Results tagged “horror”

This is the 2nd part to my little personal essay on the Misfits, how they combined punk rock and geek culture, and how they influenced me…

Where were we?

Do you dare to walk among us? Click the link!

I will never forget the day when I found out about The Misfits.

Are you ready to go “Where Eagles Dare” ? Just click the link!

What better way to celebrate Halloween than looking back at 20 years of Halloween episodes from The Simpsons? Let’s face it — watching sex-crazed teens get butchered is always a blast (thank you, John Carpenter), but sometimes you need something more! So let’s take a look at our favorite ten segments of The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror” episodes.

Let’s get the ball rolling, starting with #10….

#10: Nightmare Cafeteria (ToH V)
One of the sickest Treehouse segments is a twisted riff on “Soylent Green” with the school finding misbehaving children to be the best source of meat for the cafeteria. And the “Chorus Line” song and dance number at the end remains a classic (“The family dog is eyeing Bart’s intestine….”).

Key Dialogue:
Lisa: Bart, does it strike you as odd that Uter disappeared and suddenly they’re serving us this mysterious food called “Uterbraten”?

If you live in the Midwest, The New Vampire’s Handbook could be coming to your town next week! Come see the multi media show that accompanies the book that Publisher’s Weekly called ” a giggle-inducing, undeniably comprehensive look at the absurdity of life among with undead.”

Even if you don’t live in a big city, chances are good we’ll be coming to a town near you. See the list of dates below and here, or go here to get all the latest info on the book and tour.

Hope to see you!

Monday, October 19, 2009

Milwaukee, WI
Boswell Book Company
7:00pm - 9:00pm
2559 N. Downer Ave.
(414)3321181
Email: info@boswellbooks.com

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Chicago, IL
7:30pm - 9:00pm
Borders Book Store
2817 N Clark St.
(773)9353909

Thursday, October 22

Madison, WI
7:00 pm to 8:30 pm
Borders
3750 University Ave
(608)2322600

Friday, October 23

Richland Center, WI
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Ocooch Books and Libations
145 West Court Street

Saturday, October 24

Viroqua, WI
1:30 pm to 3:00 pm
Bramble Books
117 S. Main Street

October 24

Eau Claire, Wi
7:00 pm to 8:30 pm
Borders Books
4030 Commonwealth Ave

October 25, 2009

Minneapolis, MN
7:00pm - 8:30pm
Magers & Quinn Booksellers
3038 Hennepin Avenue South

They’re everywhere, zombies. They’re rising up all around us. We have movies (Zombieland, Dead Snow), video games (Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead), board games, and books (World War Z, Zombie Survival Guide, Breathers). This Fall, they’ll shuffle and chew their way into the Star Wars universe (Death Troopers). Increasingly large groups of still-living people go on Zombie Walks. There are even serious scholarly works on zombie infection rates. Oh, you read that last one correctly, scholarly papers on zombie infection rates. But we’ll come back to that shortly.

Zombies and Me (and you)

I’ve been pretty open about my odd relationship with the undead. They freak me out; I mean, the really freak me out and in ways that other “undead” monsters don’t, like vampires. It’s easy to understand why, vampires retain their outward human appearance to a greater degree than the rotting undead (of course, the fact that vampires have been so successfully de-fanged as monsters and turned to more of an altered-state human certainly removes the fright factor). But it’s more the thought of an unthinking, rotting, should-clearly-not-be-trying-to-eat-me creature is up and lurking around, unstoppable unless you take out its head, really, for lack of a better term, gets under my skin.

More troubling is that zombies quickly give birth to more zombies. If you “survive” a zombie attack, it’s only a temporary reprieve as bites and scratches will have you jonesing for brains in short order. And here we return to that scholarly paper. You don’t have to take my word for it, a group of concerned students at the University of Ottawa created a mathematical model of zombie infection rates and the effects of a zombie outbreak.

No kidding. If you want to check it out, you can do so here: When Zombies Attack: Mathematical Modeling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection [PDF | University of Ottawa]. Its formulas and mathematical proofs are only ever so slightly out of my grasp, but I get the gist: Zombie outbreak = doom. Below is a story from NPR, in which professor Robert Smith? (and yeah, his name is spelled with a question mark) talks about the paper.

