sethstanley

On Halloween night, Mrs S and I sat down with our trick-or-treat spoils (ok, they really belonged to our kids, but they'll thanks us when we save them from diabetes).

We got comfy and loaded up The Fear of God: 25 years of The Exorcist on BBC iPlayer. It's a documentary by Mark Kermode and Nick Freand Jones, exploring why the film became such a phenomenon.

Mark Kermode is a celebrated film critic and author familiar to UK TV viewers and readers of the Guardian and Observer newspapers. I recently found out he's been vocal in the past about the need for more 'traditional' film critics in the face of an increase of bloggers and the rise of 'amateur' critics...

I've tagged him into some of my previous tweets highlighting my posts here on Coil. In light of this new information, I may leave him out for future posts...

The documentary was released first in 1998, but was added to iPlayer on Halloween with a new intro from Kermode, a couple of never-before-seen interviews and dubbed 'the festival cut'.

It explores the intangible something at the heart of the film, that pushed it beyond normal horror fare to another level entirely.

Kermode talks to the director William Friedkin, the screenplay writer and author of the book the film was based on, William Peter Blatty, and most of the lead cast and crew.

The legend

Even as a kid, without ever having seen so much as a still photo from the movie, I was terrified at any mere mention of The Exorcist. The stories of people queuing outside cinemas for hours, only to get inside and faint due to the film's content, are legendary. Tales of paramedics on standby, churches full of repentant theatre-goers and cinemas picketed by religious groups abound.

The BBFC withheld authorisation for video release. The film was labelled as a 'video nasty', available to UK viewers, along with other banned movies, only on the blackmarket. Due to the lack of availability, the anticipation to view it grew stronger still for a large swell of potential watchers, eager to see if the film lived up to its terrifying reputation.

In 1999, they relented, claiming that while The Exorcist was still a powerful movie, it no longer had the impact it had upon its cinematic release.

The curse

The myth of the supernatural reach of the movie was perpetuated further by the number of deaths during filming. Ellen Burstyn (Chris MacNeil) claimed there were nine deaths that happened while the Exorcist was being made.

William Friedkin asked religious advisor Reverend Thomas Bermingham to come on set and perform a real-life exorcism. He initially refused, worried it would somehow add to the circus enveloping the film at the time. He changed his mind the following day when a fire started, burning the MacNeil house set down, but leaving the possessed child Regan's bedroom untouched...

The sound

The documentary also covers Friedkin's choice of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells for the film's score, after he rejected the atonal score written by Mission Impossible composer Lalo Schifrin by literally throwing it out of a window and across a parking lot.

There is a really interesting anecdote about Mercedes McCambridge, the actress chosen to voice the demon for her neutral tones – at once sounding both masculine and feminine. The voice was over-dubbed with a variety of sound effects including animal sounds from a slaughterhouse – all adding to the otherworldly screams and shouts from the possessed Regan.

The last word

Ultimately, The Fear of God is held up as the definitive source of all things Exorcist. Mark Kermode managed to get anybody and everybody connected with and important to the making of the film to be interviewed on camera.

They speak candidly, in an interesting and absorbing way, with excellent anecdotes about the film. You might think you know everything I've talked about in this article, but to see it all together, and how those interviews are positioned, it's possible to get a real insight into some of the creative tensions that really propelled The Exorcist into movie folklore.

For Coil subscribers there's an extra section below about some of the visual effects discussion in the documentary.

If you're not a subscriber but want to view the extra content – you can sign up now!

I briefly considered calling you all individually to ask you that question, but it's right on Halloween, and I don't want to creep you all out or anything. Besides, Drew Barrymore never appreciated that phone call...

So I wrote this blog post instead! Much less time-consuming too!

So, DO you like scary movies? I know I do.

I'm not going to go too much in depth about why. The psychology behind it has been done to death.

It IS fascinating though. It is said that people who like horror films are often bungee-jumping, sky-diving thrill seekers looking for new and interesting sensations! That doesn't really sound like me though.

There's a theory that this genre makes deep-rooted fears become real. Frankenstein was a commentary about how science can evolve to alter nature and Get Out tackled very real contemporary race issues.

Hmmm. It's certainly possible, but again – I don't think this really describes me. Not on a conscious level anyway.

Phil's reaction when he heard there'll only be five episodes of Rick and Morty before Christmas wasn't a good one...

Now, a third theory says – you know what? Some people , while consciously disapproving of whatever actions the antagonists perform in these films, actually enjoy the carnage, the blood and guts, the monsters, the serial killers, the ghosts, the demons! Deep-down, we love it!

