When a franchise is handed down to another team of writers, something always gets lost in translation. Sometimes a franchise can endure because of it, or more often than not it completely shits the bed. No truer a statement can be said than the works of Eli Roth. Roth has made a name for himself with his brutal, realistic horror films that focus primarily on real life evils, or dangers, as opposed to the usual super-natural or cookie-cutter slasher variety. From the original Cabin Fever, and both Hostel films are great horror movies that aren’t about your typical horror movie fare. Even when he gets behind a film as a producer, the horror films that are churned out aren’t your common place boogie man films. Aftershock made earthquakes scary again and to a lesser extent the Last Exorcism films. Although I have not seen it, I suspect that The Green Inferno is going to be pure Roth.
But that’s just the thing, only Eli Roth can do Eli Roth, when someone takes the helm to try and repeat the same sort of…. dare I say… success as Roth, these sequels fall flat on their asses. Case in point, the direct to video release of Cabin Fever: Patient Zero. Like the previous offering in the franchise, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, Eli Roth’s name is nowhere to be found on it. That should be the first sign that what you are getting into has the potential for disaster. Continue reading →
The one and only time I (last) watched Arachnophobia was 23 years ago when the film made its way to home video after quite some fanfare in the box office in 1990. I was 9 years old. I couldn’t tell you the circumstances as to how I came to see this film, but I suspect it was a random selection at the video rental section at a small town gas station. I remember a lot of the hype for this movie around the time, and how it preyed on people’s fear of spiders. It’s kind of sad that I can remember an advertising campaign better than my memories of how I ended up seeing the movie. I dimly recall that my mother refused to watch it because she was scared of spiders I seem to recall that the film created a preoccupation for researching venomous spiders. This wasn’t a preoccupation out of fascination, but out right anxiety. For the next decade thereafter I’d always has an anxious fear of black widow spiders, which weren’t even the subject of the film. But I digress. I wasn’t outright afraid of spiders, they just made me anxious. Continue reading →
It’s the holiday season once again Micro-Shockers, and instead of pumping out the usual “holiday horror movies you need to watch” list that every other horror movie blog puts out each year (which usually has the same movies with one or two additions) I present for your holiday merriment a list of holiday horror movies that they need to make. If anyone from Hollywood is out there reading this, give me a shout, we’ll talk deal.
Interview with History and Horror, Oh My! Author David W. Landrum
2014-12-18 01:07
The amazing Mystery and Horror, LLC is back with another brand-new book release. This time, it’s the historical horror anthology History and Horror, Oh My!, which includes the Dust Bowl vampire tale, “Of Blood and Men,” written by yours truly.
Among the other twenty featured stories is “The Lorelei of the Trenches”, a terrifying tome about a World War I phantom stalking the battlefield. The story’s author, David W. Landrum, teaches Literature at Grand Valley State University. His speculative fiction has appeared widely. His novellas, The Gallery, Strange Brew, andThe Prophetess, and his full-length novel, The Sorceress of the Northern Seas, are available through Amazon.
Editor Sarah Glenn recently asked Mr. Landrum about his writing, and he was kind enough to give us a peek into his creative process.
When did you know you wanted to become a writer?
I began writing at an early age. When I was in Fifth Grade, around 10 years old, I wrote a funny story and my teacher read it to the whole class. I knew then that I wanted to keep doing this kind of thing. When I got settled in life (late thirties, after graduate school, family, getting settled in a career), I began seriously writing and publishing. I wrote mostly poetry at first and then began writing fiction. Since then, I’ve written constantly in both genres. Of late, I’m doing much more fiction than poetry.
How did you pick the genre/setting/era you (usually) write in?
I’ve written in a lot of genres and sub-genres. I think one’s basic philosophy of things goes into choosing the direction of writing. I like to write paranormal and fantasy because I’m intrigued with the mysteries and unexplained contours of life. I don’t really believe in ghosts, alternate worlds, supernatural creatures like elves and vampires–but it’s a lot of fun to imagine them and to nominate them as players in the strange twists and turns our lives can take. I don’t believe in the ultimate power of evil, so I’m not much of a horror writer; and when I do write horror, it’s usually “soft” horror, not dark horror. In my horror stories, the good people usually win and the evil is vanquished; evil does not triumph in my stories, as it does so often in dark horror. The era will fit the nature of the story. Urban fantasy is intriguing, but sometimes a story necessitates creating an imaginary or a modified realistic world. I write science fiction too, and it’s fun to create a universe populated with various races of beings. In all of these cases, the theme of the story will dictate the other elements.
How did you come up with the idea for your story in History andHorror, Oh My?
