Total Skull: August, 2026

Things that brought me delight in August: TahkhanaAt the beginning of August I made a big Indian feast of saag paneer, bhindi masala, methi roti, rice, and samosas...and Tahkhana was the perfect movie to accompany it. Tahkhana (aka The Dungeon) is a Bollywood horror flick, complete with the requisite song and dance numbers. It is also an incredibly wild movie; I was not expecting the scene where bandits randomly show up on horseback and get their asses beat by the heroes. Yeah, there is a supernatural menace at work in this movie, but far more sinister is the rapist cousin lurking about! Laura Purcell, The Shape of Fear I've written before about how I regard Laura Purcell as one of the modern masters of Gothic novels set in the Victorian era, and The Shape of Darkness just adds further evidence in support of my claim. Purcell is incredibly adept at loading a novel with tons of nineteenth-century Gothic oddity; this one's got silhouette cutting, seances, and phossy jaw. (Do not image…