Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Carnival of souls
September 22, 2005Perfectly Frank: Bibi’s Box unearths a metric ton of Frankenstein-related links pertaining to every imaginable permutation and iteration of Mary Shelley’s great creation. I wonder if one day someone will make a version of this monster with the ability really to frighten the contemporary audience. It seems like it’s doable.
Mondo Schlocko links to Cake & Polka Parade’s assortment of mp3s ripped from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I got really excited about this at first because I thought it would be recordings of “Fool for a Blonde”–if you’re as big a fan of Texas Chain Saw as I am you know what I’m talking about–but nope, it’s the sounds of whole segments from the movie. That, of course, is still a wonderful find, and I say that independent of the fact that the post effusively links to my essay on the film.
The other great thing about this post is that it was my first exposure to Cake & Polka Parade in general, and it’s a heckuva find. There are a goodly number of horror–related posts and mp3s to be found there in addition to the Texas Chain Saw one, but what really caught my eye is this post and mp3 assortment featuring Godley & Creme. I am hugely in love with G&C’s fluke ’80s hit “Cry,” which I first encountered when Beavis & Butt-Head hilariously mocked it on their show back in the day. I think it’s a very lovely song, in no small part because it boasts the awe-inspiringly slick production of Trevor Horn. (See also “Video Killed the Radio Star,” “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” “Poison Arrow,” “Relax (Don’t Do It),” and Seal’s entire career.) Ever since discovering the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City soundtracks I’ve been immersing myself in ’80s pop music (though to be fair I was working my way there by way of late-period Roxy Music and Bowie, not to mention Joy Division/New Order), and one of my favorite flavors is “Cry”-style crystal-clear mid-tempo afternoon music. (I could listen to “Taken In” by Mike & the Mechanics for hours on end–godDAMN that is good music!) The tracks Cake & Polka links to aren’t anything like that–they’re from G&C’s more arty, almost glammy period, and they’re really worth a listen. “An Englishman in New York” should be downloaded for the delivery of those lyrics alone.
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: One of the great pleasures of maintaining The Horrorblog Update List has been my discovery of The Dark Side, the true-crime blog of writer/journalist Steve Huff. Simply put, I think this is some of the finest Internet-based writing of any kind I’ve ever come across. It is very, very dark–a given, considering the subject matter–but very, very good–considering the subject matter, almost the opposite of a given . Highly recommended.
Final Girl’s Stacie Ponder is back, with a delightful (but spoilery, so be warned) post about horror-movie moments that really and truly scared her. Her single scariest moment is mine too. I honestly don’t know if it can ever be topped.
Finally, my old comics blogosphere compatriot Franklin Harris has called it quits after a long and illustrious genre-blogging career. I’ll miss him. Good luck, Franklin!
I’m a student of the drum
September 22, 2005I don’t know if this is something every music blog on earth has already linked to, but frankly, nor do I care: Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Minnetonka (Minnesota) High School Percussion Ensemble’s near-flawless renditions of DJ Shadow’s “Building Steam with a Grain of Salt” and “Changeling,” as arranged by teacher Brian Udelhofen. More info here and here.
You have to hear it and see it to believe it. Best high school band ever.
Carnival of souls
September 21, 2005I’ve decided that THAT will be my new catch-all link-post title; what with all the blog carnivals that already exist, it seems like a perfect fit, even if I am misusing the term somewhat. (We horror fans are antiestablishment types anyways. Fuck ’em and their law!) This carnival will be of short duration, though.
Bloody Disgusting links to (and, well, reproduces in its entirety) this MTV.com story/interview with Quentin Tarantino, and it’s a veritable cornucopia of information on upcoming projects: Grind House, Sin City 2, Inglorious Bastards, Kill Bill 3, Vega Brothers…really the only thing it doesn’t talk about is the super-duper deluxe edited-together Kill Bill director’s cut DVD and/or theatrical release, but it does imply that this is being worked on. The nice thing is that none of the above-listed projects has been totally shitcanned–even Vega Brothers, the oft-rumored prequel to both Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction starring Vic and Vincent Vega (Michael Madsen and John Travolta’s characters from those two films), seems like it stands a decent chance of getting made. Three cheers.
