Netflix streaming titles that have scared me lately

I've found a couple more Netflix titles disturbing of late. You know, in a good way.

I've learned that for horror films to be most effective for me, it helps if I watch in the dark without distractions, other than the nagging demands of my brain for sleep.

So propped on my pillow with my iPad recently, I screened In Fear and Mr. Jones, both 2013 releases.

Modestly budgeted, they made great use of suggested peril and creepy atmosphere to give me a shiver. The storylines are quite different. The buttons they push are similar.

In Fear, from Ireland and featuring Downton chauffeur Allen Leech, had the biggest impact. Ever get lost on a road trip? The film suggests one of the worst possible scenarios for what might happen when an Internet printout map fails you.

Of course there's no mobi coverage once Tom and Lucy (Iain De Caestecker and Alice Englert) leave the main road and follow the signs toward the inn they're seeking. Soon they're driving in circles, and as darkness settles, they grow increasingly nervous while their situation seems to grow more and more bleak.

Occasional stops, to don parkas or make other car checks, begin to suggest someone might be lurking in the shadows.

The ambiguity, for me, produced a growing sense of unease mingled with flashes of real eeriness as a figure in a white mask lurked in the shadows, never quite fully defined.

Tom and Lucy aren't quite as interesting as characters as Leech's Max, who might be a savior or might be more sinister, and the tale may wind up in familiar territory for horror viewers, but the journey's dark and chilling enough to make the trip worthwhile.

The first hour or so of Mr. Jones also delivers some chills coupled with an intriguing premise tied to a Lovecraftian dreamscape.

Another young couple here, Scott and Penny (Jon Foster and Sarah Jones of Alcatraz), head to the wildness to work on a documentary. That sets up found footage possibilities with one twist. Scott's rigged his camera for a FaceTime-like view of the operator's face.

Shocked expressions mingle with what the camera's main lens sees. Just as Scott's plans and inspiration begin to crumble, he stumbles on odd nature sculptures by his neighbor, a shadowy and trench-coated figure who never quite comes into focus. Makes him scarier, just like the guy in white mask, though he prefers black.

Penny recognizes the sculptures as the work of Mr. Jones, an unknown artist who once shipped nine of his odd totems to various art dealers and others across America. Clearly she and Scott have stumbled on his studio.

Scott heads to New York to conduct interviews with Mr. Jones authorities including David Clennon who plays a gallery owner, recipient of one of the first sculptures. A more cynical recipient warns strange things transpire once a sculpture is received.

Meanwhile Penny's exploring Mr. Jones' studio and taking note of new work plus strange nooks and crannies. She gradually develops a theory that Mr. Jones sculptures may have a purpose.

When Scott returns, things begin to get more and more surreal. Whether it's because he's stopped taking medication or because something mystical is afoot, the final third of the film kind of explodes into an open-to-interpretation excursion.

Does the conclusion live up to the tantalizing possibilities the mysterious sculptures pose? Perhaps not. Maybe the last half hour's a little too overwhelming, but the building creepiness and the intriguing look of a scene created in Mr. Jones' underground lair kept me engaged for much of the film's length.

Above all, in spite of my jaded and desensitized perspective, a few ripples of fear crept through me. That made the films stand out.

Insidious Chapter 3 Trailer

The new Insidious Chapter 3 trailer raises lots of questions like "Can a prequel be Chapter 3?" and "Does Tucker really have a Mohawk?"

Witching and Bitching - Halloween Horror Insanity Streaming on Netfix

It's weird, offbeat and yet somehow, for me, the zany Witching and Bitching has a nice old school gothic feel that resonates and compensates for some narrative bloat. It's a different  Halloween-season excursion, and I ran across it because Netflix thought I might like it.

Originally titled Las brujas de Zugarramurdi, the Spanish film comes from Álex de la Iglesia, who's done such diverse flicks as Dance with the Devil, The Oxford Murders and The Last Circus.

It focuses on Jose (Hugo Silva) who, with young son in tow, stages a daring heist of a gold exchange in Madrid in order to pay back alimony.

Jose, dressed as a silver-coated mime version of Jesus, leads a band of misfits dressed as mascots, mimes or ad icons. The robbery nets a bag of wedding rings and garners a police tail as Jose and friends flee for the French border with a hostage cab driver.

The bitching comes in the form of commiserating over failed relationships, leading the cab driver to throw in with the gang for the long haul.

As heists-gone-awry so often do, this one leads the heroes into the lair of a family of witches, who are on the eve of a major conjuring, despite contention in their ranks. Jose's son seems to be their chosen one, so witchy festivities are in order.

Their spooky old house fronted by a roadside restaurant holds many dark corners and secrets including a man who lives under the restaurant toilet and an array of witches ranging from iconic crone to sexy, seductive young witch (Carolina Bang).

Escapes and misadventures unfold, all leading the gang into a nightmarish, over the top Heironymus Bosh-like vision with grotesque flourishes.

It's  not for all tastes and it clocks in just under two hours, but it's not something you've really seen before.

If you watch, keep the remote handy for pauses. The dialogue moves fast, so if you're reading subtitles, it can be challenging otherwise.

Here's a taste:

Halloween Reading: Night in the Lonesome October by Richard Laymon

I read some Richard Laymon including The Cellar while he seemed to be a well-kept secret in the horror community, more popular in Great Britain than the U.S.

Sadly he passed away too soon, at age 54, in the early aughts with several books still in the publishing pipeline.

I picked up some of his titles as they appeared in U.S. paperback editions, but someone I missed Night in the Lonesome October until Googling information on A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny as I prepared for my re-read.

The Laymon title's great Halloween season reading. It's almost like Haruki Murikami wrote a horror story. It's not quite as surreal as The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, but it's got a bit of that kind of flavoring, though there's no spaghetti-eating.

Night is narrated by Ed Logan, a college kid who's just been jilted by his girlfriend Holly who met a guy named Jay over the summer break and decided not to come back to school.

Despondent, Ed takes long walks in the little community of Wilmington near his school's campus. On a long hike through various neighborhoods on his way to the all-night Dandi Donuts, he's captivated by a girl who seems to be sneaking back into her house following a late-night assignation.

Hoping to learn more about the girl, Ed soon gets distracted by Eileen, Holly's sorority sister who thinks Holly treated him shabbily.

Soon things are steamy with Eileen, though Ed's not willing to give up on the wandering girl. Continuing searches connect him with a degenerate named Randy who's spotted Eileen and would like to have Ed lure her into his clutches.

When Ed escapes from Randy, his world gets progressively weirder. Is there something about October in Wilmington?

What's up with the homeless figures under the bridge? And what's up with the girl who Ed soon learns slips into different houses each night.

With some genuinely chilling horror scenes and a heart-pounding finale, Night is a fabulous, moody excursion with well-realized characters and a creepy town for them to exist within.

Not to be a prude, but my one quibble is that even for its strangeness, there's a bit at the end that leaves dreamlike and edges into male fantasy territory. So be it.

Overall the tale's rich, atmospheric, chilling and exciting.