Ok, now you're talking. I'm starting to see a picture of myself emerge in this scenario.

I want some jump scares (not too many though – there are only so many times I can be scraped off the ceiling), I want a 1970's synth soundtrack (not compulsory, but it ought to be there). I want a fairly insignificant lead character that I don't really care too much about, but most of all, I want a genuinely frightening threat that tips my world upside down for a time.

Nosferatu (1922)

I love Nosferatu, Bela Lugosi's Dracula, the Hammer Horror era of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. I adore the slasher genre – your Halloweens, your Child's Plays, your Friday the Thirteenths, your Screams. All good stuff.

More traditional 'horror' – the Omen films, Rosemary's Baby, Don't Look Now – and the Holy Grail of course, the Exorcist.

There's also room in my favourites for the less traditional that may not easily fit with some of those, like Alien, Hellraiser, Silence of the Lambs, Blair Witch Project, It, Saw and The Ring.

Most of these films have things in common that provide a winning combination for me – a seemingly unstoppable evil character that is genuinely unsettling AND a voyage of discovery where we learn some backstory about them and get a peek at their Achilles heel – a way to overcome them (if only til the sequel) and put the world straight again by bedtime.

I mean, you've got to be able to get yourself to sleep after watching these, haven't you? Imagine if there was a film where you weren't even safe when you were asleep!

Wouldn't that just be enough to give you nightmares?

Come and talk to me about your favourite scary movies on Twitter!

Coil subscribers! Stay tuned below for my top 5 movies to watch on Halloween!

If you'd like to read along but aren't a Coil subscriber, you can sign up now.

Oh no! I forgot, I'm not supposed to talk about it, right?

But surely it's ok now? I mean, it's been twenty years this month?

Well, I'll take my chances, and if members of Project Mayhem show up on my doorstep, maybe I'll beat up on their VW Beetle, or shoot myself in the mouth.

Wow! It's twenty years since David Fincher unleashed upon the world his version of Chuck Palahniuk's 1996 anarchic, blackly comic novel.

The plot

Fight Club sees Edward Norton as an unnamed Narrator (although sometimes Jack, sometimes Rupert), unsatisfied with his IKEA-furniture buying, boring office job life-style. Things take a turn for him after meeting charismatic soap salesman Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Together they start a Fight Club, and a relationship with fake support group attendee Marla Singer (Helena Bonham-Carter).

Fight Club starts out as a group underground fist-fight, a means of getting like-minded white collar guys to just feel something in a society where endless shopping and collection of material possessions makes us feel numb.

It's only after we've lost everything, that we're free to do anything.
- Tyler Durden

As numbers grow, Tyler uses his new audience to escalate Fight Club into Project Mayhem – a trained, corporate-bashing, terrorist army engaged in subversive acts of violence.

As the Narrator grows more uncomfortable about the activities that Project Mayhem is involved in, Tyler becomes more dominant.

It becomes apparent near the end of the film that the Narrator and Tyler are, of course, the same person. I have to say, I never saw this coming at the time – this was a killer twist that really sold the film for me. I enjoyed re-watching the film frequently, to go back and see the clues so cleverly planted, that make the ending so utterly believable.

If you erase the debt record, we all go back to zero. – Tyler Durden

After shooting himself in the face, and therefore killing Tyler, the film ends with the Narrator and Marla hand in hand, watching Project Mayhem's explosives bring down a number of buildings where credit records are held, initiating an era of 'financial equilibrium' (a level playing field?).

Then and now

I loved this movie when I first saw it on release. As an early twenty-something, I saw it very much as a guy's movie. An all-action, testosterone-fuelled, dark comedy with a quite brilliant and unexpected reveal.

Watching it in a room with HD TV, on a top-of-the-range DVD player, surrounded by countless games consoles, the anti-corporate message of the film fell largely on deaf ears.

I was wowed by the look and feel of the film, the insertion of so many effects and details that really add to some of the stories within the story. Whatever image you think flashed up on your screen just then, yes, you did see it. ;–)

I don't remember much controversy around it at the time, but it's not hard to see how it may have been seen as a call-to-arms for people intent on violently disrupting the status quo (as Joker has very recently).

Fast forward to now, quotes from the film have been appropriated on a number of alt-right websites as inspiration or some kind of guide to life – but they are well wide of the mark.

Fight Club doesn't glorify violence. There is no pay-off for it here. The Narrator overcomes Tyler – he's the antagonist in all of this. Even he sees the error of his ways near to the end of the movie.

