Season of the Witch

With Halloween just around the corner… we are seeing some new horror content.

American Horror Story 13

I am a big fan of American Horror Story, but I honestly thought the series was over, when they introduced American Horror Stories (a different series). I guess AHS is not dead yet, with lucky Season 13 just premiered on September 24, and will run until around Halloween.

What’s cool is that it unites all the old casts from previous seasons – including my favorite Coven. The only thing I know about 13 is that there are Witchhunters out to get the Coven. The witches then have to team up with the New Orlean Voodoo queens to fight this upcoming evil.

Well, I’m excited to start watching it. We have the first three episode available to watch until next week.

In the first episode, we’re introduced to this couple. A girl who loves the number 13 and thinks it’s her lucky number, while her boyfriend has a fear of the number 13. On Friday the 13th, the couple with 12 of the girl’s friends went on a flight… that crashed and killed everybody aboard – except for 2 survivors: the boyfriend and one of the girlfriend’s friend… both happened to be seated in seat 13 (B and F).

Then we are in present time and the boy 13 (Ben) is employed as a hospice caregiver for an elderly man. The man owns the entire 13th floor of a residential building. Things are clearly weird, I suspect he’s a vampire, but it’s still too early to tell.

In episode two, the hospice caregiver is uncovering more and more weirdness with his elderly patient. Meanwhile, we see the return of the killer clown from the Freakshow season (?). He shows up to a clown school and killed all 13 clowns. It ends with the cast from Murder House (or at least all the victims that died in the house). Episode two is, by far, the weakest of the three episodes… basically nothing happens.

The third episode, the daytime caregiver is throwing a party, celebrating the 13th day after Christ was born. It’s some sort of Satan holiday or something. They had an uninvited 13th guest, as Ben shows up to work. He didn’t get the memo that he had the night off.

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story

Netflix’s latest horror show, Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is the fourth Ian Brennan’s Monster crime biography series – documenting America’s most notorious serial killers. It dropped all at once on September 17, 2026. The series originally started with The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022), followed by The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (2024), and then The Ed Gein Story (2025).

If you follow true crime at all, you know there are very few women serial killers. Most of the deadliest women murders prefers to kill their victims with poison… so with Lizzie Borden’s murder weapon of choice as a hand axe, it’s so unbecoming of a lady! I kid, of course, but that time period of the late 1800’s, it must have been very difficult for a woman.

I am really not a fan of biographies or based on true stories, so I had no interest in the series… but I did give the first episode a try – and I was hooked! I pretty much binged the entire season.

It starts off with the act of murder of the mother, and then the father. Killed by Lizzie Borden with an axe. You’re not sure what is happening, or why this is happening. But it starts off with a bang, and then winds back a few months before the event to give you the full story.

To me, it felt slow, but you quickly learn that Lizzie is an odd girl that no man would have her. I can see where this is going when a new maid was hired. The maid wants to help Lizzie, seeing the cruelty of her mother.

Since history’s written, we already know the outcome of the Lizzie Borden story. Not to spoil anything, but in real life, Borden was tried and acquitted of murdering her parents. I don’t know all the exact details or all the suspects, but seeing who else would benefit from their deaths – the logical conclusion is that Lizzie killed them.

From what I’ve gathered, is seems that Lizzie was abused by her parents, and I am assuming she reached a breaking point and simply murdered her parents in a fit of rage. I don’t think the show really follows the real-life story religiously, for example, I’m pretty sure the father wasn’t some sort of axe collector who uses it in his line of work. I think he was in real estate?

It does get a little colorful, with all the deprave characters. And the modern music (The Doors, The Runaways) does help break out of the period-piece. I’m not really a fan of period drama; it just seems like another world that I can’t relate to. However, the show does play around with time, for example, episode 4 starts in 1988 – which threw me for a loop! I thought I was watching a different show. It’s has a totally different vibe from the slow-pace of the 1800s.

Speaking of slow, the show does take its time to build character and motives. We don’t get our first kill until the third episode, and it was justified. The killing continues in the latter half of episode four. So, I’m thinking, at this point, there’s not enough story to carry the show for another four episodes!

It didn’t take long to close out the chapter of the murder of Lizzie’s parents. So where does the show go from here? It just felt like the series could have ended with episode 6, but instead there is a long trial and stuck with Lizzie for the remainder of her years.

P.S., I had to look it up, but the woman serial killer from the 1980s was based on Aileen Wuornos, who killed seven men. I think it was an interesting choice to tie Wuornos to Borden’s story. And if you take it one step further, there’s three stories of women killers: the third being the wealthy Hungarian queen who bathed in virgins’ blood. It totally works as a theme, throughout the centuries.

Sinners (2025)

I’m a little late to the party, but I finally got around to watching Sinners, the most awarded and talked-about horror film of 2025. I was busy with moving to Jacksonville in 2025 and only ended up seeing seven horror movies that year. My favorite was Final Destination: Bloodlines, which it still stands… but Sinners might be my second place, before Weapons and Black Phone 2 (that was really enjoyable).

I think I read mix reviews for Sinners, and I’ll acknowledge the biggest problem is the sudden shift to horror. It’s jarring, like how you first saw From Dusk Till Dawn. If you didn’t know what the film was about, that might be really shocking with the shift… but now that the movie’s been out for a year, we all know that this is a vampire movie. I think the first half of the movie was done really well. I really like that period piece about two twin brothers creating a juke joint for the local Black community in the Delta Mississippi area. They’re going around hiring musicians and advertising and stocking Irish beer from a local Chinese store. Lots of great blues and banjo music, just really well done.

The movie could have worked if the rest of the movie is about racism… but as a metaphor, it’s vampires who wants to kill everyone in the juke joint. I like that the movie tells you the vampire side of story, with just very brief introduction. He’s an Irish vampire, who is being hunted by these Indians. A white family saved him, to their regret, as he turns them to his flock.

When the vampires heard the music coming from the juke joint, played by “Preacherboy” … they knew they had to turn Preacherboy to one of them… as he could bring more people to the vampire’s side. I like that the vampires have rules, such as they cannot enter a home without an invitation.

The last survivors at the juke joint just had to stay inside until the morning… but, of course, the movie doesn’t make it easy. Eventually, there is a big throw-down between the survivors and the vampires.

It’s a really good story, and it had a great soundtrack (blues, folk, R&B), and it’s really well-directed. I can see why it won so many awards.

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