Culture Consumption: October 2025

Books

Erika T. Wurth’s horror novel, The Haunting of Room 904, explores the ways we are confronted by the ghosts of our past, both personal and historical. Olivia Becente, a former academic turned ghost hunters seeks to bring healing to the past by urging lost souls to move on. Her work dredges up and exposes old wounds, both historical and personal, forcing her to face historical horrors and her sister's mysterious death in an old, iconic hotel, where a cycle of violence continues to take place. Olivia's investigations lead her into confrontations with an abusive ex-boyfriend, "a mysterious and possibly dangerous cult, a vindictive journalist, betrayal by her friends, and shocking revelations about her sister's secret life." I love the way this novel is structured, combining scientific, pseudo-scientific, and mythical aspects into its ghost hunting scenes, while also providing an interesting cast of characters, who I want to see survive and thrive.

It Eats Planets by Samantha Mackenzie Greer is an ongoing comics project, with new pages being posted each week. The story presents a dark, dystopian sci-fi horror novel about a woman with three arms, who is captured by the corrupt government. It’s clear from the early pages that she’s planning something (a heist, I believe), and is gathering together the materials and people she needs to accomplish her goal. The art is crips and gritty, and the story is captivating. Thus far, there are 59 pages, and I keep checking back in each week to see each new page, because I can’t wait to see where this story is going.

According to the the history of Cain's Jawbone, cryptic crossword compiler Toquemada wrote a murder mystery novel, which was accidentally published with its pages in a haphazard order — and thus it became a literary puzzle. (Though the way in which these pages are published, each containing a specific fragment of text with no paragraph breaks, feels far too intentional for this to be an accident.) As a result, the book presents a challenge for the reader to use context clues and assemble the pages into the correct order to solve the mystery of several murders. Apparently, only a handful of folks have reportedly accomplished the task.

At this point, I have read through the pages, primarily to get a sense of the story and how one might approach solving it. The style is dense and old-fashioned (since it was originally written in the '30s), which makes just the act of reading it a challenge. But I see some pathways to start the process of figuring it out — which I have no intention of doing at this time, since I'm not terribly great at puzzles this complex, and I don't have the mental headspace to try.

Books Finished This Month:

1. It Eats Planets by Samantha Mackenzie Greer

2. Cain’s Jawbone by Toquemada

3. The Haunting of Room 904 by Erika T. Wurth

Total Books for the Year: 40

Still in Progress:

Rosa's Einstein: Poems by Jennifer Givhan, The Stand by Stephen King, Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown, and Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English)

Short Stories & Poetry

A selection of works I recently read in journals and online publications, with a few lines from the text shared here.

Micro-Horror: “Spelunking” by Wojtek Borowicz — 

Poetry: “The Luna Moth Has No Mouth” by Rigoberto González (Poetry Foundation) — 

Fantasy: “Exit Interview” by K.W. Onley (Strange Horizons) — 

Poetry: "On Leaving the Flowers Too Long in the Vase" by Elise Powers —

Poetry: "My Most Recent Position Paper" by Bob Hicok —

Movies

In honor of Spooky Season, I attempted a Halloween movie binge. My goal was to watch ten new-to-me scary movies — and I managed seven (not bad). I also rewatched from beloved classics that I associate with Halloween, including Scream, The Craft, Beetlejuice, and Stir of Echoes.

Lake Mungo is a surprisingly subtle film about the horror of loss and the ongoing grief that comes after. In this faux-documentary, a grieving family begins to experience a presence in their house following the loss of their daughter during a tragic drowning accident. The movie rejects the typical horror spectacle of jump scares and gore, and instead focused on quiet, intimate interviews and home video footage. In fact, it was so grounded that I started to question whether or not it was fiction. I wouldn’t say that Lake Mungo is particularly scary, but it is an achingly sad and haunting movie. I can’t recommend it enough.

Candyman is a well-loved horror classic that it has taken me way too long to finally watch. When Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) begins researching the urban legend of the Canydman for a her thesis, she finds herself becoming entangled in the legend itself with people starting to die around her. Tony Todd as the titular Candyman is instantly charismatic and captivating as soon as he’s on screen, and his chemistry with Madsen makes this movie as wildly sexy as it is frightening. I also really love how this movie paces itself, taking its time to set up Helen’s character while also exploring the urban legend and its potential impact on the world — before finally introducing the true Candyman. Phenomenal movie, and a new favorite.

