Editorials
“Castle Rock” Got Pretty Wild This Week and We Should Talk About It
When you’re expecting answers, “Castle Rock” instead asks new questions.
Last night’s “Castle Rock” was an interesting episode, to say the very least. Rather than finding out more about “The Kid,” as last week’s episode kinda-sorta suggested we would, ‘Filter’ instead focused primarily on Henry Deaver’s story, particularly his attempts to find out what actually happened to him (and his father) as a child. On that road to self discovery, we met Henry’s son, Wendell Deaver (played by IT star Chosen Jacobs), and Henry finally learned that it was actually a young Molly who killed his father; as she claims, Henry wanted him dead.
But the episode’s most crazy bananas revelation came towards the end of the episode, when Henry came upon two men in the woods he and his father used to prowl around. There he met Willie and Odin Branch, a young man and a deaf older man who together inform Henry that the crippling ringing he’s been having in his ear isn’t exactly tinnitus or, well, anything of this world.
As it turns out, Castle Rock is an even stranger place than we realized.
Odin, with Willie as his translator, explains to Henry that he knew Henry’s late father, and that his father believed “the voice of God” could be heard in Castle Rock.
Say what?!
“Most people can’t hear it at all,” Odin tells Henry. “Some hear it once… and never again. A lucky few hear it constantly… practically deafened by it. There are geographic variations, naturally. Quiet in some places… much louder in others. The ancients called it ‘the music of the spheres.’ Of course, I have a more scientific view. The nature of the schisma, is the preferred nomenclature now. I have advanced degrees in bio, and psycho acoustics. Best I can tell, the schisma is actually nanoscale turbulences, caused by cochlear quantum totalities abrading in parallel. Other heres, other nows. All possible pasts, all possible presents. Schisma is the sound of the universe… trying to reconcile them.”
He continues, “To some listeners, the schisma sounds like a ringing in the ears. See, the sound may come and go, but the schisma is eternal. It’s eternal and everywhere, underlying all space-time. But it has been getting louder again, Henry. It hasn’t risen to these levels in decades. The problem is, no matter how strong the signal, the world is noise. Auditory distraction. So even those lucky enough to hear the schisma have to clarify, amplify. And of course, the most committed of us… do more.”
Odin goes on to tell Henry that his father had conceived a device before his death that he never got to build, but that Odin has. Essentially, it’s a padded room that shuts out *all* noise, allowing those with the ability to hear the schisma to hear it loud and clear. It’s called “The Filter,” and Henry’s father believed the schematics were delivered from God himself.
“What you hear now is just a rumor. What you’ll here in The Filter is… truth.”
As for Odin, he purposely made himself deaf so that he’d be able to receive messages from the schisma at all times, and his plan is to “correct” Willie for the same purpose.
Now that’s some hardcore J.J. Abrams meets Stephen King insanity to unpack, eh? The “schisma” isn’t actually present in any of King’s stories, so at this point it’s pretty impossible to know what the hell is actually going on in Castle Rock. Are different realities and times bleeding together, kind of like Abrams’ own Cloverfield Universe? Is “The Kid” some sort of inhuman being from another place and time, brought into Castle Rock by whatever strange shit is going on out there in the woods? Is it possible that’s he actually “IT,” as we theorized last week?
One thing is for certain, and it’s that “Castle Rock” loves to dangle wild ideas and questions in front of our faces and then make us wait for the answers. At this point, six episodes deep, we really still don’t have *any* answers, not even to questions posed in the very first episode. And with only four left to go, we can’t help but wonder if we’ll ever truly get them.
So what’s all this about schismas? Any theories? Are they about to go full Dark Tower?
Let’s talk!
The past decade or so has seen a lot of online discourse about how comic-book movies popularized multiversal crossovers on the big screen. However, the truth is that the horror genre has been bringing fan-favorite characters together since before cinematic universes were even a thing.