And yet, I can’t help but feel that there are problems with this mathematical model. It has nothing to do with professor Smith? research or math skills, those are above the bar; the problem is with zombies themselves.

The Problems with Zombies

Are they really the destructive, unconquerable monsters we think they are? Well, that question isn’t quite right, you can create advantageous situations where zombies, at least in one-on-one showdowns can be pretty conquerable. No, the question is, could they really swamp an entire population?

I’m not convinced that they could. Zombies have a few knocks against them that would go a long way towards hampering their ability overtake whole civilizations. Here’s a few of the trouble points:

* note: the following blog was submitted in the evening; however, the author requested it be published this morning.

Good Evening. I am the Vampire, Miles Proctor.

As someone who’s lived through more than his share of fads (pantaloons, the telegraph, the hula hoop and the Hustle were just a few of my favorites), I can tell you that we are in the midst of a full-blown craze for all things fanged. From soft drinks to understated and tasteful pictorials in gentleman’s publications, that certain vampire je ne sais quoi has been co-opted for most every purpose you can think of.

But many of these new fictional vampires aren’t actually vampires at all. They never sleep in coffins, they don’t drink human blood - some of them even walk about in the day, their greatest fear not death from exposure to the sun, but being caught in the act of sparkling.

One of the most liberal, modern interpretations of the vampire ethos is of course Edward Cullen, the troubled teen vampire hero of the exceedingly popular and wildly inaccurate Twilight series. Cullen is so handsome, delicate and sensitive that one might mistake him for a particularly toothy, excruciatingly pale mumblecore filmmaker, rather than a fearsome, powerful creature of the night.

Not that the glittering creatures of Twilight are the first ones to get it wrong. Bela Lugosi’s theatrical Dracula was just another end of the stereotypical spectrum, albeit from an era of cartoonishly ghoulish vampires. In reality, neither portrait is definitive or entirely accurate.

I have laid out the truth, once and for all, in The New Vampire’s Handbook, about the habits and characteristics native to the true vampire. As it was written and edited by an actual handsome and successful vampire, there can be no doubt as to its accuracy —though I invite your comments as to how the reality squares with your notion of all things vampire.

Personally, I find the whole phenomenon mildly amusing, and await its passing. But I am curious as to what others think of the genteel, approachable, considerate, “new vampire” that’s so en vogue. Is the rise of vampire-lite in popular culture good for actual vampires like myself? Is it an affront to all of vampirekind? Will it outlast the popularity of Nu Metal, the Tamagochi, the Rubik’s Cube, or the Internet? I encourage you to speak freely.

I remain eternally yours,

The Vampire, Miles Proctor.

Last week, the life expectancy of newly bitten werewolves, (not to mention their friends, loved ones, and neighbors,) took a giant leap forward with Broadway Books’ release of The Werewolf’s Guide To Life: A Manual For The Newly Bitten.

My name is Ritch Duncan, and my co-author Bob Powers and I have devoted our lives to serving the lycanthrope community.

Yes, werewolves are real.

If you suspect that you may have been bitten by a werewolf, check the warning signs on our website immediately, and review our comprehensive table of transformation dates, as if you were bitten by something on a night other than than the three nights before, after or during a full moon, you can thank your lucky stars that the only website you will have to refer to for your future care and treatment is this one.

But if you were bitten by something on a known transformation date, we recommend taking immediate action, including the following:

Good Evening.

Allow me to introduce myself.

I am the Vampire Miles Proctor - tailor, entrepreneur, vampire par excellence- and the author and editor of The New Vampire’s Handbook: A Guide for the Recently Turned Creature of the Night (Villard).

I’ve been a vampire for most of my 467 years. In that time, I’ve made lots of fantastic memories, and great friends with whom I’ve drained my fair share of prey.

But I’ve also met countless poorly mentored new vampires who hadn’t the faintest idea how to feed, where to meet another vampire, whether or not garlic could harm them. They lacked even the most basic knowledge, so that just surviving each night was a struggle for them. Watching them try to navigate a new world without the tools to do so was upsetting, to say the least.