A Night in the Lonesome October Re-Read

It's hard to believe it's been almost 20 years since I picked up the paperback edition of A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny. I just ran across it in a Barnes and Noble, or possibly a B Dalton, my curiosity piqued by the cover art -- Holmes, Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and others all at a gathering.

It turned out to be a fun excursion, a  Lovecraftian tale told through the eyes of Snuff, a dog who happens to be Jack the Ripper's familiar. Jack is just one of many players in an ancient game that
revolves around opening gateways to let Old Ones back into the world.

Some want to open. Others want to keep things closed.

Avon Edition

As the cover art promised, Holmes and Watson and many other figures from Victorian literature and Victorian reality people the book. Some Universal Pictures horror figures show up too.

It's rather handily told in brief chapters, each corresponding to a date in October. Snuff struggles to find out who the players are and what their goals are and really has a lot resting on his shoulders as Oct. 31 approaches.

I'm doing a re-read this year, as I've been intending to do for a couple of years, mostly since reading this essay by Dr. Christopher S. Kovacs in the Lovecraftzine which notes:


A cult tradition has evolved to re-read the book each October, a chapter a day, and to attempt to deduce the identities of the tantalizingly familiar characters. For the book is rich with borrowed characters from real life and classics of literature and screen. Some are obvious, but others are not.


Kicking myself for letting my original paperback edition go, I tracked down a good used hardcover for less than a fortune. And finally this year, I remembered close enough to Oct. 1 to play the game.

It's been long enough since that initial reading, that it's new to me again, and it's a blast to step back into Zelazny's blend of the Gothic, Lovecraft, the Victorian and the Universal horror cannon. It's almost like one of those late entries in the Universal series such as House of Frankenstein, where all of the signature monsters were thrown in.

I've been told there were once plans to throw Basil Rathbone's Holmes into those mixes, so the book's a bit like a Universal film that never was.

I'm happy to take a few minutes each night to join the game. It's a perfect Halloween season venture.

I was also happy to discover a couple events serendipitous to my re-read. Chicago Review Press has brought out a new edition of the book, which had grown hard to find, and the Twitterverse has become involved in the re-read game.

There aren't a lot of tweets so far, but the hashtag #GoodDogSnuff has been deployed. Perhaps the cult will grow, and the universe is expanded in Issue #18 of the Lovecraftzine with new tales from many authors. Read the back issue free online here.

It's just Oct. 10, so there's time to join the game.

The Booktaker - a Nameless Detective Story

A Nameless Detective title greeted me when I dropped over to Audible the other day. I thought at first The Booktaker was one of the novels, and it reminded me I've lagged behind on the tales by Bill Pronzini, who for decades has steadily put out a book a year featuring his San Francisco P.I.

I used to read those almost as steadily, with a burst of back-to-back reading of volumes here or there, but somehow I let myself get out of touch with Nameless. (In the tradition of Dashiell Hammett's The Continental Op, the cases unfold in first person with only personal pronoun references for Nameless and never a proper name, except in one crossover title with Collin Wilcox in which he's referred to as Bill.)

I was delighted to discover the Audible offering was A.) Free at the moment and B.) A free-standing novella featuring Nameless. It seemed to be a great way to get back into the tales, and that proved true.

In the story, Nameless is hired by the antiquarian bookseller who sold him a collection of pulp titles once upon a time. Collectible maps are disappearing from his shop's secured rare books room in spite of careful security measures and an alarm system.

Taking on a false persona involving the surname Marlowe in tribute to Philip, Nameless goes undercover at the bookshop and begins an assessment of the premises and the employees.

A nice and twisty 90-minute tale unfolds with glimpses into Nameless' personal life, tips on the antiquarian book trade and a bit of action.

Nameless put the pieces together a couple of minutes ahead of me, though I was going "Of course" when he revealed the facts had been before me all along.

All in all it was a great little find, and a 90-minute mystery is a friendly listening length. The story is narrated by Nick Sullivan, perhaps a bit matter-of-factly for a first person story, but it gets the job done.

If you've never met Nameless, this is a good entry point, with a blend of the hard boiled flavored with affection for pulps and literature alike.

Mine Games 3D Art Reveal

I received a bit of news from the folks at Phase 4 films, the ones who gave me an early U.S. look at the Patrick remake, now streaming on Netflix.

They have announced a September 16 DVD bow for Mine Games, the latest film from  filmmaker Richard Gray who'll be helping the Audition remake, and starring Briana Evigan of the Step Up Films.

It's the tale of friends who discover an abandoned mine, and inside they unleash a deadly force which turns their excursion into a fight for survival.

It also stars Alex Meraz (The Twilight Saga), Julianna Guill (Friday the 13th), Ethan Peck (In Time), Rafi Gavron (Snitch), Lindsay Lamb (1108), and Joseph Cross (Untraceable) star.

Bee

You were working.

I was pausing from a walk in that same patch of lavender.

You dived into petals.

I looked on for just a moment.

You never noticed, too busy seeking nectar.

But I had a little time to ponder our brief passing.

And the wonder that you are and of it all.   

Midnight Eyes - Louisiana-set mystery thriller 99 cent special price

Crossroad is running a special on my novel Midnight Eyes at the moment. It's available on just about every e-book platform for 99 cents.

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

The talk focuses on former FBI profiler Wayland Hood who's summoned back to his Louisiana hometown to help his estranged father solve a series of brutal murders.

Events seem to be tied to a beautiful and mysterious woman, and Wayland and his father, Sheriff Ty Hood, have to put old differences behind them to get to the heart of the mystery buried deep in Louisiana swamp country.

A Lovecraftian Serial

My story Lovecraftian story "Sleepers" is being serialized over at Paper Tape.

It began when I was thumbing through vinyl albums one afternoon in an antique store. I ran across a Broadway cast album for a show I'd never heard of, and my mind started turning that over.

What if there was a show that had opened and closed very quickly, and what if most materials related to it such as the sheet music disappeared?

What might be behind that?

I started playing with the notion, and I started to think about Aubrey Slater, a woman employed to find obscure items that couldn't be located on ebay.

What if the only remnants of a lost play could be found in London, where the original version was staged in the fifties in the West End?

I sent Aubrey to find out, feeling for her the whole time as I realized she was a mother estranged from her child for a variety of reasons, some her fault, some not. But she was also a researcher on a quest, with clues gradually pointing to more than a failed musical of interest to a few fans.

The result starts here and will continue in four parts over the next four weeks. It's kind of fun to be doing a little literary experiment like this. Check it out if you get a chance. 

John Schneider's Smothered

John Schneider's comedy Smothered stars Kane Hodder and a host of other horror icons, who find themselves in a Most Dangerous Game-style situation after a failed convention appearance.

It filmed in Louisiana, which is kind of cool. John Schneider of Dukes of Hazzard fame has a production company based there.

Happy to see cool things happening in my native state. Here's the trailer:

Eric Van Lustbader Interview

My Q& A interview with Eric Van Lustbader about his new novel, Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Ascendancy^™, is now live on The Big Thrill Website.

He discusses the continuation of the Bourne series, Bourne's new job as a "blacksmith" and much more.

In this outing, Jason Bourne is asked to pose as a government official at a summit. When gunmen storm the event and whisk Bourne to a terrorist's lair, his problems are just beginning.

