Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight!
12.1.2025
Editor – Mykal - Content – Technical - Layout
Research & Editor – Mike - Content
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Forward
Mike and Mykal are a father & son duo who have a production company with unique and smart stories. They are working on the next phase of their production company and look forward to being involved in feature film making. The Sprinkler is fun, informative and value add! They remind their audience that they leave politics at the door. Their energy is positive and wellness based. Share gratitude and be cool to one another!
We bring old school and contemporary ideas to the table.
Mykal & I operate with the credo; be cool to one another. We want to connect with people, and be present while we enjoy this journey. We have embarked on something that is moving in a direction that affords us to display our creativity and love for film & music! The year has been full of challenges, yet we move forward and appreciate what we have done and what we have!
Welcome Psychos one and all!
The Sprinkler: Note
We are reviewing our newsletter, The Sprinkler. We are thinking about evolving into a blog, called simply A Psycho’s Blog. We are maintaining current format at least through this Winter. Our newsletter is always available on our website, which includes back issues as well.
Film - Some TV - Music – Some Wellness -Commentary - Grave Thoughts - Peculiar Headlines
Rock N Roll Image of the Month (RRIM)
Interesting Individual of the Month (IIM)
Let’s start with a film related quote we dig:
“To make Michael Meyers frightening I made him walk like a man, not a monster.”
John Carpenter
The Psycho Scale:
We use our Psycho Scale for film and TV series rating scores. Our Psycho Scale is 1-Psycho, with Psycho being the highest; 10. Mykal and I watch all scored films and TV series; drawing from decades of real viewing experience.
Film
The month of November went by just right! I watched a shit load of horror movies! What can I say? I love movies! We consumed lots of movies, and enjoyed sharing some of our so-called favorite’s lists and scoring the films we watched. We finalized three more treatments this month and finished our novella! Writing seems easy for us. We are moving to the next chapter, which will include making a short horror film. We are sending pitch emails and making pitch calls! We continue to add to our treatment library as well! For the love of film! Psycho Studios will be successful!
Psycho Studio’s Spotlight
Top 10 Horror Movie Producers Who Shaped the Genre
Where nightmares are curated, crafted, and served fresh.
Horror doesn’t happen by accident. It’s engineered, frame by frame, shadow by shadow, knife scrape by knife scrape. Behind every iconic scare is a producer who pushed boundaries, gambled on new voices, or doubled down on a vision nobody else believed in.
Here are 10 producers who didn’t just make horror movies.
They set a standard and defined a culture.
1. Jason Blum
The Low-Budget King Who Broke the System
Founder of Blumhouse Productions, Blum proved that micro-budget features with strong ideas can terrify the world. From Paranormal Activity to Insidious, The Purge, Get Out, and Halloween (2018), he built an empire by betting on creative freedom and fearless storytellers. His formula reshaped modern horror economics.
2. Debra Hill
The Quiet Architect of Suburban Terror
John Carpenter gets the headlines, but Debra Hill co-created the blueprint. As producer and co-writer of Halloween, she infused the story’s emotional realism, crafted Laurie Strode’s world, and helped establish the slasher genre. Hill didn’t just produce horror; she produced its final girl mythos.
3. Roger Corman
The Godfather of DIY Horror
Corman’s legacy is a wild one: hundreds of films, countless protégés (James Cameron, Joe Dante), and a constant “shoot fast, shoot cheaper” ethos. His creature features, Poe adaptations, and grindhouse shockers helped define American B-movie horror. Corman didn’t follow rules, he built his own crooked studio system.
4. Val Lewton
The Master of Suggestion
In the 1940s, Lewton took tiny budgets at RKO and turned them into poetic nightmares. Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie were masterclasses in atmosphere, shadow, and implication. Lewton proved that what you don’t see can be terrifying; a lesson still carved into modern horror’s spine.
5. Wes Craven & Marianne Maddalena
The Duo Who Reinvented the Genre Twice
Craven needs no introduction, but his longtime producer Marianne Maddalena deserves equal credit. Together they revived horror with A Nightmare on Elm Street, then shattered and reassembled the genre with Scream. Maddalena’s instinct for talent, tone, and risk shaped the Craven legacy.
6. James Wan & Leigh Whannell (Producers as Architects)
The Engineers of Modern Franchises
Producers, writers, and directors rolled into one chaotic super-team. Their early work on Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring set off multi-film universes. As producers, Wan and Whannell built horror ecosystems; mythology-driven, character-grounded, globally massive.
7. Oren Peli
The Guy Who Turned a Bedroom into a Global Haunt
One house. One camera. One idea.
Paranormal Activity became one of the most profitable films ever made, largely because Peli refused to overcomplicate fear. As producer, he helped guide found-footage into mainstream dominance and proved that intimacy can be apocalyptic.