After a while, I realized I had to do something to help these poor wretches, new to the fold with no one to guide them.

So I did what any self respecting vampire would do - I rolled up my sleeves, contacted my book agent, and hand picked human slaves from the likes of The Onion, The Daily Show, and Important Things with Demetri Martin to help me assemble a collection of indispensible information for the neophyte vampire. At last, The New Vampire’s Handbook has been released, putting a veritable treasure trove of information at the neophyte vampire’s fingertips, including:

• the ins and outs of your new vampiric body
• lessons on how to embrace your vampirosexuality
• fool proof methods for luring prey, faking your way through meals, and creating a four-hundred-year financial plan
• the surprising joy of scrapbooking

And that’s just the beginning. All told, there’s more than 200 pages must-have information for that no new vampire should be without.

I’ll be posting here frequently with updates and information that may be of use to the vampire community, as well as posting relevant topics for debate and discussion. When I am otherwise occupied, irritable, or tired from a long night out, I’ll have one of the human slaves do it for me. I invite you to stick around, and look forward to hearing from each and every one of you.

Thank you for your attention - and Welcome to the Night.

Eternally yours,

The Vampire Miles Proctor

Finally, Summer is ending. My apologies to those of you who relish and enjoy the season, but I’m excited for it to be over. There’s just too much to be excited about for the Fall.

Now, I’m jaded. I’ll admit I prefer Fall to Summer in every way. The weather, the colors, the smells*, the food (sure, you can make chili in summertime, but why would you?), the ability to wear sweaters. And Fall is when everything picks up again. Books, movies, television, events, we’re about to face another flood of them. Here’s some of what I’m looking forward to as we hike into the last few months of 2009.

Books

Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber (October)
(Click here for more details)

I’ll come clean. I’m a horror fan from nearly as far back as I can remember. To clarify, I’m a fan of horror fiction (I can’t do the movies though). Back in my high school days** as I was being barraged by reading assignments covering the Romantic poetry movement, or and endless array of long drawn out works, I nearly lost my interest in reading. Then I found Stephen King. It didn’t take long until I was raiding the county library and buying up paperbacks from genre racks near and far. But it was that first book, Tommyknockers that really gripped me. It intertwined horror and science fiction to make the story, equal parts Eureka and They Live, if you’re interested.

Well, Joe Schreiber will be taking horror to the Star Wars universe this fall and I’m excited to return to that particular part of the genre melting pot again. Schreiber is a writer who can turn a terse phrase and scare you with things happening on this world. I wonder (oh, how I do wonder), what he’s thought up for Death Troopers. We know there’s zombies. We know there’s Storm Troopers. But what happens when the two get together in deep space? Like you, I’ll find out next month. I can’t wait.

The Devil’s Alphabet by Daryl Gregory (November)
(Click here for more details)

His debut novel, Pandemonium, is the type of book you read and think, “Horsefeathers! This isn’t his first book!” Well, here he is again and I’m hoping for a similar ride. The brilliance of that first book, and what has me excited in the set up for this book, is that Gregory creates a world that is so very, very similar to ours. He just tweaks one thing here or there to set the stage and then his characters come forward and it isn’t long before you’re sucked in to the story, all sense of time gone, all hope of sleep abandoned as you push on for just one more page, just one more chapter.

That’s the kind of writer Daryl Gregory is. In this book, we come to a town that has been decimated by a mysterious virus. The virus has killed off a substantial portion of the population, mutated others, and occasionally left some residents alone. Or so it seems. Returning to this town is Paxton Abel Martin, who fled when he was 14 and the virus was raging at full tilt and fled town shortly thereafter. Paxton appears to be fine, but is he?

Here’s a bit from the book’s description that hooked me and vaulted this book to one of the highest spots on my Must Read list for 2009:

Having fled shortly after the pandemic, Pax now returns to Switchcreek fifteen years later, following the suicide of Jo Lynn. What he finds is a town seething with secrets, among which murder may well be numbered. But there are even darker-and far weirder-mysteries hiding below the surface that will threaten not only Pax’s future but the future of the whole human race.

Mmmmm…a town with mutants and deep-dark secrets. Sign. Me. Up!

