AOL just hit me with some news I didn’t see coming: they’re officially discontinuing their dial-up service.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I thought dial-up was long gone—like floppy disks and Blockbuster stores. Turns out, it’s been quietly hanging on this whole time. But as of September 30th, at least through AOL, it’s officially done.
From the company itself:
> “AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet. This service will no longer be available in AOL plans,” according to AOL.
And… that’s it?
We’ve all talked about how the internet is slowly dying—not disappearing, but changing in ways that make it feel less real. Artificial intelligence is certainly helping speed that along. So are bots, spam, and fake accounts pretending to be real people. But at least with dial-up, you could count on one thing: if someone was using it, they were definitely a real person. They were out there, patiently (or impatiently) suffering through the endless hang-ups, busy signals, and painfully slow connections.
What worries me is that one day, we might actually need that phone line again. All it takes is one big asteroid or comet knocking a few satellites out of orbit, and suddenly those “ancient” connections start looking pretty useful again.
September 30th—mark it down. A day for dial-up that will live in infamy..
And just for that nostalgic melancholy hears the old sounds for your enjoyment.
It’s our annual tradition.. the panic mode has set in. We are on the ‘other side’ of summer.. the day are slowly shortening *(for now) .. and soon the heat we complain about will be filled with the smell of bus fumes and autumn air… The summer of 2025: No secrets during this nightmare..
The Summer of No Secrets
There’s something about the middle of summer that feels like a mirage. It’s hot, humid, sun-drenched.. But then you look at the calendar and realize: We are already on the way down. The days are getting shorter. The lightning bugs have peaked.. If you were lucky enough to see them. The school supply aisle is back. Halloween decor is back–that one we are ok with.
It always happens fast, but this year feels different. More abrupt. More exposed. Maybe it’s because, like everything else, even the season feels under surveillance.
Take the pop culture moment of the week: A CEO from Astronomer was forced to resign after he was caught on the kiss cam at a Coldplay concert snuggling with employee. Their spouses were undoubtedly as shocked as they were..
You’d think that would be the most wholesome thing to happen all year. But the clip went viral, and suddenly what may have been a private scandalous moment was up for public ridicule and attention.
And isn’t that the strange paradox of our time? Summer is supposed to be the season of lightness. Of youthful mistakes, of beach trips where no one cares what time it is. It’s the season of secrets. Of whispered confessions under fireworks. This is not a post to make excuses for them.. fate catches up. But in the ‘old days’ this was not a regular experience.
But now there are cameras. Everywhere. The joy is still there—just filtered through 4K resolution and comment sections. And sometimes the joy goes away when you realize others may be looking.
Beyond humans, it is fate itself that seems to view all. There’s a certain seemingly-paranormal eye that always watches, right?
Think about this: whenever you’ve done something in life that was a little mischievous or devious, you got caught. Maybe not at first.. it could take a few weeks. But something would happen where eventually the truth came out. Like Stephen King says—everything is eventual. Or it is just that there is really is no such thing as a secret that doesn’t eventually surface.
The CEO’s secret didn’t just come out, it became a meme. A supernova megatronic meme. You’ve probably already seen it, maybe even laughed at it. Your feed might be flooded right now with every possible variation of his shocked face photoshopped next to horror icons, sitcom stills, or surreal internet in-jokes. It’s funny. It’s wild and overexposed. And behind the laughter, there’s a real human moment—awkward, intimate, maybe painful—that’s now everyone’s punchline.
It feels like every summer now has its sacrificial billionaire. One year it’s a doomed submersible. Another, a PR disaster or a fall from grace. This year? A concert and a kiss. Comparatively tame, but just as culturally ravenous a feeding frenzy we have had in quite a while. If you’re rich in the summer of 2025, tread lightly. July heat won’t save you from the internet’s fire.
Since this is The Horror Report, we’d be remiss not to share one of the standout memes: Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ..
The truth hiding beneath the meme is darker: cameras are everywhere. Secrets are nowhere. The second you leave your house, you’re probably on film. And depending on how you feel about smart tech, you might not even be safe in your own living room.
So here we are…mid-July, drenched in sun and surveillance. Summer used to be a time for disappearing into the moment. Now it feels like we’re all starring in some strange documentary we never agreed to be in.
