Happy Hallowe'en 2013!

It's here! It's Hallowe'en 2013!

The big non-event has finally arrived on a Thursday when nobody can do anything for it.



I'm completely burnt out by horror this month anyway, so I'm going to have a long hiatus. There are no new theatrical releases on my radar until at least March 2014, and I'm bored with these lacklustre straight-to-DVD horror movies and "hobby horror" crapfests.

I was going to write about Empire Pictures and Full Moon, but I can't be bothered to do it anymore. In fact, I can't be bothered to write reviews of anything. After over 2000 reviews, and more online "fights" over them than I can remember, I think I've finally grown out of it.

We only had one theatrical horror release in October, and it was that soulless "Carrie" remake. I think that's what finally killed the genre for old school horror fans such as myself. Let the new kids on the block gush over their slew of shitty movies which I'm never going to watch. I'm not going to waste any more of my time.

No more remakes, sequels, and clones for me.

As far as I'm concerned, horror is dead.

No more Twitter, no more Facebook, or any of the other social networking sites which don't send any traffic back to Blogger anyway. The internet "horror community" (what a joke!) is too full of cliques of cyberbullies and trolls all fighting among themselves, and I'm leaving them to it. The internet is not the fun place it used to be where you could make a few pretend friends and hang out when you were bored.

I'm done with it.

Dr Blood's Video Vault is resting

If you read this blog regularly then you may have noticed things slowing down quite considerably over the last couple of months. There are two reasons for this: There aren't any new horror films worth writing about, and I've lost interest in rewatching older horror films. You could say that I've lost my horror mojo.

Thus, I think now is a good time to take an indefinite break. There won't be anything in the cinemas until the "Evil Dead" remake (which I'm not all that bothered about seeing), and people just aren't reading or writing horror blogs right now anyway. I doubt that the remaining few horror bloggers will last much longer if they keep going back over the same old ground because, quite frankly, they are boring everyone to death too.

Yeah, horror bloggers, we get it. You don't like the remakes, you think practical effects are better than CGI, and you're all stuck in the '80s trying to relive the childhoods that you wish you'd had through yakking about the same old slasher films and their clones until you have nothing else to say. Sorry, guys, but I was never a willing passenger on your nostalgia trips. I'm not American so I don't buy into your hobby horror filmmakers. I prefer extreme horror and the supernatural to your horror-comedies, slashers and zombie films, and if I want to perv over boobs, I'll just Google some real porn. You all need to stop collecting little dollies of Bruce Campbell, tatty old posters, or illegible $25 scribbles from conventions, and move out of your parents' basements. I have nothing in common with any of you, and I don't really like you that much either. I never have.

I might get tempted to do more work on my abandoned "The Pit and the Pendulum" project, and I will undoubtedly still find more to add to "The Horror Cats" eventually, but I feel that I've done enough already. For now, "Dr Blood's Video Vault" is resting. I need to leave the internet alone as much as possible because I've already wasted too much of my life poncing about with horror films meant for teenagers as it is.

It's 2013. Things aren't like they were in 2006 when everybody in horror got to know each other through MySpace and it was all such a novelty. Thanks to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, the divide between fans and their idols is now paper thin. You can message anybody who has something to sell and get an answer instantly no matter who you are. The magic has completely gone out of show business and "celebrity" unless you are an easily impressed twelve-year-old. For those of us who were already in the know, there was never anything there but smoke and mirrors (and bullshit) to begin with.

This is not the end of me, Dr Blood, or my web shenanigans. But whether or not I'll ever want to reclaim my place among the most prolific horror bloggers will remain to be seen. It's very unlikely. I may even invent a new web persona and start writing about something completely different. Stranger things have happened.

Temporary hiatus due to illness

I'm not really burnt out, but I'm seriously ill right now. I can't concentrate enough to write any reviews this week. Even staying awake for more than an hour at a time is difficult due to the huge amount of antibiotics that I'm taking.

Taking a break

Don't worry, I'm not giving up.

I've just reached another point where the sheer number of non-horror movies that I want to watch is outweighing my horror movie addiction. It happens from time to time. I need to throw some more ordinary dramas into my DVD player, stuff my face with fish and chips, and take a break from all this death.

I'll still be around on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and various other places, but I don't really have anything interesting to write about on here right now.

Let's be honest, it wouldn't matter if I was to review every horror movie under the sun for the rest of my life. My blog is never going to amount to anything, and I'm not going to become rich or famous from it. It's only one of my many online hobbies anyway.

Sometimes I wish that I'd chosen a different subject to write about. There are thousands of movie review sites which are all better written than mine, have more pictures for people to steal, and are promoted to the hilt by the cliques they have attracted. I don't have the time, inclination or financial resources to compete with any of them.

I've become very disillusioned by seeing all the self-deprecating skanks with no movie knowledge who get millions of followers just because they have a few nice photoshoots of themselves to repeatedly post ad nauseum, but such is life. The pretty girls (and boys) who have no need to try will have their couple of years in the limelight until their looks fade or their audience grows up while the "old men of horror" keep on flogging a dead horse. None of it matters in the great scheme of things. "All these moments will be lost in time... like tears in the rain," as Rutger Hauer once said.

The big question is whether or not I'll return to "Dr Blood's Video Vault" or start a new blog. I've just bought another 50 horror movies so the chances are good that I'll have to write about them eventually. It's what I do.

I'm hoping to be back with a review of "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2", but I can't say for sure. I might wait until the DVD comes out. If I'm not back sooner, I hope you have a great Turkey Day, a very merry Christmas, and a happy New Year.

Hy Ate Us!

I'm going to take a little break to watch some non-horror films before I burn myself out. I'll probably still be posting on my horror cats blog but I think I've done enough reviews for this month.

See you soon.