Read on for a few TV shows worth watching (or Hulu-ing) this Fall as well as a couple movies I’m looking forward to.

Publication of Star Wars: Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber is now less then four weeks away. As October 13th rapidly approaches we’ll continue to roll out some fun features to celebrate the first true horror novel to take place within the Star Wars universe. To date infected Stormtroopers ran amok at San Diego Comic Con, we’ve asked fans to create their own video trailer for the book, and various letters from the Purge have been disseminated to the public hinting at events from the novel. Before this post is finished, you will get a first look at the actual book itself.

But first, a word from our sponsor. Joe Schreiber will be touring to celebrate the publication of his two new novels, Star Wars: Death Troopers and No Doors, No Windows. For information and tour dates please visit Del Rey/Random House.

Now back to what you really want to read…jump for an excerpt from Star Wars: Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber!

Once upon a time, John Carpenter could do anything.

Even his name was perfect. Carpenter—an unremarkable but spot-on moniker for the man who sauntered into a much-maligned genre and, with a shoestring budget and a toolbox of ideas that he’d klepto’d from the greats—Hitchcock, Wilder, Hawks—plus some moves of his own, singlehandedly reinvented the way we think about fear.

Carpenter wrote it. He edited it. He directed it.

And he wrote the music.

When I was thirteen years old, we had a piano, and I hated it. Every week my mom sent me down the street with a five-dollar bill to pay the poor lady whose job it was to implant some spark of musical ability in my clumsy, plantain-like fingers. For a year or two, I hammered out such immortal dirges as “Alley Cat” and “Speak Softly Love” better known to piano students everywhere as “Love Theme from ‘Godfather Part II’.” And friends, I am here to tell you, if there is a single piece of music guaranteed to break the spirit of a thirteen-year-old boy chained to a piano, it is “Love Theme from ‘Godfather Part II.’”

In stark counterpoint, however, my best friend at the time, Mike Ludy, showed an odd fascination with the piano. He’d come over after school to read comic books or bullshit about what we were going to do when we grew up and ruled the world. Except instead, more often then not, he’d end up downstairs at our piano, tapping out the same three ominous notes, over and over, talking to himself.

Dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-DUM…

Pause.

“Wait…”

Dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-DUM…

“That’s it.”

Not “Alley Cat.” Not “Love Theme from ‘The Godfather Part II.”

The theme from Halloween.

Looking back, I can’t help but wonder how my life would have been different if the spiral-bound music book I’d dragged around every week actually had included the theme from that movie. How much more awesome would it have been to sit down at the piano and play that deceptively simple, hypnotically terrifying series of notes—a combination of notes so scary that even Steve Miner, in Halloween H20, couldn’t totally squander its effectiveness?

I don’t want to have a conversation about Rob Zombie. I don’t want to stand around pissing on all the forgettable Halloween sequels or The Fog remake. I’m not interested in railing on about Ghosts of Mars and the tragedy of potential unfulfilled. I’m here today to tell you that, in the most direct possible terms, that no matter what happens to our culture, a hundred years from now, John Carpenter’s music from Halloween will still be scaring the crap out of people.

You can bank on it.

Don’t believe me? Try a simple experiment. (I actually did this at home, because this is what guys like me tend to do.) I happen to own the full color 1968 Signet mass market adaptation of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, the one with the illustrations from the excellent Bill Melendez-Lee Mendelson TV special. I realize that you might not have this on your bookshelf, so allow me to offer just the first page of text:

“There was a general feeling around the neighborhood that Linus always acted a bit peculiar during the month of October. Each year he got out a piece of his nicest stationery and wrote a letter to someone he called ‘the Great Pumpkin.’”

Simple, right? Safe. Good old familiar Peanuts myth.

Except…

Let’s say that I was walking along the beach in Malibu one summer afternoon with the surf lapping zestfully at my bare feet, and I came across a lamp washed up on shore, and rubbed it the way you’re always supposed to do, releasing a genie who chose to express his or her gratitude by granting me three wishes, I know exactly what I’d start with.

Not a million bucks.

Not the promise of safety and longevity and good health for me and mine.

Not even the old childhood favorite, a wish for three more wishes.

