I’m still waiting to hear from CD Baby that they’ve approved my latest release, Spooky Season IV. They have gotten super slow with approving albums now that they’re charging extra for fast-tracked approval. Boooooooooooooo!
Regardless, here’s another track from the upcoming-at-some-point album:
Big things are afoot, friends—not Bigfoot, just life stuff. Good life stuff, but time-consuming life stuff.
More posts to come, but no movie review today. If you’re jonesing for some portly insights into flicks, check out my ongoing 31 Days of Halloween series on YouTube:
Happy Monday!
—TPP
October continues apace, and yours portly still hasn’t whipped out his Halloween decorations. D’oh! But I’m still celebrating in spirit, if not in Spirit Halloween.
To prove my point, here are some more October and October-adjacent posts:
Happy October—and Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
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Cringe-inducing “No Kings” protests are underway all over the nation today, attracting hordes of geriatrics who still think we live in a republic. Never mind that this time a year ago the nation was ruled by a naked emperor dancing about on marionette’s strings, each thread manipulated by a legion of unelected bureaucrats and Democratic apparatchiks. No, a robust executive is far more sinister than faceless puppeteers, right?
We all understand these protests are bogus. Had Kamala Harris won, we’d be knee-deep in tyrannical insanity, likely with the First Amendment and its speech and religious protections fluttering like a tattered banner of surrender in the winds of “progress.” The streets of our major metropolitan areas would be silent, unless the police got too frisky with a melanin-gifted drug addict, in which case every city would be ablaze and every Wendy’s bereft of its Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers. Regardless, most of these protestors still cling to the idea that the Constitution is under threat only when Donald Trump is enforcing it, but that the sacred document is perfectly safe when Democrats repeatedly violate it. It’s a classic example of “crying out in pain as they strike you.”
I for one welcome our Trumpian overlord. Consider: in the past few weeks he’s achieved peace in the Middle East—for the second time in his presidencies; he’s nearing some kind of conclusion to the Russo-Ukrainian War; and he’s designated AntiFa as an international terrorist organization (which it most certainly is, seeing as it gets much of its funding from the Chinese Communist Party and George Soros’s Open Society Foundations).
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On 1 October 2025 I launched a YouTube Shorts series, 31 Days of Halloween. The concept is simple: one, one-minute (or shorter) Halloween/horror movie review every day for the month of October. These reviews are super lo-fi—just yours portly recording on a phone, sitting at a desk. No frills, no fancy editing, just me giving my impressions of the films in an unscripted, fast way.
In case you’ve missed any installments, I’m featuring the several days of reviews. If you want to catchup on Days 1-9, check out last week’s YouTube Roundup.
A quick note: most of the links below are Amazon Affiliate links, typically linking to the movie on DVD or Blu-Ray, as well as the books they’re based upon (or the novelizations of the films). I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you.
That sweet, crispy, autumnal feel is in the air, which means it’s the perfect time for ghost stories. I love reading a good ghost story as the days grow shorter and darker, and the wind whips leaves through the streets.
Thanks to Ponty’s recommendation that I review The Haunting (1963) for 31 Days of Halloween, I’m going to crack open Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you), which I first read a few years ago. It’s more about the ghosts of the main character’s tortured psyche, but it blends the thin veil between psychological torment and the possibility of non-corporeal supernatural apparitions influencing events in this world.
With that, here is 17 October 2024’s “TBT^256: On Ghost Stories“:
Ponty is back with another great movie review, this week featuring the claustrophobic thriller of 2005’s The Descent. The film explores the tension of being trapped in the dark with something sinister and lethal—a core human fear.
When I was a kid, we took a big trip to the mountains to visit my great-grandmother in the mountains of western Virginia. On that trip we visited Mammoth Cave, a large cave system in Kentucky, and I believe Bat Cave in North Carolina as well (I could very well be conflating multiple trips into one in my mind). At one point on a guided tour of the caves, deep underground (we took an elevator to descend into the chamber), the tour guide turned off the lights in the cavern. The darkness was so total, so complete, it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I think I instinctively moved closer to my family so I at least had some sense of security.
That experience very much captures, albeit in a very safe, tame, and controlled manner, what this flick feels like to watch. We take it for granted that, even in the dead of night, there’s usually some source of light: the moon, a cellphone, an alarm clock, the soft green of a charger indicating it’s doing its job. Total blackness—complete darkness—is something truly unsettling.
Ponder that as you enjoy Ponty’s review of The Descent (2005):
Spooky Season IV is coming at some point this month (hopefully the Monday of Halloween week). Here’s another tasty tune for your spooky satisfaction.
Yours portly has been working on several higher-level, real-life projects lately (besides planning a wedding in about six weeks), so today’s post is going to be a very quick reflection on the films of Alfred Hitchcock.
Shudder has featured several of the director’s films lately, and it’s been a pleasure to revisit them. In particular, I’ve watched Psycho (1960), Vertigo (1958) and Rear Window (1954). The Birds (1963), which I saw in the theater two years ago, is also on the streaming platform, but I’ve yet to re-watch it.
It’s my favorite month of the year, so let’s keep rolling with some vaguely October-related posts!
Happy October—and Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
The Portly Politico 