Take a look here.

Joston Theney Interview Re: Axeman

I spoke with Joston Theney, the writer director of the new horror thriller Axeman recently for Fear on Demand.

The text version of that interview is now available on the online literary magazine Paper Tape.

Joston talks about his love for '80s-style slasher films and how Axeman came about.

He also discusses working with scream queens including Brinke Stevens.

Check it out, and get a look at the Axeman trailer over at the Paper Tape site. 

My Writing Process - A Blog Hop Stop

Roland Mann from Roland's Ramblin' Web Log asked me to play in this bit of internet tag, so here goes. It's a blog hop called My Writing Process.

What am I working on?

I'm editing a short novel called Dark Hours. It's an expansion of a short story I wrote several years ago.  OK, a lot a years ago.

The original story was called "The Exclusive," and it appeared in Cemetery Dance.

Not long ago, a confluence of events made me realize there was perhaps a little more to the story.

A book of mine, New Year's Evil, now available on Kindle and other platforms, was optioned for a pitch to The Hub network, and that got me the opportunity to at least talk with Hollywood agent types. That's like saying, "I was given the opportunity to rip my frickin' hair out," but that's another story. Good things can come out of ripping your frickin' hair out.

One agent seemed more comfortable with a spec screenplay than shopping the rights to other books.

So, I wrote a  screenplay version of "The Exclusive," expanding the story and hitting all of those Save the Cat! beats.

The original short story ended with a revelation that was a bit open ended. I realized there were a number of incidents that might happen after that point. The short was just the beginning, Act 1, you might say.

The agent and I  danced a bit after that.  I think we may be waiting the band to come back for another set, but I never let myself get too excited about Hollywood stuff. Fun if it happens. Life goes on if it doesn't.

In the meantime, I decided to write the novel version of the newly expanded story. Raymond Chandler used to do that. "Red Wind" found its way into Farwell, My Lovely etc. etc.

Nah, I'm not Chandler, but I'm pretty pleased with the tale.

It's the story of an ambitious student reporter who pursues an interview with a possible killer. She finds herself trapped in the school library's basement documents depository after hours, the dark hours, and she finds out the killer's not who she thinks he is. And he wants to play twisted little games.

The tale really focuses on her ordeal and fight to survive.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I hope it has a little character depth and thematic complexity you might not find in every dark thriller. As I was writing it, I read about some contemporary events that concerned me, and those threads wove nicely into the fabric of the story. It's aimed at being a compact thriller, but it deals with some issues schools are always wrestling with, and some things that the world is starting to realize need to be corrected.

Why do I write what I do?

It's a gift, or it's my cross to bear. I'm a bit of an optimist, but tempered with a dark sensibility. My stories tend to explore the shadowy side of the world. There are a lot of theories about why people write and read dark tales.

I don't really know why I write them. That's just where the muse takes me. Or the cliff the muse shoves me off.

How does my writing process work?

I write every morning. I have to work it around giving my cat subcutaneous fluids, but I'm back to having a schedule that lets me get some things done. My teaching schedule really begins at 9 a.m. if I have a morning class, and I'm an early riser. I work before I have to go anywhere, but not before I have a cup of coffee.

It's kind of the reverse of my early days when I wrote late at night and into the wee hours. I start writing now around the time I once went to bed. Well, maybe a little later than that.


Who’s next in My Writing Process Blog Hop?
Next up on the blog hop is my buddy and co-worker Tom Lucas, who is the author of Leather to the Corinthians and other tales. Drop over to his blog, Read Tom Lucas and check out his poetry and more.

Cold in July Trailer

Looks interesting and pretty faithful.

Hillbilly Horror Show

Had a fun chat with some of the folks involved in this show yesterday. The skits are wrapped around some cool, festival-winning horror films. More info's on their website here.

Fear on Demand Interview Excerpt: Patrick Re-Make Director Mark Hartley

I recently got to see Patrick Evil Awakens and chat briefly by phone with the director, Mark Hartley. Mark is also the director of Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation, a documentary about Australian horror and thrillers from the '70s and '80s, and he'll soon deliver what he says is his last documentary. That's a look at Cannon Films which delivered many Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris films in the eighties.

Hear the audio version on the Fear on Demand Podcast.

Sid: I watched Patrick last night, and I thought it was really good and visually creepy. I’m glad to talk to you today.

Mark Hartley: A pleasure. I’m glad you thought it was creepy.

Sid: I’m guessing the decision to do a remake grew out of your documentary Not Quite Hollywood, but tell us how everything came about. Why Patrick Evil Awakens? Why a remake?

Mark Hartley: When we were doing Not Quite Hollywood, Justin King, who was the researcher on Not Quite Hollywood, and I were sitting around. It was at the time when I think every single film that had played on one screen in America in the last hundred years was getting remade. We said, “If you got to choose any film in Not Quite Hollywood to be remade, what would it be?” One of the main ones was Patrick just because we both thought the central premise was so timeless. A guy with unlimited powers but very, very limited ambitions and all he wants to do is focus his powers on making this nurse fall in love with him. We thought that was such a great idea. We thought if we could do something different from the original, make it a lot more atmospheric and make it even more of a throwback to an old style Gothic chiller it would open up a lot of possibilities to make a pretty interesting horror slash suspense film. Tony, the producer, really liked the idea and thankfully he found some money to do it.

Sid: You mentioned giving a lot of attention to the atmosphere, the visual style. I’ve read that you had some thoughts about Hammer Films influence. What was the creative process like in planning the look of the film and the feel, the atmosphere?

Mark Hartley: I think the Hammer sensibility kind of came by accident. Gary Richards, the cinematographer and I wanted this film to seem like it was a Gothic chiller made by Hitchcock protégés. We wanted to reference Argento and De Palma and we also loved the sensibilities of the Spanish horror films like The Orphanage and Julia’s Eyes. They were kind of the blueprints for the feel of the film, and I think things just grew from there. Since we were making an old style horror movie, obviously there are certain tropes that go along with that that just lend themselves to being a lot like Hammer. I think the difference between Hammer and this film—obviously the colors are really intense in a Hammer Film, the reds, the blues. Our color palate is a lot more subdued than that.

Sid: True, true. 

Mark Hartley: We certainly wanted to evoke films from the sixties and the seventies.

Sidney: Kind of the Gothic feel. There’s really a richer feel than the original had, I think.

Mark Hartley: Yeah, in the original, the lack of atmosphere is the biggest thing about the original. It’s a city clinic in broad daylight, and we certainly didn’t want that. We wanted our set well away from prying eyes, down the coast in a fog-bound kind of atmosphere. As soon as you do that, you’ve got atmosphere to burn.

Sid: Absolutely. It looked wonderful as I mentioned. You also had a wonderful cast, Sharni Vinson, Charles Dance, Rachel Griffiths. I read that you really, at the script stage, worked to make it a project that would attract a great cast. You were working with Justin King, the screenwriter. What went into the script to make it really draw that talent?