Next, one of my all time favorite stupid-smart rock musician quotes was from Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, from one of MTV’s old “rockumentary” band bio shows, on why Aerosmith’s album Rocks was called Rocks: “‘Cause it is–’cause it does.” With that in mind, gaze upon the wonder that is COOP’s new painting (NSFW, but given that it’s COOP you probably knew that), about which the artist has “paintblogged” extensively: It’s called “Boss” ’cause it is–’cause it does. Extra special bonus tidbit: It was inspired, believe it or not, by the work of Edward Ruscha, who painted the painting my wife and I fell in love in front of, “Oof”! And since we also listened to a lot of Lords of Acid back then, and COOP played more than a small part in that band’s success, I guess the circle is now complete.
Finally, hooray! And a question: Is anyone watching or planning to watch any of the other vaguely paranormal, ostentatiously intricate hour-long dramas with one-word titles that are coming out this season? Threshold, Supernatural, Surface, Invasion? (Not to mention honorary members Prison Break and The Night Stalker.) I guess I’m reasonably curious about some of them, but there’s only so many hours in a day, you know? If you end up biting the bullet, let me know what you think.
Back
September 18, 2005It was an awful week and a half, thanks for asking, and for more reasons than the obvious one. But I think I’m starting to walk it off.
Here are some links.
Infocult links us to Where London Stood, an academic site examining the literary and artistic trope of the ruined famous city, one with which we’re all too familiar with at this point, I suppose (though fortunately, it seems, not with the body count that usually comes along with it). This page focuses on its use in 20th-century sci-fi. I’ve said before how much I love post-apocalyptic horror, and the link to the ruined-city image is obvious–would 28 Days Later have done nearly as well as it did with both audiences and critics if not for that unforgettable walk through a moribund London?–so if you’re like me, you’ll want to check this out.
Matt Rota is an artist and cartoonist whose work I like. Eerie naturalism. Take a look.
One Louder links us to the Village Voice’s review of Analord, the 11-vinyl-EPs-and-counting analogue-only project by Richard D. James, aka Aphex Twin and AFX. As one of the many who found his last album to be a difficult listen, particularly compared to, well, all his other albums (among the most compulsively listenable in my collection), this sounds very promising indeed. However, I am not in the way of buying vinyl, so I will hope and pray that this finds its way onto CD eventually. (Or hell, mp3.)
In Sean-on-dead-tree news, the new issue of Giant features my reviews of Charles Burns’ masterpiece, Black Hole, as well as Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library hardcover. These are not yet reflected on GiantMag.com, but go visit anyway, and while you’re there, subscribe–people, this magazine’s latest issue featured a cast reunion for The Big Lebowski and, for no real reason, a two-page spread consisting of a picture of David Bowie exiting a limo during the post-Station to Station tour of Europe. I don’t know what else to tell you.
The Dark But Shining boys have big things cooking for the month of October, it appears. And I missed it when it happened, but M Valdemar made a barely audible noise of a Lovecraftian nature before resuming radio silence late last month. I guess I’m just gonna have to come up with something big for October…again…
Pa-Pa
September 17, 2005This is what I read at my grandfather’s wake this past weekend.
—–
My mother ended her eulogy for my grandfather by referencing his frequent use of the phrase “men of our talents.” He
9.11.05
September 11, 2005God bless America
Land that I love
Stand beside her
And guide her
Through the night with a light from above
From the mountains
To the prairies
To the oceans
White with foam
God bless America
My home sweet home
—–
As he followed her inside Mother Abagail’s house he thought it would be better, much better, if they did break down and spread. Postpone organization as long as possible. It was organization that always seemed to cause the problems. When the cells began to clump together and grow dark. You didn’t have to give the cops guns until the cops couldn’t remember the names…the faces…
Fran lit a kerosene lamp and it made a soft yellow glow. Peter looked up at them quietly, already sleepy. He had played hard. Fran slipped him into a nightshirt.