Here’s to the few moments that still belong just to us. If they exist.
For the sake of history, we will re-broadcast what we wrote in 2002 on the HORROR REPORT .. IT is strange, so many summers ago now, ancient history .. but I remember the feeling when I wrote this post. It was very late at night.. I think in that point in my youth I was drinking BUD ICE (remember that? ) .. and I was listening to classical music loudly when I wrote this stream of midsummer consciousness .. a rerun presented to you in 2025, the year of our lord:
March on, march on! Triumphant. Let the music roll The bombs bursting in the air of the hateful The tide running low and then high, bringing in pond of the ocean on the rivers of the barge The maiden is singing through the window at her bride to be. The widow is singing at the graveyard of her husband that was. The music rolls on. March on, March on! Louder, louder! Swiftly
Suddenly, the perils of the future become apparent. Marching down the aisles of the school and college. The grade school has no boundary, but the high school has pain. The college has promise but the reality has no gain.
The music rolls on. Slower. Triumphant none the less. Chills running down the spines of parents in their seats and in their heavens and hells. MORE. Here they come. Students and gang members and drunks and dug addicts. Ready to march into the uncertainties of life. More and more. MORE come down. More music rolls. They take their seats. Surrounded by God and Satan all on one chair. Chills moving through the bodies of those even without feelings. A hush comes over the crowd…. Crack open a cold one. Light up a hot one. The music says the days are numbered The time is over. It keeps playing. Rewind. Fast Forward, it doesn’t leave your head. Blood flowing, grandmothers growing. All in the night. All at the drop of a hat.
The bottle gone empty. The blunt blunted. The police are here. Students and young adults don’t know where they are because their parents never gave them direction. Their parents never gave them direction because they lost the path. The battles that raged were won by no one and fought by everyone. We are lost. We lost. They lost us, now we can’t even find a war to fight. No one wants to fight a war that is un-winnable
But the march goes on. The beat continues. More and more walk down that aisle for their fateful visit with the hand of time. It gets no easier, does it? IT gets only more painful. The hand extended, the face stony. The music greets them like a violent storm in the night. They need to listen but they dread to hear it. The beat marches on with their feet. Platform and leather soled, their hats and tassels turn. They’re finished.
On with life! On with death! On with hate! And on with crystal meth. It doesn’t get any better, does it? Civil marches and freedoms goodbye. Holy alliances oout the window. Fear and loathing sense their home. Something has gotten into our blood. We are bloodless?
The music rolls on. Coming to a conclusion.; Wind blows and doors slam. What the hell are we even doing this for? We’re dreaming the impossible, nightmare visions of reality in our lives. All this and the march keeps marching, the beat keeps beating.
Patriotism can be a beautiful thing—but let’s be honest, it can also be scary ..
Hear me out.
When patriotism crosses the line from love-of-country into cult-like obsession—where questioning anything is seen as treason and nuance is dead—that’s when things start to get real weird. Not unlike, say, a horror movie about a murderous dead soldier in red, white, and blue..
Yes, I’m talking about Uncle Sam—that forgotten little 1996 horror flick that was equal parts goofy and unsettling, and somehow still echoes today in all the wrong ways.
The plot? A group of teenagers desecrate the grave of a Gulf War vet, and said vet doesn’t take kindly to that. He rises from the dead as a walking PSA for blind patriotism, and starts maiming anyone who isn’t waving a flag hard enough. Subtle? Not exactly.
But it was one of the first horror films to tap into the Gulf War era, instead of the well-worn Vietnam tropes.
Look, I’m not saying Uncle Sam is high cinema.
It had a budget that probably couldn’t cover a fireworks stand in rural Pennsylvania. But I am saying that the character was a ghoulish and weirdly memorable versions of Uncle Sam itself. And still sticks with me.
Proof that even low-budget horror can leave a mark.
Or a scar? Don’t even start me on JACKO!
The movie leans more toward comedic horror than psychological thriller, but watching it today, it almost feels… prophetic.
A guy in a flag hat violently enforcing “real” patriotism? Huh. Totally fiction. No modern parallels there. Nope. Nothing.