8. Gale Anne Hurd
The Powerhouse Behind Monsters & Mayhem
Though best known for The Terminator and Aliens, Hurd’s imprint on horror runs deep, from creature-driven dystopias to her role in birthing The Walking Dead, one of the most culturally dominant horror properties in TV history. She understands scale like few others.
9. Eli Roth
The Provocateur
Roth’s producing career (Cabin Fever, Hostel, The Stranger, Hemlock Grove) leans into horror as shock therapy, unapologetic, visceral, often controversial. Whether you love him or look away, Roth forces the genre to confront extremity.
10. Guillermo del Toro (Producer, Patron, World-Builder)
The Genre’s Gentle Monster Maker
Del Toro produces like he curates: with obsession, empathy, and total belief in the creature. From The Orphanage to Mama, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, he empowers horror storytellers who lead with heart and myth. The result: elevated terror that still crawls under your skin.
Final Drip from The Sprinkler
Horror thrives because these producers dared to nurture the weird, the bleak, the risky, and the downright unmarketable. They’re the gatekeepers who leave the gate slightly ajar, just enough for something to slip through.
If Psycho Studios ever wanders down the horror-production path (and let’s be honest, we eventually will), this is the lineage we’re stepping into!
Here is a list of films we watched in November:
Films:
Coyotes 2025 - 4 Justin Long & his wife. Poor CGI. Weak acting.
Creature from the Black Lagoon 1954 – 7. Classic.
The Evil of Frankenstein 1964 - Hammer – 5. Hammer classic.
Halloween 1978 – 8. Carpenter’s masterpiece.
Vice Squad 1982 - 2 - Wings Hauser; violent & gross.
Superman Returns 2006 - 6 - A Mykal suggestion - entertaining. Super young Kate Bosworth. Kevin Spacey who?
Blood Sucking Freaks 1976 - 1. Putrid. Terrible. How was this made?
Billy Jack 1973 - 3. Retro. Interesting. Poor acting.
Bone Lake 2024 – 5. Average horror.
Frankenstein 2025 - 2. Terrible. Stoopid.
The Loved Ones 2009 – 4. Passable.
Tenet 2020 - 8.5. Nolan’s finest.
One Battle After Another 2025 – 5. Not my thing.
Nightmare 1981 – 8. Retro 80’s classic!
Hell House, LLC Lineage 2025 -3. Terrible.
Skinned Deep 2004 – 1. Horrible!
The Thing 1982 – 9. Another Carpenter’s gem!
Frankenstein 1931 – 9. Universal classic!
Planet of the Apes 1968 – 4. Overrated. Great story.
Fifth Element 1997 – 4. Not my thing, not into science fiction.
Starship Troopers 1997 – 6. Quirky 90’s cinema.
Total Recall 1990 – 6. Verhooven and Arnold!
Robocop 1987 – 8. One of my fav science fiction films.
The Thing from Another World 1951 5. Campy 50’s horror!
Skinned Deep 2004 – 1. Horrible. Unwatchable.
Videodrome 1983 – 5. James Woods, in a Cronenberg creep fest.
Top Ten Dramas in no particular order:
Blood Simple 1985
Body Double 1984
Memento 2001
Shudder Island 2010
Prisoners 2013
One Battle After Another 2025
Taxi Driver 1976
Cast Away 2000
Gran Torino 2008
The Godfather 1972
First month in a long time I didn’t go see a film at the theater.
November, so called horror films released in November to theaters:
Predator Badlands
Frankenstein 2025
The Beldham
The Carpenter’s Son
The Things You Kill
Zodiac Killer Project
Keeper * Osgood Perkins
I was interested in only two of these, Frankenstein 2025 and Keeper. Frankenstein was unwatchable to me, abysmal to say the least. A travesty to say the most.
Keeper sounds interesting, written and directed by Osgood Perkins. I didn’t have it in me to go to the theater for movies that I feel are ho-hum.
Let’s take a look at Osgood Perkins a little more, an interesting director to say the least.
Psycho Studio’s Spotlight
Osgood Perkins: The Quiet Master of Modern Horror
By Psycho Studios for The Sprinkler
In the modern horror landscape, crowded with franchise revivals, IP reboots, and endless attempts to recapture past nightmares, few filmmakers operate with the eerie restraint and poetic dread of Osgood Perkins. His films don’t scream; they whisper. They slip under the skin like a childhood memory you can’t place, or a hallway you once walked through in the dark. Perkins is not simply telling horror stories, he’s crafting haunting lullabies about loneliness, identity, grief, and the ghosts we inherit.
If his name feels familiar, it’s because it should. Osgood is the son of Anthony Perkins, the legendary actor behind Norman Bates. But unlike many legacy artists, he doesn’t ride the coattails—he warps the lineage into something uniquely his own, mixing psychological unease with dreamlike atmosphere in ways that feel less like movies and more like spells.
