The Greatest Ray Harryhausen Films
September 11, 2026
Every Ray Harryhausen film reviewed on this site, ranked. The skeleton duel, the cyclops, the Medusa and the giant creatures that an entire generation of directors grew up wanting to make.
Tag: Mythology
Myth is the oldest story structure still in working order. This tag collects reviews and craft pieces on mythology in film and fiction: the gods, the cycles, and what modern stories take from them.
2010sGods of Egypt (2016) Review
September 10, 2026
Gods of Egypt (2016) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A hundred and forty million dollars of genuine visual ambition attached to a script nobody appears to have argued with. Gerard Butler is the only person on…
2010sMortal (2019) Review
September 9, 2026
Mortal is what a superhero origin story looks like when the director comes from Norwegian horror cinema instead of from American comic book adaptation. Both films treat supernatural material as if it were happening in a country that has actual…
AugustH.P. Lovecraft Day: The Fear He Invented
September 9, 2026
Lovecraft sold to pulp magazines for a fraction of a cent per word and died at forty-six in poverty, having invented the only genuinely new horror idea of the twentieth century. He was also a racist by the standards of…
Ancient EgyptChariots of the Gods
September 7, 2026
Richard reads the foundational ancient-astronaut text that launched a genre, and explains why it works so well despite being built on nothing. The real problem isn't the bad logic, it's the insulting premise underneath it all.
Book ReviewsBehold the Man
September 7, 2026
Karl Glogauer travels back to AD 28 to witness the crucifixion, but finds the historical Jesus cannot be what history needs him to be. Moorcock's bleak novella-turned-novel asks what a myth actually requires, and answers that it requires somebody to…
MayStar Wars Day: I Was There Opening Day in 1977
June 14, 2026
Star Wars opened in 1977 and changed movies forever, and I was there on opening day, in a line that wrapped around the block. On May the Fourth, a look back at the film that taught a generation about myth.
AdaptationUlysses 1954: The Day Homer Hit the Big Screen
June 14, 2026
In 1954, Kirk Douglas brought Homer's wandering hero to the big screen, putting the Odyssey in front of a mass audience. A look at one of the oldest stories ever told and why it has survived for millennia.
2010sByzantium (2012)
June 6, 2026
Neil Jordan returns to vampires with a feminist story of a mother and daughter surviving two centuries. The film's mythology is explicitly gendered.
DystopiaUnderworld Series (2003-2016)
June 6, 2026
The Underworld films turned the vampire into a leather-clad action hero across five entries. As a whole it is more than the sum of its uneven parts.
Book ReviewsThe Writer’s Complete Fantasy Reference
May 29, 2026
The concrete factual grounding a fantasy world needs to feel solid: medieval warfare, weaponry, fortifications, mythology, and magic traditions, all collected for writers. Built on the principle that accuracy in the mundane buys credibility for the fantastical. A factual reference…
Book ReviewsThe Complete Tolkien Companion
May 29, 2026
A thorough alphabetical reference to Middle-earth, mapping the immense depth of Tolkien's legendarium, lands, peoples, histories, languages, both for readers and as a demonstration of the world-building standard he set. Held back by the interpretation any single-compiler guide to so…