-
1 month ago | 
reactormag.com | Liz Bourke |Judith Tarr |Vanessa Armstrong |Martin Cahill
The Reactor newsletter is the best way to catch up on the world of science fiction, fantasy, pop culture, and more!
-
1 month ago | 
reactormag.com | Judith Tarr |Andrew Liptak |Kelly Lagor
The Reactor newsletter is the best way to catch up on the world of science fiction, fantasy, pop culture, and more!
-
Jan 13, 2025 | 
reactormag.com | Judith Tarr
Before we say goodbye to the Americas, and while I have real-life water monsters on my mind, let’s take a detour to South America and contemplate the wonder that is the anaconda. She is everything a monster needs to be. She’s huge, deadly, mysterious, and fascinating. And she is indisputably real. I spent a pleasant not-quite-hour watching the 2014 documentary, Anaconda: Silent Killer (originally in German as Anakonda: In der Welt der Würgenschlange).
-
Dec 9, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Judith Tarr
Eli Watson and Jason Hewlett’s Kickstarter project has just recently been released into the world. Their investigation of Lake Okanagan’s Ogopogo is just about as up to the minute as you can get in the world of film. It documents an expedition to the lake in May of 2023, and takes a somewhat different direction than the monster documentaries I’ve written about through the chapters of the Bestiary.
-
Dec 2, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Judith Tarr
I could swear I’ve seen an episode on the monster of Lake Okanagan somewhere among the usual suspects. But according to the episode lists for Expedition X (and its parent shows Expedition Unknown and Destination Truth) and MonsterQuest, that’s a nope. Unsolved Mysteries did a segment on it in its second season, with references to Loch Ness among others.
-
Nov 25, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Judith Tarr
Canada is big. Really big. And has hundreds of thousands of lakes. Over 100,000 in Manitoba alone, according to the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. At least a few of these lakes have their own monsters. The most famous one, Canada’s Nessie, is the Ogopogo of Lake Okanagan in British Columbia. I’ll talk about her in another article. Here, let’s look at some of the less celebrated monsters. We have no idea how many actual lake monsters there are.
-
Nov 18, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Judith Tarr
Thanks to TheKingofKnots for suggesting I add Steve Alten’s The Loch to the annals of Nessie lore. I won’t say it’s quite Monty Python, but there’s plenty of silliness, along with a solid ration of blood, gore, and generational trauma. Alten’s book was published in 2005, after the Surgeon’s Photo was proved to be a hoax. It mentions the Ted Danson film Loch Ness, and takes a fair bit of inspiration from it, too.
-
Nov 11, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Judith Tarr
I had another article in the works, but current events made me want to find something light and hopeful and heartwarming for this week instead. Thanks to commenter Brian for a recommendation that was just what I needed. I have the best commenters. The Water Horse: Secrets of the Deep was filmed in New Zealand, with local land and waterscapes doing a decent job of cosplaying Scotland.
-
Nov 4, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Judith Tarr
There’s a surprising dearth of lighthearted family movies about the Loch Ness Monster. You’d think a cryptid nicknamed Nessie would have more cute-kid adventures. Mostly she seems to feature in documentaries and the odd bit of monster horror. Luckily for us, there’s a 1996 offering titled, plain and simply, Loch Ness.
-
Oct 28, 2024 | 
reactormag.com | Judith Tarr
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Ghosts are walking, portals are opening. Everyone’s free to be scary. How better to celebrate the season than a good, bad monster movie? After all, it’s the Loch Ness Monster. She just needs a little creative license and a decent effects budget. The Loch Ness Horror is surprisingly not awful. I don’t recognize anyone in the cast, but they do their jobs competently. There’s a little gore but not too much, and the screaming keeps down to a reasonable level.