When I think of horrific history, I think of World War I. It was in the overlap of eras, when armies still used old tactics like fighting in lines and cavalry charges but had new, highly destructive weapons that rendered such tactics obsolete. Millions of men were killed. Horrid weapons like poison gas and machine guns came on the scene, and the destruction that took place in that war was unparalleled. So World War I was horror in and of itself, so it naturally suggested the setting for a horror story. I had written another such story called “Dead Man’s Dump,” published in the now-defunct journal, Absent Willow Review. A lot of poetry from World War I centers on the horror of that conflict, and this also influenced my choice. Were there supernatural creatures on the fringes of that conflict? Did they “feed off” the destruction and anguish it caused? The idea for the story came about something like this.
Did you encounter any obstacles in researching the setting?
I didn’t have too much trouble because I had read a lot about World War I and taught a lot of its literature. Good-Bye to All That, by Robert Graves is considered the most important memoir to come out of the First World War, and I had taught that a couple of times; and I taught a lot of poetry from that conflict. Poems like Winfred Owen’s “Dulce et decorum est,” and Isaac Rosenberg’s “Dead Man’s Dump” (which provided the title for the story I mentioned earlier), are studies in horror, as is a lot of the poetry from that time. So I knew quite a bit about the era when I began working on the story.
What are you working on now?
I recently finished work on two novellas that have gone into production and will be out soon. Mother Hulda, coming from Max Avalon books, is a sci-fi retelling of one of Grimm’s fairy tales; ShadowCity (not a typo, one word), an urban fantasy, will be released by Damantion Books around February of next year. Presently, I’m taking a break from novel writing and doing several short stories, fantasy and science fiction, for journals. After that, I’ll start on the second book in the Sorceress of the Northern Seas, which is a trilogy. I’ve got about three-quarters of it written but need to finish that one, edit it, etc. I’m always writing, all the time.
History and Horror, Oh My! is available now in print and on Kindle through Amazon. Other e-formats also available through Smashwords.
The Universal Monsters Don't Need to be Saved, or: Stop Whining About Reboots Already!
2014-11-18 03:14
Back in July of this year when press regarding the anticipated release of “Dracula Untold” (which was released in theaters last month) Deadline.com released a report stating that it was the first in a series of movies by Universal Pictures that are intended to reboot the classic line of Universal Monsters. This same article states (although no official sources are named, what a surprise) that Alex Kurtzman & Chris Morgan were slated to start this reboot of interconnected monster movies starting with a film about the Mummy slated for a 2016 release. This has been met with little to no fanfare that I can find on the internet until recently. Through the magic of social media I came across a petition on Change.org. This petition titled “Save The Universal Monsters!” is asking people to sign to petition Universal Pictures to not reboot the classic franchises of Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman and others.
It’s what you would expect from a fan written petition: States that the original films are classics and that to make reboots of them would sully their legacy. In the typical fan-boy fashion they are seeking a ridiculous 100,000 people to sign this petition. As of this writing it boasts a measly 192 supporters. Here is the full text from the author of this petition:
“Through generations and generations, the face of horror has been defined by the iconic Universal Monsters such as the Frankenstein Monster, Dracula, Wolf Man, Invisible Man, the Creature From The Black Lagoon, Phantom Of The Opera, and countless others. Each and every character has sent shivers of fear and delight through the minds of children of all ages since their initial releases so long ago, echoing from the silver screen and into our homes. Today, these classics are up against an idea even more terrifying than the creatures themselves; Universal Pictures has announced plans to reboot these amazing films. Trouble is, they will not remain in the realm of horror… Why would some of the beloved, first ever cinematic embodiments of the genre be re-created in the form mindless action films?
Please sign this if you are at all interested in preserving the legacy and the terror that these characters have brought into our lives and will presumably bring into the lives of all generations to come… If the stories are to be told for a new audience, so be it. But these horror icons do not deserve to become savagely destroyed by conversion to the genre of action, and we certainly don’t deserve to stand by and watch exactly that happen.”
Attached is the rather laughable letter that would be sent to Universal/NBC/Comcast if they somehow manage to get enough people to sign:
“For nearly a century, the beloved classic monsters immortalized by Universal Pictures have sent shivers down the spines of all-aged children. It was recently announced that these stories are to be re-booted under the genre of “Action.” Please consider looking over the numbers of all who are opposed to the idea and possibly contemplate the idea of preserving these tales of terror in their own genres that they practically invented so long ago. If they are to be rebooted to share the tales with newer generations, so be it. However, we don’t find it proper that they be recounted in such an opposite tone. Their genre deserves a respectful preservation. Thank you for your consideration.”