When the fight was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered. We all felt saved. – The Narrator

It's too simplistic and inaccurate to link this caustic, masculine satire with world events that followed afterwards, but what the film did accurately foresee is a continuing search for outlets where disillusioned folks can rage against everything wrong with the world.

People want to fight – physically and verbally. Not always in a desire to be agents for positive change.

In a world where corporate business overshadows so much of what we do, throwing Starbucks cups at Facebook billboards feels like a fruitless exercise in everything but spleen-venting. But in the end, for most of us, that feels like enough.

Social commentators are looking at a Trump-tastic USA and the complete hash that the UK are making of Brexit, and hailing Fight Club as a film ahead of its time, eerily prescient in some of its far-reaching ideas. I'm not so sure about that.

Far from being the trigger for acts of violence, it feels like the film was just telling us what we already knew, albeit in a fresh and interesting way.

People don't like some stuff that is happening in their lives and are struggling to find a suitable way to articulate that?

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

If you liked this post, you can check out my other movie posts here:

El Camino:A Breaking Bad Movie – a review

25 years of Pulp Fiction

Joker: a review[no spoilers]

Seth Stanley's Movie Deaths Volume 1

Or check out one of my movie quizzes:

Movie Quiz No 1

Movie Quotes Quiz

Movie Villains Quiz No 1

For Coil subscribers, enjoy my Fight Club quiz below!

If you don't have a Coil subscription, go and sign up now!

Eeesh! Kind of a punny title for such a serious topic.

How does that sit with you? Did you laugh? Think it was cheesy? A little inappropriate?

Maybe a little of each. All at once. Maybe none of these things. Maybe it left you cold.

Dying, shuffling off this mortal coil, kicking the bucket, popping your clogs – whatever you choose to call it, death inspires some very different feelings in all of us. It makes me sad when I stop to think about the people I've lost, so I make stupid jokes instead. It's kind of my thing. I'm not proud.

Avid readers may recall I've been all too close to death very recently, writing There Is A Light That Never Goes Out in mid-September when my mum passed away.

My sister and I had less than four weeks following her death to pack up her things, decide between us what we would keep and what would go to charity. The hardest part was undoubtedly tossing items that meant something to her, nobody else, into trash headed for landfill.

Seeing her life reduced to a pile of bin bags in the corner of an otherwise empty living room was extremely tough.

I was there at the very end for both of my parents and I must say, it has diminished my fear of death. It seemed natural and peaceful. Nothing to be scared of. Something to embrace. A final step into the unknown. The darkest, never-ending sleep.

I thought about someone clearing my stuff out after my death. It could be my wife one day. It could be my kids. What would they keep? What would they throw away? What would remind them of me?

How will I be remembered? This felt like a big deal to me. How can I be sure my family will keep my memory alive?

Of course, I can't be sure. Nor should I care! I empathise only too well with my future dead self, that I imagine I'll be watching from the after-life, seeing my family making life go on, while I miss them terribly...

We are fast approaching 2 November. In Mexico, it is Dia de Muertos ( I bloody love Spanish) – the Day of the Dead.

More specifically, it is All Souls Day. The day that families visit the graves of loved ones and decorate them with altars or ofrendas. They bring the favourite food and drink of the deceased. Photos and memorabilia.

What would my family bring for me? I envisage a sizzling plate of fajitas with a bowl of tiramisu. And a cold beer. Gathering round my Macbook Air on top of the grave, running a slideshow of old photos.

What legacy will I leave behind me?

Hopefully my two beautiful kids will grow into strong, independent women with bright futures ahead of them.

I hope they think of me often, as I think of both my mum, and my dad, who passed away ten years ago. When they have a problem, I hope they'll think – what would my dad have done? What did he teach me about life that enables me to make a decision here?

I hope they will continue to be loving and respectful, and fulfil as many of their dreams as they can. It's pretty awful to think that if the natural order of things goes to plan, there is a chapter of their lives I won't be a character in.

Once we've gone, we exist only as thoughts in other's minds. In their tears, in their laughter. In their words.

Let's do what we can in life to make them positive thoughts. Happy tears. Hearty laughter. Kind words.

There's more content below for Coil subscribers. If you don't have a subscription, you can sign up now!

There's been a lot of chat on the Content Builders Club Telegram group this week about Death, and some wonderful viewpoints expressed.

Please take the time out to read them:

Allen (@tokyoliving123) – such a super writer, opened up on the topic first with Mortality, inspiring me to put fingers to keyboard.