Mark Hartley: The script was incredibly overwritten. It was verbose. We wanted to somehow attract a prestige cast. We thought if we just went out with an ordinary horror film, it would just seem like a dumb movie. We wanted the script to read like a smart dumb movie. We really overwrote it. Happily that appealed to Charles and it appealed to Rachel, and we were very, very lucky to get both of them. They both worked together a decade earlier on a film called Hillary and Jackie. That got Rachel an Oscar nomination, so I think that was part of the appeal. Charles and Rachel to get to work together again. Charles obviously got to come to Australia during our summer and escape the English winter. Rachel had loved the original Patrick when she was a kid. I think that was part of the appeal as well, to re-imagine Julia Blake’s role from the original.

Sidney: I thought Charles Dance was just great as the doctor, really, really wonderful. He can be so villainous. You were on a really tight shoot schedule…

Mark Hartley: We were. We shot it in 25 days. There’s a lot of setups in that film, and we didn’t have a lot of time for rehearsals or takes. Thankfully they just got it. Charles was great. He has to be sort of vaguely inspirational at the start of the film. Then he can just switch to … insane, it’s amazing. I said to him one day, he said, “Have you got any notes?” I said: “I’m just delighted to hear you bring this dialogue to life.” It was a wonderful experience watching those two work.

Sid: It was absolutely great to watch. You have a couple of cameos or at least one cameo from the original film?

Mark Hartley: Yeah, there are nods to the original, and obviously there are key scenes that are taken from the original. We had Rod Mullinar and Maria Mercedes turn up from the original. There’s original props. There’s original costumes. There’s original locations. If you’re a crazed fan of the original, there’s certainly lots you’ll notice in the remake that harkens back to it. … Films like this, I don’t think they’re made that often with this sensibility. We were lucky enough to get Pino Donaggio, famed Italian composer, who did things like Don’t Look Now, Dressed to Kill and Carrie to do the score. I know that his score certainly evokes and announces the film’s sensibility from the first frame. If people are willing to go along with that and buckle up for an old school ride, they’ll enjoy it.

My review of Patrick is here.

Review: Patrick Evil Awakens

Back in the days of perusing the VHS shelves, I was never enthusiastic about Patrick (1978). The cover art depicted a guy in a hospital bed with glowing eyes. A male variation on Carrie, I thought. Never grabbed me.

When I learned of a re-make, I thought: Why?

Now I see it's because a nicely moody and atmospheric horror thriller was waiting to be born.

The film grew out of director Mark Hartley's Not Quite Hollywood, a documentary about Australian exploitation films. Asked which ozploitation film he'd like to remake, Patrick came to mind.

After the carefully executed shock of the film's opening moments, the new version, Patrick Evil Awakens, establishes a wonderfully grim, near Gothic style.

Events are  set in a creepy seaside facility for coma patients that offers plenty of dark corners. Even the gray and almost anachronistic uniforms for the nurses help established the feel and the chills.

Once that mood is established, Hartley exploits the central idea deftly.

Patrick (Jackson Gallagher) is a non-responsive patient possessing fierce psychic abilities. He's unresponsive but not unaware, and he falls deeply and possessively in love with his  new nurse, Kathy (Sharni Vinson).

Kathy's compassion for the patient invites his influence into her life outside the institute. A suitor begins to exhibit strange behavior, and an ex-lover who's still in pursuit becomes a target.

Danger and darkness escalate as Kathy clashes with the institute's director, Doctor Roget, who's played with devilish verve by Charles Dance.

Conscious of his own aging, Roget's driven to complete research he sees as his life's work. He's not above unethical measures to hurry things along, even when they are physically harmful to patients.

He's backed in his endeavors by the institute's matron nurse, a grim and sterile Rachel Griffiths of Six Feet Under.

A few incidents strain character credibility, but those are forgotten, especially as Patrick's power is unleashed in a fast paced and violent third act.

Patrick's opening in some markets March 14 and due on Blu-Ray shortly. It's worth a look for horror and thriller fans.

Visual Writing Prompts: A Board of Moody Inspiration

The allure of Pinterist was lost on me at first. Christine embraced it for decorating and cooking ideas long before I decided to log on.

Lately I've found it a bit more addictive.

I've been building a board of moody images, offering inspiration for horror storytelling .

I've tried to choose carefully, not offering tales with obvious directions or answers, just a certain mood and mystery.

I'm working on a crime and mystery board as well, but it's still growing.

Drop by here for the horror.

The Big Thrill Interview - Karen Rose

I'm serving for a while as a contributing editor on The International Thriller Writers newsletter, The Big Thrill.

My interview with Karen Rose about her new book Watch Your Back appears in the February issue.

It has an intriguing premise. A Baltimore cop learns her husband's death in a convenience story robbery wasn't just a coincidence, and when she seeks to learn more, she becomes the target of a psychopath who wants the past to stay buried.

It's part of an interconnected series of stand-alone-novels from Ms. Rose. Her books tie together as you can see on her website.

You can take a look at the interview here.

Watch Instantly Watch: Wait Until You're Blindsided aka Penthouse North

Something's hidden in the apartment of a young blind woman, and dark criminal types turn up to look for it and glean any knowledge from her they can.

That's the plot of Wait Until Dark (1967), of course, based on the stage play of the same name by Frederick Knott who also penned the play that became Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder.

The premise gets an updating in both pace and timeframe in Blindsided aka Penthouse North, now streaming on Netflix with some airings on Lifetime as well. It's penned by David Loughery and directed by Joseph Ruben (Sleeping With the Enemy.)

In Wait Until Dark, the heroine is Audrey Hepburn, the MacGuffin a doll filled with heroin. Thugs led by Alan Arkin attempt a con game to finesse details such as the combination of a safe where the doll might be stored. Things progress to brutality. 

The brutality comes sooner in Blindsided. Michelle Monaghan is a photojournalist who's lost her sight to a suicide bomber while in Afghanistan. Three years after the incident, she's living happily with a significant other in an expensive Manhattan penthouse. 

It's more like the film I thought Wait Until Dark was going to be when I was a kid, before I saw it the first time. 

The original film is a slow burn. Arkin, Richard Crenna and Jack Weston trick Hepburn's husband into leaving then try to convince her he's involved in an affair and murder with the doll he brought home from a trip. It's the item that can time him to the whole matter, so she's urged to produce it, even though she doesn't know where it is.

Things turn brutal much quicker in Blindsided. Monaghan's Sara comes home from picking up the final touches for New Year's Eve to find her boyfriend dead. The thug that knifed him's still on the premises, and he's joined after a few twists by his boss, Michael Keaton, who's back in Pacific Heights territory. He seems like the more gentle of the two, but of course…

There's no con game, just an escalating effort to terrorize Sara until she reveals what she knows about money on the premises and more. Even a little water boardings worth a try.

It's a Wait Until Dark for our era, I suppose, with a punches contemporary audiences will appreciate, clocking in just under 90 minutes. 

There are still twists and turns, and a little does-she-know? or doesn't-she? mind play, with one moment of: "If she knew, why would she let that happen?" 

It's also interesting, if you're familiar with original, to see how Keaton and Company deal differently with issues Arkin's band tackled years ago. They're a little more heavy handed today.

