@moviefan
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney’s Halloween Library: Frozen II: Forest of Shadows
October 19, 2023 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Fear will be your enemy
I opened today’s blog with that line from a song from the Broadway adaption of Frozen as it seems rather fitting for this book. In the lead-up to Frozen II, there were quite a few books released including one that was a prequel to the events of the first movie and gave us insight into how the king and queen of Arendelle fell in love.
Which for my money is the best Frozen book that has been released yet. As I’ve mentioned before though the Frozen books are usually of high quality. And I appreciate how they pull from real Nordic mythology for the two books that dabble in horror. In this book, they use a creature called the Nattmara, they are mostly accurate to what the Nattmara does but it does not take the appearance of a young woman.
A member of the race of Nattmara, or Nightmare People, appears as a skinny woman, very pale, with long black hair and nails, wearing a nightgown. The Mara could shape-shift to sand and slip into even the tiniest crack in a wall. They terrorized people by riding on their chests and giving them nightmares. They play somewhat the same role as banshees do in other cultures—they’re an ill omen.
The Nattmara does serve the same purpose as it causes a blight to fall over Arendelle which makes the animals sick and puts almost everyone into a deep sleep that traps them in their worst nightmares. And towards the end of the book when it attacks Elsa, she is turned into black sand. The Nattmara instead takes the shape of a wolf and we don’t learn this until the end but this comes from Elsa’s childhood because as a little girl, she’d use a trick to rid herself of her nightmares by pretending to feed them to a creature named Ulf the Wolf.
This aligns with what her father Agnarr taught which was well-meaning but bad advice.
Conceal, Don’t Feel
Elsa had hidden her fears for so long and pretended nothing scared her that eventually, her fear caught back up with her.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney’s Halloween Library: Raising The Horseman
October 18, 2023 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is the most famous ghost story for this time of year. Washington Irving’s classic ghost story has been adapted into many formats and of one of the most beloved adaptions is the Disney short.
And there have also been takes on this story that focus on the descendants of the characters from the original story and we are now starting to see LGBTQ takes on this story such as with the musical, TarryTown.
All of these elements seem as though they should add up to an interesting story as there is a lot that could be done with a new fleshed-out take on Sleepy Hollow but then I read the book for today’s review and to say I was let down would be an understatement.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney’s Halloween Library: Disney Dracula Starring Mickey Mouse
October 17, 2023 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Literary adaptions starring classic and beloved characters are quite the norm and serve as a way to work as an entry point for younger fans to discover these stories before embarking on reading the originals. Mickey Mouse alone has starred in adaptions of Jack and the Beanstalk, A Christmas Carol, and The Prince and the Pauper to name a few.
However, those are all shorts and I have decided to look at books this month and I remembered thanks to Longbox that my favorite Mouse starred in a comic adaption of Dracula.
Yes, I did rewatch this video but Linkara is one of my favorite YouTubers and Longbox is just fun.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney’s Halloween Library : Marmalade Moon Night (Disney 5-Minute Halloween Stories)
October 16, 2023 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge Tangled fan and it is always a treat when I get to talk about something related to my favorite Disney movie during this time of year. In the past, I’ve looked at various episodes from the TV series that would be perfect for this time of year and I have been considering doing a scariest moments list regarding Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure but that’ll probably be next year. However, I did find something fun, Disney has a series of books called 5-Minute Stories.  The title tells you exactly what to expect short 5-minute stories that I imagine parents can read with their kiddos. I found a Halloween version on the Hoopla app and checked it out from my library.  Of course, there were many other stories focusing on other Disney characters celebrating the holiday. Perhaps I’ll look at those in the future but seeing there was a Tangled story won me over and made me decide that is the one I wanted to cover.
by Moviefan
The Horrors of Riverdale: Fear The Funhouse (Archie Halloween Special)
October 14, 2023 in Blogs
Archie Horror is an important line of comics for me as it opened me up to both the world of Archie Comics and horror in general. For a while every Halloween I liked to take a look at a comic from the Archie Horror line starting with the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Now, it has been a while since I’ve looked at a comic from Archie Horror partly because I am annoyed that they haven’t finished Afterlife with Archie or CAOS. Lately, they have been releasing horror anthology comics and last year Archie Horror put out a children’s horror anthology featuring middle-grade versions of the Archie gang. This was quite fun and apparently, this is something the team had been wanting to do for a while as it is mentioned they loved things such as Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark? The latter seems to be a good comparison for the wraparound of this comic as the characters are on a camping trip telling scary stories. Last year was a big year for comics featuring younger versions of the Archie characters and there was also a comic one-shot about Little Archie and Friends.
by Moviefan
Monstrous Musical’s Killer Prom: The Ballad of Sara Berry
October 13, 2023 in Uncategorized
Ah high school such a stressful time for anyone especially Senior Year, you’ve got finals and the pressure of deciding which college you want to go to. And of course let’s not forget Prom as there are so many things to worry about such as what to wear, who are you going to ask out and are you going to die? Wait, that last one doesn’t seem right. Though Prom and Horror do go together more often than you might think. After all, there is a horror movie called Prom Night.
by Moviefan
Halloween in Stoneybrook: Stacey and the Haunted Masquerade (The Baby-Sitters Club Mystery # 22)
October 12, 2023 in Blogs
Now that we’ve looked at one book from the main BSC series, we turn to one its many spin-offs, the Mystery series. Now this is not the first time I’ve looked at one of the mystery books as last year when I did three Dawn-centric Halloween reviews, I reviewed Dawn and the Halloween Mystery.
