Steve A. Wiggins
Married ex-professor, progressive blogger who likes horror and has lived dark academia.
Whose Smile?
Amazon’s smile logo is a mask. I use Amazon when I need something specific and I don’t have time to run around to six or seven stores to see if I can find it (I usually can’t). This mea…steveawiggins.comDon’t Tank It
The Tank is a reasonably well done monster movie. It isn’t great, but monsters are monsters and they can be appreciated in their own right. The main problem of the movie is that it’s not terribly…steveawiggins.comLaughing Matter?
I sincerely hope AI is a bubble that will burst. Some of its ridiculousness has been peeking out from under its skirts from the beginning, but an email I had from Academia.edu the other day unders…steveawiggins.comThat House
In this season of deportations, thinking about what it means to be a refugee couldn’t be more important. The horror film His House makes you do just that. Bol and Rial are fleeing war-torn South …steveawiggins.comHinge Years
I recently read about “hinge years.” Some historians use this as a kind of shorthand for a particularly tumultuous year in the history of the world, or of a country. Curious, a brief se…steveawiggins.comUncomfortable Truths
Horror makes us confront uncomfortable truths. I suspect Birth/Rebirth might be the kind of movie to contain triggers for some folks. I’ve watched enough body horror to be somewhat desensitized, …steveawiggins.comUnsolved
Strange as it may seem, the world of academic religious studies can have high drama. On May 21, 1991, Ioan Petru Culianu, a professor of religion at the University of Chicago, was followed into a …steveawiggins.comNot Again!
The only reason I heard of Repossessed is because my wife read about it in a local newspaper. This is true although I’d written a book about the Bible in horror movies and a book about possession …steveawiggins.comOptimistic Moves
I’ve been thinking about moving lately. No, not planning to move, but just thinking about the process. A family member recently moved, and we have new neighbors in the house next to our…steveawiggins.comBeautiful Reality
Although it is central to understanding all human experience, we are far from comprehending consciousness. It’s clear to me, based on the fact that our senses are limited, that rationality alone c…steveawiggins.comLuddism
There are books you really want to read, and books you feel you should read. There are authors who delight in telling you what’s going on, and there are authors whose writing obfuscates. I’ve alw…steveawiggins.comThe Storm
I suppose it would be a fool’s errand to post today on anything other than the storm. You know the one. The snow/ice storm that has been affecting the greater part of the lower 48 for t…steveawiggins.comSuper Human
There’s a line in the musical 1776 where Stephen Hopkins says “Well, I’ll tell you. In all my years, I never seen, heard nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn’t be talked…steveawiggins.comHearing White
I really do need to start writing down either the year of movie recommendations or the year of the film. Many movies share names and I found White Noise on my list and couldn’t remember who or whe…steveawiggins.comTrying to Write
Realizations dawn slowly sometimes. From childhood on I wanted to be a writer. Teachers encouraged me because I seemed to have some talent, but in a small town they didn’t really know h…steveawiggins.comSeeing Seagulls
It was a seventies thing. Even though I lived in a small town, even I had heard about Jonathan Livingston Seagull. At first I didn’t know it was a book. (A similar thing happened to me in the ni…steveawiggins.comBlushing Brides
Death does strange things. But first I have a confession to make: I had never seen The Princess Bride before recently. Since it is a favorite film of many people and since Rob Reiner ha…steveawiggins.comIn Praise of DVDs
Streaming has made movies very widely available, which makes my life easier. Since I’ve been writing books about horror movies and such, being able to see them now that video rental stores ha…steveawiggins.comDark Library
Although it’s booming, I’m not a romance reader. Not in the modern sense, anyway. I’m a big fan of the Romantic Movement, which gave us the gothic novel, but the distant descendant of the latter …steveawiggins.comTogetherness
Over the holiday break I watched three very good movies and I noticed that Domain Entertainment was one of the production companies for each of them. The final one I saw (after Sinners and Weapons…steveawiggins.comLiteralism
I struggle with literalism. It may be naïveté. I’m not sure there’s a difference. I grew up being unsure of anything. This isn’t unusual among those in an alcoholic family.&…steveawiggins.comInteriors
I first started reading Stephen Graham Jones after hearing him do a reading on YouTube. I’ve always had a great deal of respect for Native Americans and his style was so sincere and down to earth …steveawiggins.comSecond Wednesday
Season two of Wednesday isn’t quite as fresh as season one, but it is still chock full of monsters and fun. The rest of the Addams family is more present in this season, but it is still focused on…steveawiggins.comBeing Saved
Historians of media will have much to contend with now that streaming services, such as Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon are producing their own feature-length films. There are movies I’m still waiting t…steveawiggins.comCan’t Read?