A Horror Voice Built on Stillness
Perkins’ style is unmistakable:
· Measured pacing that rewards attention
· Hypnotic visuals drenched in shadow and silence
· Characters who seem slightly out of time
· Fear born from mood rather than jump scares
He’s part of a rare breed of horror filmmakers who understand that the quiet moments can be far more terrifying than the loud ones. In a Perkins film, dread simmers, often long before anything explicitly horrific appears.
Key Works That Define His Legacy
The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015)
A chilling debut that immediately marked him as a filmmaker to watch. Set in a snow-strangled boarding school, the film drips with isolation and foreboding. Its nonlinear structure and unsettling performances showcase Perkins’ fascination with fractured identity and the dark corners of the mind.
I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016)
A ghost story told with the patience, and precision, of literary horror. Deliberately slow, quietly devastating, and visually striking, it proves Perkins is uninterested in cheap tricks. He’s after something older and deeper.
Gretel & Hansel (2020)
Perkins takes a familiar fairy tale and transforms it into a nightmarish fable thick with mood and symbolism. The striking compositions and mythic tone show his growth as a visual storyteller.
Longlegs (2024)
The film that shoved Osgood Perkins fully into the mainstream conversation. A serial-killer chiller wrapped in occult dread, Longlegs became an instant sensation; equal parts crime thriller, supernatural fever dream, and psychological meltdown. Nicolas Cage’s performance grabbed headlines, but Perkins’ direction is what makes the movie truly unnerving: clinical, cold, and suffocating in its inevitability.
Thematic Obsessions
Perkins returns to certain ideas again and again, ideas that feel deeply personal:
· Inherited Darkness
Whether literal or symbolic, his films explore the shadows that pass from one generation to the next.
· Female Protagonists in Liminal Spaces
Isolated young women often anchor his stories, drifting between innocence and transformation.
· A Mythic Sense of Time
His worlds feel unstuck, half in the present, half in a memory you’re not sure is your own.
· Horror as a Language of Grief
Death, abandonment, and emotional rupture are always just beneath the surface.
Why Osgood Perkins Matters
Horror, at its best, is not merely entertainment, it’s catharsis. It’s confrontation. It’s a mirror we’re sometimes afraid to look into.
Osgood Perkins has carved out a space in the genre that is unmistakably his: elegant, unnerving, atmospheric, and psychologically charged. He invites viewers not to scream, but to lean in. To sit with their discomfort. To let the dread slowly bloom in their chest.
And in a film era dominated by speed and spectacle, that patience, that confidence, makes his work feel both timeless and refreshingly dangerous.
The Final Word
For Psycho Studios and fans of boundary-pushing genre storytelling, Osgood Perkins is exactly the kind of filmmaker worth celebrating. His voice is singular, his impact undeniable, and his films continue to reshape what horror can be in the 21st century.
Some directors want to shock you.
Osgood Perkins wants to haunt you.
Top 10 Box Office Horror Films of 2025
Psycho Studios Spotlight
2025 has become a milestone year for horror, not just creatively, but financially. Audiences continue flooding theaters for scares, and the numbers don’t lie: horror remains one of cinema’s most profitable genres; low budgets, high returns, and stories that tap directly into what keeps us up at night.
Below is The Sprinkler’s breakdown of the Top 10 Box Office Horror Films of 2025 (Worldwide), showcasing a mix of franchise heavy-hitters, smart originals, and long-awaited returns.
1. The Conjuring: Last Rites
Worldwide Gross: $495 million
Ed and Lorraine Warren’s final chapter delivers exactly what fans hoped for; dread, spectacle, and a box-office exorcism. A massive global hit and the year’s horror champ.
2. Sinners
Worldwide Gross: $367 million
An original shocker breaking into the mainstream. Sinners proves audiences still crave fresh nightmares when filmmakers swing for the fences.
3. Final Destination: Bloodlines
Worldwide Gross: $315 million
Death’s design isn’t finished. The beloved franchise returns sharper than ever, pulling huge numbers on nostalgia and inventive new kills.
4. Weapons
Worldwide Gross: $268 million
A genre-bending thriller with a slow-burn fuse. Critical buzz and strong word-of-mouth launched it into the year’s highest ranks.
5. 28 Years Later
Worldwide Gross: $151 million
The long-awaited continuation of the infected saga. Tense, brutal, and atmospheric, and still one of horror’s most reliable box-office brands.
6. The Monkey
Worldwide Gross: $69 million
A Stephen King adaptation that mixes nostalgia and terror. Not the year’s biggest earner, but a solid performer with a strong fanbase.
7. I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)
Worldwide Gross: $65 million
The slasher revival continues. This legacy sequel found an audience hungry for 90s throwback thrills.
8. Until Dawn
Worldwide Gross: $54 million
Based on the hit game, the film delivered the ensemble chaos and choice-driven carnage fans expected — and drew crowds looking for interactive horror in cinematic form.