That book was rather good as this was one but it also had something of a tragic bent to it. Believe it or not, this book pulls elements from Carrie. And the movie is even mentioned by name in the book.
Thankfully no pigs blood but there is still the idea of a recluse girl being mocked by her school and unrequited love just because someone is being nice a la Tommy Ross.
Normally when reviewing mysteries such as the Nancy Drew books, I don’t like revealing who the culprit is but this feels a bit different with the book evoking the feelings of Carrie.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney’s Halloween Library: Anna & Elsa: Phantoms of Arendelle
October 11, 2023 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
Frozen may not be a franchise one thinks of when it comes to this time of year and that is only because they have not read the tie-in books. Frozen being a popular movie for The Mouse has led to a lot and I mean a lot of tie-in books. Including a series of books about Anna and Elsa’s adventures after the end of the first book that are elementary level. Having said that there seems to be confusion as to whether or not this book this book is a part of that series or not. From what I have found, some websites list it with the Anna & Elsa title and it was a digital exclusive. So perhaps, it is a part of that series.
by Moviefan
On The Halloween Case with Nancy Drew: The Ghost of Grey Fox Inn (Nancy Drew Diaries # 13)
October 10, 2023 in Blogs
I am rather excited to be delving into today’s topic as it comes from the current series, Nancy Drew Diaries and the Diaries series played a big part in my becoming the Nancy Drew fan I am today. The very first Nancy Drew Diaries book I listened to and the very first Nancy Drew book I reviewed came from this series, the Christmas special, titled A Nancy Drew Christmas.
It was a fun book that sucked me in and made me want to know more about this take on the famous girl detective. For a while, I would bounce between a Diaries book and a classic Nancy Drew audiobook. I know there are many many many other series and I haven’t checked them out all yet so some of the years for this year such as the previous review and the next are me tipping my toes into other Nancy Drew series.
by Moviefan
On The Halloween Case with Nancy Drew :Boo Crew (Nancy Drew: Clue Book # 10)
October 9, 2023 in Blogs
As I mentioned last time, I’d be looking at another series featuring an eight-year-old Nancy Drew.  The Clue Book series would replace Clue Crew in 2015 with the last Clue Crew book coming out in March of that year and the first Clue Book coming out in July of the same year. What I did find interesting is that Nancy, Bess, and George still refer to themselves as the Clue Crew in this book. It makes me think this was a soft reboot of the Clue Crew series.  In some ways, I was hoping this would be a sequel series aging up the characters considering that Clue Crew also had a Halloween book.
On the one hand, I get it when it comes to stories about kid characters, they are rarely aged up and this book was released in 2015 and The Halloween Hoax that I looked at last time was released in 2007. An eight-year difference between the two books. Not knocking it but that is just something I’ve observed and on the one hand, it makes sense as these two books now have different audiences.
by Moviefan
The Brick Theater: Brick or Treat!
October 7, 2023 in Blogs, Toys
Much like with my other blogs this year, I’ve decided to look at a LEGO picture book that is perfect for the Halloween season. And this book was quite a treat for a LEGO fan as it featured so many minifigures that can be purchased such as the mad scientist fig on the front of the cover. The main location where this book mostly takes place is the actual Haunted House LEGO set.
As a LEGO fan, I appreciate these little details as they help to immerse you into the LEGO world of the book.
by Moviefan
A Look at Disney’s Halloween Library: The Haunted Mansion: Frights of Fancy
October 6, 2023 in A Look at Disney, Blogs
The Haunted Mansion might just be the most adapted Disney Park attraction and that makes sense considering its built-in backstory. We need to look no further than just this year when the second big screen adaption was released in July? Â Why not closer to this month?
There have also been many books featuring the Mansion released such as this anthology from 1995. I will not be looking at this one but I have picked out two other Mansion books to review.
Today’s entry is a graphic novel and The Haunted Mansion is no stranger to comic adaptions as there were comics from the publisher, Slave Labor Graphics and there was the Disney Kingdom miniseries released by Marvel.
Today’s graphic novel comes from IDW who I’m mostly familiar with through their MLP comics. This graphic novel isn’t exactly scary but rather it is evoking the more fun and silly side of the Mansion. The suggested age range for this book is 9 – 12 but I think you could give this comic to a six-year-old and be fine. It’s a very soft adaption of the Mansion and that even comes through in the art with how warm and inviting it is.
