I’ve had quite a few people ask about our trip to Massachusetts last October for Salem Horror Fest. I can say for certain that it was a trip worth talking about. As a whole, the trip was an amazing opportunity. The city was beautiful and a dream to visit in October. I made several friends and built awesome relationships, both personally and for business. Dark Room Horror now has merch in two shops there, Black Veil Studio and Die With Your Boots On. We got to hang with the Mu

It takes a lot of time, work, and dedication to become a professional in any field. Becoming a Professional Weirdo takes something else… I met Jordan Jonas on Friday the 13th, in July 2018. This was my first official Blood Booth at Sister Bar. He walked in around 1 am, wearing a Local Boogeyman tee, and hair that looked like it jumped off the cover of August 89’s issue of Metal Hammer Magazine. He and his girlfriend, Tiffany, had come into the bar after what I could only assu

My head was resting on the interior frame of a small SUV, behind the driver’s seat, parked outside an outlet mall in California. I held a book that I can say without a doubt, has influenced who I have become today. Not to say that I am mad… I was 15 years old when I read Poe’s short story, The Tell Tale Heart. It’s a quick-paced tale of terror that begins with the confession of a cold-blooded murder. I’d read various poems from Poe earlier on, and I could have honestly called

“Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see.” Our protagonist here, whilst on a venture through the southern stretch of France, finds himself just miles away from a personally much-lauded location: the Maison de Sante. Private madhouse. A place flown famously throughout the airs of the medical community due to its unorthodox treatments, rehabilitations. The system of soothing. This system, although still strict at its parameters, acted as a better angel fo

The historical context of Edgar Allan Poe is always worth noting when discussing his work. The United States was plagued by Tuberculosis and chattel slavery. This comes across in his poetry through a variety of motifs. Do you remember reading Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher (or, perhaps, having it read to you)? I believe this particular poem is a not-so-subtle commentary on race, racial purity, and the transmission of property (among other things) within a tr

Edgar Allan Poe. The Tomahawk Man. Progenitor of what some may deem as horror, the psychedelia and the psychosis and the wherewithal of the human condition, writ upon the pages of burgeoning, and troubling, times—whilst going through his own troubling times, mind you: rifling through the waning cupboards of poverty, circumstances orphaning, abandoning, coming to awful grips with the loss of both his Wife and Mother at the early hands of tuberculosis, struggling the th

We’re at the dawn of a new year and who the fuck cares?! I do. Ultimately, the biggest tangible change we see is the need to purchase a new calendar, but that need comes with weight. It comes with hope for a new season in life. A new year gives us a fresh start and a new perspective. These changes can be helpful to us and give us the chance to change the lens we see life through. At the risk of getting on board with the “New Year, New Me” bullshit, I do think this is the perf

Day 31: Face Your Fate… Halloween The original Halloween has always been one of my favorite horror movies, so I was really excited to see this movie. The emotionless mask with hallow dark eyes and single mindedness of a purpose of pure evil make this movie a true horror movie to me. The movie has many elements from the original but still stands as a great sequel. I will admit that parts of the story are unbelievable and predictable but overall I do think this movie is worth s

Beetlejuice has been in my top 10 favorite movies of all time since I could remember. Since ’93 I’ve been in love with Tim Burton’s visual aesthetic when I saw Nightmare Before Christmas 3 times in theaters. I was 3 years old when the movie came out. Beetlejuice is one of those films that I honestly can’t recall my first time viewing. I’ve seen the movie countless times and I still love watching it. Because the movie came out in ’88, I never had the opportunity to see the cas

Like many before me, I got into photography in High School. Moody/emo selfies and melodramatic still life was kind of my thing. I created a myspace page separate from my personal account called 2:57 Photography. I thought the name was deep. That time just before the witching hour when “the body’s at low tide… The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying.” But when people would ask what it meant, I’d simply tell them that’s what t

I’ve been making movies since I was a kid. I had the awesome privilege of owning a Hi8 camera that essentially took the place of my right hand. I recorded everything from trips to Walmart, my voice messages with different backgrounds, to movies that I was sure that I would one day be able to edit “professionally”. My “editing” process was simple then. I would record my content, transer it from Hi8 to VHS, set up my tripod in front of my tv, and proceed to make cuts, ad music

The negative side effects of binge watching internet & tv series Not too long ago, I was in the middle of a conversation and was caught off guard by a comment that left me in a minor state of shock. Conversing about the information age we live in, I was told that this was part of the problem that millennials face. According to them, we have all of the knowledge of the world at our finger tips and anytime we want to know something we head to Wikipedia, YouTube and IMDB. They c

I’ve come to a point in my life where I feel incapable of working for someone else. Maybe its because I’m a “challenge person” or maybe it’s because I’m a millennial. What ever it is, my step father told me growing up to find what I love, then find a way to make money out of it. I genuinely believe that this is the only way that I will find joy and fulfillment in my work. I am taking the steps towards working and creating for myself. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to