Following close on the heels of Sustefest X, this year’s World Fantasy Convention provided a marked change of scenery – from Valle de Santiago’s old-world streets and dormant volcanoes to LA’s multi-lane highways and active wildfires. Fortunately, skies around the Marriott Airport Hotel (the site of this year’s convention) were clear despite the proximity of the Saddleridge fire fewer than 20 miles north. Nevertheless, some attendees commented on fire-related road closures and long detours.

One of the major gatherings centering on fantastic literature (the others being science fiction’s WorldCon and horror’s StokerCon) World Fantasy offers … [read more at The 21st-Century Scop].

The southern portion of Guanajuato, Mexico, is a magical place – lush, mountainous, and dotted with volcanic craters arranged like the stars in the Big Dipper. It’s also home to the Sustefest Film Festival, which this year hosted the release of Nightmares, the new Spanish-language anthology featuring stories by members of the Nightmare Cinema writing team. [Read more at The 21st-Century Scop.]

Just in time for the Halloween season, Mick Garris’s Nightmare Cinema comes to Shudder — AMC’s streaming platform devoted to the best in horror, thriller, and supernatural films. Now, for a monthly subscription of $4.99, you can watch hundreds of titles in addition to the anthology film that Nightmarish Conjurings has called “an absolute must-see.” [Read more at The 21st-Century Scop.]

The thing I miss most about movie-going in the 21st-century is the lack of double features. I used to love watching those as a kid, sitting in a single-screen theater and letting a pair of thematically linked features roll over me.  Things like Jack the Giant Killer & Last of the Vikings or Jason and the Argonauts & Siege of the Saxons or Die Monster, Die & Planet of Vampires, or even Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster & Curse of the Voodoo (yeah, they weren’t all classics).

Perhaps it’s my fond memories of those double bills that even today has me seeking out interesting pairings in genre entertainment. To wit, the topics of today’s post: two books about filmmaking and the supernatural. And fittingly, as was often the case with those double-features of my youth, the first is one that … [read more at The 21st-Century Scop].