Anyway, this 4th of July, we won’t be watching Uncle Sam again—not because we’re too good for it, but because the Twilight Zone marathon is on, and nothing screams “American holiday” like existential dread and government conspiracies in black and white with Rod Serling narrating.
Or maybe we’ll queue up that episode of Stranger Things where the mayor insists on throwing a fireworks show while literal monsters are tearing the town apart. Now that feels like the true spirit of the season.
Happy Independence Day. Light the grill, question authority, and maybe… skip digging up any graves.
If you look back in the history books, June 23, 1989 wasn’t particularly Earth-shattering. Politically, the world didn’t tilt off its axis. No massive global shift. No historic peace deal. No grand disaster. But… maybe there was something. Something quieter. Something louder. Something bigger than anyone could’ve realized in the moment.
Batman was released in theaters.
This post is a bit self-serving, I’ll admit. It’s nostalgic and maybe even overly sentimental. But I hope some of you reading this remember it too. And if you do—if you lived through that summer—I’d love to hear what it meant to you.
Because for me that summer was magic.
Let me start with a little personal backstory. I was 8 years old when my mom’s friend Janet brought me a few packs of Topps trading cards.
You remember the kind—with the cardboard-flavored gum that could break your teeth. But inside these packs were strange characters. A white-faced, clown-like man. A figure with giant horns and black armor. I didn’t know what I was looking at. (PS I still have all of the full sets of them today)
I had been raised on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Superheroes weren’t quite in my bloodstream yet but those cards sparked something. And eventually, I saw the name.
BATMAN.
Now remember, this was before social media. Before YouTube trailers. Before spoilers and breakdowns and frame-by-frame analysis videos. We had to wait until we saw the trailer on TV. And when we finally did? We were hooked enough to know we needed to be in that movie theater.
There was something electric about the anticipation. The air-conditioned mall theater. The smell of popcorn and the stickiness of the floor under your sneakers. The massive drinks from the concession stand. That hush when the lights dimmed. And then it began…
BATMAN took over the nation. More so here than other countries since places like Great Britain, as documented in this August 1989 article, didn’t let anyone under 11 see the movie due to the ‘extreme violence,’ even with a parent accompanying them:
I honestly can’t tell you how many times I saw Batman that summer. Twice? Three times? More? I’ve probably watched it over a 200 times since. And when I got the VHS that Christmas, I wore it out by the time the following summer rolled around. The video game was also heavily used.. I blew on that Nintendo cartridge with power and prowess..
But Batman wasn’t just a movie—it was a movement.
There was Batman everything. T-shirts. Toys. Posters. Ads. Happy Meals. Prince’s album. Commercials. Crossovers. Batman on cereal boxes. Batman on cups. Batman in every corner of pop culture. Halloween that year? A sea of purple and painted Joker faces. Every kid was trying to out-Joker the other.
It changed movies and the way that movies portrayed superheroes.
Tim Burton’s Batman introduced an entire generation to a version of Gotham that was dark, gritty, and real. That grimy city looked like 1980s New York. The mayor even felt like a caricature of Ed Koch. There were layers—politics, corruption, empathy for villains. And a hero who operated in the shadows because the system couldn’t be trusted.
It was a massive departure from the 1960s Batman TV show, which at that time was mostly remembered for its camp and color. Cesar Romero’s mustache under white clown makeup and shark repellent in the utility belt. Burton’s Batman brought the character home to his darker origins.
Funny enough, the success of the movie brought renewed interest in that old show, and the Family Channel began airing reruns. So, for a kid like me, 1989 didn’t just give me the new Batman—it introduced me to all the past ones too. Campy, creepy, heroic, and weird—it was all part of the package.
And maybe no movie since then has captured that same feeling.
There was one little issue, Adam West, the campy Batdude, told the Associated Press in the summer of 1989 that Tim Burton’s version was “too violent” …Of course that was before he even saw the film:
We talk about Jaws reshaping the movie industry—and that’s true. But Batman did too. It redefined superhero films and gave comics a new life. Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson, to this day, are described as their characters from the film.
And here we are, in 2025, still talking about it. Fans are still dissecting every new Batman movie and debating if Robert Pattinson can pull it off again. (We’ll skip over the Ben Affleck years for everyone’s sanity.)