9 & 10. Limited Release Lower-Grossing 2025 Entries
Not every horror film this year came with a mega-budget or an established IP, but the bottom of the list is filled with indie and international titles carrying the genre’s creative flag. Their box-office numbers are smaller, but their cultural impact is often louder.
💀 Why Horror Dominates 2025
Horror accounts for a staggering portion of theatrical revenue this year. Audiences want escapism, adrenaline, and catharsis, and horror delivers all three at a fraction of the cost of typical studio tentpoles. Even better? Originals (Sinners, Weapons) are competing head-to-head with established franchises.
It’s a reminder that fear is universal, and this genre remains one of film’s true survivors.
Some TV
TV I consumed in November:
Funny to me is that I watched more TV series and listened to less music in November. This pattern will change in December!
Pluribus 2025: 4 episodes. Vince Gilligan’s science fiction series has me scratching my head. I imagine that is the point. It’s interesting and entertaining. Score 8. See synopsis below.
It: Welcome to Derry 2025: 5 episodes. I really enjoyed the first two episodes, with their retro vibe and cast and story. Unfortunately, by episode four I lost interest. The story goes sideways and many of the cast members are weak. Score 6.
The Chair Company 2025: 6 episodes. Tim Robinson is an odd one and he is carving quite the niche out for himself. The episodes are short and weird and a good escape from the serious. Score 5.
Lowdown 2025 season 1. We love Ethan Hawke but this is not my cup of tea. Well-acted, bad pace and story. Dialogue is challenging. Score 3.
History of Horror Shudder 2025: Season 1. Shudder did a good job with sub-topics within the horror genre but the presenters and narrator are terrible. Score 3.
Malice 2025 season 1. Score is a 5. David Ducovny is good in this limited series but it is too predictable and rest of cast is weak at best.
Psycho Studios Spotlight
PLURIBUS: A Bold, Fractured Mirror of America
FX’s Pluribus arrives like a jolt to the system; a political anthology series that doesn’t just comment on America’s divisions, but dissects them with surgical precision. Built around a shifting ensemble and a reality that feels just a few degrees off from our own, the show invites viewers into a world where identity, power, and truth collide in ways that are unsettlingly familiar.
Each episode unfolds like a case study:
What happens when personal loyalty outpaces national loyalty?
How fragile is democracy when tested at its emotional seams?
And who are we when the stories we cling to stop holding?
Pluribus thrives in those uncomfortable spaces. With its layered writing, grounded performances, and near-documentary realism, the series builds tension not through spectacle, but through slow-burn psychological unease. Characters aren’t heroes or villains; just human beings navigating a country that doesn’t know how to agree on what it’s even fighting about.
It’s a show that lingers.
A show that asks more than it answers.
A show that doesn’t wink at you, it stares back.
In a media landscape filled with noise, Pluribus stands out by challenging viewers to look inward, question assumptions, and confront the fractures running through modern America. It’s not comfort food; it’s cultural caffeine, a wake-up call wrapped in prestige television. Perfectly engineered for The Sprinkler audience: sharp, bold, and unafraid of the conversation.
Music
November continued my strange, or should I say estranged relationship with music. I didn’t listen to nearly as much music as I typically do. This marks a couple of months in a row. I need to break out of my music funk. Mykal helps by sharing songs and groups throughout the month. I share with him as well. His shares mark memories, points in time as well as a vibe. I still love music, just have to loosen the grip of a challenging year.
Let’s take a look-see at November’s music:
Music
NEW
Buck Cherry album 2025
Black Butterfly (Deluxe).
18 tracks 65 minutes. Score 5
NEW
Lynch Mob 2025 single Dancing with the Devil runtime 4.5 minutes. It's weak-sauce. Score 3
NEW
Rob Zombie 2025
Singles - Heathen Days - Punks and Demons. 2 tracks - 4 minutes. It’s Rob, Score 5
NEW
Korn See You on the Other Side 20th anniversary. 2025
15 tracks 66 minutes Awesome. Score 8. Great share by Mykal!
NEW
Highly Suspect Black Ocean
2025 EP 6 tracks - 21 minutes
Good stuff. Not great. Mykal share. Score 7
NEW
Jimmy Eat World 2025 - Failure - runtime 2:24. Score 6
NEW
Dokken
Har Rock Woman 2025 - new track 3:24 runtime. WTF? Score 2.
NEW
Green Day
Warning: 25
It's ok, they were a cool alternative punk band at first then became poppish rock.
We both soured on the group. Score 5
NEW
Shinedown
Searchlight 2025 4 tracks; 11 minutes. Score 3. Too poppish.
NEW
Alter Bridge - Metalingus Runtime 4:19 1 track. Score 4
Vintage music I consumed this month:
(Various tracks, with my favorites being The Doors, Led Zeppelin and The Beach Boys.)
