The gates of Necropolis Macabre are closed indefinitely.

Hello readers.  I thought I'd write up a little update on what's been going on lately.  As you might have noticed, post have been few and far between over the last few months.  The fact of the matter is, I've been incredibly busy with real-life things; my job taking up the bulk of that time.  When I'm not busy socializing in my free time, I've been taking much of the free time I have left over to do other things that I've been wanting to do, such as working on the many story ideas I've had in my head for a long time.

With so much of my time being occupied, the Necropolis has admittedly been neglected, as I'm the only person running the show around here.  So I've decided to announce that Necropolis Macabre will be dead in the ground for an indefinite period.  I don't want to say permanently because who knows what the future may hold, right?  I do enjoy reviewing, and I'd still like to maybe be involved in some smaller way, like periodic guest reviews or whatnot.  But maintaining an entire site is just not something I can easily deal with at this point in time.

So in the meantime, I'll still be making the semi-rare appearance on Twitter (@necromacabre), and if anything comes up relating to Gravedigger Glen and reviews, I'll be letting you know.  The site will still be around as well, so people can still read my past reviews and news postings.  So don't think of this as goodbye, but so long.  Thanks for reading, and rest in peace.

Necropolis Update (March 10, 2014)

Hello my fellow Horrorati.  It's been a while since I did an update.  That's mainly because for a while there was nothing new that was really worth making an update post about.  So i decided to wait until enough things happened to make it a decent sized post.

Necropolis Update (July 30, 2013)

Hello everyone.  Just wanted to say that starting in the next day or two, I'm going to debut a new segment called "Horror From Home."  This segment isn't much different than my normal "Macabre Reviews" (in that I'll still review movies), but there is one major difference: in "Horror From Home" I will be reviewing the movies I actually own, whereas in "Macabre Reviews" I review movies I see in theaters, rentals, streaming, borrowed from friends, you get the idea.  And I'll be doing these reviews in alphabetical order.  Why?  I don't know really.  Convenience, or maybe I have OCD.  Who knows?  I just thought it would be a way for you to get to know me a wee bit better.  I mean, you can learn a lot from someone by looking at their movie collection.  Right?

Anyway, it's something I'll do from time to time, whenever I don't particularly have anything I want to (or can't) review.  Bear in mind, some of these movie I own suck.  I sometimes just buy movies when I see them around for sale when I haven't actually watched them.  And I've paid dearly for this more than once.  But hey, more reviewing material right?

There will be some I won't actually review.  The main reasons being either I plan to use them for retrospectives (Critters, for example), or they just don't plain need reviewing.  I mean, you don't really need me to review any of George Romero's 'Dead' series, do you?  Or the Evil Dead movies?  I will review them if you really want me to, just let me know at some point before I get to the letter E part of my movies.

That's the biggest thing I wanted to bring up.  As well, however, I'm reading a book which I plan to review sometime down the road.  I'll save it for a surprise though, just to keep you guessing.  Oh, and I guess I should apologize for the space between reviews lately.  It just gets busy out in the real world, and I'm trying to balance things out.  But mauny thanks for all of the views for my review of The Conjuring.  I've noticed it's become my most viewed of all my posts.  It puts a huge rictus grin on my face.  :D

Farewell for now.

Necropolis Update: The Macabre Rating System

Recently I've been taking a look back at my previous reviews, partially for editing purposes, but more importantly because of the ratings I've been giving them since I started.  One benefit to being new to running your own blog is that you can learn from any mistakes or plain inexperience your newbie self had before too many readers get to view your posts, and thus become a better blogger before too many people get to see your quality of work.

In this particular case, I realized that I never really gave my rating system that much in the way of deep thought in terms of what each star (or half star) actually means outside of good, bad, ok etc.  So I've given some thought on the matter, and at last I have posted below a more detailed explanation for each star level.

0/1.5 tombstones: Bad.   A terrible watching experience.  Little to no redeeming qualities to speak of.  Avoid it for your own good..

2/2.5 tombstones: Meh.   Not much in the way of quality.  Examples include: poor acting, CGI overuse, shaky-cam/fast cut abuse etc.  Overall not a well made movie/TV show, yet it has something about it that makes it worth looking at (either incredibly cheesy, over the top violent, or some other endearing factor).  Most movies from The Asylum, for example.

3/3.5 tombstones: Good.  Examples include: better acting, less CGI abuse, a story that makes sense, less shaky-cam/fast cut usage, etc.  Whatever flaws the movie/TV show may have are not so bad that it ruins the watching experience too much.

