hard and cold in some ways. She immediately suggests swapping murders and agrees to kill Amanda's daughter's killer without any hesitation. 

Then we have Ruth, who has attacked in her home and almost left to die by a serial killer dubbed Mr. Blue-eyes. He was never caught and the police had no clues - forensic or otherwise- to even begin to identify him. Ruth has not felt safe since her attack. She doesn't step outside the hotel room she's been living her, doesn't go anywhere without her husband and is terrified all the time. Her fear and anxiety are so palpable and they leap off the page. Her story takes an interesting turn when she comes face-to-face with a man, who looks just like the guy who attacked her. 

Then we have our lead detective on the case, Detective Farrow, a man committed to the job and someone, who looks out for Amanda and stops her from doing self-destructive things. He is one of my favourite characters in the book. 

3. The plot twists are several and some you can, perhaps, see coming but some will take you by surprise! I always love it when crime thrillers can surprise me given I read so many of them and most of them tend to be very, very predictable and easy-to-guess! 

4. The ending is very satisfactory and does, however, leave one or two things a bit open-ended. Makes you think and wonder about a few things as well, which is not bad at all. 

Rating: 4.5/5 

Book Review: Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter

 

Book: Murder in the Family

Author: Cara Hunter 

Pages: 470

Read on: Kindle

Read in: ~5 hours 

Plot Summary: 

IT WAS A CASE THAT GRIPPED THE NATION 

LUKE RYDER’S MURDER HAS NEVER BEEN SOLVED 

In October 2003, Luke Ryder was found dead in the garden of the family home in London, leaving behind a wealthy older widow and three stepchildren. Nobody saw anything.

Now, secrets will be revealed – live on camera. 

Years later a group of experts re-examine the evidence on Infamous, a true-crime show – with shocking results. Does the team know more than they’ve been letting on?

Or does the truth lie closer to home?

Can you solve the case before they do? 

The truth will blow your mind.

General Thoughts: If there is only ONE Crime Fiction/ Thriller book you read this year, make it this one! :) Now, on to the review. 

Things I Liked: 

1. The premise had me at hello! A cold case, a murder of a much younger step-father, no solid leads, promise of a messed up/ interesting family dynamic, told in a documentary style format- what is not to love?! 

2. The book is well-written, fast-paced and even though it is told in a documentary-ish style, with conversations, interviews, text messages and newspaper clips that move that story forward, the reader gets a good sense of each of the main characters in the story- both the members of the Howard family and the six experts working on solving the cold case. 

3. There are multiple twists and turns as one goes down the 'episodes' of the documentary and each of these reveals are quite shocking and you most likely won't see them coming! 

4. The investigation undertaken by the team of experts -two cops (one British, one American), a psychologist, a lawyer and a journalist - is realistic and nothing that the cops in 2003 couldn't have done. A lot of the new information found is shocking, interesting and only very slightly predictable. The book does make several digs at the inefficiency of the Met cops for some reason :).

5. The book is atmospheric and an absolute edge-of-the-seat page turner! Get started on it on a Friday night and read late into the night! I promise you, you'll not regret it! :) 

Rating: 5/5 

Friday the 13th Horror Movie Recommendations

 Hello, hello!

Happy Friday the 13th to all who celebrate! 

As a horror fan, my plan for today is to watch as many horror movies as possible and so, in the spirit of sharing, here are 10 horror movie recommendations for you should you also want to watch one or a few of them! :) 

Let's get started! 

1. Talk to Me: Some high school kids find a mysterious embalmed hand that can summon spirits and decide to use it as some kind of a game. If you hold the hand, a spirit possesses you and it is safe to stay possessed for 90 seconds. But then things go wrong, as they do...

2. Raaz: A Hindi classic. Heavily inspired by What Lies Beneath but still quite scary and good! 

3. The Exorcist (1973): Truly a classic of the genre. A little girl is possessed and her mother, a priest and family friends band together to save her. 

4. The Conjuring: Based on a real case undertaken by Ed and Lorraine Warren, The Conjuring is a seriously spooky movie about a family's home being haunted by more than one entity. 

5. The Craft: Highschool girls doing witchcraft and shenanigans ensue! A cult classic and definitely worth a watch! 

6. Silence of the Lambs: Not a classic horror movie but so scary that even reading the eponymous book gave me nightmares! If you're in the mood for a crime thriller that is also downright scary, then this is the movie for you!

7. Hush: A hearing impaired woman lives alone in a home in the woods. One night, a creepy man decides to attack and kill her. This is an edge-of-your-seat thriller! Watch it!