Incubus
Led Zeppelin
The Beach Boys
The Doors
Creed
Rolling Stones
The Cars
Green Day
The Talking Heads
THE SPRINKLER SPOTLIGHT: MUSIC
Two Bands, Two Generations, One Cultural Shockwave: Talking Heads & Green Day
In the ever-expanding constellation of trailblazing bands, few shine as strangely, brilliantly, and persistently as Talking Heads and Green Day, two groups separated by generation, genre, tone, and even philosophy, yet bound by a shared legacy: they both made the weird mainstream and the mainstream weird.
From art-school experimentalism to punk-pop rebellion, their music continues to mutate through time, still vibrating across film, TV, playlists, and the swirling cultural desert we all wander through.
Talking Heads: The Art-Rock Outsiders Who Accidentally Became Cool
Emerging from New York’s CBGB scene in the mid-1970s, an ecosystem that birthed The Ramones, Patti Smith, and Blondie, Talking Heads didn’t quite fit. And that was their superpower.
David Byrne, with his neurotic charm and twitchy delivery, felt like an alien studying human behavior in real time.
Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz built grooves that sounded like post-punk meeting Afrobeat in a Brooklyn loft.
Jerry Harrison added textures that turned nervous energy into architecture.
Where most punk bands punched forward, Talking Heads pulled sideways, toward the unexpected, the cerebral, the surreal.
Their landmark film Stop Making Sense (1984), recently restored and re-released, reminds us why they remain untouchable. The film isn’t just a concert; it’s a ritual, a transformation, a thesis on performance. Byrne’s oversized suit, his geometric movements, and the band’s expanding sonic universe all speak to a desire to deconstruct the concert experience and rebuild it as performance art.
Talking Heads weren’t trying to be icons.
They were trying to interpret reality.
That’s why they became icons.
Green Day: The Punk Kids Who Accidentally Became a Generation’s Voice
Jump forward to the Bay Area in the early 1990s; a different club, a different energy. 924 Gilman Street, the punk sanctuary where rules were rigid but the spirit was wild. Out of it came three kids:
Billie Joe Armstrong (sneer, eyeliner, guitar),
Mike Dirnt (melodic thunder on bass),
Tré Cool (chaos in human form behind a drum kit).
Green Day didn’t set out to become one of the biggest rock bands in the world. Their early sound was bratty, fast, and defiantly low-budget. But when Dookie hit in 1994, things changed. Suddenly, punk wasn’t confined to small clubs, it was blasting from Jeeps, malls, bedrooms, and every stereo in America.
What makes Green Day still relevant is their evolution.
When the world shifted post-9/11, they didn’t retreat to nostalgia. Instead, they dropped American Idiot, a theatrical punk opera with the storytelling ambition of a Broadway show and the political bite of a street protest.
They grew up, but never lost their snarl.
They matured, but never lost the impulse to swing the bat.
Green Day is the rare band whose music hit different generations in different eras for different reasons; rebellion in the ’90s, catharsis in the 2000s, and nostalgia-fueled endurance in the 2010s and beyond.
Two Bands, One Message: Don’t Fear the Shift
Talking Heads and Green Day live on opposite ends of the sonic spectrum; one angular and art-driven, the other loud and cathartic, but both exemplify something Psycho Studios champions:
Creativity thrives in contradiction.
Music evolves because artists dare to push against their own boundaries.
And great work happens when you stop trying to fit and instead decide to stand out.
Talking Heads questioned reality.
Green Day questioned authority.
Both rewired music in their own way.
Their legacy is a challenge and an invitation; especially for the dreamers, writers, and desert-dwelling creators reading The Sprinkler:
Make the strange choice.
Follow the uneasy idea.
Lean into the shift.
That’s where the art lives.
Rock N Roll baby! Mykal and I use Spotify Premium!
Rock and Roll Image of the Month! (RRIM)
Kurt Cobain WAS Nirvana. His dark lyrics, great left-handed guitar playing and his don’t give a fuck attitude defined where 90’s rock headed! Kurt was a musical genius with demons.
Some Wellness
With the holidays upon us, let’s see what mindfulness can do to make them less cumbersome.
WELLNESS: Surviving the Holidays Without Losing Your Mind
By Psycho Studios for The Sprinkler
The holidays have a way of sneaking up on us; one minute we’re sweating through a Phoenix heat wave, the next we’re knee-deep in decorations, deadlines, family expectations, and social noise. And while the season is marketed as the most wonderful time of the year, it can also be the most overwhelming.
Here are the real strategies, the stuff that actually works, to help you survive the whirlwind with your sanity, sleep, and spirit intact.
1. Protect Your Peace Like It’s a Limited-Edition Collector’s Item
Everyone has that relative. Or that friend group. Or that holiday dynamic that drains more energy than a faulty string of lights.
This year, give yourself permission to create boundaries, not dramatic ones, just humane ones.
· Set time limits on holiday gatherings.
· Choose which events genuinely matter.
· Excuse yourself early if your internal battery starts blinking red.
Your peace is not optional; it’s essential maintenance.