No, I think I’d blindside that genie with three wishes that I’m pretty sure nobody’s ever asked for in the history of lamp-rubbing.

A) Access to a film crew and director with an unlimited budget.
B) A guaranteed automatic greenlight from the studio of my choice.
C) Complete remake rights to the John Hughes film library.

Not that I’d ever wish to remake any of the John Hughes movies that filled my own adolescent experience with moments so real that half of them seemed to have actually happened to me. Hell, no. I love those movies, and their setups are so perfect that any attempt to redo them straight would necessarily be doomed to failure.

No. I want to re-imagine them.

As horror movies.

Now just hear me out. My theory is this. If John Hughes had stuck around long enough in Hollywood, instead of pulling his post-Curly Sue J.D. Salinger act, I think he would’ve been a whole lot happier if he’d made at least one balls-out screamfest. Who knows? He actually might have made a good one. But since he didn’t, (I’m not counting Weird Science, and neither should you) we’re forced to imagine how much more mind-bogglingly awesome his greatest movies would have been, if they’d transcended from teen angst into a flat-out limbic-system overload of horror.

Why? Because, unlike almost all the directors and screenwriters cranking out slasher movies in the late 70s and 80s, Hughes could actually write credible teenagers. His kids were funny, canny, sympathetic and utterly familiar. All they lacked was a guy with a machete.

Let me begin by saying, “Woo-hoo!” And with that out of the way, we’ll proceed.

I’ve written before about Douglas Clegg, one of the best horror fiction writers on the market today, and how he’s been using the internet as a way to reach and reward audiences since his fingers first launched him down the information superhighway. I told you about the opportunity to read his book, Afterlife free online and about how he hooked me with his extended sample of Goat Dance (a novel I still consider a must read for horror fans). So Douglas Clegg is, I hope, not a new name for you*.

Earlier this year, Mr. Clegg announced that he’d be releasing an original work via email called The Locust. This release is a thank you and a celebration all rolled up into one. It’s a thank you in that Douglas promised to release this book to his fans if they, in turn, promised to spread the word about his download offer for Afterlife (if you missed it, you can still read an extended preview of the novel on Scribd). The campaign was a success. In addition to this, the release celebrates the 20th anniversary of the publication of Goat Dance, Clegg’s first novel, and the 10th anniversary of Naomi, the first sponsored e-serial novel.

Well, today’s the day! I read my sample on the train this morning and I can assure you, it’s every bit as good as, well, everything else Mr. Clegg has written. If you aren’t subscribed to Douglas’s newsletter, you’ll need to be to receive the installments. You can sign up here: Douglas Clegg’s Newsletter. And don’t worry, he won’t flood your inbox.

Here’s the blurb about the email serial from Douglas’s website:

Meet Myra Coates You let her into your home. You let her into your heart.

She will dig deep inside your mind to discover the secrets and fears you’ve held back for so long.

What is she?
Is she just a little girl in a coat and cap who arrives one day in need of a place to stay…

Or is she a creature who will turn everything and everyone you know inside out, leaving mankind to survive the ravages of…

THE LOCUST
Will you open the door to her?

The NEW Serial from Douglas Clegg, author of The Hour Before Dark, The Priest of Blood, and upcoming in the fall of 2009 in hardcover in bookstores everywhere: Isis.

So I’ll leave you to it and strongly urge you to go check this out. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed and, hey, it’s not like it’s costing anything. So go and discover! Your weekend reading was just delivered to your inbox.

Resident Del Rey horror author Joe Schreiber was recently interviewed at Dread Central.com (a great website for all things horror) to discuss his two extremely creepy, upcoming horror novels coming out this fall; No Doors, No Windows and Star Wars: Death Troopers. Both hit store shelves on October 13th.

To learn how Joe came up the idea for No Doors, No Windows and find out about a terrifying moment in his childhood, just click the link.

Joe Schreiber’s Dread Central interview.

