Shake Rattle and Roll As I was thinking over the theme of this Roundtable, it occurred to me that “core competency” was not a straightforward issue for me. To begin with, there are the core areas I assumed I’d be pursuing when I began my site, some of which I never followed through on. Then, there are the things I still consider to be deeply important to me, but which are strangely, even shockingly under-represented in my twenty years’ worth of reviews. And then, there are the “competencies” (too strong a word, really) that other people tend to associate with me, simply because — regardless of what I originally intended, regardless of what I’ve cultivated privately — these were the things I actually did.

Bearing that in mind, I identified two themes that represent me a little bit more than I’d ever expected them to:

  • Horror flicks from Southeast Asia; and
  • Ridiculously ambitious projects that never get finished.
It’s true: I have more unfinished offspring wandering in my dungeons than Joseph Curwen and any three Frankensteins combined. So, for my initial entry in the Roundtable, what better way to represent myself than by starting on a survey of that infamously long-running Philippine horror anthology series: Shake Rattle and Roll? Here’s my review of Parts I through IV (1988, 1990, 1991, 1992).

Will I ever make it all the way up the mountain to Part XV? Keep watching this space!

Will Laughlin is the Braineater.