That all said, am I the only one tired of the constant belly graveling of internet fans who get up in arms whenever a remake or reboot of their favorite thing happens? We’ve seen this time and time again, and usually the results are the same: the studios ignore them and release the movie anyway.
This petition is utterly useless and is a waste of energy because it’ll never accomplish it’s end goal. Why? Because even if those sources turn out to be true, the fact that this is becoming public knowledge means that the studios have already put a significant amount of money into developing these projects. Moreover, if they are pushing ahead with these reboots, it means that “Dracula Untold” made a decent amount of money for them to consider rebooting their other franchises. Which means, and this shouldn’t come as a shock to any of you, people actually paid money to go and see it. Hate to break it to some of you sunshine girls out there in internet land, but a movie studio is going to back a project that makes money, if they see doing an all action (another unconfirmed fact) version of these franchises, then they’re going to make it regardless what a group of fans of the original films think.
To the Hollywood machine you’re just a niche market, they don’t make any movies — horror or otherwise — with such a limited viewing audience. No matter how self-important you think you and your fan-base are, Hollywood just doesn’t make movies for one single group. They’re going to try to appeal to as many demographics as they can to reap the most amount of money from the films they develop. It’s a fact of life, and the fact that this hasn’t sunk into your head at this point shows a distinct lack of understand of how the entertainment business works.
Is that a good thing? I don’t necessarily think so, but to think that you can change the direction of a major studio then you need a stiff reality check.
Here’s why this petition is pointless, ill thought, and just down right wrong in a lot of cases.
Yes these movies are classics but….
First and foremost, I love the Universal Monster movies. They are classics in their own right. They are important films, an integral part of cinematic history, and period pieces to a specific time period. What scared people back in the 1930s and 1940s was vastly different back then. Films with audio — or talkies — were still relatively new, and the entire process of making film was still very much in its experimental phases. Black and white films were also a unique art form where cinematographers had to make use of some rather archaic film making techniques to make a cohesive story. It was a time consuming and expensive venture. The proper lighting and sound was crucial, and getting a finished product in as few takes as possible was important. Story telling was vastly different back then as well. When you compare the Universal Monster films to the books they were inspired by, they were actually watered down versions of classical horror literature. It was a sign of the times, the precursor to the MPAA that regulated the film industry made sure that even these horror films were not going to offend the lilly white morality of the 1930s American film goer.
In Dracula, the titular monster didn’t have fangs, and you never saw him actually bite any of his victims. Everyone wore conservative dress that left little titillating for the audiences (compared to the Mexican version of Dracula that was made at the same time with the same sets with Mexican actors, that one had cleavage as far as the eye could see.) There was little to no blood, nobody died in camera, you didn’t see Frankenstein sewing together his monster. The Wolfman’s transformation was revolutionary for its time, but was just some run of the mill transitional fades. The most menacing thing the Creature from the Black Lagoon did was carry passed out damsels hither and yonder.
What I am trying to get at, regardless how compelling these stories were, they were re-written for a specific generation of film goers, and a general audience at that. What was frightening and scary to the average viewer back in the 1930s is not going to carry the same muster on an audience of today. Sure, the petition argues that children have been frightened for generations by these classic movies. But…. Have they really? I mean, I watched all of these movies when I was a kid, and I can tell you that I wasn’t frightened. If anything I think that the fact that we consider these movies scary at all is the fact that our popular culture has engraved into us that not only the Universal Monster renditions of these literary classics are frightening to children, but every permutation thereof. These are cultural hang-overs from our days of superstitions where tales of vampires, werewolves and the reanimated dead were almost believed and people protected themselves with talismans to ward off these potential evils. These superstitions were ingrained into much of our culture for centuries. Once the formation of popular culture by form of literature and film came to fruition, combined with the fact that our knowledge of science has basically extinguished old superstitions, we have come to regard these tales as frightening to only those viewed as the most vulnerable in our society: children.
That all said, what I am getting at is you could not take the 1931 rendition of Dracula with Bela Lugosi and translate it word for word and remake it for a modern audience. It just won’t stick. It wouldn’t entertain a modern audience. Forget whatever pretentious notions you have that you might have picked up from a film study class, or from listening to your asinine message board buddies for a second: people go to the movies to be entertained. Plain and simple. While you may not appreciate what counts as popular entertainment today, you have to understand that the majority of people do. Suck it up, if what current trends go against your personal grain, you’re not going to win the war because no matter how well intentioned you might think you are you’re not really going to affect change. Trends come and go at their own leisure, one lone asshole screaming on his internet soapbox isn’t going to go change people’s collective idea of what is entertaining. You’re wasting a lot of time and energy being negative. Lighten up a little.