If you were between 5 and 15 in the summer of 1989, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You remember that feeling and rush of excitement. It was pretty special.. And if you close your eyes and think about that summer, maybe you can feel a little of it still buzzing in the air.
So here’s to Batman. June 23, 1989. A day that didn’t change the world—but it definitely changed mine.
When a movie makes it big, it’s is half because of the movie.. the other half is due to the culture it is tapping into.
Fifty years ago today, on June 19, 1975, a movie premiered that didn’t just dominate the box office — it redefined it. Jaws wasn’t just a film. It was a cultural eruption. A tectonic shift in how movies were made, marketed, and remembered. And it didn’t just scare people in theaters. It made them afraid to put their legs in the water.
I wasn’t alive in 1975. Everything I know about that era comes from siblings, old newspaper clippings, and stories my late parents used to tell. But Jaws still reached me. Its shadow has loomed over every summer since. And maybe that’s the most powerful legacy of all: a movie so deeply embedded in the American psyche that it still haunts the waves five decades later.
Kids then were playing in playgrounds with metal slides and staying out until the street lights came on.. but fear was lurking in places that people never noticed until then..
The Perfect Cultural Storm…
1975 was a strange, tense time in America. The Vietnam War had just ended. Nixon had resigned in disgrace. Inflation was high, and faith in leadership was lower than ever. There was a national malaise settling in. Distrust of institutions. Paranoia. A sense that the world was changing too fast and too violently to understand.
Then came Spielberg.
At just 27, Steven Spielberg tapped into all of that anxiety — not overtly, but instinctively. Jaws was a movie about a shark, sure. But it was also a movie about a mayor more concerned about tourism dollars than public safety. About institutions failing. About fear hiding just beneath the surface.
And he didn’t need blood and gore to do it. The shark barely appears in the first half of the film. It was mechanical. Broken, half the time. But Spielberg turned that weakness into strength: he let our imaginations do the work. The tension simmered in the absence. The dread grew in the silence. And then there was the score.
The Score That Changed Everything
John Williams gave us a soundtrack of suspense that has never been topped. Two notes. That’s all it took. Dunna… Dunna…
It sounds simple. It was simple. But it was primal. It mimicked a heartbeat, a countdown, a presence just behind you. That score didn’t just accompany Jaws — it was the shark. It was the fear.
And it didn’t stay contained to the screen. It spilled out into the real world. Newspaper articles from the time talked about people who were afraid to go to the beach. Even lakes. Attendance at some coastal resorts dropped. All because a film made the unseen feel more terrifying than anything visible.
(Click the photo to see full size)
From Classic Monsters to Real Monsters
Before Jaws, monsters were myths. Frankenstein. Dracula. Godzilla. Fantastical creatures. Jaws made the monster real. Great white sharks exist. We just hadn’t thought to fear them yet. Spielberg didn’t invent the idea of terror — he just relocated it to the familiar.
He took the safe, sunny world of suburban beach trips and laced it with danger. He gave the ocean teeth. And that idea rippled out far beyond Jaws itself. You can see it in Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4, where Freddy’s claw circles in ocean waves — an unmistakable nod to the shark.
Even Saturday Night Live created a sketch character based on the Jaws concept: a shark pretending to be a door-to-door mailman.
Can It Happen Again?
This is the question I keep coming back to.
Yes, we’ve had massive summer blockbusters since: Jurassic Park, The Dark Knight, Avengers: Endgame. But nothing has ever truly matched the shockwave of Jaws. Nothing changed the entire film industry overnight quite like it.
Why not?
Because we live in a different world now. We’re saturated with media. Spoiled by CGI. We know too much. Trailers give away plot twists. Behind-the-scenes features run before a movie even premieres. The mystery is gone.
So it will most likely never ever happen again. At least not like it did in ’75..
In 1975, a movie could still sneak up on you. Jaws did more than that — it sunk its teeth into a nation’s soul and never let go.
Spielberg would go on to do it again with E.T., with Poltergeist, and with Close Encounters. He has a gift for capturing the temperature of society in a given moment. But Jaws was the first. And maybe the most lasting.
So here’s to 50 years of fearing the ocean. Here’s to two simple notes that made us question whether we really wanted to dangle our feet in the water. Here’s to the monster that was all too real — and the genius who knew exactly when to unleash it.
