The New Readers Digested!

In 2007, I started writing reviews for the first time.

Things were a lot different back then. Some of it, maybe, wasn’t all that different, but it felt different. I felt excited about things (as any eleven-year-old boy would) and I felt excited about being excited. The reviews, however, were complete shit. I don’t, um, … I don’t have them anymore. It didn’t matter if my opinion was off the mark, or if it was too pretentious, or too dismissive, because, at its core, I was still expressing my absolute love for storytelling.

I kept at it too. There were times when I didn’t know what to write about. Times when I took really long, long breaks from it, but I always came back to writing reviews and I always considered it a part of who I am – an opinionated twat who loves horror movies. They’re a huge part of who I am too. My house is filled with NECA toys and I am always excited for what Don Mancini’s going to do with the Child’s Play series. I am always crossing my fingers that Charles Band will put out one last real good movie that has that Full Moon magic to it the way Head of the Family or The Creeps does, and I’m looking forward to how genre newcomers like Damien Leone, Zach Cregger, and Curry Baker will shape the genre for years to come.

I love videogames too. A couple years back, my wife and I bought two large TVs and put them side-by-side so we could play The Outlast Trials (over one-hundred hours logged, and believe it or not, I’m not the one who keeps wanting to play it! My wife’s the best.). I love the weird ones, even if they don’t always hit the mark. I love me a mean Souls-like and I love videogames like Silent Hill 2 that show the genre can be something that emotionally resonates and tackles serious themes.

I love books too. I have written over a dozen of them, although I need to do a lot better about writing reviews for them (I wrote one for RD’s new launch just for giggles, but I have a lot of work to do.)

I hope you can help me.

You see, the new Readers Digested is a passion project. Readers Digested is the flame that still burns from an eleven-year-old boy that dressed up as Freddy Krueger with popsicle stick claws wrapped in tinfoil that is now a thirty-year-old man who is married and will be a father soon.

Around 2024, I began developing the concept of the Nightmare Deck. It was originally conceived as a way to do something evergreen with the hundreds of reviews I had written over the years. Basically, the idea was that I needed to fill out a deck (like a deck of cards), featuring fifty-two movies, videogames, and books, respectively (and, eventually, we will do television, and, maybe, we’ll split books into subdivisions for graphic novels, manga, etc. but, for now, … let’s chill out!). It’s a concept I have taken seriously and it is one that has required a lot of commitment on my part.

I have written 192 movie reviews and 74 videogame reviews (and lost a hundred or so of them along the way), and I’m just under halfway for both the .

This new concept for Readers Digested allows you (yes, you) to become involved in this passion of my mine (our passion, really).

Entries in your Deck are based on your own reviews. Contributors get out what they put into it. I have taken pride over the years in assembling the Nightmare Deck (after all this time, I’m not even halfway through my 52 on either Videogames or Movies), but I am still as eager to fill it out.

Entries in your Deck are based on your own reviews. Contributors get out what they put into it. I have taken pride over the years in assembling the Nightmare Deck and I am hoping to make serious strides now. Upon registry, users can submit their own reviews for inclusion on Readers Digested (the first couple reviews will require moderator approval, but, after that, you will be free to post all you want). There is no guideline for a review (no word count specification and stringent grammar checks) – but I will advise that you get out of Readers Digested what you put into it.

You can also make “Custom Decks”, here’s a link to (a work-in-progress), which are shareable to other users and visible on your profile page. I think it will be a fun way for users to catalogue other things with their reviews, including their Favorite Horror Directors, or more niche things like their favorite Hammer Horror film, etc.

Long story short, Readers Digested is in its BETA stages for a concept I’m very excited about, and I can’t wait to see how people will interact with it. Like I said earlier, I intend to add a lot of new, unique features as I find more feedback and kind-of see what works and what doesn’t. I also intend to make larger posts, later on, better detailing all of the features that are already in-place.

More to come …

Sincerely,
Wesley Nyx