Kampung Kreepy

The Witch (2015) is such a well-made movie, and a great addition to the folk horror genre.  The plot revolves around a family that is banished from a Puritan settlement in New England in the 1630s. The family ventures out into the wilderness, builds a farm and tries to eke out a living. Things start going south when the children are targeted by a malevolent witch. I like the movie's linear storytelling. It lays the foundation effectively so you understand the family members' fear and descent into paranoia. There’s not a lot of dialogue or sets. Instead, director Robert Eggers lets the wintry New England landscape do a lot of the heavy lifting. The dark woods, the family’s strict religion and isolated, grim existence combine to create an atmosphere of dread that’s palpable. And of course, Anya Taylor-Joy is always a pleasure to watch. The Witch was her feature film debut.  

It's time to celebrate the giant sea serpents of myth and lore. National Sea Serpent Day is an unofficial holiday to commemorate a sighting in August 1848, when passengers and officers on the HMS Daedalus saw what they described as a 60-foot-long sea creature with a maned head in the South Atlantic.  Other famous sea serpents include Nessie the Loch Ness Monster, and Chessie, a 30-foot-long snake-like sea creature that supposedly inhabits the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and Maryland.  According to various eye witness accounts, Chessie has flippers, a horse- or crocodile-like head, and a serpentine body that is as thick as a telephone pole.  Chessie was first spotted in the 1930s. Sightings of the monster spiked in the 1970s and 1980s. Chessie was even reportedly seen in the Potomac River in Virginia’s Westmoreland County in 1978.  Do you know of any other famous sea serpents?  By the way, there may or may not be a giant serpent in my Geomancer’s Apprentice urban...