Keaton's good , always love Keaton, but I think Arkin's twisted psychopath is still a little more chilling. 

Check both for yourself and see what you think. It might make for an interesting double bill on an evening at home.

The Maze - 1953 Atmospheric Horror

Trailer

A friend's post on Facebook recently pointed me to the 1953 film The Maze, an atmospheric thriller with a Lovecraftian feel.

The story is based on the novel of the same name by surrealist Maurice Sandoz and was directed by William Cameron Menzies. 

I liked it. There's plenty for a contemporary viewer to take exception to, but if you're in the right mindset, it's a moody and interesting little ride, originally offered in 3D.

The story focuses on Kitty Murrary played by Veronica Hurst. She and her aunt are hanging out on the Riviera with her fiancé Gerald (It Came from Outer Space's Richard Carlson). They're obviously beautiful people of the day, those people Tom Ripley would love to hang out with.

Gerald's unfortunately called home to the old family castle when his uncle dies just weeks before he wedding date. 

In one of the obvious 3D moments, a bellman thrusts a cable at Kitty a short time later. Gerald writes that he can't marry her, though he promises to always be faithful to her. Have a nice life.

Kitty's not one to let a fiancé off that easily, so with her aunt in tow, they head to the cable's return address to find Gerald greying at the temples, a sure sign he's been under a good deal of stress.

He's not particularly welcoming, but Kitty offers enough excuses for an overnight stay, then connives to get a letter out inviting friends including a physician to come for a few days. The mysterious male servants lock people into their rooms at night, but otherwise it's an interesting spot for a few days' stay.

Oh, and the castle overlooks the maze of the title, a network of hedges where at least one female servant's perished under mysterious circumstances.

Without spoiling too much the plot points toward the payoff in the third act, so the journey is in the buildup. Your enjoyment of the film will be affected by your ability to accept that style of storytelling as well as your ability to tolerate classic Doctor Who-style special effects.

If you can reset just enough, the shocks are kind of fun and creepy, and, well, again if you're in the right viewing mode, kind of shocking.

If you like atmospheric horror and you have a little patience, check it out.

Aside with mild spoilers

The novel upon which the film is based is apparently inspired by the legend of The Monster of Glamis, also inspiration for Joseph Payne Brennan's "The Horror at Chilton Castle."

Comics Catchup

I make no pretense of being caught up or well-informed about comics these days. There are too many great titles, and too many temptations for an eclectic like myself.

I bounce around among the titles that capture my interest. I've read some of the New 52, and bit of the Red Hulk and other Marvel goings on, and I'm a fan of Locke and Key and much more.

Lately a few other things have grabbed my attention, and a mention on a friend's Facebook timeline sparked some discussion last night. So, some things I've liked recently on my iPad via Comixology include:

Dark Shadows/Vampirella
Crossovers are inevitable in comics, and when characters from different corners of my youth converge, it's hard to pass up the adventure.

Barnabas Collins, the Maine blue blood vampire meets the girl from Draculon in this outing, that pits them against Elizabeth Bathory, she who bathed in the blood of virgins. Liz has enlisted the help of Jack the Ripper, and they're both alive in contemporary Manhattan.

They're responsible for some deaths, and they've kidnapped and caged several victims as well. One of those is the descendant of a woman Barnabas destroyed before he learned to control his vampirism, so he owes a debt.

Barnabas is portrayed as a bit unhip, having been penned up in a coffin for a few hundred years, so venturing from Maine into New York City is challenging. His werewolf cousin Quentin is happily on hand to help out, and then there Vampi.

The fight, as heroes, or even antiheroes must in crossovers, but then they team up and face off against the real evil. Dracula has a place in Vampi's world these days, but Bathory is so evil, he's not an obstacle as this five-issue arc builds to its climactic battle.

It's penned by Marc Andreyko who created Torso, based on the Cleveland's Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run, and it really had me flipping through the frames.

Army of Darkness vs. Re-Animator
Lovecraftian meets Lovecraft in more ways than one in this entry in this entry of the ongoing Army of Darkness crossover series, and it's a bit of a brilliant mix.

Ash from Army gets committed after his return to the S-Mart where shotgunning an ancient sorceress isn't viewed with the understanding film viewers might be willing to grant the one-armed stalwart. Who should be at work at the institution where he's housed but Lovecraft's Herbert West himself, the Herbert of the Re-Animator films at least.

He's still up to his efforts to thwart death with obstacles still plaguing him, but he's also assisting those bent on opening doorways to Lovecraft's Elder Gods.

Hideous, tentacled beings abound, and Ash must avert cataclysm in his usual style.

Sherlock Holmes and the Liverpool Demon
Who said Sherlock in his own time couldn't be successful today? Updatings Sherlock and Elementary get all the attention. Well, I suppose the Robert Downey Jr. movies are true to period, but this series gives us Holmes and Watson almost as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's readers know them.

Their challenge is sensational, a series of murders in which the victims are clawed by what many believe to be the Springheel Jack of legend.

But the series remains true to the spirit of Doyle's original stories  throughout. Holmes and Watson are in Liverpool wrapping up a case, and soon become involved in the murders. A homeless man's one of the victims, and he seems to have ties to other things afoot. Is the supernatural at play, or is a gangster's imported panther alone the culprit? The way things wrap up with various plot threads converging in the final issue makes this mystery mini-series enthralling.

These titles plus a news series from Marvel featuring Michael Morbius, who I used to read in black and white in the Vampire Tales days, have been keeping me busy.

I know some who dismiss the digital age of comics, but I find it handy. There's not a worry about missing an issue at the drug store when every title's just a download away.

[Official] Lizzie Borden Took An Ax Trailer

Looks interesting.

Fear on Demand Interview Excerpt - Scream Queen and Movie Producer Jacqui Holland

I had a fun an interesting conversation with scream queen and now movie producer Jacqui Holland recently via Skype.

Jacqui doesn't just star in horror films, including several that are in post production. She's also a fan, grew up as a bit of a geek and has started her own production company to create the kind of horror she enjoys.

As the name of her production company suggests, that's films that, well, okay, it's called Mind Fuk, so you get the idea. She enjoys movies that keep viewers guessing, pondering and contemplating, so watch for some cool flicks in the future.

Jacqui's credits include Sorority Party Massacre, Monsters in the Woods and upcoming flicks including The Mangled. She's been seen on television in things like How I Met Your Mother, Suburgatory and Desperate Housewives. Listen to the full interview in Fear on Demand Episode 11 or read on.

Sid: I understand that before you were an actress and a model, you were a bit of a geek. 

Jacqui: Laughs.

Sid: Tell me a little about your formative years. What were some of your early influences? 

Jacqui: Well, as a kid I was definitely a little nerdy. I was kind of heavyset when I was younger. I watched a lot of Nickelodeon. I was always watching them and putting on shows for my parents in my basement and always doing little things like that. I had a National Clean Your Room Day that I would pretend was going. I was alway creating little projects in my head since I was very little.

Sid: And you were a fan of films like The Craft? Did I read that you had a dog named Damien?

Jacqui: I did. I did. I've always loved horror films, ever since I was really little. With my dog, I was really into The Omen, so I named him Damien. He was a little black Pomeranian. The Craft was one of my favorite movies. I saw that over and over again.