Happy anniversary, Jaws. The beach was never the same.
It was a magical summer for the box office.. June 1990; school was out ‘forever’ and the 1990s just began. While we did not have the luxury or burden based on your point of view of delving deep into the 90s yet, the future was bright we were still wearing shades.
And after several successful summers of box office glory for super heroes, Dick Tracy entered the fray.
Armed with his watch, yellow coat, and crime fighter ability, Warren Beatty donned the famed detective hat and have us, in our opinion, one of the greatest movies of all time. The magic of the film was its creativity, its style, its music, Madonna, but its colorful array of villians.
Back then we didn’t have ROTTEN TOMATOES, but instead we all trusted Siskel and Ebert. Here is what they thought about the movie in June 1990:
The movie was released on June 15, 1990 to great fanfare and buildup in fishwrappers across America. “Dick Tracy” (1990) grossed $103,738,726 domestically, ranking it 9th in worldwide box office for the year. It reached the #1 spot at the domestic box office during the week of June 15-21, 1990
By Christmas kids, including me, were asking for and getting DICK TRACY the NINTENDO game..
Playing with action figures. Except the BLANK. That was purposely sparely placed on store racks giving kids a false hope that one day they would find it.
We were lucky that year to see this movie in a theater for the first time. It created a sense of nostalgia for the oldtimers… and something new for younger people. It even made me read newspapers again! That summer papers across America re-published old Dick Tracy comics and I for one was using my summer time off to cut them out and create a collage. I wish I still had it today.
And we had the summer of Dick at McDonalds.. We were all led to believe we were crimestoppers and could win millions on their scratch offs!
Newspapers at the time even report about the nostalgia that the then released film was bringing back:
But what made that summer EVEN better? It was one of MANY films that came out that we still watch and talk about today.
Just think.. the hot summer 35 years ago were were watching TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, PRETTY WOMAN, and GREMLINS II. I will avoid being joyful about BACK TO THE FUTURE III, that one just didn’t hit great and today still has not caught on.
Yes indeed.. that summer was magical, vibrant.. and gave us Dick Tracy. An underrated classic that we still think holds up even in today’s times..
Dick Tracy (1990)
Directed by Warren Beatty
Shown (from left): William Forsythe (as Flattop), Ed O’Ross (as Itchy), Madonna (as Breathless Mahoney), Al Pacino (as Big Boy Caprice), top – Henry Silva (as Influence), R.G. Armstrong (as Pruneface)
Check your calendars. The Goonies didn’t come out 20 years ago—it came out 40 years ago.
That’s four decades of Mama Fratelli, four decades of Sloth yelling “Hey you guys!”, and four decades of Chunk’s truffle shuffle. And thanks to the internet, we’ve now had over 20+ years of memes celebrating our friends in the Goon Docks.
June 7, 1985—what a historic day.
The Goonies crossed generational divides, delivering laughter, mystery, adventure, and just the right amount of frights. It’s strange to look back now, because the film feels frozen in time. As if Astoria never changed. As if Data, Mouth, Mikey, and the rest of the Goonies are still in those same houses. The statue still has its private parts glued on upside down. Rosalita is still unpacking boxes and discovering hidden gems. It feels like the Goonies never grew up—or maybe we just didn’t want them to because we wanted to stay Goonies with them.
In the past two decades, 1980s nostalgia has exploded. Countless movies and shows have tried to bottle that magic lightning just for a few more moments—Stranger Things perhaps doing it best. But nothing beats the original. Nothing beats The Goonies. I’ll argue this to anyone: The Goonies is the epitome of 1980s entertainment, politics, pop culture, and movie magic.
Let’s not forget Cyndi Lauper’s epic anthem “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough,” featuring appearances by pro wrestlers like Captain Lou Albano in her unforgettable music video. THAT was the 1980s as well. The song, with the movie? Perfection.. The colors. The music. The language. The feeling. It all captured that moment in time and somehow made it timeless.
That’s why The Goonies still resonates—still matters—four decades later. It may just be one of the best movies ever made. And if I had to choose just one film to represent the entire decade of the 1980s, I’d choose The Goonies.
And just for the nostalgia, here’s a picture from the showing at a theater in Astoria, Oregon!
