I Know What I Did This Summer

So, it would appear that I’m back from my annual blogcation, that annual respite I allow myself during the month of July. Truth is, I’ve been swamped with projects and have been teetering at that frustrating crossroads in every writer’s life – between day job and writing – so the time away did me good, allowed me to catch up and regroup a bit.

In any event, I suspect this blog entry will be a hodgepodge of odds and ends meant to catch you up and finish some unfinished business. I sense a bulleted list on the horizon!

So, what did you think about HARPER’S ISLAND? First, I have to give some serious props to CBS for running the entire limited-run series – even if the network did screw the pooch a bit by relegating the show to Saturday nights (aka television’s graveyard shift). The show gained some serious momentum by the second half of its run, establishing genuine tension, peppering the proceedings with red herrings galore, and delivering a respectable body count. I was completely wrong in my guess of whodunit – suspecting that the unseen slasher was Maggie, the seemingly kindly wedding planner. Perhaps confirming why Agatha Christie stumped me every single time, it would appear that Maggie was, indeed, just a kindly wedding planner after all. (But, seriously, did they really have to let the poor thing’s body swing there outside the bar for so long?). I won’t ruin the big reveal for those of you waiting for the forthcoming DVD, but, suffice to say, the ending was fairly unpredictable and kept you guessing. Not surprised that CBS opted not to renew the series (the idea would have been to have another limited-run story arc play out with a new cast and new storyline) since the ratings were low by network standards despite respectable marketing efforts, but I hope some forward-thinking cable outlet will give the concept of another mystery/slasher limited-run series a shot. I hear some book called THE LITERARY SIX would make for some excellent source material!

During my blogging hiatus, I also managed to catch up on a few films I missed in the theaters. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed MIRRORS, especially going into it with the preconceived notion that it would suck ass. Far from the greatest horror film ever made, it nonetheless held my interest and gave me a few calculated shivers. I was equally surprised by how not-totally-bad the remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL was. Now, I preface that statement with the disclaimer that I want to be reincarnated as Kathy Bates and that I’d watch her sit on a stool and talk into a camera for two hours without blinking. But, like MIRRORS, I could think of far worse ways to spend a few hours of down time. Same goes for ONE MISSED CALL – the weakest of the lot – but still far from the worse films I’ve ever seen. OK, not exactly ringing endorsements, so want an actual recommendation? COLD PREY. I’m late to the game on this Norwegian-lensed snowbound slasher, but this film is the real deal. It’s everything fans loved about the old school slashers (relatively attractive cast making bad decisions in an impossibly isolated location with more flawed logic than Proposition 8), with the added appeal of genuinely tense direction, a truly frightening, believable villain, and a refreshing lack of self-referential humor and one-liners. This is a balls-to-the-wall slasher film – nothing groundbreaking, but authentic to its core.

Project-wise, I’ve made the tough decision to push THE RENEWED to the side right now, opting instead to pour all of my concentration into FINAL GIRL. I’ve got so many pans in the fire right now that limit my available writing time as it is, so I had to pick one to focus on. After taking an insightful online workshop with my friend Alex Sokoloff a few months ago, I determined that FINAL GIRL simply has more commercial appeal. During Stoker Weekend this past June, I pitched the novel to two publishers, both of whom asked to see it when it’s done. So, what’s it about? Here’s the logline (with special thanks to both Chad Helder and Ms. Sokoloff for lending me their ears in Burbank to get it just right):

A former criminal psychologist with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, a cub reporter who once jeopardized an old case, and a gay film historian form an unlikely alliance in tracking a serial killer targeting former scream queens and murdering them in elaborate re-creations of murder set pieces from 80’s slasher movies.

Oh, yes, my fellow slasher brethren, there will be trivia bits aplenty and more inside nods and winks to the diehard slasher fan than Sarah Palin makes political faux pas. This one’s decidedly a thriller with strong horror overtones. In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing more with you during new installments of ‘Writerly Stuff’.