All any of us can buy is time, Stu thought. Peter’s lifetime, his children’s lifetimes, maybe the lifetimes of my great-grandchildren. Until the year 2100, maybe, surely no longer than that. Maybe not that long. Time enough for poor old Mother Earth to recycle herself a little. A season of rest.
“What?” she asked, and he realized he had murmured it aloud.
“A season of rest,” he repeated.
“What does that mean?”
“Everything,” he said, and took her hand.
Looking down at Peter he thought: Maybe if we tell him what happened, he’ll tell his own children. Warn them. Dear children, the toys are death–they’re flashburns and radiation sickness, and black, choking plague. These toys are dangerous; the devil in men’s brains guided the hands of God when they were made. Don’t play with these toys, dear children, please, not ever. Not ever again. Please…please learn the lesson. Let this empty world be your copybook.
“Frannie,” he said, and turned her around so he could look into her eyes.
“What, Stuart?”
“Do you think…do you think people ever learn anything?”
She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, fell silent. The kerosene lamp flickered. Her eyes seemed very blue.
“I don’t know,” she said at last. She seemed unpleased with her answer; she struggled to say something more; to illuminate her first response; and could only say it again:
I don’t know.
–Stephen King, The Stand
Crying won’t help you, praying won’t do you no good
September 8, 2005One last thought for the night
September 5, 2005When Land of the Dead comes out on DVD, you will have to look long and hard to find a write-up that does not reference Hurricane Katrina.
(Please click here for relief links.)
Splish splash
September 5, 2005How much do I love water monsters?
So much that I almost (almost) TiVo’d Frankenfish, that’s how much.
Skeleton keys
September 5, 2005Now that the entire region is one giant ghost story* I suppose it would be weird to just now get around to seeing The Skeleton Key. I’ve stayed away from this Kate Hudson-starring voodoo thriller because it’s a recipient of not one but two backlashes amongst the horror cognoscenti, if my trips around the horror blogosphere are any indication: 1) the backlash against horror movies that cast “name” actresses as the lead in order to give the film the veneer of respectability that, presumably, the filmmakers feel horror movies don’t otherwise merit; 2) the backlash against twist endings, a movement that, ever since it was set in motion by The Sixth Sense and Fight Club, has been slowly snowballing (a The Others here, a new Shyamalan flick there) until it’s become endemic across the board–major studio pictures, Euro-horror, indie horror, you name it.
But the movie’s got a few things going for it that intrigue me. First and foremost is the way the trailers use an old phonograph recording of a voodoo ritual. I’m a sucker for the use of recorded media as a locus of horror; its ability not just to record and preserve, but to rewind, relive, rewind, and relive again, speaks of that undeniability that great, transgressive horror moments are made of. I especially like The Skeleton Key‘s combination of scratchy vinyl and old, not-meant-for-modern-ears ritual–hell, something like a castrato can be extremely discomfiting to listen to, and those unfortunates were not summoning dark spirits out of the bayou night.
The movie has also garnered some strong word-of-mouth among certain friends of mine whose endorsement is at least enough to make me curious. It was written by Ehren Kruger, and since I’m the guy who liked The Ring 2–yes, that one guy–his name is not the kiss of death for me that I know it’s become for some people. It’s got Peter Sarsgaard, who was so good in Shattered Glass it made my teeth hurt. And finally, there’s no vomiting in it, which means my emetephobic wife could actually go see it with me; that ups its chances of me actually seeing it significantly. Tomorrow I’m hitting Four Brothers with my brother and his girlfriend, but after that I think The Skeleton Key is next on my “semi-acclaimed genre exercises that make me say ‘what the hey, I’ll give it a shot'” list.
*Please click here for some donation links. PS: My friend Josiah is okay; he and Rose left the veterinary hospital for Maine around midday today, according to her boss there.
