Tag: review

Lily’s Garden: A Surprisingly Gothic Mobile Game

I’m not usually in the business of reviewing mobile games, but it’s not everyday that the mindless puzzle game you download to kill time turns out to have an intricate narrative chock-full of classic Gothic tropes. Lily’s Garden, created by Tactile Games, is a match-three style puzzle game not unlike Candy Crush that is available from Google Play and the Apple App Store. But while I initially sought out the game for its fairly mindless gameplay, its real appeal lies in between the levels of complicated formations of colored blocks.

Title screen of the game Lily's Garden, which shows a wooden sign reading "Lily's Garden" in large letters at the top, with a large colorful house surround by flowers and trees in the background. Continue reading Lily’s Garden: A Surprisingly Gothic Mobile Game

Dark Wood Tarot Deck Review

I just bought myself the most delightfully gothic tarot deck! I’ve been dabbling in tarot for several years now, and you may remember my 2016 review of the Raven’s Prophecy Tarot by Maggie Stiefvater, the deck that first made things click for me. Since then, I’ve continued working with the Raven’s Prophecy deck, as well as with the Ghosts and Spirits Tarot by Lisa Hunt. But I’m always on the lookout for new decks that call to me and can help me connect deeper with tarot. Recently, in a moment of self-indulgent quarantine shopping, I found myself scrolling through the impressive selection of tarot decks available on Bookshop.org. I came across the Dark Wood Tarot, which had just come out in June. It takes the structure of a classic Rider-Waite-Tarot deck but places it in a fantasy woodland setting as a metaphor for shadow work. As soon as I saw the artwork on the cards, I knew that I needed the Dark Wood Tarot in my hands immediately. Continue reading Dark Wood Tarot Deck Review

Netflix’s Dracula Miniseries Review

Dracula miniseries posterDo we really need another Dracula adaptation? I say, if it does something new and clever, then yes! And I think the new miniseries released earlier this year on Netflix and BBC One delivers on that. Dracula, created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, is a very loose retelling of Bram Stoker’s novel that takes the vampiric Count in a unique direction and explores his relationship with a new, original character: Agatha Van Helsing. If you’re looking for something quick to watch during quarantine, I definitely recommend it! Continue reading Netflix’s Dracula Miniseries Review

Classic Stage Company’s Dracula—A Feminist Adaptation

I love a good stage adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire novel, Dracula. After all, Stoker worked in theater for much of his life, and always intended for his charismatic Count to take the stage. Last weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing a particularly unique performance of Dracula adapted by Kate Hamill for the Classic Stage Company in New York City. Hamill makes significant revisions to the source material in order to transform Dracula into a feminist revenge fantasy by centering the female characters and confronting the sexism in Stoker’s original.

Photo of Van Helsing attacking Dracula
Jessica Frances Dukes as Van Helsing and Matthew Amendt as the titular vampire in Dracula (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Continue reading Classic Stage Company’s Dracula—A Feminist Adaptation

Go See Beetlejuice the Musical Before It Closes!

If you haven’t yet heard, Tim Burton’s beloved comedy-horror film Beetlejuice has recently been made into a Broadway musical. It opened at the Winter Garden Theatre back in April and, despite initial mixed reviews, has since become a surprise hit and one of the most popular shows of the season! The production stars Alex Brightman as the mischievous spirit Beetlejuice and Sophia Anne Caruso as the young protagonist Lydia Deetz, with lyrics and music by Eddie Perfect. In spite of the show’s popularity, the producers recently announced that it will be closing this summer to make room for The Music Man. The final Broadway production will be on June 6, and there are plans to launch a national tour in 2021. But if you’re able to get to New York City within the next six months, I highly recommend you go see it before it closes! I saw the show right when it opened back in April and absolutely loved it. Read on for my thoughts: Continue reading Go See Beetlejuice the Musical Before It Closes!

Review of The Hunted: Encore–A Vampire Musical

Remember the musical episode of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer? What if you could have a whole show like that? The Hunted: Encore is an indie-made musical web series about a team of vampire hunters living in New York City. The show is one of many spin-offs from the long-running web series The Hunted, but the first to take the musical approach. Producer Ned Donovan stars as a somewhat clueless newbie hunter who teams up with a badass vampire-slaying veteran played by Megan Dorn. Together, they crush villains and make allies while singing and dancing their way through original songs with music composed by Marcus Thorne Bagala. The minute I heard the words “vampire” and “musical” in the same sentence, they had my attention. The Hunted: Encore Season 2 poster Continue reading Review of The Hunted: Encore–A Vampire Musical

Review of Morbid Curiosity—A Game to Get You Talking About Death

Death—It’s at the center of both Gothic literature (as one of the primal fears driving the atmosphere of dread) and the gothic subculture (as inspiration for its music, art, fashion, and overall aesthetic). But outside of the goth world, death can be a difficult topic to broach. Death and dying are taboo, especially in American society, and no one seems to want to talk about the one fate that awaits us all. That’s why Kimberly Mead created the game Morbid Curiosity to get everyone talking about death.

Continue reading Review of Morbid Curiosity—A Game to Get You Talking About Death

Limetown Review: A Suspenseful Sci-fi Podcast

I tend to focus primarily on books on this site, but this week I decided to branch out into a new medium—podcasts! I just finished listening to Season 1 of Limetown, a podcast drama produced last summer about mysterious disappearances, mind-blowing scientific advancements, and the quest for truth, even in the face of death.

Limetown_logo

Limetown is a fictional podcast in the style of a radio show, much like the ever popular Welcome to Nightvale. Or so I’ve heard anyway, since I haven’t actually listened to Nightvale, yet. Podcasts are a new medium for me, and I find myself easily intimidated by the idea of committing to a long series with so many episodes. For this reason, my friend recommended that I start with Limetown, which has a similar sense of sci-fi spookiness but on a much more easily digestible scale. Continue reading Limetown Review: A Suspenseful Sci-fi Podcast

Maggie Stiefvater and The Raven’s Prophecy Tarot

Raven's prophecy tarot 3This tarot deck was one of my most anticipated items on my holiday wish list this year. And because my parents love me, I got it for Christmas! For those of you who don’t know, Maggie Stiefvater is one of my absolute favorite authors of YA fantasy, and she recently designed a tarot deck to go with her latest series, The Raven Cycle. Since the first book in this series, The Raven Boys, was my favorite book of 2015 and I’m always drooling over Maggie Stiefvater’s artwork, I knew I needed to get my hands on this deck. Continue reading Maggie Stiefvater and The Raven’s Prophecy Tarot

Rebecca Review–A Haunting Tale

Rebecca CoverA couple months ago, I posted about some of the foundational female writers of gothic literature. There was one woman on that list whose works I had not read before, and so I decided to seek her out. Thus, I found myself downloading the audiobook of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Rebecca is essentially a Gothic novel in the traditional sense, though it was written much later than its 18th– and 19th-century fellows. Ambiguously set in the 1920s or ‘30s, Rebecca contains no elements of the supernatural, no true evil villain, and no attacks on the heroine’s life. Instead, what makes Rebecca a Gothic novel is its focus on the core Gothic trope: the present haunted by the past—although in Rebecca’s case, this haunting is purely psychological. Continue reading Rebecca Review–A Haunting Tale