I have vague memories of catching bits of Killer Klowns from Outer Space on TV late at night and have been meaning to watch it in full ever since. Well, now I’ve finally returned to it and its delightful. Awesome theme song. Cotton candy cocoons. Popcorn engine device (or whatever). Balloon scent-hound doggie tracking down its prey. Simultaneously terrifying and goofy clowns. Science that feels more like strange, terrifying magic. A fantastical sense of humor and horror. I love just about everything about this.

New-to-Me Movies Watched Last Month:

1. Companion (2025)

2. Candyman (1992)

3. Clown in a Cornfield (2025)

4. Lake Mungo (2008)

5. Stir of Echoes (1999)

6. TRON: Ares (2025)

7. The Little Mermaid (2023)

8. The Howling (1981)

9. Prom Night (1980)

10. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

Television

Pantheon is a fantastic cyberpunk show about “uploaded intelligence,” human beings who have had their minds uploaded to computer servers. The first season explores how this technology is initiated and its inevitable consequences both on the minds housed in computers and the physical world beyond. At the heart of the story is a daughter who lost her father and a young man who seems to be at the center of some kind of conspiracy. The show delves into corporate greed, the definition of human consciousness, espionage, and the near-religious zeal of technology believers. It’s fascinating, and I’m hoping the second season will wrap things up in a satisfying way.

Games

I finished Immortality (Sam Barlow / Half Mermaid Productions), and it’s phenomenal. To learn how to play the game, the player really just has to dive in and discover how to play the game. The mechanics of pulling up videos, scrubbing them (playing, fast-forwarding, and rewinding), and then zooming in on objects or people in scenes allows for an impressive amount of discovery and exploration of this multi-layered and powerful narrative.

Marissa Marcel was an up-and-coming actor, who starred in three films — none of which ever aired. The game presents itself as a retrospective, allowing the the player to delve into clips from these films along with behind the scenes footage to discover her story. In the end, it’s so much deeper than the surface story, revealing a fascinating perspectives on how artists strive for a kind of immortality through their craft.

I don’t want to say much more here, because it will lead directly into spoilers, but I love the way the discovery aspects of the game allow the player to piece together the narrative in their own way. It provides a space that allows the player to shape the narrative in their own way, especially as there are some clips they may never discover. As a result, each experience is truly unique, and its fascinating how this game is able to achieve that using live action video.

I’ve finished God of War (Sony's Santa Monica Studio) after about two years away (more or less, since I would pop in for an hour or two during that time before getting distracted again). I was able to get up to speed on the controls rather quickly, and I’m not having a blast with the game and am getting close to the ending.

God of War features some excellent blending of story and gameplay. One particular example is how it has been difficult to face ice creatures in the game, because his axe was also made of ice. Later, when Kratos makes the momentous decision to face his past and dig up the Blades of Chaos (his weapons from the previous games, which I haven’t even played), I got chills. Suddenly, the combat against the ice creatures shifted and the fights against them became ... so satisfying.

The story wraps up in such an emotionally satisfying way — and now I’m so curious about what happens in the next game after all that is revealed. I’ll probably jump into the sequel Ragnarök sometime soon.

I’m about 30 hours into Act 3 of Baldur’s Gate 3 (Larian Studios), and I love exploring the city of Balur’s Gate. It’s full of interesting side characters and quests, and my goal of focusing on the main storyline has entirely gone out the window.

However, I’m getting frustrated with the level of difficulty involved in many of these later battles — many of destroy my party multiple times before I can finally beat them. Sometimes this can make victory all the more satisfying, but it’s making the game take so much longer, and I’m finding myself more frustrated than anything else.

This is especially true when it goes in combination with the increased number of glitches that I’ve been encountering. They don’t happen all the time, but in certain sections of the game or in certain battles. During the “poltergeist” quest, the game would freeze every time I attempted to swap between characters. And during two different battles, an NPC would freeze in “decision making mode” just as I was about to finish the conflict, which forced me to start the difficult battle all over again. It’s enough of a paint that I was seriously considering just quitting the game entirely.

And yet, I would like to complete the storyline. So, I’m going to go ahead and take another break from the game. Later, I’ll come back, drop the difficulty down to an easier mode, and will attempt to complete the story.

That's it for me! What are you reading? Watching? Loving right now?