Now that submissions have closed, editing on BUTCHER KNIVES & BODY COUNTS has commenced. This is going to be a whopper of a tome, and I’m very excited about the quality of the essays submitted. I’ll be making the long-delayed announcement about the remaining contributors who’ll be rounding out the collection as soon as one or two stragglers (and you know who you are!) submit their pieces. I think it’s safe to say that the book is on target for its April/May release, and there are some exciting plans in the works for the launch party (Hint: Think film premiere!). I’ve also been approached about editing a themed anthology by another publisher and am now waiting to hear back on the formal proposal. Details will follow if the publisher bites back.

Loving the new season of TRUE BLOOD! Thrilled that Jason Stackhouse is done with that Fellowship of the Sun church business and hope he soon gets back to his lothario (read: naked) ways. Looks like the plotline involving Maryann the Maened is escalating just in time for Sookie, Bill, and company’s arrival back in Bon Temps. Say what you will about that sharp-clawed, shapeshifting she-beast, but she sure knows how to throw one hell of a party!

Trashy pop culture-wise, I enjoyed a wonderful season of Kathy Griffin’s MY LIFE ON THE D-LIST and am now in the thick of things on the new BIG BROTHER and HDTV’s DESIGN STAR. On the former, I’m thrilled that prissy, preening Jesse is gone and hope nerdy Michele has the cajones to put loud-mouthed Chima and the spoiled brat-like Natalie on the block in the upcoming double eviction week. On the latter, I’m rooting for the adorable Dan Vickery to win because 1) he’s good with power tools and 2) HDTV needs another drop-dead hunk with piercing eyes hosting one of its shows.

I've also added a virtual bookshelf to the blog. These are all books that either influenced my writing or just gave me countless hours of reading pleasure over the years. In most cases, a little of both. I'm proud to call some of these writers friends and colleagues now, so I hope you'll give the list a glance. Maybe grab a copy of one or two of the books on my list from your local independent bookstore or library and help keep reading alive and well.

Finally, the League of Tana Tea Drinkers has remained quite busy these past few months – adding several new worthy members to its ranks: Cinema Fromage, Cinema Suicide, Classic Horror, Day of the Woman, Evil on Two Legs, Fascination with Fear, I Love Horror, Igloo of the Uncanny, and Uranium Café. The blogroll at the right has been updated with the LOTT D’s current lineup, so please take a few moments and visit these intriguing blog worlds. Plus, want to know something about the bloggers themselves? Then check out the new member profiles at the LOTT D homepage.

Say It Ain’t So, Fango!

So, like the rest of our plastic surgery-obsessed culture, Fangoria magazine has apparently decided to give itself a facelift. Seemingly gone is the iconic 35mm film strip image running along the left-hand border – complete with near-satirical captions – replaced by one center image flanked on either side by generic blurbs about what’s inside the magazine. It’s like someone hit the snooze button on the magazine’s cover design. Visually, it’s boring and the design does nothing to set it apart from its competitors.

Now, in the interest of disclosure, I have to admit my bias in considering the new cover. Like many horror fans in their mid-life years, I grew up with Fangoria. I have vivid memories of the anticipation of the bike ride over to the local comic book store – snowy afternoons and summer mornings alike – hoping beyond hope that the latest issue had arrived. I remember trying to guess which film from the previous issue’s “Things To Come" would warrant the coveted central cover, and which films would earn a place in the filmstrip. I remember the joy over arriving at the comic store to find the magazine stacked a dozen deep on the shelf and the disappointment when I didn’t. I remember the build-up during the bike ride home, simultaneously torturing myself with the delayed perusal and willing my feet to pedal faster with the expectancy of that glorious feeling once I allowed myself to fully delve in. I remember how I savored each and every full-color shot of Tom Savini’s latest gore effect, how I gazed in awe at the lavish four-page spread reverently bestowed upon the latest obscurity-destined Canadian slasher film. It would be no understatement to say that Fangoria shaped my love for horror, cultivating my particular tastes within the genre.