The Classics Are Not Going Anywhere
The Universal Monster movies are considered classics across the board. Just because Hollywood wants to make newer iterations, be it a classical retelling, a reboot, or taking it in a new direction does not eliminate these films. These film classics still make the studios very very rich even though they were made over 70 years ago. The fact that you even know they exist is a testament to how successful they are. If I were to be so bold as to make an assumption of the person posting this petition online is a rather young man, I don’t know too many people who were around in the 30s caring all that much that they’re remaking an old movie they saw during the Depression. So perhaps you don’t have the perspective of age to really make you see the point. I’m not ancient myself, but at 32, this phenomenon of remaking or rebooting films is nothing new to me. The fact of the matter is, no matter what remakes and reboots that are out there, if the original film is good enough, and seminal enough to make a lasting impression on future generations, then it’s going to surpass any remakes that may come out in the years that go by.
I would say that the Universal Monster pictures have certainly guaranteed that they will remain the classics they are in all time. Not just because they resonate with old fans and continue to attract new ones, but also because the studios know they can make them more money. This is probably one of the few points where you can be thankful for a movie studio wanting to make more money. Today you can still purchase copies of these old classics. Be it at your local video store or online ship. Heck you can digitally download the films or have them streamed to whatever devices you happen to have. Getting access to these old classics is easier than ever.
More to the point, Universal recently dumped a ton of money into these films recently as part of their 100th anniversary celebration. Universal took 100 of their best films — including all the seminal Universal Monster movies — and remastered them and restored them to crystal clear high definition. More over, this past Halloween they released box sets of all the Universal Monster films and their various spin-offs and sequel films.
To say that these movies are inaccessible to future generations is ridiculous and overly dramatic. These movies will endure and people will still keep watching them. The fact that you know they exist and love them is proof of that. If nobody was interested in them, they wouldn’t play on television or be commercially available — especially around Halloween.
Um, These are Reboots Also…
I find the most hilarious thing about this petition is that it is begging a major motion picture company to not remake/reboot of a series of films that are also remake/reboots. Almost all of the Universal Monster films were adaptations or inspired by novels, or plays. Or they were taking ancient mythology and culture and cashing in on them. Mostly because the books and concepts were in the public domain, therefor anyone could make movies about the subjects in question (more on that later).
Before these film versions came around there were the original stories, and also numerous plays based on them. In fact Dracula itself is based on a 1924 play, and there were film versions of Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll, and Phantom of the Opera all had past films. Very few of the Universal Monster films were based on original material that hadn’t already been previously adapted for film or stage. You could argue that the Wolf Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon are original creations — but are they really? A werewolf and a fish creature? You obviously are not up on mythology and ancient superstitions.
To argue that these are immutable classics that should not be remade completely misses the fact that these films would not exist themselves had they not been adapted from previous mediums.
The notion that you have to stop retelling old tales after a certain point also misses the fact that….
These Films Have Been Remade Multiple Times
You must also be forgetting that these films have been remade multiple times after with varying degrees of success. If they didn’t do remakes, Hammer Films would never have done Count Dracula in 1970 starring Christopher Lee, also regarded as a cinematic classic. Or how about the 1992 remake by Francis Ford Coppola? There have since been four Frankenstein films. The Mummy has been remade a handful of times.
On top of all that, the concepts and characters from these stories have been used in everything from big budget Hollywood films, to the lowest budget piece of trash cinema. Like I said earlier, these characters are not new concepts or gimmicks, they have literally been around for hundreds of years and people have rehashed, reused, and outright ripped off these ideas time and time again. Some of it is creative laziness, others give it a new twist, or a new perspective.
And not all of them are great, and because of that a lot of them get forgotten or just outright avoided. Do you think anyone is going to give two craps about Dracula 3-D that came out in 2012? Not any more than people are going to jump for Wes Craven’s snorefest Dracula 2000. Because they weren’t great movies, and without greatness they are at best recalled with revilement, or at worst forgotten outright. Yet these classic Universal Monster movies continue to be regarded as what they are. Which brings me to my last point….
If You Want to Send a Message To the Studios…
Don’t go see the movie. In fact don’t even talk about it. You ever hear the phrase “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”? Well it’s true. Just ask the horrid band Nickleback (who, as a Canadian, I feel the need to apologize for) Most of you reading this will agree that Nickleback is a terrible band, am I right? Of course, but you’re probably left wondering how on Earth they can be so insanely popular. It’s quite simple really: The negative publicity. Yeah, while people have been spending decades mocking them and writing all manner of negative things on the internet about the group it has all done the opposite of what people were intending to do.
