Hey, 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…

Back 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

Move 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.

Where 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.

From 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.

Okay, fine.

The 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.

Good Lord.

Nic “Gone in 60 Seconds” Cage as Sgt. Howie in the remake of The Wicker Man? Directed by Neil “In the Company of Men” LaBute? Set in America? With Ellen Burstyn in the Christopher Lee role?

This is going to be Stepford Wives-remake bad, isn’t it?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…

The Hellraiser Playset!

Details here. If I wanted to be persnickety I’d complain that the Female Cenobite (I’d use her on-set nickname, but this is a family site) is the one from Hellbound rather than Hellraiser, but when the words “Hellraiser Playset” are being used I’m put in a mood that’s far from persnickety indeed.

Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that I had in my possession mp3s of the entire new Death Cab for Cutie album, Plans. Is linking to them from here the kind of thing one gets in trouble for? My email is to the left.

Now that I’ve finally gotten around to reading Haunted, the latest book by Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk, I think I’m joining the consensus: This would have worked much better as a straightforward collection of short stories than it does as a novel with short stories told/written by the characters therein.

For starters, each of these different individuals speaks in almost the exact same voice. (Palahniuk gives a couple of them the Chuck Palahniuk equivalent of down-home American accents, but you almost can’t tell.) Next, and I’m going to try to be spoiler-free about this, but the notion that this is the collection of people such a “writers’ retreat” would assemble…I’m sorry, but there’s only so much disbelief I can suspend. Moreover, and again trying to be spoiler free, 90% of them really don’t need to suffer through this sort of event to make them famous–they could almost all become (in)famous through their own life stories, and at least two that I can think of should already be famous anyway. That’s to say nothing of the masochistic behavior in which the group indulges en masse, which would be tough enough to swallow (no pun intended) even if the bulk of the book weren’t dedicated to chronicling the very different lives and neuroses of the characters involved. There also are some weird problems with structural asymmetry, in that almost but not quite all of the characters on the retreat have done a certain thing (something very specific, but again, trying to be spoiler-free), and in that almost but not quite all of the stories they write/tell (it’s never made completely clear, though by the end the context clues and the occasional reference to the framing story would indicate the latter) are autobiographical. It’s in those asymmetries that Haunted really betrays its origins as a short-story collection; or if that’s not really the case, it’s in those asymmetries that it at least shows why it would work better that way.

That being said, I really think the short stories are almost all top-drawer. The foot-massage one was hilarious–it read like a perfect parody of Palahniuk’s trademark “literature of obscure expertise,” you know? Taken in tandem with the “Chef Assassin” story, it’s proof that for all Palahniuk may vocally rage against his critics, he is one himself. But genre fans who don’t belong to either the Cult or to the Cult-haters will find much to appreciate here too. There’s a great Bigfoot horror story (!), a great rural urban-legend horror story, one of the most unique serial-killer horror stories I’ve ever read, a great masturbation horror story, a couple of traditional “Jesus Christ these people are sad and messed-up” Chuck P. stories…excellent work, and really excellent horror. In fact, I daresay that in the latter regard, Haunted is more effective than Palahniuk’s previous two stabs at the genre, Lullaby and Diary. Hell, I think that if you took the overarching conceit about the writers’ retreat, scrapped the notion that the people on the retreat are the people telling the other stories, and condensed IT into its OWN short story, you’d have maybe the best book Palahniuk ever wrote–better even, perhaps, than the masterful and moving Choke. Instead you’ve got what you’ve got: a flawed though compelling, or compelling though flawed, work overall.

I love, love, love Stephen King’s novella “The Mist.” Collected in Skeleton Crew, it tends to find its way to my bedside every summer, when the nights get hazy and warm and the insects gather ’round the light outside the front door. (Fans of the story will understand the connection.) Just this week I brought up with my co-workers at lunch what a terrific freaking movie it would make.

And lo and behold, Frank “Shawshank” Darabont is making it! Lots and lots of details can be found here at Lilja’s Library.

Post-apocalyptic horror and giant monster horror, together at last! Joy, rapture!

Heidi MacDonald’s recent shout-out reminds me that I’ve been meaning to plug Giant, the genuinely excellent entertainment/pop-cult mag that occasionally employs me, for some time now. Simply put, if I didn’t receive free contributor’s copies, I’d subscribe to this magazine in a heartbeat. (And I’m not just saying that because they pay me.)

Why? Because recent issues have included such features as a profile of State-offshoot comedy group Stella as written by the State’s “red-head gay” Kevin Allison; a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon; a full-page photograph of Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian, labeled simply “Just Because”; a profile of Joy Division featuring interviews with Bernard Sumner and Deborah Curtis; photos and excerpts from Matthew Modine’s on-set memoir of Full Metal Jacket; a lengthy Office Space cast reunion; a “Where Are They Now?” write-up for each member of Faith No More; a Top 20 guide to Asian horror; an interview with David Patrick Kelly of Twin Peaks, Flirting with Disaster, and The Warriors, which among other things reveals the origin of “Warriors! Come out and plaaayaaay!”; a guide to Lebowski Fest; an interview with Law & Order: SVU star Christopher Meloni focusing solely on his character from Wet Hot American Summer, Gene the cook; and on and on and on. It’s so close to having a pipeline directly from my brain that they could well call the magazine Sean. My guess is many readers of this blog will feel the same way about the magazine themselves.

And since I might as well plug what I’ve got in it this month (issue #6–the one with Mischa Barton on the cover): I’m oddly Marvel-centric this go-’round, with a quick “Break Into Comics in Five Easy Steps” interview with Brian Michael Bendis and a review of Brian K. Vaughan’s Runaways Vol. 1 hardcover. I also plug the upcoming Mark Newgarden collection from Fantagraphics, We All Die Alone. Next ish, my piece on Charles Burns’s Black Hole, the best horror comic of all time, is the Books section’s lead review, and I’ll have a write-up of the new Chris Ware Acme Novelty Library hardcover in there as well.

It’s a great magazine, is what I’m saying, and according to the subscription card in the latest issue it’ll cost you $7.97 for a year’s subscription. I don’t know how to beat that, folks. Go read it already.