The Stand
September 2, 2005Be kind to your four-legged friends
August 31, 2005My friend Josiah lives in New Orleans. He’s hard enough to get in touch with even when he’s not in the middle of the worst national disaster in American history, and I certainly haven’t heard from him since Hurricane Katrina hit. But one of our college housemates managed to track down his parents, who relate that he is currently holed up in the veterinary hospital where his girlfriend works (worked?), alone with all the animals. I hope they are okay; I hope they can keep the animals comfortable and safe.
I’ve already donated to the Red Cross, and I’m sure most of you have done so through it or a similar organization. But please remember that thousands and thousands of animals, like the ones in Josiah’s veterinary hospital, have been killed or injured or left homeless, stranded, sick, or starving. Please consider donating (a little or a lot) to the hurricane relief funds of one of these organizations, dedicated to helping these most helpless of victims.
The American Humane Association
I’ve already heard heartbreaking stories about pets left behind or washed away; perhaps your donation to one of these groups will give a new story a happy ending.
Many more relief donation links may be found here. Whatever you end up deciding to do, please do whatever you can.
The Big Eerie
August 28, 2005New Orleans is one of the world’s great cities for horror. It’s the kind of place I can tell I’d love without ever having visited it myself. It’s also, if the countless documentaries I’ve seen on the Discovery/History/A&E/Travel/SciFi channels are any indication, one of the most heavily haunted places in America. My deepest wish right now is that it get no more heavily haunted than normal by day’s end tomorrow. Please stay safe, everybody. (Especially my friends Josiah and Rose–I’m thinking of you.)
As a small salute to this wonderful town, here are a few links to some of NO’s horror notables. Keep all of them–living or dead–in your thoughts tonight.
Haunted New Orleans (lots of linked articles)
“The New Orleans Axeman”–unsolved serial killings (at CrimeLibrary.com)
“Queen of Voodoo” Marie Laveau Wikipedia entry
New Orleans Voodoo information page
New Orleans haunted houses (with pictures)
“Cities of the Dead”–New Orleans cemeteries
School’s out
August 26, 2005I thought I would LOVE doing this meme I saw at Bill Sherman’s and Johnny Bacardi’s:
A. Go to http://www.musicoutfitters.com.
B. Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function.
C. Bold for the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate and underline your favorite. Do nothing to the ones you don’t remember (or don’t care about).
I thought I would love doing it, until I saw what songs were big in 1996. Feast your eyes, glut your soul:
The Top 100 Songs of 1996
1. Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix), Los Del Rio
2. One Sweet Day, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men
3. Because You Loved Me, Celine Dion
4. Nobody Knows, Tony Rich Project
5. Always Be My Baby, Mariah Carey
6. Give Me One Reason, Tracy Chapman
7. Tha Crossroads, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
8. I Love You Always Forever, Donna Lewis
9. You’re Makin’ Me High / Let It Flow, Toni Braxton
10. Twisted, Keith Sweat
11. C’mon N’ Ride It (The Train), Quad City Dj’s
12. Missing, Everything But The Girl
13. Ironic, Alanis Morissette
14. Exhale (Shoop Shoop), Whitney Houston
15. Follow You Down / Til I Hear It From You, Gin Blossoms
16. Sittin’ Up In My Room, Brandy
17. How Do U Want It / California Love, 2Pac
18. It’s All Coming Back To Me Now, Celine Dion
19. Change The World, Eric Clapton
20. Hey Lover, LL Cool J
21. Loungin, LL Cool J
22. Insensitive, Jann Arden
23. Be My Lover, La Bouche
24. Name, Goo Goo Dolls
25. Who Will Save Your Soul, Jewel
26. Where Do You Go, No Mercy
27. I Can’t Sleep Baby (If I), R. Kelly
28. Counting Blue Cars, Dishwalla
29. You Learn / You Oughta Know, Alanis Morissette
30. One Of Us, Joan Osborne
31. Wonder, Natalie Merchant
32. Not Gon’ Cry, Mary J. Blige
33. Gangsta’s Paradise, Coolio
34. Only You, 112 Featuring The Notorious B.I.G.
35. Down Low (Nobody Has To Know), R. Kelly
36. You’re The One, SWV
37. Sweet Dreams, La Bouche
38. Before You Walk Out Of My Life / Like This And Like That, Monica
39. Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Deep Blue Something
40. 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin’ New), Coolio
41. The World I Know, Collective Soul
42. No Diggity, BLACKstreet (Featuring Dr. Dre)
43. Anything, 3t
44. 1979, The Smashing Pumpkins
45. Diggin’ On You, TLC
46. Why I Love You So Much / Ain’t Nobody, Monica
47. Kissin’ You, Total
48. Count On Me, Whitney Houston and Cece Winans
49. Fantasy, Mariah Carey (Ol’ Dirty Bastard version only)
50. Time, Hootie and The Blowfish
51. You’ll See, Madonna
52. Last Night, Az Yet
53. Mouth, Merril Bainbridge
54. The Earth, The Sun, The Rain, Color Me Badd
55. All The Things (Your Man Won’t Do), Joe
56. Wonderwall, Oasis
57. Woo-hah!! Got You All In Check / Everything Remains Raw, Busta Rhymes
58. Tell Me, Groove Theory
59. Elevators (Me and You), Outkast
60. Hook, Blues Traveler
61. Doin It, LL Cool J
62. Fastlove, George Michael
63. Touch Me Tease Me, Case Featuring Foxxy Brown
64. Tonite’s Tha Night, Kris Kross
65. Children, Robert Miles
66. Theme From Mission: Impossible, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen
67. Closer To Free, Bodeans
68. Just A Girl, No Doubt
69. If Your Girl Only Knew, Aaliyah
70. Lady, D’angelo
71. Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First), John Mellencamp
72. Pony, Ginuwine
73. Nobody, Keith Sweat
74. Old Man and Me (When I Get To Heaven), Hootie and The Blowfish
75. If It Makes You Happy, Sheryl Crow
76. As I Lay Me Down, Sophie B. Hawkins
77. Keep On, Keepin’ On, Mc Lyte
78. Jealousy, Natalie Merchant
79. I Want To Come Over, Melissa Etheridge
80. Who Do U Love, Deborah Cox
81. Un-Break My Heart, Toni Braxton
82. This Is Your Night, Amber
83. You Remind Me Of Something, R. Kelly
84. Runaway, Janet Jackson
85. Set U Free, Planet Soul
86. Hit Me Off, New Edition
87. No One Else, Total
88. My Boo, Ghost Town Dj’s
89. Get Money, Junior M.A.F.I.A.
90. That Girl, Maxi Priest Featuring Shaggy
91. Po Pimp, Do Or Die
92. Until It Sleeps, Metallica
93. Hay, Crucial Conflict
94. Beautiful Life, Ace Of Base
95. Back For Good, Take That
96. I Got Id / Long Road, Pearl Jam
97. Soon As I Get Home, Faith Evans
98. Macarena, Los Del Rio
99. Only Wanna Be With You, Hootie and The Blowfish
100. Don’t Cry, Seal
Jesus, that was ugly. I guess I truly was “alternative,” considering how many of those songs I’ve never heard and how many of the ones I have heard I actively dislike–the Tower Records clerks of my youth would be so proud of me! Figuring out my favorite took about two seconds. And keep in mind that I’m judging this list from my current, far more open-minded-to-pop perspective, too. In that regard I could have been more generous, actually–there’s something undeniably enjoyable to me about all those Night at the Roxbury-type dance songs, like “Where Do You Go” and “Beautiful Life” and “Be My Lover”; I semi-enjoy some of those early precursors of mediocre hip-hop’s chart dominance, such as “California Love” and “Tha Crossroads” and “No Diggity” as well–but I simply don’t relish the craft of those songs the way I do, say, disco or ’80s pop. I’d have done a lot more bolding in 1978 than Johnny B. did, that’s for sure. And Christ, look at Bill S.’s 1968! I would KILL for the equivalent of the Human Beinz!
If you’re interested in what I did like in 1996, I made a list once, and I’m reposting it JUST FOR YOU. I went with only one album per artist or it would have just gotten ridiculous; the album selected is frequently, but certainly not always, the first album I discovered by that particular artist; it’s generally the one that had the biggest impact on me.