Sid: And now, you loved those growing up, now you're acting in some horror, producing some horror. Let's talk about acting first … What have you have found are particular challenges about acting in horror movies.

Jacqui: I think the biggest challenge of acting in horror films is usually the climate, because there are a lot of night scenes. Most of the time my characters are usually scantily clad, and so I'm running through the woods, you know, like being killed or something in barely nothing. It's freezing. I just shot a movie in Massachusetts, and it was like 40 degrees out, and I was wearing pasties and a thong. I was like: "Oh, God, this is horrible." It's worth it in the end. It's totally worth it.

Sid: … Does it help that you were a genre fan first? Do you feel kind of fulfilled being in the roles you once watched as a fan. 

Jacqui: Totally, totally. I like excitement in my life. I feel like in every horror film you're going to get something exciting. Either I'm going to be killing somebody, or somebody's going to be killing me, but there's a lot of blood and it's just a lot of fun.

(Hear about Jacqui's inspiration from Barbara Stanwyck-star of Double Indemnity and Baby Face and later as the tough matriarch in the Western series The Big Valley-in the full audio interview.)

Sid: Speaking of strong female leads with Barbara Stanwyck, with things like American Mary and to some degree Jennifer's Body, we're seeing some interesting developments for women in horror. The genre seems to be moving to some degree beyond victimization. … We're seeing the quote unquote Final Girl turn the tables more and more and even move into the villainy realm. Do you think it's an interesting time, and do you think there's a female audience that has not been reached with horror?

Jacqui: I do, I actually do think and that's what I want to do with my production company. I want to make horror films that have strong female leads. And so, if it's either the woman being the victim, she's a strong female lead. I also like for women to be the killers. I just got to play a killer in a couple of different movies, and I'll tell you, that was more fun than I've ever had.

Sid: Kind of the dark side?

Jacqui: It kind of scared me. I did this one called Dead Ringer. That was the first time that I've actually I've ever played a psycho, just like a creepy psycho woman, and I was: "Oh my God. I'm really good at this. This kind of scares me."

Sid: Tell me about how your production company came about. We do have an explicit tag on our podcast, so you can name your company. Tell me about Mind Fuk and how it came to be.

Jadqui: (Laughs) Well, the name Mind Fuk, it's spelled F-u-k, so it's nothing too dirty. The idea of it is I want to make films that are really good and thought provoking. Yeah, they've got sex and gore and violence in them, but after you're done, you kind of feel like: "My mind just got screwed up." You're still thinking about it the next day. That's what I really want. That's where the name Mind Fuk came from. The film that I did this past September, Two Faced, where I did play a bit of a sociopath…that film, one of the producers on there, Ken Tayloe, and the AD, Ben Rotast, we formed a little team afterwards.

We're thinking: "We want to keep making these films. This is what we want to do." So we just started building this production company and finding scripts and working with writers. Hopefully in 2014, we'll have a few more movies to add from Mind Fuk.

That includes a zom-com called Walking With the Dead to be filmed in Texas, sort of a funny version of The Walking Dead.

Hear more including Jacqui's thoughts on working with horror icon Tony Todd, Candyman himself, in the full audio interview.

The Advocate - A Twisty Script Shores Up an Indy Drama

(I received a free screener of The Advocate.)

The Advocate is a twisty little courtroom thriller with a ripped-from-the headlines case plus a dose of Dexter-style justice in the mix. It's an indy, and there's a look and feel of indyness to it that kind of makes you wish the filmmakers  had had a few more bucks for noir cinematography and production design, but if you focus on the core story, it's intriguing and well wrought.

Ray Shekar (Sachin Mehta) is an attorney whose fiancé was murdered just after he was able to buy their dream house. The loss has left him with a dark sense of justice.

His job may occasionally mean getting guilty offenders off, but he's not inclined to let the worst of the worst get away.


Enter Allyson Dougherty, played by Kristina Klebe of Rob Zombie's Halloween. She's the wife of a wealthy man who may or may not have been pushed off a cruise ship. Shekar's asked to represent her and to defend her if necessary.

It is. There's money involved. She was having an affair.  Ray has a challenge. Marshaling the forces of an assistant, his private investigator and a mock jury, he sets out to preserve Allyson's freedom, even as he wonders about her guilt and his own sense of absolute justice.

Oh, there are some nosey cops following him to keep his life complicated. Seems they're suspicious about Shekar's sleazy ex-client who's nowhere to be found.

As  an acquittal looks iffy, and Shekar allows himself to become enraptured with Allyson, he has tough decisions to make if he's going to be able to convince a jury she's not behind her husband's death. Just stressing that there's no body, doesn't seem to do the trick.

The story is the flick's strongest feature. It features a solidly crafted plot, and it uses Shekar's complex personality and back story to good effect.

Mehta is an interesting lead attorney as well. At times his delivery may seem a little flat, but overall he's a refreshingly atypical lead.

Yes, there's one obvious breech of courtroom procedure for dramatic purposes, but overall, the way the story's put together makes for a passable hour and a half or so, and surprises persist until the credits roll.

A New Fear on Demand Episode featuring fiction and an interview with House of Bad Director Jim Towns

An all new episode of Fear on Demand, Episode 10, is now live and ready for download or listening online. It should be available on iTunes soon as well. It features a bit of flash fiction from Avery Debow, a longtime blog roll friend and author of the novel Resonance. (Read the featured story "Walk of Shame" here.)

It also includes an interview with Jim Towns, co-writer and director of the new film House of Bad, due on DVD and VOD Dec. 3. It's the story of three sisters who rip off a drug dealer and then hide out in an old family home where dark memories lurk. What could go wrong?

It was a real blast to get to chat with Jim, who shares a lot of my interests. He grew up with the Universal Monsters, and he was plagued by some of the same problems I was.

In the day before readily available home video, you read about the flicks and wished you could see them. My local TV station had shown them when I was very young and unappreciative, but by the time I discovered Famous Monsters of Filmland, re-broadcasts were nowhere to be found.

Here's an excerpt from the interview:

Sid: Before we talk about House of Bad, I understand that you were a fan of the Universal Monsters and that they fueled your interest in horror films and monsters early on. What was your first Universal monster film to see, and how old were you when you saw it?

Jim Towns: I think it was the Lugosi Dracula. You know, when home video, VHS came out, I was probably in fifth or sixth grade, something like that. So, even at a younger age, second or third grade or so I got interested in makeup. My uncle Jim McGiffen, had given me a makeup kit because he had done work on stage, and I just had this natural draw toward this kind of monsterific kind of stuff.

So, my mom, because you couldn't really see the films, much before video became more prominent, I was interested in this thing I couldn't see, so my mom had found a couple of books at some flea markets about the old, classic Universal stuff. Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, Phantom of the Opera. I read the voraciously over and over. Tried to do all the makeups with little success in most cases.

In fourth or fifth grade, right around Halloween, the Bela Lugosi Dracula from 1931 was on. I think it was on like two in the morning on a Saturday night, some kind of late night horrorfest. My mom let me stay up. I was like nine or something, and I made it through all the stuff in Transylvania, and then once they got back to England, I just passed right out. It took a few years before I saw the rest of the film.