From the iconic Universal Monsters to more recent match-ups like Freddy vs Jason, genre fans have always enjoyed seeing their favorite characters duke it out like blood-soaked professional wrestlers. While the movies can only occasionally offer us this kind of entertainment due to the inherent legal complications involved in convincing different studios to relinquish the rights to their precious IPs, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of entertaining crossovers in other media (as well as some lesser-known movies that manage to skirt legal issues).
With that in mind, I’ve decided to come up with a list celebrating five underrated horror crossovers from different mediums. After all, genre fans might be surprised to learn about what the cenobites have been up to in the literary world, and plenty of our favorite “dead” franchises are still alive and well in the world of comic books.
That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite crossovers if you think we missed a particularly underrated one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. Hack/Slash (2004-2018)
A lot of crossover comics treat these events as semi-canonical spin-offs that usually have little bearing on the overarching plot of the main story, but this definitely wasn’t the case with Tim Seeley’s fan-favorite Hack/Slash. Every time Cassie and Vlad came across a familiar character such as Chucky, Ash Williams, and even Jeffrey Combs’ incarnation of Herbert West, the writers made a point of expanding the comic’s mythology in order to permanently incorporate elements from each different series.
In fact, one Redditor even compiled all of the different horror franchises that coexist under the Hack/Slash umbrella, and the comic actually serves as the quasi-official home to a veritable army of scary movies!
Of course, we can only hope that the rumored live-action adaptation continues this trend of honoring the iconic slashers of yesteryear…
4. Scoobynatural (2018)
Possibly the last truly great episode of Supernatural, this unexpected crossover event put demon hunting brothers Sam and Dean smack-dab in the middle of the classic Scooby-Doo caper A Night of Fright is No Delight! The best part is that this officially licensed adventure manages to blend both live-action and animation in order to tell a meta story that’s sure to thrill fans of either franchise.
Unfortunately, while the crossover was a highly promoted television event back in 2018, it aired towards the end of the internet’s love affair with Supernatural. At that point, many of the series’ long-time fans had already jumped ship and never got the chance to enjoy one of the show’s best episodes.
That’s why I’d urge genre fans to revisit this standalone adventure even if they have no interest in watching the rest of the series!
3. Terrordrome: Reign of the Legends (2018)
The original Terrordrome was one of my all-time favorite fan-games, but the folks at Huracan Studios were painfully aware that they could never turn that nasty roster of licensed characters into a proper fighting franchise. That’s why it makes sense that the spiritual sequel to Rise of the Bogeymen only features public-domain monsters and killers.
While it lacks easily recognizable icons like Jason and Leatherface, a new game engine and years of updates have transformed Reign of the Legends into a superior product. Despite the rudimentary 3D graphics, there are undeniable thrills to be found in beating the snot out of Sasquatch while playing as Bloody Mary, and I’ve spent way more time on the multiplayer mode than I’d care to admit.
2. Monster Brawl (2011)
Another public domain standoff between iconic horror titans that are no longer owned by studios, Jesse Thomas Cook’s wrestling-themed thriller remains one of the most creative takes on a creature-feature that I’ve ever seen. In this ambitious low-budget production, audiences are treated to a supernatural wrestling event featuring fan-favorite monsters like Frankenstein, The Mummy and even a handful of freaks from Greek mythology.
While the flick often feels more like an especially spooky pay-per-view event rather than a proper movie, wrestling fans are sure to have a blast with Cook’s fiendish sense of humor as well as some surprisingly well-choreographed knockouts.
1. Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell (2016)
Paul Kane is already a fan-favorite author among Hellraiser fans, with the English writer having been involved in everything from the incredibly fun Hellbound Hearts anthology to the non-fiction classic The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy. That being said, my personal favorite example of Kane’s work is the criminally underread crossover Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell.
A loving pastiche that brings Clive Barker and Arthur Conan Doyle together for a blood-splattered good time, this unique novel could only have been made by a writer with intricate knowledge of both the Sherlock stories and Hellraiser’s in-depth mythology. That’s why I’d recommend it to discerning horror fans craving a more investigative take on the cenobites!
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