See, the negative press only piqued people’s interest, believe it or not some people when hearing something is awful will be curious enough to check it out themselves just to see how bad it really is. It’s akin to slowing down to check out a car wreck. Now while you’d hope most people would look at that metaphorical mangled body and vomit all over themselves in utter disgust, but some people metaphorically drive by and pop a boner when they see those dead limbs sticking out from the twisted steel.
Bad horror movies are like that as well, this is a fan base that also revels in awful films. How many horror films are considered classic because they are not good, but horrifically bad? In being negative about this a film, people might even go and see it based on that curiosity alone.
Horrible movies are like that, and the internet machine is such that if people bitch about enough, that bad press is going to compel people to go out and see it anyway. Look how many of you heard that they were rebooting your favorite Saturday morning cartoon into a gritty explosion filled movie, and even though you uttered the lines “they’ve ruined my childhood” (aside: if you did, grow the fuck up) yet still ended up in the theater watching it anyway? How many horror fans lamented that they were remaking yet another horror franchise, and even though they knew it was going to be awful still went out and saw it? Now factor in the idea that a lot of people, if they’ll admit it in public or not, might actually go in an expect the worse and turn out to actually like it instead?
If people go to see the movie, and it makes enough money, then they are going to keep making those films.
Which you know what… Lets fucking get into this…
It Might Not Actually Be That Bad
Yeah, what a concept! The more I write about this petition I come to consider it one of the stupidest things I have ever read, and is the epitome of what I hate about fan-culture at large. They have announced reboot/remake/re-imagining of such a franchise. There’s no script, nothing has been casted, not a single scene has been shot. At best you may know who is slated to write and direct the film. Outside of that, almost nothing is known about it. Sure later down the pipe actors will be named and production will start, and little tidbits will be revealed — as publicity tends to go — but time and time again, right from the announcement phase fans will bitch and complain about something without the project being anywhere close to finished.
Why waste all your time and energy complaining about something that doesn’t even exist yet? Or worse, that is not even complete? This sort of mentality drives me bat shit. Constantly being negative about every publicity photo, concept, sketch, casting decision, preview… Whatever… What is wrong with you people that you need to be so god damn negative all the time?
Instead of getting mad and shouting about things you have no creative control over, how about you focus your energies on something more constructive? Or here’s an idea, go and watch the version you know and love and just log off the fucking internet until you cool down.
If there is any fitting punishment I could wish on a chronic pop-culture complainer is to have a large, angry person, follow that person and berate them before they start any thing. This berating would start until they woke up in the morning until they went to sleep at night, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Oh and this person is going to belittle you in all the worst, demeaning ways, call you every sort of insult in the book and make wild assumptions about you. Just like you do on the internet all day.
Again going back to the above mentioned petition, they are claiming that an “all-action/non-horror” version of these films would not be entertaining. Says who? And where are you getting that these are going to be “all-action” and how do you take a story like Frankenstein or Dracula and make them “non-horror”? Unless you expunge all the super-natural elements it’s not going to be a non-horror film. And really, all-action = non-entertaining? Have you ever seen Dead Snow? How about Frankenstein’s Army? Van Helsing? You can make a horror themed movie with action elements and have it turn out at least watchable if not entertaining.
A remake is not a horrible thing, there have been many very excellent remakes that match if not surpass the original material. John Carpenter’s the Thing, the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dawn of the Dead, hell even the remake of Amityville Horror was pretty damn good.
Just because a movie is a remake or a reboot does not mean it’s a bad thing, some of them are actually quite good and you shouldn’t white wash every single one with the same brush.
So maybe just give it a try and see if you like it.
If not, just ignore it and don’t talk about it. Chances are if you don’t it’ll disappear or be relegated to the realm of movies that are scoffed and made fun of.
And most importantly of all: shut the fuck up. Seriously. I am tired of hearing you whine.
When a franchise is handed down to another team of writers, something always gets lost in translation. Sometimes a franchise can endure because of it, or more often than not it completely shits the bed. No truer a statement can be said than the works of Eli Roth. Roth has made a name for himself with his brutal, realistic horror films that focus primarily on real life evils, or dangers, as opposed to the usual super-natural or cookie-cutter slasher variety. From the original Cabin Fever, and both Hostel films are great horror movies that aren’t about your typical horror movie fare. Even when he gets behind a film as a producer, the horror films that are churned out aren’t your common place boogie man films. Aftershock made earthquakes scary again and to a lesser extent the Last Exorcism films. Although I have not seen it, I suspect that The Green Inferno is going to be pure Roth.