But one of the central aspects of this thirty-year love affair with Fangoria has been its staunch refusal to change even when everything else around it did. Horror magazines came and went, trends in horror films were born, died, and were resurrected. Yet Fangoria has, in large part, been the one and only constant in the horror genre’s cyclical evolution, as reliable in its distinctive look as in its mission, focus, and content. The Fangoria cover has long been the proud bearer of the magazine’s unique brand, one it took great pains to create, nurture, and sustain for thirty years. The magazine’s cover spoke to that, telling the market and its competitors that it was a force to be reckoned with and that the loyalty of its readers could sustain the consistency of its product. Maybe it’s a sign of the times when a business seeks to redefine itself, and perhaps it should be no surprise that Fangoria appears to be doing just that.

But it’s damn sad. Sad because the magazine has bucked the trend for so long. Sad because the magazine has never needed to, its reputation as the premiere horror entertainment magazine remaining intact for three decades under the steady, guiding hand of longtime editor Tony Timpone and crew.

Tweak the cover to keep it fresh, but don’t change its essence. The new logo with its fang-slanted bottom tips, for example, is particularly effective because it builds on what preceded it; it doesn’t throw the baby out with the dishwater.

Maybe this is a test to gauge reader reaction, a temporary design nightmare from which we’ll all wake up to find ourselves safe and snug in our own beds. Let’s hope so because the Fangoria cover spoke volumes for thirty years. Now, it’s a mere whisper of its former self.

The Trouble with Horror Movies Today

Modern horror movies have lost their innocence. Sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s true. Gone are the days of wide-eyed awe at creatures that defied explanation and dazzled with their improbability, monsters that sprung forth from our internalized fears onto the screen. The modern horror film is less thematic and more about…well, everyday horror.

Trouble is that genre films today are more focused on the depiction of horror where horror films past concentrated on the personification of horror. Horror once spoke subtly, using allegory and metaphor and symbolism to convey the horror at its core. Horror spoke to you through the back door; it whispered in your ear. Headlines of the day were cloaked in comforting doses of filmmakers’ imagination—monsters and make-believe terrors. You escaped with horror to indirectly deal with broader societal issues that terrified or confused you—communism, war, racism, sexual liberation.

With its propensity for horror that’s ripped from the headlines, the genre now clobbers viewers over the head with the same reality they’re trying to escape. Home invasions, torture abroad, organ harvesters. There's little symbolism, little metaphor, little allegory. It’s all on full, graphic display, and there is no escape. Horror films today force us to confront visceral depictions of the stories we hear on the evening news. Our reality is met with reality masquerading as escapism on the screen. As a result, the horror movie experience is less cathartic, less therapeutic. It reinforces instead of relieves our fears. It's less roller coaster, more carousel.

Perhaps we’ve become too sophisticated for the simple cinematic metaphor, too jaded to buy into the personification of evil, too numb to bloodshed and violence. We know what evil is—we’re inundated with its images and affects 24/7 on streaming newscasts. There seems to be so little that shocks us that the boundaries in modern horror cinema have been stretched to their outer limits. And now that the concept of community is a fading aspect of our culture, there are few collective fears. Tapping into individual fears is a taller order for filmmakers, so they opt for depiction over personification. Moviemakers cop out and recycle ideas instead of creating the next creature from a black lagoon or the next thing from another world. Studios opt for remakes that spit in the eyes of the source material and reimaginings that have less to do with actual imagination and more to do with wringing as many dollars from old ideas with as little effort or artistry as possible. The fun has been zapped from modern horror movies, and we’re often left to suffer through joyless celluloid creations that lack passion for the horror at their core—slick eye candy possessing all the substance of a vacuous blond sipping cosmos at a bar. There are exceptions, of course, but those are few and far between the dreck.