8. Friday the 13th (1980): The OG that invented the summer camp slasher trope! Watch it if you haven't already!

9. Unfriended: When technology meets the spirit world and you simply can't unfriend a creepy person you don't want to be friends with! 

10. The Invitation: An orphaned girl finds long-lost cousins in the UK and is invited to a manor home for a wedding. But is it too good to be true when the hot and rich owner of the mansion takes a romantic interest in her? Watch and find out! :) 

Enjoy! 

My YouTube Channel & First Video

Hey there guys!

After years hemming, hawing and dithering, have finally made a little YouTube channel to talk about the things that I care about!

Starting off with my planning and journaling system for 2023 and what worked, what didn't and some plans for 2024. 

If you enjoy journaling or planning, then do check out this video and subscribe for more!

 

In the coming weeks, we will be sharing our thoughts on our 2024 journaling/ planning system and what planners we are considering for the new year. 

So excited to start on this journey! :) 

Book Review: The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith (Cormoran Strike Book 7)

 

Book: The Running Grave 

Author: Robert Galbraith 

Pages: 966

Read on: Kindle 

Read in: ~7-8 hours 

Plot Summary: Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside.

The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organisation that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.

In order to try to rescue Will, Strike's business partner Robin Ellacott decides to infiltrate the cult and she travels to Norfolk to live incognito amongst them. But in doing so, she is unprepared for the dangers that await her there or for the toll it will take on her.

General Thoughts: This is the seventh book in the Cormoran Strike series and we have read and reviewed all six of the previous books on this blog. Click HERE to go find them. This is a good series of books to read if you enjoy slightly long-form, semi-literary-ish crime fiction with a lot of character development and focus on the process of detective work. 

Also, there are several readers who have boycotted JKR over her stand towards trans community. I do want to preface this review by saying that I am a trans rights ally and this is a safe space for all my trans brothers and sisters. I am willing to separate the art from the artist in this case with the hope that JKR will practice the kindness and inclusivity that she talked about so much in the Potter books. 

Things I Liked: 

1. Did you not read the word 'cult' in the plot summary?! Are cults not the single most fascinating thing about group dynamics and the power of individual charisma?! So, suffice to say, the focus of this book on a cult made it extremely interesting and I had to skip over other books in my TBR to get this this one stat! 

2. All the Strike books are really great at getting into the detailed, painstaking effort that real detective work involves. It is not magic, it doesn't happen in a snap and in this book also the past and older details about the cult are found out with great difficulty and tremendous effort. 

I really liked how the team used census records to find ex-cult members and reached out to them about a key incident that happened 15 years ago, which has become something of a magical myth within the cult. 

3. The author does a terrific job of breaking down how cults recruit, control and break down a human being. We often wonder how some people get taken in by cult leaders and believe their ludicrous philosophies, but in this book, JKR does a great job of showing how this kind of control and absolute loyalty is created by the cult. Also, how this level of control is maintained even when someone leaves the cult. 

4. Robin's time inside the cult's compound is truly terrifying and enlightening. She sees for herself, and we through her, how the cult controls and scares its members into total submission. The information that she uncovers and the people and behaviours that she observes become critical for cracking this case. 

5. At the centre of this book is not one single murder mystery or a series of murders but a drowning. 15 years ago, the cult leader's seven year old daughter mysteriously drowned in the sea at 5 am and her body was never found. She was immediately elevated to the status of a Prophet, unimaginatively called The Drowned Prophet, and the cult held these ceremonies where once a year, the little girl would manifest in a physical form and call out unbelievers and ask them to be punished. 

It is the punishment by The Drowned Prophet that has kept ex-cult members from speaking out or going to the cops about the massively illegal activities of the cult. So, in order to fully discredit the cult, especially to its current and ex members, Strike figures it is necessary to prove that the Drowned Prophet didn't actually drowned and to explain the spirit manifestations, which were a key control mechanism for the cult. 

The whole investigation and piecing together of what happened to Daiyu- the seven year old girl- that morning 15 years ago is very interesting and nicely done. 

6. Also, minor spoiler, but we are finally rid of the supremely annoying Charlotte- Strike's toxic and deranged ex-girlfriend! Good riddance! I was sick of ~200-odd pages being dedicated to her shenanigans in each book. 

7. Furthermore, we have some progress on the Strike and Robin will-they-won't-they romance/ chemistry thing! Do not want to give anything away but there has been some progress! 

8. The ending is quite satisfactory and nicely done. All the little mysteries connected to the cult and the case are resolved in a satisfactory manner. 

Rating: 4/5