69 Albums That High-School Sean Loved
1. Alice in Chains: Dirt
2. Aphex Twin:
The horror! The horror!
August 23, 2005Hey, look at that–I finally picked a title for my horror linkblogging posts! It was right in front of my nose all along, don’t you think?
The other day I mentioned how much I love a good (or, really, even a bad) water monster. (Catching the episode of MythBusters where the guys debunk nearly every major plot point and set piece in Jaws this weekend did nothing to lessen this love, by the way.) Inspired by that post, I spent a little time surfing Cryptozoology.com for watery cryptids like the sucuriju, the mokele-mbembe, and the strange creatures of Lake Iliamna in Alaska, about which I’d never heard before. (Interestingly, the theory in this particular lake-creature case is the same one advanced in Loch Ness these days, as I mentioned the other day–large, lake-locked sturgeon. And oh, hey, I took a trip to Loch Ness and wrote about it a couple years back, if you’re curious.)
And while on Cryptozoology.com, I came across a link to Leviathan: The World Serpent Revealed. The link loudly noted that “this site is fictional,” but more than five minutes reading the tall tale contained therein would have been sufficient to reveal that; the nature of the sea monster described in this particular bit of web fiction is simply too far beyond belief to maintain the illusion that what you’re seeing is true. But I think that’s what makes the site so interesting, and well worth a thorough visit–this fellow clearly could have concocted this fiction in a more persuasive fashion, but apparently the aspects of this particular monster that fascinated him were beyond the realm of believability, and admirably, he didn’t let that stop him. There are several moments of fine descriptive prose to be found here, but the real highlight? Using an “infinite canvas” model of Web art at which Scott McCloud himself would nod approvingly, this “size comparison” plays upon basic fears of heights, depths, the sea, snakes, and simple enormity so effectively that it gives me the freaking chills regardless of how self-evidently unreal it is.
A little more sniffing around the BigWetOcean.com domain at which Leviathan rests revealed this creepy untitled short story about a very different kind of ocean-based horror. Again, plausibility is not a strong suit of the piece–the first-person narration simply doesn’t make sense as constructed–but the central image is genuinely compelling, an echo of one of the more overlooked aspects of the horror of The Blair Witch Project, actually. Assuming author M.K. Davis is responsible for the Leviathan site as well, he’s a voice worth keeping an eye on. (Can you keep an eye on a voice? Ah well.)
Next up: Bringing more worth-reading insight to the situation than I can muster at the moment, Jog at Jog the Blog brings our attention to a bit of back-and-forth between the makers of the self-proclaimed exploitation flick Chaos and critic Roger Ebert, who hated, hated, hated the movie. If you start with Jog’s piece, then read Ebert’s review of the movie, then read the filmmakers’ response to the review and Ebert’s response to the response, you’ll pretty much be caught up. The long and the short of it is that Chaos is apparently an incredibly cruel, misogynistic, violent, and nihilistic movie whose debt to Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left is comparable to that which Bono has encouraged the G8 to drop; Ebert objects to the film on both counts, and the filmmakers retort that they’re only a reflection of The Way Things Really Are. Jog says most of what I’d say on the subject (which probably wouldn’t be that much, seeing as I haven’t seen Chaos or (this makes me a bad horror fan) the Last House on the Left, or even Virgin Spring for that matter), placing special emphasis on the fact that the movie’s apparently brazen theft from Craven’s earlier film (right down to the promo posters) makes their claims re: Chaos‘s Redeeming Social and Artistic Value a lot harder to swallow. I’ve said quite a bit on where I draw my particular line in terms of cruel, misogynistic, violent, nihilistic films in the past, though: Basically, this is one side of that line, while this is the other.
Another one bites the dust? Not quite. Though it seems like more horrorblogs are on hiatus than not these days, Steven at Corpse Eaters explains that while his blogging has been comparatively light of late, that was his plan all along, pretty much. He’ll be posting once a week, and I definitely recommend visiting his site at least that often.