My friend Stefano (@CriptoltaTrade) followed up with I'm Mortality.

And then my pal Miguel(@Miguel_Se7) gave us the excellent Memento Mori, quoting Marcus Aurelius.

Life-affirming, all of them.

Do you think about it much?

I do it all the time. Some might say a little too much.

And, privately at least, I think I might agree with that.

It's called prospection.

Most of the time, in my head, I'm in my perfect, aspirational, future state of how I want my life to be, and how I see it panning out. It's a nice place.

That's good though right? I aspire for my life to be better than it is now at some point in the future.

But doesn't that imply that I am somewhat dissatisfied with life as it stands? Shouldn't I be grateful for what I have right now?

Well to me, that's right AND wrong, simultaneously. Like Shrodinger's Cat is both dead AND alive.

I AM grateful for everything that's good in my life. And that's a lot.

I don't take my family, or what I've achieved in life for granted, however I am in a constant state of flux. Looking to tweak, upgrade, be better.

In my working life, it's helpful. I've got my eyes way down the road while others are focused on the bumper of the car in the front. I can see potholes, bumps and where we might need to veer off-course to maintain pace.

My colleagues call me a strategic thinker, but the reality is, I get bored quickly of looking at the 'as-is' picture. I know it's there, it's real, I can see it. Meh, what's next?

It's much more fun to hold a vision in your mind of something abstract that hasn't come into being yet. Nor ever will. It's perfect.

What job will I do? Where will I travel? How will my kids turn out? What will my house look like with a loft extension?

Prospection makes our lives more meaningful. It can shape our decision-making processes, motivate us to achieve our goals, improve our psychological well-being and make us more kind and generous.

But for anyone like me, who lives in their heads, and needs a wake-up call sometimes – while prospection is helpful and desirable, it's important to temper its intangibility with your real-life achievements.

You only need to look around to see the life you've created so far, that you once aspired to have, made real.

Get your head in the moment. Play with your kids. Pay attention to your partner. Be with your family.

Make time for the people who are there NOW.

There'll always be time to plan how to pay for that loft extension.

Coil subscribers! See my top 5 favourite films about the future!

Can't see it? Sign up for a Coil subscription now!

Spoiler alert: I liked Breaking Bad.

No wait, I loved Breaking Bad.

Nah, still not right. I adored Breaking Bad.

Sorry, none of these are cutting it. I can't find the words to describe how I feel about what I consider to be the greatest tv show of all time.

Vince Gilligan has blessed us with a world of exquisite characters, who over time, have moved through the most heartbreaking narrative arcs, with incredibly explosive results.

When you feel like you know a tv character and you bleed with them, laugh and cry with them, cook meth with them – you know that writer and actor has truly combined to give us something unique. That magic was rife throughout the entire cast.

I have pretty much been on countdown for this movie since it was first rumoured years ago, and when it was confirmed in August 2019, to say I was excited is the biggest of understatements.

Jesse was bummed that Google Maps had sent him on the wrong track again. There's supposed to be a barbershop here...

Let me fill you in on the premise before I tell you whether I thought it was worth the wait...

El Camino picks up at literally the moment that Breaking Bad ended. A dishevelled, hysterical Jesse Pinkman, accelerating away from the Neo-Nazis who had captured and tortured him for so long.

And this becomes the reason for the film's existence. It answers the questions “What happened to Jesse Pinkman? Did he get caught? Did he escape to start a new life?”

Welding good

Through a skilful use of flashback and present-time story-telling, we see Jesse in conversation with a number of characters familiar from the Breaking Bad universe. The film takes us first to Badger and Skinny P as Jesse reaches out to his closest friends. Then it explores an unseen adventure with Todd (Jesse Plemons) and a re-visit to Ed Galbraith, the Vaccuum Cleaner Guy with a sideline in new identities. There are some other very familiar cameos, but I promised no spoilers!

Jesse's biggest issue to overcome in the movie revolves around the Kandy Welding guy. A man familiar to him, but not to us Breaking Bad fans. He's a slimeball straight out of the fictional Albuquerque ecosystem though and it feels like he's been here all along.

He's the guy who built the cage in the white supremacist compound where Jesse was held for six months. He encounters him again searching Todd's apartment for money that he knew was stashed there, and later on back at Kandy Welding when Jesse goes there to ask for more money, with dramatic consequences.