2. Keep Your Body Moving (Even if It's Just a Ten-Minute Reset)
Holiday stress doesn’t just hit the mind; it sits in your shoulders, your jaw, your back. Staying active doesn’t mean channeling your inner Olympian. It simply means refusing to let your body turn into a knot of tension.
Easy, realistic movement:
· A walk around the block after a heavy dinner
· Ten minutes of stretching before bed
· A casual bike ride or yoga flow
· Dance in your kitchen. No one’s watching.
Motion keeps the mental static from building.
3. Eat the Seasonal Favorites, But Pace Yourself
You don’t need to earn holiday meals or punish yourself afterward. That mindset is a trap.
Instead:
· Enjoy the foods you love
· Slow down while you eat
· Drink water like it’s your loyal sidekick
· Add some fruits or veggies when you can (no pressure)
Balance beats restriction every time.
4. Break the Perfection Myth
Instagram holidays are fake. Real holidays are messy, loud, funny, chaotic, imperfect, sometimes beautifully so.
Release the pressure to host flawlessly, decorate perfectly, wrap gifts like an art director, or respond to every email with holiday cheer.
Aim for meaning, not perfection. The season becomes instantly lighter.
5. Create One Ritual That’s Just for You
Amid the gift-giving and family traditions, carve out a ritual that belongs to you alone.
Ideas:
· A sunrise coffee on the porch
· Journaling before the house wakes up
· Watching a favorite movie uninterrupted
· A night drive to look at lights
· A weekly check-in with yourself: What do I need right now?
A self-owned ritual is an anchor in the storm.
6. Don’t Forget to Breathe (Seriously)
It sounds simple. It is simple.
But we forget to do it intentionally.
Try this anytime holiday stress starts tightening its grip:
Inhale for 4 seconds. Hold for 2. Exhale for 6. Repeat 5 times.
It resets your nervous system like a soft reboot.
7. Give Yourself Space to Feel Everything
The holidays can intensify emotions; joy, nostalgia, exhaustion, grief, all of it. You don’t have to slap a smile over whatever you’re carrying.
Allowing yourself to feel the real stuff is healthier than forcing holiday spirit on command.
If it’s a tough year, let it be tough. If it’s a great year, let it be great. Both are valid.
Final Thought
Surviving the holidays isn’t about sprinting through December, it’s about navigating it with awareness, boundaries, humor, and honesty.
Show up where it matters, rest where you can, and remember: there’s no right way to do this season.
Just the way you do it.
We can do this!
Commentary
THE SPRINKLER Spotlight
Commentary: The Art of Being Present (and Kind) This Holiday Season
The holidays have a funny way of exposing the cracks in our pace. We sprint all year, eyes forward, mind juggling work, family, expectations, and the endless loop of notifications, and then the season arrives like a reminder we didn’t ask for: slow down, or you’ll miss it.
Presence isn’t just a wellness tool or a buzzword. It’s a responsibility, one we owe to the people who cross our path, even briefly.
This time of year, we move through crowded spaces: airports, grocery store lines, parking lots where everyone seems to forget how to drive, and homes filled with relatives who remember exactly how we used to be. In these moments, kindness becomes the quiet superpower. It doesn’t need dramatics. It needs awareness. A held door. A patient breath. A genuine compliment. A pause before reacting. A small gesture that says, I see you.
And that’s really what people want during the holidays; not perfection, not grand statements, not the illusion of cheer, but to feel seen. The gift of presence is the one thing no one can return or re-gift. It lands, it stays, and it spreads.
Being present means letting go of rehearsed replies and surface-level nods. It means listening with intention; whether it’s to a friend sharing something heavy, a coworker venting, or a stranger simply trying to get through their day. Being kind means understanding that everyone is carrying their own version of the season: joy, grief, hope, exhaustion, nostalgia, pressure. You never know which one you’re meeting.
So, as we move through the final stretch of the year, The Sprinkler invites you to slow the spin. Look up. Look around. Meet people where they are. Let your presence be the warm thing in the room, the calm thing in the chaos, the human thing in a season that often feels overly polished and orchestrated.
Kindness is contagious, but it always starts with one person.
Presence is grounding, but it always starts with one moment.
This holiday season, let it start with you.
Psycho Studios
Cultivating awareness, humanity, and a little lighter, one issue at a time.
Let’s be cool to one another!
Grave Thoughts
This will be stories of the morbid and macabre! This section will be gross and gory to go along with the theme of our favorite kind of movies; horror! There will be shares of old and new stories to include mysteries, murders and serial killers. What makes so-called humans’ prey on one another? People are fascinated by these topics, similar to the way many people slow down to observe a gruesome car accident.
Psycho Studio’s Serial Killer Spotlight
Beyond Our Borders: Three of the Most Notorious Serial Killers Outside the United States
By Psycho Studios
Serial killers are often treated like an American export, an unfortunate myth built on Hollywood imagery and high-profile cases that dominate U.S. headlines. But darkness is not confined by borders. Around the world, entire nations have been haunted by predators whose crimes left wounds that still echo through the culture today.