Sid: Very strong lasting impression then. That led ultimately to some mask making and some early horror film work for you?

Jim Towns: Yeah, yeah, you know in high school, my friend, Mike, and I who'd both grown up loving films, old horror movies, loving Star Wars, we did what every young kid who's into monsters does. We got hold of a camera. In our case it was a VHS camera. We made kind of knock off stuff of The Evil Dead and Friday the 13th. The stuff that was going on right then that was really popular.

Then we did a film when we were about 16 called Breakfast at Denny's. It was the only kind of thing we did and finished and actually completed as an actual film. Back then, you started something one afternoon and then you'd lose interest.

Breakfast at Denny's was about a group of kind of wacky cultists who resurrect the one member of the cult who has died. They want to bring him back to life, but he only kind of half comes back, so he's a bit of a zombie.

The idea was that they had to take him to Denny's and get him an egg breakfast to bring him back to a full human state. That was the idea, and it was about a half hour long. We all had such good time, and now I'm doing this. My friend, Grant, who was in the film does films with the American Cinematheque, and Mike is still making films back in Pittsburgh too. I'm writing some stuff for him, so that was sort of the genesis.

Sid: Very cool. Very cool. Could be a nice Denny's ad, huh?

Jim Towns: If they'd want it. One of these days we're going to put it as an extra or an Easter egg on one of the DVDs. It's a little bit of a fun ride.

Hear more of the interview including Jim's thoughts on the importance of understanding the history of the horror genre to todays filmmakers. The full podcast is here. 

House of Bad Coming Soon

I'm inches away from having a new episodeof  Fear on Demand ready. As always episodes will feature horror and suspense audio fiction, and from time to time, I'll now be doing interviews with creative talent from the horror and suspense arena.

Today, I was fortunate to get to talk to Jim Towns who directed House of Bad, a film that blends horror and suspense genre elements.

Here's a trailer from the flick. Follow House of Bad on Twitter @houseofbad for details on release and VOD showings.

Happy Halloween Y'all

Two e-book shorts of mine are free today:

Soul Fire - the story that grew into my novel Gnelfs.

and

Watched - a YA short set in the world of my Pembrook High novels written under the name Michael August.

The Beckoning Review

Got a free review copy of an interesting tale, possibly some good Halloween reading if you're in the mood.

What happens when a psychically gifted young woman is lured into a religious cult? The Beckoning answers that with eerie supernatural imagery and hints of science.

The tale focuses on Matt Brannigan whose daughter, Briony, exhibits powerful psychic abilities. She’s so exceptional that she’s seen many experts, including Brother Desmond, the charismatic leader of the Zarathustrans.

When Briony’s mother, Helen, is killed in a strange incident in the family’s new home, she’s lured into Desmond’s clutches as Matt reels from the misfortune.

While struggling with the question of whether his daughter might be better off among the Zarathustrans, Matt seeks the help of Reuters investigative reporter, Clarissa Pike. Clarissa’s a touch psychic herself and is also Briony’s godmother.

Clarissa’s level head helps guide the effort to free Briony. But as she and Matt storm Brother Desmond’s castle, it becomes clear Desmond is harnessing Briony’s awesome abilities and channeling them toward dark ends.

Only a nightmarish journey through a surreal landscape can set Matt and Clarissa on a course for averting the triumph of evil.

Paul Collins has crafted a thoughtful, intense and exciting tale in The Beckoning, and it covers the landscape of the unknown in chilling and compelling fashion.

Nevermore needs more backers

I've wanted to see the stage play with Re-Animator's Jeffrey Coombs as Poe doing an evening of readings that gradually degrade as the author gets drunker.

Stuart Gordon's Kickstarter hopes to make the play into a film, but more backers are needed as the clock ticks. It's at least as cool as many of the things that have pulled in big bucks.

Favorite Short Stories: The Hospice by Robert Aickman

I've discovered a new favorite thanks to a friend on Twitter.

It's one of those tales that keeps you pondering while causing a subtle touch of eeriness.

It perhaps delivers that kind of imaginary fear Stephen King dubs "the terror" in Danse Macabre. That's the feeling that comes not when a machete is raised but when, as King notes, a tingling wisp of breath tickles the back of your neck. You turn around to find no one there.

I'm speaking of "The Hospice," a tale by the late Robert Aickman, British purveyor of horror without definition.

 It should come as no surprise to me. I read "The Swords" in Cold Hand in Mine years ago, and its final lines have lingered with me ever since, proving the collections epigram: "In the end, it's the mystery that lasts and not its explanation."

It's a thought not unlike Kelly Link's answer to the first question on her FAQ. Why don't your stories have endings? With an ending, you might find satisfaction. With a question, a mystery, you keep pondering.

I've done that with "The Swords" since about 1978. I may not have as many years left in me to ponder, but I'll mull "The Hospice" for a while thanks to Jared Sandman aka @JaredSandman.

I shared a "favorite short stories" post with the Twitterverse, and we got into a "that story reminds me of this story" conversation.

He mentioned a Joseph Payne Brennan story I'd cited from Shadows 7 made him think of "The Hospice" found in the hefty Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural.

Happily I owned that volume, so I pulled it out and read the Aickman tale.

It's strange and ambiguous, of course. A British traveling salesman named Maybury is forced by an associate to take one of those short cuts that never work out.

Lost and low on gas, he happens upo the hospice of the title and opts to stay the night. It's no run of the mill road side rest stop, but it's not Hostel either.

Before long, Maybury's sitting for a meal and discovering the staff's not happy when you don't clean your plate even though they're delivering substantial portions. Coffee they're short on, however.

Things only get stranger. There's no phone for Maybury to call his wife when he determines he'll have to stay the night, and when he stays over, rooming with a longtime resident, he hears mysterious cries in the night and experiences other eeriness. Was that his roommate that returned after a wee hours departure or someone else?

The reader can make an obvious choice about the hospice and about Maybury's fate, especially since there's deep symbolic suggestion in the final scene, but Aickman does not connect the dots.

He leaves it all for the reader to contemplate, just as he does the meaning in "The Swords." That resonates and delivers a little more satisfaction than an ax murder. 

Favorite Short Stories: The Calamander Chest by Joseph Payne Brennan

Once upon a time, I was asked to read a scary story for a grade school class. I think I'd written some young adult stories by then, but I didn't think I had anything appropriate for kids in single digits.

I set out to find something suitably spooky that might chill without traumatizing. I took a trip to the library and browsed collections in the children's section until I ran across Thrillers and More Thrillers edited by Robert Arthur. I honed my reading skills on the Arthur-created The Three Investigators, so I was drawn to his name.

Thumbing through the pages that promised to present phantom stagecoaches and more, I ran across Joseph Payne Brennan's "The Calamander Chest."

I'd read Brennan but never that tale, which appeared first in Weird Tales. Perhaps the illustration of a ghostly hand caught my attention first.  I took the book home and curled up with the story, and I soon decided it should work well for what I needed.

