ghost stories

Redheads Writing In Cafes: Why I Love Silent Movies

As a child I spent many hours hanging out with my Great Grandpa Bill. I’ve mentioned him before since he is someone who influenced me as a writer. He was an incredible story teller and someone who didn’t shy away from telling spooky ghosts stories to me. He knew that they wouldn’t frighten me, rather intrigue me. I am so incredibly thankful for the time I spent with him. There was another thing that I fell in love with because of him and that is Silent Movies.

Because of my Great Grandpa, I have been watching Silent Movies since I was a kid. Back then I was fascinated by them, but it wasn’t until I became an adult and started rewatching them, did I really learn to appreciate the craft and dedication that went into making those masterpieces of art!

Over the years I have also been working on a Silent Movie script of my own. I’ve also, been reading about incredible female scenario writers such as Frances Marion, Anita Loos and Gene Gauntier for inspiration on how to write a good Silent Film. I highly recommend reading this article if you want to know more about them. These incredible women are another reason I am drawn to Silent Movies. Women shaped the beginning of Hollywood and the Silent Film industry. If you want to learn more about women who were scenario writers, producers and directors, this is a great resource.

Two other resources I highly recommend are the documentary and the book called Without Lying Down. It is the story of Frances Marion and the beginnings of Hollywood. The book is much more in depth than the documentary, but you should give both a go!

Living in Toronto we are blessed to have many rep theatres and most of them show Silent Movies. Once we are out of pandemic jail, we will be returning to them to show support and to enjoy silent movies. We are also incredibly lucky to have The Toronto Silent Film Festival. It had to be rescheduled to late Fall this year and we can’t wait to attend the screenings.

Silent Sundays is a monthly series held at The Revue. We rarely miss a viewing. It is really well curated and I’ve seen films that are new to me, as well as ones I have enjoyed many times.

The Fox in The Beach neighbourhood of Toronto also hosts Silent Movies regularly along with other fun classic movies.

There are a few blogs I regularly check out and you should too!

Movies Silently https://moviessilently.com/
Silentology https://silentology.wordpress.com/?wref=bif
The Hollywood Revue https://hollywoodrevue.wordpress.com/category/silents/
Meet Me at the Soda Fountain https://meetmeatthesodafountain.home.blog/?wref=bif

I can’t leave you without letting you know what my top favourite Silent Movies are. These are in no particular order. Where I can, I post links to full movies. Enjoy!

Metropolis (1927) (this is a gorgeous HD copy)

Girl Shy (1924) This is one of my all time favourite Harold Lloyd films. This is a really clean copy of it.

Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) This is a restored version, but with the German title cards. There are other versions with English, but I highly recommend you watch this version.

Our Dancing Daughters (1928) This is such a wonderful movie and Joan Crawford steals the show! I’m so grateful to my fellow swell dame Heather Babcock for introducing me to it.

City Girl (1930) F.W. Murnau is one of my all time favourite film makers and you will understand when you see City Girl. It was also one of the last Silent Movies, as Talkies were all the rage at this point.

Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) The film stars the beloved Louise Brooks. The title cards are in German, but you can find English subtitles.

City Lights (1931) This film is truly the last of the Silent Movies. It really speaks to The Great Depression of the 1930s and I personally feel it is relevant with what is happening right now. The full movies can be seen over on Netflix.

The Last Laugh (1924) This is another favourite F. W. Murnau film! It also has German title cards, but you can find English subtitles.

I’m sure a few of you were wondering where the Silent Horror Movies are. Do not fret!

Nosferatu (1922) The creepiest and best of all of the Dracula movies! I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve seen it.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920) is absolutely wonderful and the special effects are pretty awesome for the times!

What are some of your favourite Silent Movies?

Stay The Fuck Home The Something Creepy Edition

I’ve always leaned more towards the creepy than the delightful. I prefer the world of creepy things. Haunted houses, bats, spiders, gothic novels, horror movies, spooky stories and Victorian Death Photography. I know many of my friends appreciate these things as well. I know that my tastes either turn people on or scare them away, however, I know everyone has a week bit of interest in the darker side of things. For today’s blog post, I am going to give you things to read or watch to either entertain you or educate you! Let’s be macabre together!

Haunted houses! I have always wanted to live in a creepy old, ghost filled Victorian. Nice ghosts of course. No one wants to live with assholes! Especially, those who can walk through walls.

Bats! If you been reading my blog. You know I love them! Go check out this article!

Spiders come in all shapes and sizes and we have a few living in our home. I know many of you are afraid of them, but trust me, a lot of them are harmless to humans and keep pests at bay in your home. If you see one, don’t kill it. If you really can’t stand it being in your home, carefully remove it.

Gothic novels are one of my favourite things to read. Frankenstein, Dracula, Varney the Vampire, Jane Eyre, the works of Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, and many, many more! You can read many for free on Gutenburg.

Horror movies have been my favourite way to kill a couple hours. See what I did there. Kill a couple of hours… get it? Nevermind.

The classics such as Universal Monsters (Frankenstein, The Mummy, Creature From The Black Lagoon, The Werewolf, Dracula), or silent horror are my my all time favourites.

Spooky ghost stories are best told right before bed so you can have delightful nightmares! At least that is my favourite time to read them. This website has some good flash horror fiction if you can only handle it in a small bite at a time.
https://thoughtcatalog.com/christine-stockton/2018/06/ghost-stories/

Victorian Death Photography (aka memento mori photography) is one of those topics that has a lot of fiction attached to it. It was a real thing, don’t at me about the fiction part. But there are many photos out there claiming to be Victorian Death Photography, aka , when in fact it’s a regular photo.