Standing alone

Aaron Paul as Jesse, is, as he was throughout the entire series, exceptional. And it's a good job too. This is his film, his story. And he doesn't just carry the film, he raises it up onto his shoulders. He inhabits every atom of the character to the point where I have doubts whether Aaron Paul is a real person...

Tonally and visually, El Camino made me feel like Breaking Bad never really went away. The narrative twists and turns and occasional bursts of violence against the beautifully ordinary backdrops of residential suburbs and vaccuum repair stores, giving way to the driest New Mexico desert landscapes was all very familiar.

Almost too familiar. It was definitely a stand-alone story, but it felt very much like a double-length episode. While I was not once bored, and I enjoyed every second of being back in this world, with these people, I kind of shrugged my shoulders at the end, almost saying to myself, “ I wonder what will happen in the next one?”

Feeling glad

I didn't expect El Camino to end when it did, and I was disappointed that its focus was as narrow as it was. I had hoped for an ending with more punch, but that's a small gripe. The film acts as a sweet addendum to the tv show.

Vince Gilligan saw this movie as his opportunity to tie up loose ends and provide some resolution to unanswered questions about Jesse's story arc. It does provide some of that. The film truly marks Jesse's ascension from Walter White's sidekick to badass hero of his own story, overcoming the odds and going it on his own in a new state.

For me, it really leaves the door ajar to answer a whole new set of questions, starting with what I imagine is going through Jesse's mind at the end of the movie: “What's next, bitch?”

If you enjoyed this post you might also like:

25 years of Pulp Fiction

Joker: a review[no spoilers]

Seth Stanley's Movie Deaths Volume 1

Or check out one of my movie quizzes:

Movie Quiz No 1

Movie Quotes Quiz

Movie Villains Quiz No 1

For Coil subscribers, you can enjoy my Breaking Bad quiz below!

Submit your answers before 26 October for a chance to win some XRP!

If you don't have a Coil subscription, go and sign up now!

So how old where you this week in October 1994?

I was a sixteen year old schoolkid, who'd seen a shoddy, poor-quality copy of Reservoir Dogs only weeks before, and loved it.

Who was this quirky Tarantino guy who had dared to make a heist film that missed out the main event? How could he make a film about a diamond robbery, where people mainly sit around talking? I demanded answers!

Talk was rife before Pulp Fiction was released, of Quentin Tarantino being credited with the resurrection of John Travolta and Bruce Willis. Since winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes in May of that year, the buzz around the film had been very real. And I was excited.

There I was, ambling into a cinema with my sister, loaded up with Coke and popcorn. Unaware, that I was about to see a film that would redefine cinema and create a genre all of its own.

It's the happiest 154 minutes I've ever spent in front of a cinema screen. It felt like Reservoir Dogs was the trial run. There are so many elements of it here, but Pulp Fiction takes them and ramps them up to 11.

The film bleeds cool from its pores. From the ultra-slick, crackling dialogue and the effortlessly hip soundtrack to the fresh, timeline-hacking, narrative structure and the insanely dark predicaments in which the main characters find themselves. It blew me away.

Looking back, in its individual elements, there are no new tricks here. But sometimes things come together soooo perfectly, you just can't account for the magic dust that whips everything together. Not even QT can.

For me, Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2 aside, Tarantino has never since come close to recapturing this glorious on-screen mixture of delights. He wasn't merely making a film here – he was defining a universe.

An underbelly of Los Angeles where hitmen discuss the minutiae of burger names in Paris. Past-their-best boxers rig fights and save mob bosses from a fate worse than death by wielding samurai swords. Gangster's molls require adrenaline shots after drug overdoses and diner stick-ups go wrong when small-time crooks pick on the wrong guys.

Ultimately, when you look past the plot, it's a film about nothing. There is no message here, no big take-away to chew over. But that's ok, right? Not every film has to make you think and need to discuss it to the nth degree over apple pie and ice cream. But to forget while you watch it that there's a world outside is what good cinema is all about.

This is one of those films for me that I can dive into at any point. I'll know the scene, I'll know the dialogue, and far from feeling like it's something new and edgy, as I once did, twenty five years ago, it feels like a comfy hoodie that I can nestle into, or the return of an old friend.

And that's fine. The effect it had on me when I first saw it still remains powerful. It set the tone for a genre of crime films where something whacky happens, and there's a bit of humour, sporadic violence and an attempt to replicate Tarantino's incredible ear for dialogue. But all I've seen have missed the mark.

None have managed to capture Pulp Fiction's personality. And personality goes a long way.