Genre-tales reinvented for the stage are nothing new, but lately we’ve been seeing some particularly original productions. Earlier this year we had a creepy, atmospheric spin on Algernon Blackwood’s “The Wendigo” and now director Rachel Klein, who did a doozy of a show earlier this year called “Go-Go Killers,” does a bang-up job with “Hound,” a surreal mad-house take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic tale “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”

John Patrick Bray has done an admirable job reinventing the classic Sherlock Holmes story — keeping the basic outline intact while playing fast and loose with a lot of the details and characterizations. Klein and Bray have come together to twist Doyle’s vision into a madcap, bizarre one-act show that at turns is hilarious and chilling.

It didn’t make Shawn’s Remaining Top 5 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Summer Movies list and landing in September, it’s pushing the envelope in regards to “summer” slotting, but 9 has what I would consider a recipe for success written in to it’s digital make-up:

(Tim Burton + Digital Animation + Post Apocalypse Quest) x (Science Fiction + Horror) = 9

And, if the above is true, then we must also conclude that

9 = Freakin’ Awesome

But the film isn’t the only thing that’s kinda cool, Focus Features, who is distributing this film, is making the build up worth paying attention to as well. Okay, first about the film, and then the build-up…

Watching the clips and trailers, another formula came to mind:

Toy Story + Terminator + Resident Evil + Silent Hill

Wall-E, this ain’t. The movie concerns itself with nine canvas doll creatures that have been imbued with a “lifespark” by a scientist in the closing days of the human race. Humanity is no more by the open of the film, having been wiped out by sentient machines who manufactured themselves into a powerful race (does that sound familiar from somewhere?). Here’s the thing, these machines appear to be programed to hunt living organisms, so when the canvas people start walking about, they become hunted targets.

The project has been a little cryptic up to now, but it appears that there are nine canvas doll people, the 9th of which is supposed to save them from robotic destruction. The film, as the trailer after the jump will show you, is decidedly Tim Burton-esque in visual design. The machines are cobbled together horrors and the canvas people resemble gingerbread men who brandish scissors as weapons. And it looks dark. Mmmmmm….dark Tim Burton film. I’m salivating already.

The final awards ballot has been announced for the 2008 Shirley Jackson Awards, celebrating achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. Be sure to visit http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org for more details.

Congratulations to all the nominees!

NOVEL

• Alive in Necropolis, Doug Dorst (Riverhead Hardcover)


• The Man on the Ceiling, Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem (Wizards of the Coast Discoveries)


• Pandemonium, Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)


• The Resurrectionist, Jack O’Connell (Algonquin Books)


• The Shadow Year, Jeffrey Ford (William Morrow)


• Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

More nominees after the jump….

We interrupt our normal Suvudu feed to bring you a piece of shameless self-promotion that’s all about me, me, me. Well, not entirely about me. But mostly.

In addition to my Suvuduesque duties, I run a monthly film series in New York City called the Shocklines Film Series which gives New Yorkers a shot to see excellent horror films on the big screen that never got wide theatrical distribution.

This Saturday night, we’re showing 7 short horror films. They’re not on cable. They’re not on DVD. They’re not on YouTube. So if you want to see them, this is your shot. And four of them are based on outstanding horror short stories by critically acclaimed authors, including Joe Hill (of Heart Shaped Box fame), Ed Gorman, and Peter Crowther.

So come check it out. You can get further film details and ticket info at http://www.shocklinesfilms.com. Hope to see you and many other Suvuduers there!

The films:

• Pop Art, written and directed by Amanda Boyle, based on the short story by New York Times bestseller Joe Hill. Winner of the the audience award for narrative short at the Austin Film Festival.
  
• Treevenge, directed by Jason Eisener and produced by Rob Cotterill. Winner of the audience award at the New York City Horror Film Fest, and the audience award at the Fantasia Film Festival.
  
• Eater, written and directed by Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer, based on the short story by Peter Crowther.
  
• Abraham’s Boys written and directed by Dorothy Street, based on the short story by New York Times bestseller Joe Hill.
  
• Side Effect, written and directed by Liz Adams. Winner of Best Screenplay award at the Chicago Horror Film Festival and Best Short.
  
• The Ugly File, written by Rick Hautala, directed by Mark Steensland, based on the short story by Ed Gorman. U.S. Premiere!
  
• Storm, written by Ron McGillvray, directed by Jeff Radbourne.