4/4.5 tombstones: Excellent.  A must watch, and as a rule a movie/TV show worth buying.  Examples include: excellent acting, minimal shaky-cam/fast picture cuts, minimal CGI (used only to enhance and not outright relied on), etc.  Most negatives are nothing more than nitpicking on my part and usually don't detract from the overall experience.

5 tombstones: Perfect?  A movie/TV show with no flaws to speak of.  You will rarely see this kind of rating from me.  And if you do, drop whatever you're doing and go watch/buy it.

I may be able to perfect this system further down the road, but until that day comes I feel this is a good example of my mind frame from here on in my ratings.  I'll be going over my reviews and will change ratings if I feel it's needed.  Any thoughts/questions feel free to voice it.  I've updated the ratings for my reviews, most not changing past a half star in either direction.  When the day comes where i get around to reviewing books and the like I might use a different rating system, or none at all.  We'll see how that goes in time.  That's all for now.

Necropolis Update: May 15, 2013

Hey everyone.  This update is effectively an apology letter for not doing much in the way of posting anything to my usual posting numbers.  For a little while now I've been having an issue with my back, it's at a point that I have trouble moving around and being comfortable sitting down at times.  It nothing too serious, but it's been very hard to concentrate on things like reviews, as I've felt pretty mentally drained.

Anyway, as of this week I have some delightful prescription drugs I'm trying out, and I plan to see a physical therapist as soon as possible.  The point is, as of this week I'm going to try and get myself back in my 'A' game, and resume giving my two cents about horror.  Well, that's about it.  Stay tuned for more horror delights.

Necropolis Update: April 2, 2013

Hello everyone.  Just wanted to touch base on a few quick things.  For starters, this will be a slower week for me.  I'm being assaulted by a cold, and I'm being a huge baby about it.  I don't get sick often, so when it happens it feels worse than it would if I got sick on a more regular basis.  But this is still an important week, as one of the few remakes I'm actually looking forward to - Evil Dead - premieres to us non-SXSW patrons Friday night.  And you better believe I'll be seeing it and sharing my thoughts here at the Necropolis Macabre.

Also, from this point onward, I'm going to focus my reviews toward some darker, dare I say more macabre, movies.  I've been enjoying what I've been reviewing.  But to be honest, most of those movies weren't that macabre or disturbing.  I think it fitting that the Evil Dead remake is where this new path.

And finally, I believe pretty soon I'll be doing my first book review for the site.  I had intended to do one a little bit earlier than this, but I just plain haven't been doing much reading until recently.  So stay tuned for that.

That's pretty much all I can think of for now.  As always, I appreciate you fine people checking out the site and my reviews.  And I'll be talking to you again soon.  Rest in peace.

Necropolis Update (March 5, 2013)

Hey there horror freaks.  Wow, it's been a month already since I started this blog.  I really don't know where the time goes anymore.  Anyway, I thought I'd take the time to talk a little about what's been going on and what's coming up in the Necropolis.

First off, the blog has been off to a better start than I expected.  Thanks to social media (Twitter and Facebook specifically), my posts have gotten more views than I anticipated, which is great.  It's also nice to be hearing from some of you.  I like to hear what you may think of these movies I review, just keep in mind that I've never claimed to be a horror movie know-it-all (though I do know quite a bit), I'm just a guy who loves horror and wants to gush about it.  I may make a mistake now and then or have opinions on aspects of horror you may not agree with, but just try and bear with me.  I am, after all, only human.

Also, while I'm not all that new to blogging in general, I am new to the ways of WordPress, so every now and then you may see some little change here and there during this learning process.  Eventually I'll get things the way I like, but even then it may not fully stop, as I'm a bit of a perfectionist and am always looking to better myself (or in this case, the blog).  For example, I've finally gotten around to using tags with my reviews for easier searching in the future.  Progress!!!!

This month I plan to start my first Necropolis Retrospective, where I take a look at a horror series from the past, for the sake of nostalgia and to see if they still hold up today.  After narrowing things down, I decided to begin with the Critters series.  I bought the four-movie collection a little ways back, and since buying it I've only seen the first one.  So doing a retrospective will motivate me to watch them all again.

I've also recently become a member of the Horror Blogger Alliance, in case you missed the huge banner on the side of the screen.  I've already begun looking over some of the other members blogs, and have been enjoying them quite a bit.  I'm excited to be a member of the HBA, and if you're interested in checking them out just click the banner.

Other future plans depend on how well the blog goes.  I may eventually start up a Facebook page for example, but when I'll do that I'm not sure yet.  Perhaps in another month I'll have a better idea where things stand and I can give a better update with future projects.  In the meantime, I think that's all I really have to say for now.  Thanks again to all of you who have dropped by the Necropolis Macabre, and stay tuned for part 1 of the Critters Retrospective.  Rest In Peace.  :)