Finally, in not-quite-horror news, I’ve got a review of cartoonist Paul Hornschemeier’s Forlorn Funnies #5 in this week’s issue of The Comics Journal. There there be monsters…
Links of the day
August 17, 2005Back when I was mostly a comicsblogger, my linkblogging posts were always titled “Comix and match.” I need to think of a good title for horror linkblogging posts…”Lynkanthropy”? Just a thought. Anyway, on with the show.
Dark But Shining’s Kevin Melrose has Western horror short story in an upcoming issue of the comics anthology Digital Webbing Presents. Check it out, won’t you?
Carnacki at the Mystery of the Haunted Vampire links to this Guardian essay by dark fantasy writer China Mi
Hey! It’s the Thing!
August 15, 2005Move over, Prince. Take a hike, Dashboard Confessional. Don’t let the door hit your asses on the way out, generic mook-rockers who sang that song from Spider-Man.
There’s a new superhero songmaker in town.
Ladies and gentlemen, I heartily advise you to download “The Fantastic Four Song,” by the Ray Wall Band.
Your ears will never be the same.
They come from all over
August 12, 2005Where the Monsters Go: The Horrorblog Update Page continues to grow pretty much every day, which is delightful. I’ve received numerous requests from bloggers who want their site added, and each new blog I come across tends to have a blogroll of its own ripe for the picking. The page is also now the number-one Google hit for “horror blog,” which is neato indeed. I hope everyone’s been digging it; I know I am.
One thing I’d love to do with the page is to broaden awareness of it beyond people who are already reading horror blogs. Link-love from the many comicsbloggers and comics message-board people who I think still read this page would be cool, but perhaps the best thing I can think of for you to do if you’d like to spread the word is to post about it on any horror- or genre-related message boards you may be a member of. My hope is to attract not just new users of the resource, but new contributors as well.
Meanwhile, I’m looking for any suggestions you may have as to other blogs that should be listed on the page. I’m particularly interested in blogs by horror authors, filmmakers, artists, actors, and other folks directly involved in the creation of horror works, or dedicated to specific examples of same. (I’ve got a handful listed already, but believe it or not I only got around to adding Poppy Z. Brite’s LiveJournal yesterday, so clearly I’m a little behind the eightball in this area.) Foreign-language sites would also be appreciated.
I’m also looking for semi-horrorblogs, or blogs that fall in the gray area between horror and other topics. As far as I’m concerned, blogs about things like serial killers, dark sci-fi, dark fantasy, the paranormal, the occult, and cryptozoology are all fair game. Now, there’s a fine and fluid line between these topics and subjects that I don’t think would make the cut, like true crime, general sci-fi/fantasy, conspiracy theory, mysticism/gnosticism, pure ufology, and so forth. As Howard Peirce mused recently, it can be tough to fix appropriate link boundaries when you’re walking this beat. But I’ll take a look at nearly anything, and thus far I’ve been following the model of the Comic Weblog Update page and erring on the side of generosity when it comes to blogs for which horror is just one topic of many covered. So if you can think of anything, let me know!
Finally, if you come across a great horror blog that doesn’t have an XML feed or isn’t pinging blo.gs, chances are that’s why they’re not already on the list. So do everyone a favor and encourage them to hook themselves up, ‘kay?
And now, on with the links:
Breaking the embargo once again: Following up on his extremely useful breakdown of how best to acquire the complete works of Chris “Acme Novelty Library” Ware, Fantagraphics’ Kim Thompson has now done the same for anyone looking for more work by Gilbert “Palomar” Hernandez and Jaime “Locas” Hernandez beyond the aforementioned massive hardcover collections of their main Love & Rockets work. The Fantagraphics blog justifies its own existence with these three posts alone.
Back on the Howard Peirce tip: The blogger more commonly known as M Valdemar has announced a hiatus, along with his intention to return this fall as the blog equivalent of a Halloween haunted house. Imagine that: a non-fiction horror blog that’s actually a horror work itself! I’m extremely curious to see how this turns out. Godspeed, M!
