This is something Gabe and our mutual friend Kris Straub share - a suspicion that ghosts may be real. More than a suspicion, perhaps. They live their lives in accordance with the undeniable, universally understood fact of spectral incursion. I haven't gone into it super deep with Gabe but I can guess at the techniques he's developed to ensure his safety - and the safety of his family. Kris told me that he leaves shoes upside down, with the holes against the carpet, because… I'm trying to remember. I think the idea was that the open shoes implied an entity, and that was sufficient to create a point of ingress? Was that it?

I don't think that ghosts are real, but I think it would be super scary if they were, so movies about them still work on me. I think that if we are comparing phantoms straight across, Japanese horror is almost beyond my capacity to endure. I don't like these fucken' faces, man. I don't like how they're coming out of teevees and wells and VHS tapes and shit. But I don't think they're really, really real. My friends live in a world where they think this shit can happen?! I guess I'm glad, in a way. Not for them, that sounds bad. But for Gabe, it's probably why we have Nightlight and the strange, sad ghosts of the Thornwatch. For Kris, it's probably why we have… y'know, Kris.

My family really likes Alien broadly, I have managed to infect them with my disease, but when it comes to entering into the true fandom that's limited to me and my youngest daughter Ronia. This is the movie that every new sleepover attendee must endure. She tests them against its violence and its unseemly moisture. The stylistic touches are all there, plus cosigns from Ridley Scott and James Cameron, so you gotta wonder if we're talking about someone who understands why it's all cool or if it's essentially a Force Awakens style beat-for-beat remake. Don't really know about this guy, who seems to have cut his teeth on genre plays and has now been granted a founding document of modern horror. He certainly has the vibe down.

(CW)TB out.