Varla Ventura

writer, traveler, lover of the strange

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Calling all Vampires!

Perhaps the most enticing and desperately attractive creature of the supernatural realm, ask some folks and they will tell you vampires are quite real. And there are often more to them than meets the eye. So whether you’ve had your blood drawn, your energy drained, had an odd encounter with a bat, or self-identify as […]

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Zombies of Miami (Bath Salts Strike Again)

On a Miami, Florida off-ramp, a completely naked man attacked a homeless man with a ferociousness that makes The Texas Chainsaw Massacre look mild. The attacker began tearing away at the victim’s face, biting with his mouth, and then eating the chunks of flesh he tore off. Though the police and hospital are not confirming,

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Reginald and His Goblins Mix it Up with Church of Mabus’ Jeffery Pritchett

You may recall my earlier review and interview with the one and only Reginald Bakeley, author of Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop.  I’ll be straight with you: Reginald is a scamp. He knows more about the fairy kingdom than any one I know, and he has the gift of the second sight. But if you ask

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Ring in the New Year with Murderous Bells: A Very Happy Hour of Horrors

The usual gaiety of chiming bells ringing in the New Year might sound a little more sinister once you get through this short little eBook, selected by me from a collection of fairy and folklore by Welsh “Grimm” William Wirt Sikes. Don’t walk into that churchyard or a schoolhouse without a hard-hat! There are more

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Scandanavian Trolls and Dickens’ Ghosts~A Holiday Themed Happy Hour of Horrors

What young child doesn’t love the din of Christmas? The lights in shop windows and holiday hum, a promise of bellies full of cookies and piles of presents. And when most of us think of Christmas we think of a bearded man in a red suit, jolly and adept at delivering toys. We accept his

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Varla Ventura’s Gruesome and Ghoulish Gift Guide for the Holidays

Over the weekend I was haunting my local Haight Street shops and went into one of my favorites: Cheap Thrills. This store is like what Hot Topic wishes it could be. It’s packed full with everything from tiny rubber chickens to Day of the Dead skull dresses. The Baby Ventura (whom I should really start

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Unicorns are Real (Or They Were, Anyway)

Recent headlines in Korea settle the myth vs. reality debate once and for all! Unicorns are REAL, or at least they were once upon a time. According to  the Korean News Agency: Archaeologists of the History Institute of the DPRK Academy of Social Sciences have recently reconfirmed a lair of the unicorn rode by King

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The Screaming Banshee~A Just-in-Time Cocktail for Thanksgiving’s Happy Hour of Horrors

My Happy Hour of Horrors are usually late Friday themes but since this week is a madhouse of gluttony, joy, and frenzied family freakery, I’ll let you have a drink right now. (I always say drink early and often). But seriously, you know that over dramatic little sister that “can’t quite handle” the family gatherings

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