It told  of Ernest Maxx who, while browsing a second hand shop, happens upon a chest of "genuine Calamander wood" from the Indies. The proprietor seems happy to part with it for a pittance, but Maxx dismisses that hint, thinking the next time he changes housing, the chest will prove useful.

Never, never, never buy a mysterious chest the shopkeeper wants to get rid of. Before long, Maxx is awaking in the wee hours to notice a ghostly hand slowly rising from the box:

"He sat motionless, overwhelmed with sudden horror, his eyes riveted on this appalling object.
It just hung there unmoving, a long, pale finger with a heavy knucklebone and a black nail."  

It happens again and again until Maxx, angered at first by the intrusion, eventually tries to fight the finger and then to get rid of the chest. He ultimately must learn of the dark secrets it once contained.

What's Maxx's fate? To say more would spoil the fun.

The image of that ghostly hand tweaked my imagination, and it enthralled the kids in the classroom when I read it as well, and I revisit the tale from time to time.

With my imagination engaged and most of the lights turned out in the room, it can still bring a shudder.

It's a great choice for Halloween reading whether you're a kid or not.

A Halloween Story: Watched - YA Horror Thriller Kindle Exclusive

For a while, I've been meaning to revise a short story I wrote in the universe of the Michael August novels.

Those YA books are all set at Pembrook High, and in the original outlines there was more of a unifying thread. My editor at the time decided against recurring characters, so the tales are loosely connected. Sometimes characters from one book pass through the pages of another, but each novel stands alone.

One Halloween, around the time those were new, I wrote a short story for a newspaper's youth section.

It focused on Brianne Pratt, a creative young woman who had to deal with a stalker while planning a big Halloween bash for Pembrook High.

When Crossroad Press began reissuing the Michael August novels, I knew I wanted to revisit that story. Newspapers don't have a lot of room for word count, so the original version was brief. I wanted to expand it a bit, but other things kept getting in the way.

It bubbled up in my memory last year when a producer expressed interest in possibly adapting the Pembrook High stories into a series of TV movies in the vein of Pretty Little Liars with a little more Goosebumps flavor.

All of the Pembrook storylines came into the discussion even though New Year's Evil, with a holiday theme, would have been the first to be filmed. One thought was to have all of the stories set on holidays, so "Someone's Watching" would have fit in nicely.

Sadly, Hollywood didn't get a chance to twist and mangle the novels the way say Stanley Kubrick did The Shining. Financing was not available from the cable network to which things were pitched. They had too many other spokes spinning at the moment. Those dollars were needed as the foundation for foreign rights sales and other revenue sources that would have made everything possible.

So it goes. Figured it was a long shot.

At least I'd pulled my original story out of the file cabinet. I began expanding a little, focusing on more of Brianne's ups and downs with parents, teachers and school administrators. While forced to look over her shoulder constantly, she also had to deliver a Halloween dance that wouldn't come off as lame to students while not offending sensitive parents. And of course, the stalker just wouldn't go away.

It was fun to visit Pembrook High again and walk those halls anew. It was almost like a nostalgic trip back to a school I really attended.

The new tale is now available in a Kindle exclusive, just in time for Halloween, of course. Get it here for Kindle, and of course, if you don't own one, it can always be read online with Amazon's Cloud Reader.

Purchase here.

What's Up with The Final Girl?

The tables turn in slasher films. Bad guys may ultimately rise after defeat to leave sequel potential open, but usually there's a culmination in which someone, almost always the "final girl," stops the killing.

Carol J. Clover named the archetype in 1992 in Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, not terribly long before Kevin Williamson delivered the self-aware Scream which turned the plot tradition into a plot twist.

You know the story, the virginal, studious teenager in the character mix rises to the occasion. See: Laurie Strode in Halloween etc.

I could be wrong, but I think now the final girl may be moving in a new direction, given a shove in that direction by slasher's evolutionary cousin torture horror.

Jeremy Morris--in an essay in Thomas Fahy's The Philosophy of Horror, "The Justification of Torture- Horror: "Retribution and Sadism in Saw, Hostel, and The Devil's Rejects"--observes a "transformation of torturers and victims" as far back as Last House on the Left (1972, remade 2009) .

In that one, the parents of a  murdered young girl exact revenge in brutal fashion on her killers. In Virgin Spring, which inspired the tale, Max Von Sydow takes up a sword after exfoliating, but it's not quite as gritty as a microwave death or the biting off of  genitals of the Last House films.

The trend of victims becoming torturers, Morris notes, continues in the films mentioned in the essay's title.

A trend evolves?
The final girl type seems to be changing along similar lines. Some of the DNA from torture horror seems to have dropped into the archetype gene pool.

In a number of recent neo-slasher films the final girl's a force to be reckoned with. It's perhaps most obvious in the "Tuesday the 17th" segment of the anthology film V/H/S, directed by Glen McQuaid.

Wendy (Norma C. Quinones) leads new friends on a camping trip, gradually revealing she is the final girl from a previous outing in which campers fell prey to a slasher who can't be captured on video. That makes inspired use of the film's handheld point of view.

Wendy's now out to kill the entity. Spoiler warning: She succeeds, only to become possessed by the spirit at the open-ended tale's conclusion.

Mary Mason in American Mary from Jen and Sylvia Soska isn't a slasher victim but is the survivor of a roofied date-rape. The experience transforms her from a medical student to underground body modification surgeon who ultimately kills. The arc is tragedy, but the Soskas know horror and slasher territory well.

Mary the victim becomes the antagonist as the tale marches forward.

I haven't seen it yet, but that appears to be the direction things are headed in Anna: Scream Queen Killer. 

It's interesting to watch the edges of the box cave in and to see things take on new freshness. There's always a new twist, and it's good to be reminded. Don't mess with the final girl. 

Interesting Addendum

If this project, The Final Girls, comes about for ABC Family, it looks like final girls will be working for good by channeling their experiences into fighting evil under the guidance of Laurie Strode herself, Jamie Lee Curtis. 

Return of the Wicker Man

Someone once asked why I thought The Wicker Man was so chilling. They seemed perplexed.

It can be hard to convey the deep chill of a psychological terror film to those who watch it passively without deeper contemplation of the story implications.

I think the chill comes in part because of the "it could really happen" feel. It's not ghosts but humans at the heart of the story, but it's also that disturbing notion that there are moments and places where the rules of contemporary society don't seem to apply.

It happens in brutal terms in Deliverance as city men inadvertently tread on the territory of grim others who don't appreciate their presence.

And it happens to Edward Woodward's Sgt. Howie in subtle then increasingly barbarous terms as he prowls an island in the Hebrides where strange practices seem to be in place. The old ways.

He grows increasingly nervous that a missing girl may be the subject of a sacrifice, but there's even more horror planned for the pious policeman.

I read first of the tale in an issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine because it is a tale of mystery and detection as well as horror.

It took a long time to finally get to see it since it didn't play in many theaters. I finally got to watch via satellite some time in the '80s, though it's made the cable rounds and can be had on DVD.

It's interesting to learn that lost footage is being restored and that the true director's cut will be making the theatrical rounds again soon.

I read about it probably in 1979. It's been a long wait.