For this edition of Grave Thoughts, we step outside the U.S. and into the international shadows to examine three of the most notorious serial killers who operated far from American soil, monsters who proved that evil speaks every language.
1. Andrei Chikatilo (Russia)
The Butcher of Rostov
Active: 1978–1990
Victims: At least 52
Russia’s most infamous murderer, Andrei Chikatilo, terrorized the Soviet Union during an era when the government publicly denied the very existence of serial killers. His crimes were brutal; targeting children, teens, and vulnerable adults lured at train stations and bus stops.
Chikatilo exploited the rigid Soviet system: missing persons weren't prioritized, police jurisdictions didn’t communicate, and forensic science lagged. The result? A predator who operated almost freely for over a decade.
His eventual capture in 1990 exposed not just a killer, but the fatal weaknesses of a government more concerned with appearance than truth. Chikatilo remains a chilling reminder that denial can be as deadly as any weapon.
2. Pedro López (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru)
The Monster of the Andes
Active: 1970s–1980
Victims: Claims over 300; confirmed at least 110
If Chikatilo represents bureaucratic blindness, Pedro López embodies pure, unfiltered horror. Operating across Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, López targeted young girls in impoverished, rural areas where disappearances were tragically common and rarely investigated.
His own claimed tally, over 300 victims, would make him one of the deadliest serial killers in recorded history. The most chilling part? López was released from Ecuadorian prison in 1998 after serving just 14 years. His current whereabouts are unknown, and no one knows whether his killing truly stopped.
He is the global nightmare: a ghost in the system with a body count impossible to fully verify.
3. Jack the Ripper (United Kingdom)
The Phantom of Whitechapel
Active: 1888
Victims: 5 canonical, possibly more
No list is complete without the most infamous unknown killer in history. Jack the Ripper’s reign in London’s East End lasted mere months, but his presence reshaped the cultural imagination of crime forever.
He preyed on women in the impoverished Whitechapel district, committing brutal mutilations that were both ritualistic and theatrical, killings that taunted Victorian society and exposed the stark divide between the rich and the poor.
The Ripper’s true identity remains a mystery, and that ambiguity has become part of the legend. More than a killer, he became a symbol of the unseen predator, the shadow just outside the lamplight… and proof that sometimes the most terrifying monster is the one we never catch.
Grave Thoughts: Closing the Crypt
Serial killers don’t belong to one nation, one era, or one culture. They are the darkest possible expression of something universally human, and universally horrifying.
In remembering the victims and examining the monsters who took them, we confront a truth no border can contain:
Evil is never foreign, it’s always closer than we think.
Peculiar Headlines
Let’s get to some weird and funky stuff!
1) A Missouri judge who wore an Elvis wig and often played Elvis’ music in court agrees to step down. The Elvis judge is facing a six-month unpaid suspension, fines and more. He will step down in about 18 months to appease the bureaucrats! The St. Louis judge simply wanted to add levity to his courtroom! Here comes the judge! Taking care of business, baby!
2) A motorist in Noth Carolina tells 911 operator; I just had a bald eagle drop a cat through my windshield! The incident took place near the Smoky Mountains on an interstate roadway. The driver was unharmed, the cat not so much! Hell, even eagles don’t like cats! Another headline for this story came across as: Pussy Falls from Sky!
3) 1 in 5 adults haven’t had sex in a year or more, and a lot of it makes sense! Some reasons given; the state of modern adulthood, no one to sleep with (Duh), low libido, lack of privacy and mental fatigue. Experts relate this study to the dramatic drop of the birth rate around the globe. WTF? Oh wait, no F in this story!
4) Barrels dumped off the coast of Los Angeles are so toxic that not even bacteria can survive! The barrels contain a so-called DDT soup and are sitting about 3200 feet down. From the 1930s to 1970s regulators made ocean dumping industrial waste off Southern California legal! The Toxic Avenger lives!
5) The next wave in the Opioid Crisis: A new drug stronger than fentanyl is taking off. Oddly enough, or scary enough is it’s from a class of synthetic drugs called nitazenes, which have been around since the 1950s! These are your parent’s drugs!
6) Allison Mack confirms she is married to former Neo-Nazi after breaking silence on sex cult. Allsion, formerly from the TV show Smallville, was arrested and sent to prison for her role in the sex cult NXIVM, led by Keith Raniere. This story is so slimy and disgusting I have no words. Wait, there’s this; Where is Superman when you need him?
7) The Kessler Twins, German entertainment duo, die together by assisted suicide. Alice and Ellen Kessler were 89 and had delighted audiences across postwar Europe and the U.S. with their spirited performances. The twins had considered this option for some time. No reason for this choice was given. RIP
8) Reaching 67 points is creating a 6-7 frenzy at college basketball games across the country. There is no rhyme or reason to this stupid phenomenon. Players and coaches alike are trying to get to the magic 67 points! Dictionary.com have made the term 6-7 the word of the year and it’s not even a word! I guess there are worse things to get excited about. My generation had 69!
