BLOG SPOT #18: Chasing the Muse

Welcome once again to Blog Spot, my monthly feature which bends the spotlight onto the work of other reviewers and bloggers. This month we're shifting back to video reviewers, in the form of Chasing the Muse and its host Derek Burrow, a.k.a. Derek the Bard.
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I can't exactly remember how I discovered Derek's work, save to say that it happened some time in 2012. Being a fan of many of the video reviewers on That Guy With The Glasses, I began to recognise him cropping up for cameos in other people's reviews. The two reviews of his that made me a fan were his take on Tucker and Dale vs. Evil and his retrospective on In The Mouth of Madness, part of his 'Summer of Lovecraft' retrospective. Both of these I came across in the course of researching my own reviews, of Tucker and Prometheus respectively.

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Derek is highly knowledgeable about horror and science fiction, and about Lovecraft in particular. On top of his retrospective, he co-hosted a great panel at Con-G on Lovecraft's life and work, alongside YouTube star Leeman Kessler, a.k.a. Ask Lovecraft. You can watch that panel here and here. His interests are wide-ranging, with segments like Better Off Read (film reviews) and What We Watched (usually a classic TV series). He's also not afraid of a bit of out-and-out comedy, such as his comic reading of the spam email 'Windows 8 Is Fail'.
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What I like most about Derek is the passion he has for the material he's covering. I don't always agree with his opinions, but he always has the ability to surprise me with some obscure find or intriguing piece of trivia about the horror or fantasy genres. Even when he's reviewing mainstream efforts, like Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, he goes out of his way to analyse the different tropes and storytelling methods at play, turning what could be a rambling, repetitive vlog into something both informative and entertaining - the balance which every internet reviewer should try to strike.
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You can watch Derek's reviews on Blip.tv; you can also like his Facebook page or follow him on Twitter @derekthebard. Any of the reviews I've listed are an ideal introduction to his work. Failing that, he makes a couple of welcome appearance on Nash Bozard's What The F*** Is Wrong With You? on Radio Dead Air, which you can watch here and here. Happy viewing!

Daniel

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