For those of us who lived through its release, we’re getting older. I was a little too young to catch it in theaters, but I saw it later—and even then, I felt its magic. I’m honestly jealous of anyone who experienced it on the big screen for the very first time. You were the luckiest moviegoers in the world. And you probably still are.
And speaking of lucky movie goers.. let’s just step back in time for a bit and gaze at this ad in the local fishwrapper of my youth.. the Pottsville REPUBLICAN from June 7, 1985–the weekend of the movie’s release.. The Schuylkill Mall was the place to be.. the Goonies was playing daily that week at 1:30, 4:30, 7:00, and 7:20. So … what time do you all want to meet up and go see it? I’ll buy the popcorn..
Some movies are just meant to be seen in a theater, and The Goonies is absolutely one of them.
This is how the public relations announcement spins it:
The collaboration of two iconic 80s brands, Masters of the Universe and ThunderCats, yields an action figure of the Ever-Living Evil of Eternia, Skell-Ra! This toy crosses over Skeletor of MOTU with Mumm-Ra of ThunderCats. He comes with 2 swappable heads, a reversible purple / red cape, and swappable harness and skirt armor pieces, so he can evolve from Skell-Ra into Mumm-Ra. The Sword of Plun-darr completes the double-edged picture.$29.99
Set to hit store shelves in April, the upcoming @mattel Origins wave will include MOTU mashup figures of Lion-O and Cheetara along with new characters like Skell-Ra (Skeletor / Mumm-Ra) and a reinterpretation of Battle-Cat as a humanoid ThunderCats warrior. #thundercats#motupic.twitter.com/wzjl9FciJb
There have been Ninja Turtles crossovers with He-Man.. and now this .. each time the price goes up a bit, but Thundercats fans have felt cheated.
Will this bring out the midlife crisis and them next 2?
Judging by how the Masters line has been releasd, this will be coming to a store near you — or maybe won’t.
They are playing on the nostalgia.. Folks, kids won’t buy this. People ages 40 through 50 will. I should know I’ve been buying He-Man feeling like a kid again when I do.
So here’s the deal, and it’s been my deal for a few years now: I am on a mission to find and buy presidents’ heads. Let me explain.
I’m talking about those iconic, oversized heads of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln that used to adorn classroom walls in the early 1900s. You know the ones—giant oval cutouts that loomed over children as they tackled their studies, offering a silent, patriotic presence, and in the case of honest Abe, a slightly melancholy and distinct stare..
You might ask, Why on earth are you hunting for these heads? Well, let me tell you: it’s the thrill of the hunt.
It’s also for some decoration to properly celebrate Presidents’ Day. For three years now in January, I’ve embarked on this annual exercise to find these elusive relics of American decor.. Because there are personal rules to this game, and I’ve set a strict rule for myself: no eBay, no online shopping. This is a boots-on-the-ground kind of mission, a real scavenger hunt for the presidents heads..
My latest adventure took me to Rosie’s, a craft store in Minersville, Pennsylvania. It’s the kind of place that smells like nostalgia and glitter glue. I found an image when searching for craft and decoration stores that gave me hope.. a little glimmer of ABE in the picture made it appear I may have finally struck presidential head gold:
Obviously the photo was dated–2021. Lots happened since.. and when we got to Rosie’s, the mission came to a screeching halt..
While I struck up a great conversation with the cashier *(and presumably the owner) about old-fashioned decorations, I was told that the cutouts were long gone. And as a matter of fact, they may not even be in production anymore–something I sensed with their lack of availability. . The trip was not wasted, I walked away with some decent materials—Cupid cutouts, Valentine’s Day décor, a few cardboard constitutions (because why not?). I’d recommend Rosie’s for the old fashioned decor–can’t wait to go back around Halloween and get some cardboard cutouts of Frankenstein.
But back to the heads.. it was yet another tragic blow to the mission, but not one that will deter me.
I’m committed to this quest. I’ll keep exploring craft stores, antique shops, and every strange, off-the-beaten-path establishment I can find. Because let’s be honest: the thrill of finding these vintage gems in the wild beats clicking “Add to Cart” online shopping any day.
And really, aren’t old-school decorations the best anyway? They’ve got history, character, and a certain charm that modern stuff just doesn’t have.