9) Bagpipers claim world record with AC/DC’s, It’s a Long Way to the Top! 374 bagpipers played the song in Melbourne Australia and broke the previous record played by 333 of the pipers. It’s a long way to sanity!
10) And lastly in tech news: A robot broke a world record by completing a 66-mile walk. Company AgiBot earned the record by programming the robot and making sure it stayed clear of that ridiculously tall bridge collapse in the Shanghai Province. James Cameron where are you?
Interesting individual of the month [IIM]
This month’s interesting individual is Boris Karloff
Sprinkler Spotlight: Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff — The Gentleman of Horror
When most people hear the name Boris Karloff, they immediately picture the flat-topped head, heavy eyelids, and hulking silhouette of James Whale’s Frankenstein’s Monster (1931). But beneath the bolts and makeup was a soft-spoken, thoughtful English actor who helped define the entire language of cinematic horror. Karloff wasn’t just an early star of the genre—he was its quiet architect, shaping what fear felt like on screen with craft, empathy, and eerie elegance.
A Monster with a Heart
Karloff’s performance in Frankenstein remains one of the most powerful studies of misunderstood humanity ever put to film. He infused the Monster with loneliness, innocence, and heartbreak, allowing audiences to fear him and feel for him, often in the same scene. That duality became one of horror’s most enduring templates: the creature who terrifies us while reflecting our own fragility back at us.
His follow-up performance in Bride of Frankenstein (1935) deepened that emotional foundation. The Monster’s yearning for companionship, followed by rejection and rage, turned Karloff into not just a horror icon, but a tragic figure of almost operatic scale.
A Voice That Could Chill or Comfort
Karloff’s voice was another one of his weapons. Refined, articulate, and uniquely expressive, it allowed him to pivot between menace and warmth with uncanny ease. It’s no surprise he later narrated and voiced the Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966), one of the great holiday voice performances ever recorded.
It was a reminder: the man who frightened millions was also capable of delighting them.
Breaking the Mold of the Horror Star
Unlike many actors of the era who shied away from their horror roles, Karloff embraced them with pride and professionalism. He brought Shakespearean weight to genre pictures like:
The Mummy (1932)
The Black Cat (1934)
The Body Snatcher (1945)
These weren’t just monster movies. In Karloff’s hands, they became morality plays, psychological explorations, and in many ways, early templates for what modern prestige horror strives to be.
The Gentleman Behind the Frights
Off-screen, Karloff was legendary for his kindness. He was soft-spoken, generous, and respected by everyone who worked with him. Crew members often recalled his habit of helping carry equipment, eating lunch in full monster makeup, and taking time to speak with every new team member.
In a genre built on fear, he offered steady warmth.
His Legacy in Today’s Horror Landscape
Every tragic creature, every misunderstood monster, every horror film that tries to make audiences feel something deeper, those all trace back to Karloff’s shadow.
He showed us that horror could be:
Beautiful
Emotional
Sympathetic
And profoundly human
Modern filmmakers, from del Toro to A24’s roster of auteur creators, owe a great debt to Karloff’s blueprint of emotion within terror.
Why Karloff Still Matters to Psycho Studios
Here at Psycho Studios, and inside The Sprinkler’s pages, we celebrate creators who shaped the genre’s bones. Karloff didn’t just star in horror; he elevated it. He gave the monster a soul, carved psychological nuance into early genre cinema, and helped horror evolve from sideshow thrills into something with heart, tragedy, and timeless style.
He proved that fear can be poetic.
That monsters can be mirrors.
And that behind every nightmare, there’s a story worth telling.
Boris Karloff didn’t just play a monster.
He gave the monster a voice.
One of our favorite Doctor Victor Frankenstein quotes:
“It was the secrets of heaven and earth I desired, not horror!”
1931 Colin Clive as Dr. Victor Frankenstein
Closing
We have thoroughly enjoyed writing this newsletter each month for the last 27 months. I firmly believe there is an audience out there for this unique take on a newsletter. We need to lean into our marketing more; we are considering moving to a blog format. We want to continue our unique voice in a sea of sameness and will do so through the Fall - Winter of ’25.
Thank you for taking the time to read Chapter Twenty-Eight of Psycho Studios; The Sprinkler. We always look forward to sharing our thoughts, ideas and more!
Mykal and I wish everyone an enchanted December! Be safe and stay psycho! We would love to hear from our audience. Comments, feedback & suggestions are welcome!
Email us at - psychostudios66@gmail.com
Reach us at our website - psycho-studio.com.
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Mike & Mykal - Psycho Studios Phoenix – 12.1.2025 - www.psycho-studio.com
Thank you, Psychos, one and all! Chapter 28