If you enjoyed this post you might also like:

Joker: a review[no spoilers]

Seth Stanley's Movie Deaths Volume 1

Or check out one of my movie quizzes:

Movie Quiz No 1

Movie Quotes Quiz

Movie Villains Quiz No 1

Coil subscribers can check out my Pulp Fiction quiz for fun below!

If you haven't subscribed yet, you can sign up now!

Friends are great aren't they?

By virtue of proximity, of being very similar or very different to each other, we make connections with other people.

We fulfil their needs, they fulfil ours – it's an unwritten contract of mutual benefit. From when we are children, it's through our platonic relationships with others that we learn a lot about ourselves. Our ability to lead, to follow, to show compassion, be jealous, work together for common goals. It's how we develop and grow.

Friends ARE great, aren't they? Until they're not. Until they decide they don't want to be our friends any more. Or we don't want to be theirs. What happens when there's no one to go to Central Perk with?

It's not me, it's you

I took this really hard as a kid. Even when I didn't want to be someone's friend any more, I never told them! Who would do that to a person? It's just evil!

So when someone told me they didn't want to be my friend any more, I was heartbroken. What was wrong with me? I attached myself to other kids with the greatest of ease. But when the finality hit home that I wouldn't see these other kids again, I was destroyed.

Fast forward thirty-odd years, and I'm better at this stuff now, I think. And rightly so, I'm a grown-up now! That's how it goes, right? You learn, you gain experience, you pay bills, you get a house, start a family, and all of a sudden, people who were utterly central to your life for a time, just don't matter so much anymore.

I see my life like a pie-dish. As I get older, the pie-dish gets smaller. The filling gets a bit squished, and the excess pastry hanging over the edge, which was once close to the centre, now gets trimmed, straight into the trash, without a second thought.

My family are the filling in my pie, these days, and time for the people who I was once so close to is at a premium. And when I do see them, well, things aren't quite the same as they used to be...

Different strokes

We're not the same people any more. The things we bonded over once just aren't there. The things we laughed at, got excited about, got angry about.... those are different things now.... No one's fault, it just happens. They've changed. I've changed. The older you get, the more you get used to this happening.

I used to feel so much anxiety about this... I don't know why I don't anymore... Age? Experience? Family? Is it cos I have less time to care about it? I try not to look at it like friendships I've lost.

It may be a life-long connection that ends and that's really hard to take, but it only takes a moment to connect with someone new – and how interesting is it to see where THAT goes?

Every interaction, every friendship is meaningful. They help you develop – become who you are NOW. For right or wrong, this is where I am. Every experience to this point has led me here now.

And so has yours.

Hey, Coil subscribers! Some more content below for you!

It's 'Welcome Night' at The Manor, but who is the mysterious guest of honour?

The Dustpan: An XRP Short Story is the latest offering from XRP The Standard Productions – a Twitter account spreading the word about XRP through a number of entertaining short stories you can find on Cinnamon.

This beautifully illustrated tale , read by the marvellous Dick Terhune, starts with a BANG! as a mysterious stranger is led through woods in a horse-drawn carriage. The muted tones of watercolour illustrations cleverly evoke the feel of a 1970's Hammer Horror movie.

[It's impossible to read anything on those Greyhound bus night rides...]

It's not quite Halloween yet, but the language of this story – and the manner in which it's told – brought to mind the dark fables of Poe and Lovecraft. It has a Gothic, New Englandy feel that so many macabre short stories aim for. Here, it really pays off, bringing the stranger to a manor frequented by a ghostly butler and a number of ghoulish residents. They are preparing a Welcome Night party, but who for?

Guest by guest, the butler moves around the manor, and it soon becomes apparent why they are all there. You'll need to watch it to see why!

[Dave didn't want to go to the party. As he had feared, it was a little bit dead...]

At almost 32 minutes run-time, with just one voice-actor, this could have fallen a little flat. Fortunately, Dick Terhune capably injects life and humour into the characters.

The story is well-paced, and funny. The reveal is terrific, and for those who already believe in XRP, I'm sure a wry smile will creep across your face as the tale unfolds. These stories are a great way to hook new people in and learn in a fun way about XRP and how it's going to become the standard for the Internet of Value.

[Bryan suddenly remembered he'd left the oven on at home...]

You can watch it here:

https://www.cinnamon.video/xrp_productions/watch?v=162103255961175851&l=L3hycF9wcm9kdWN0aW9ucw%3D%3D

There's some subscriber only content below – an interview with XRP the Standard Productions! What do you mean you can't see it? I think you need to sign up to Coil fast!