Atlas Obscura has a great article about Victorian photography and the contraptions used to help subjects still while the photo was being taken. It was necessary for the subject to be still because Daguerretype camera‘s required it due to the long exposure. Some contraptions called headclamps were used to keep the client still. Many photos showing the headclamp being used are wrongly labelled as Victorian Death Photography. Something to be aware of!

Day 28

Day 28! And I feel great! {could turn this into a dirty limerick – maybe later}
For a couple of weeks, I wasn’t really losing inches, which is odd, because along with long brisk walks, I’m doing yoga every day and I’m still eating healthy. I am keeping track and I noticed that I will lose, then two weeks nothing, then lose, then two weeks nothing. Apparently, this is how my body loses weight. This time it was 3 weeks before something disappeared. I also wonder if it’s because I’m starting to build some muscles. (being hopeful here)


Here are the current stats on inches gone:
Arm = 1
Bust = 1
Waist = 4
Stomach = 9.5
Hips = 6
Thigh = 4
Calf = 1

I LOVE ghost stories. Reading them, writing them, watching movies and documentaries about them and you guessed it, even those reality-style TV shows about them like Ghost Adventures. If it goes bump in the night, I want to know about it. Do you like ghost stories?


Who else made it to day 28? Two more days to go in this challenge for me!

Day 8

Day 8! I’m really loving Yoga With Adriene. I’ve never had an instructor quite like her. She is amazing. Today’s practice was about healing. Something I’m trying to do right now.


Last night I had a dream about a crow. It was mad at me and was flying around and following me, telling me that. I couldn’t figure out why or what I’d done to make it mad. When a crow appears in your dreams and it’s flying and following you it means that you need to let go and move forward. This dream and Adriene’s lesson today go hand in hand.


I lost two friends this year. One was a toxic friendship that I finally walked away from for the final time. The second was a beloved friend who we all lost to cancer. In one situation I am grieving deeply. My friend was young and restarting her life and cancer is a horrible, horrible disease. In the other situation, in the beginning, I was mad at myself for letting it go on for so long. The friendship was unhealthy for both parties. It was a good thing to walk away, but I still beat myself up over it when I shouldn’t have. Today I realized I need to heal from not only my friend who died but from the toxic friendship I ended. It’s also ok to talk about it, because… this girl… doesn’t like to do that.


Today’s photo is of a ghost. I believe in ghosts. I write ghost stories. We all have emotional ghosts. It’s ok to tell them to go to the other side.

Redheads Writing in Cafes Except When It’s the Backyard

A heaviness hangs in the air. It’s been there for the last few weeks and it’s stifling. There has been a lot of shitty things happen in the last few weeks, including our provincial election, the deaths of two well-loved celebrities and a thickness in the air that leaves us all feeling worried, scared, uncertain. This disillusion has us unsettled. I don’t like it. I’m certain no one else does as well. This has opened a dark rift for many of us.

During my darkest moments, I do my best writing. I have been harnessing the darkness these last few weeks, the things I write require it. However, I need to harness it so it doesn’t take hold of me, rip away at my soul and push me into the mire. It’s a battle that is always hard fought by me and so many others and doesn’t always end in a fairytale ending. I’ve seen too many taken by the evil demon. With all of the negativity in the air right now, politically, life, life ending, channels are opening up again to talk, try to understand, heal. My heart breaks for those who could not cast out the darkness.  You will have noticed that I haven’t blogged in a while, only posted about my events. A huge part of it was I honestly felt the only things I could write out would include a demonic presence and a world falling apart. So… I avoided it.

Blogging to me meant writing poignant, clever and sometimes funny pieces, whether it be sharing the things I enjoy or waxing poetic about life. Several months ago, two friends began journalling their daily observations and I, for a short period of time, also joined in, until I realized by observations became repetitive and melancholy. I don’t think that was what the exercise was meant to be. Last Friday, a group of us sat around the table in my backyard, gossiped, wrote and talked about life. It felt good, I felt energized afterward and it opened something up. Some of us see the sunshine, some of us drink in melancholy and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

A blogging project I am now beginning is talking about the women who have inspired me during my life, kicked my ass when I thought I was failing and have lifted me up out of the darkness. The first person I want to talk about is Thea Munster.

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Tarot reader, thereminist, hearst driver, writer, world traveller, ghoul, b-movie queen, zombie walk creator, fiend.

I was not in a great place in my life, I avoided going out and definitely didn’t want to be around groups of people. Somehow an acquaintance convinced me to come to a Zombie Walk Committee meeting. Previous to this, I had been to a few walks. I loved the idea of dressing up as a Zombie and then disappearing into a crowd of the undead. After some arm twisting, I relented and went with her. Believe it or not, I am an introvert. There are many times that I have to talk myself into going out to events and honestly did try to talk myself out of this one. I am so glad that I didn’t. Not only did I walk into a group of people who were working on that years walk, I had found my fiends. A table of like-minded people who didn’t judge me for my very dark, very creepy interests. I found my people.

The meeting concluded, Thea and I chatted for a while, she was on her way to the Bovine to watch friends in a Misfits cover band and asked if I wanted to come. Instead of immediately making excuses for having to go home I blurted out yes and didn’t regret it. There was no awkwardness, no uncomfortable silences, we talked non-stop. This was how I met Thea. We were friends from that moment on, even periods of time between not seeing each other made no difference. We always pick up where we left off.

Thea has always been my inspiration. Seeing how she goes after her dreams, makes them happen and radiates a green glow from them, I am driven to work harder at my own dreams. I get to be the dark little girl with the crooked smile fearlessly.  Thea, thank you for being a true and honest ghoulfiend.

Please follow Thea on her blog and other social media. I have listed them below. You will definitely want to follow her on Instagram, she is posting videos playing the Theremin and they are spooktacular.

Blog: My1000moons.com

Instagram: ghoulygal

Twitter: boneyardbetty