Andrew Laties has lived a remarkable life. He runs Book & Puppet, a local bookstore in Easton, Pennsylvania. He’s run other bookstores before this one, but now that he’s in the Lehigh Valley …steveawiggins.comOrkney
The Orkney Library and Archive was one of my first followers on Bluesky. (I tend to follow back.) I’m not sure why they followed me, but I am grateful. I’m grateful to all followers on social me…steveawiggins.comIn the Yard
The search for “free” horror has a few more reasonable offerings, it seems, if you follow the reviews. I try not to read about movies in advance, and I avoid trailers. The Woman in the Yard had h…steveawiggins.comStories in the Snow
Birds are quite capable creatures, but some have learned that by hanging out around human dwellings, some of our species give handouts. For me, the sight of a cute little junco shivering outs…steveawiggins.comHouse of Catherine
A blend of horror and dark academia. That’s how I’d classify Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas. For some time I’ve been pondering the connection between the two genres, and this novel is one of…steveawiggins.comWeaponry
For all of its problems, 2025 was a great year for horror films. And they’re beginning to gain the respect they deserve. I found an affordable copy of Weapons and discovered that it was as good a…steveawiggins.comWinter Jogging
Keeping healthy can be hazardous to your health. We recently had a rainstorm, followed by a snowstorm with several days not getting above freezing. All of this made my usual jogging rou…steveawiggins.comWeird Films
I’ve read Gary D. Rhodes before and found him informative and enjoyable. Although I hope his recent offering Weirdumentary moves beyond its ideal readership, I suspect I’m among that class. I was…steveawiggins.comSurviving Ones
Slashers aren’t my favorite horror films. As I’ve suggested in some of my unpublished writing, horror should be dismantled as a “genre” since so many different types of movie are collected togethe…steveawiggins.comKeep Remembering
Books used to be, and often still are, works of art. I can’t imagine my life without them. I read Charlie Mackesy’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse back in 2023. A psychiatrist that’s a…steveawiggins.comTime for Asherah
Asherah has a way of coming back into my life. I’d pretty much laid my research on her to rest when a friend convinced Gorgias Press to release my Reassessment in paperback. A few months later I …steveawiggins.comWelcome 2026
I put great stock in holidays, but I’ve never felt a deep connection to New Year’s Day. I’m more of a morning person than the stay up late sort, and the New Year also seems cold after the coz…steveawiggins.com2025 in Books
As has become traditional on this blog, the last post of the year recaps my favorite books from the preceding 365 days. I’ve finished 68 books this year, a little down on my usual pace. My only e…steveawiggins.comDreamscape
I remember them but imperfectly, my dreams. This can be frustrating when, for example, I dream up a story, complete with an ideal ending, then wake up with only fragments left. I suppo…steveawiggins.comSinning
What can I say about Sinners in five hundred words or less? This movie requires a book. I’ll try anyway. First of all, I’m not one to jump on the bandwagon. But everyone was saying Sinners was …steveawiggins.comBooking Time
Some time back I mentioned that I was compiling a bibliography of this blog. (It should eventually appear as a separate page on this website.) I’m in the thick of it and it makes me think that it…steveawiggins.comDeath Trip
My own personal Wisconsin Death Trip resulted in the end of my chosen career. I’d never heard of Michael Lesy, or his book, while I lived in the state, however. In fact, I’ve been racking my brai…steveawiggins.comScary Christmas
A few days ago I mentioned the connection between Christmas and Halloween. I’m apparently not the only one to be interested in this because Tim Rayborn wrote Scary Book of Christmas Lore. This li…steveawiggins.comQuiet Christmas
It has been a busy Christmas season this year. Busy from my perspective, that is. Introverts like to spend time alone, recharging. Those with my kind of neurology, though, crave being with other…steveawiggins.comReligious Zombies
Zombies never quite add up in my brain. I’ve read a few zombie novels, nevertheless. Joseph Hirsch’s Church of the Last Lamb is one such novel. I’ll try to avoid spoilers in the note below. The…steveawiggins.comAbout Books
I have tried my hand at fiction writing at least since I was ten. My first attempted novel was at about fourteen. Fiction has always been a large part of my life. Now I work in pu…steveawiggins.comAbout Demons
Six college kids in a house where twenty years earlier a group of six young people held a seance and all but one ended up dead. Demonic doesn’t really offer anything groundbreaking on the horror f…steveawiggins.comSymbolic Light
I’m a great believer in symbolism. I have made a number of symbolic gestures in my life, whether anybody notices or not. Today is the winter solstice, a day of great symbolic importance…steveawiggins.comSpeedy Delivery
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” is the unofficial motto of the United States Postal Service.…steveawiggins.comDiscussing Demons
So I was discussing demons with a friend, as you do, and I was looking for a free movie. One that my streaming service recommended was Succubus. There are other movies by this title, so…steveawiggins.com