Over at new (to me, at least) site my concerns about the upcoming remake of The Wicker Man. He points out that the original Wicker Man‘s relative obscurity will mean that this remake becomes the definitive version in the public consciousness (to the extent that the public consciousness will ever demand a definitive version of The Wicker Man), a risk that the lousy remakes of Psycho and even The Texas Chain Saw Massacre didn’t present.
And in an earlier post, Derelict argues that I overanalyzed the ending of Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. Does that film’s “happy ending” belong in sneer quotes or what? Read Derelict’s piece and decide for yourself.
Speaking of aliens, BoingBoing directs us to this New York Times review of the new book Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Aliens. As I get more skeptical in my dotage, I find such psychological explanations of apparent paranormal phenomena fascinating.
Finally, I just noticed that blogger Gardner Linn has me blogrolled under the category “Life and How to Live It.” Best blogroll category ever.
Barker’s Beauties
August 11, 2005From the “missed it” file: Clive Barker’s new Midnight Picture Show production shingle, which plans on producing a series of horror films including several adaptations of short stories from Barker’s seminal (in more ways than one) Books of Blood. Among the tales slated for translation to the screen are two of my favorites, “The Midnight Meat Train” and “Pig Blood Blues.” (Besides being great stories, they have fabulous titles.) Apparently things are already underway, with The Plague, based on a new high-concept idea from Barker that’s maybe the best I’ve heard in years, already in production. (Starring James “Dawson” Van Der Beek!)
And once again, I’m a little wary. Books of Blood was, quite frankly, brilliant; a raft of movies made on the cheap and on the quick by comparatively unexperienced directors and starring WB refugees will, let’s say, likely be less so. And we’ve all seen what happens when Barker’s work falls into the wrong cinematic hands. On the other hand, the source material really is strong enough that it would take a concentrated effort to louse it up; moreover the fact that Midnight Picture Show will be mounting what amounts to its own mini-movement of horror films that don’t fall into any of the current horror camps (riffs on Scream, riffs on The Sixth Sense, riffs on Ringu, remakes of ’70s classics, and the Dark Castle widget factory) alone makes it a promising development.
Elaborate, please
August 10, 2005The Missus reminds me that Nicolas Cage was once good, which I guess is true–he was in my least favorite Coen Brothers movie and my least favorite David Lynch movie, but that’s still ahead of, like, 85% of all movies, right? But now he’s just a bag of tics to which some big studio or other occasionally staples a paycheck. Even if he was handing in young-DeNiro performances every time, there’s almost no point in trying to fill the shoes of Edward Woodward in the role of Sgt. Howie. It’s like Vince Vaughan in the remake of Psycho–nice try, but sometimes when you put a quirky character actor into an off-kilter horror film, you get career-best gold the first time around, and trying to duplicate that alchemy is utterly futile.
The real problem, though, is setting the film in America. So much of the strength of the original Wicker Man lies in its very specific milieu, that of the pagan rites of the United Kingdom. To say that the existence of a pagan cult in the middle of the Great American Nowhere strains credulity is to put it mildly. On the other hand, if the filmmakers were to go the more predictable (but also more believable) route and transmogrify the Summerislians into Old Testament types, not only would they be treading on ground trodden pretty damn hard and pretty damn often (there’ve been more than enough Children of the Corn movies, thanks), but they’d be losing the ability to play with the arthouse audience sympathies the way the original film did. Pitting Sgt. Howie’s priggish (though sincere) Christianity against the islanders’ earthy, unabashed paganism ensures that the viewer–like as not a lapsarian–will, on some level or other, be rooting against the Sergeant…until the viewer’s growing sense of complicity in an atrocity gets the better of her, but by then, of course, it’s too late. Make the Summerislians fundies, or even just exurbanites with skeletons in their closets (as I’m assuming LaBute will do, given his preoccupations in the past), and you’ve stumbled out of the blocks.
This is an awful lot of judgement to pass on a film that hasn’t been made yet, I know, and I’ll happily eat my words if the thing comes out great. But The Wicker Man is a very special movie. I’d like it to remain so.