Even the horror movie experience itself has changed drastically. With the fading of community, the collective viewing experience of Saturday afternoon matinees is on the decline. People opt for the comfort and sanctuary of their own home theaters and the resulting experience is heavily dulled down. No longer is there that marvelous shared fear, tension, and anxiety of a hundred people all simultaneously tensing and cowering and jumping and screaming in a crowded movie theater. The enchantment of greasy popcorn and musty theater seats is quickly approaching antiquation as studios contemplate ways to make quicker, bigger bucks by releasing films simultaneously to multiplexes and home viewing markets. We’re developing cultural immunity to our once beloved horror movie experience.

Worse, we’ve created a generation numb to horror films. Their reactions alone—laughter, mockery, derision—bespeak the failure of the modern genre film. Imagination in our young has been replaced by the instantly gratifying images of interactive video games and other high-tech fare that spell it all out on high-definition monitors. There are no spooky walks through the woods, no backyard sleep-outs, no summer camp rites of passage to tantalize and tickle those dark spots in our subconscious. Folklore that once fueled imagination is on the decline, with yarns about Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster and the Bermuda Triangle reduced to tabloid fodder and ridicule from even the youngest of minds. Campfire tales and urban legends have been replaced by sensationalized newscasts. In our scientific world, everything has a rational explanation and there’s little room left for the possibility of things unknown to us. We’re arrogant in our knowledge as a society, and the simplicity of horror cinema has suffered. Sometimes ignorance is bliss—at least when it comes to our horror movies.

Note: This essay originally appeared as part of a group article by the League of Tana Tea Drinkers at Blogcritics Magazine.

'Children of the Corn' Casting Video

Lest you think Hollywood moviemaking is all glitz and glamour and power lunches and red carpet premieres, here's a little clip from yesterday's open casting call for the Sci-Fi Channel's upcoming remake of Stephen King's Children of the Corn. My friend Jamie (who's an accomplished actress and acting teacher in her own right with roles in Just Before Dawn, TV's Falcon Crest, and myriad TV guest appearances including Two and a Half Men last season) is the casting director on the film, and you'll hear her speaking to the throngs of people who showed up at a hotel in Bettendorf, Iowa, on a Sunday morning. It's astounding how many Iowaians want in on this movie!

A Case for Escapism

The always insightful (and equally delightful) Sarah Langan (who's not pictured at left!) has a great essay up at The Humanities Review called "Why I Write Horror." If you're not familiar with Sarah's work, first, hang your head in shame, and then make a beeline for the nearest bookstore and pick up copies of The Keeper and The Missing. If you enjoy well-crafted, literary horror that insinuates rather than clobbers, these are two books you're not likely to soon forget.

In the essay, Sarah addresses the reaction she often receives - and one most horror writers (at least the ones brave enough to still call themselves such) can relate to - from family, friends, and associates when she drops the H-word in answer to the "So, dear, what is it that you write?" question. She goes on to explain her own motivation in writing horror, and in doing so, she draws lines between various genres and what each asks of its readers. One passage that I particularly liked:

"All genres have their intended effects. In mysteries, readers are asked to analyze. They solve puzzles. In science fiction, they imagine new, and occasionally better, worlds. But in horror, readers are asked to feel. That is why, when they put the book on the nightstand and turn out the light, they imagine that the creaking floor might actually be the ghost from the novel, bursting through the fictitious world, and into their bedrooms. They are the Gepettos of the novels they read, and in feeling, they give Pinocchio flesh."

Sarah hypothesizes that the popularity of the horror genre is cyclical and in direct proportion to the state of the world at any given time, asserting that it's no small coincidence that in the late 70's when the world was terrified by a hostage crisis and fearful of an energy shortage that authors and filmmakers with last names like King, Romero, Cronenberg, and Blatty became staples of the pop culture vernacular. Flash forward a quarter of a century later, Langan maintains, and the genre is again surfboarding across a wave of popularity as war rages without foreseeable end, nature seemingly sends message after (largely unheeded) message of environmental instability, and the country is still licking its collective wounds after an unfathomable terrorist attack in what the world thought was one of the unlikeliest places. Factor in a country poised to enter unchartered social territory with a viable African-American presidential candidate, an epidemic of home foreclosures and a suddenly unaffordable American dream, and global paranoia as neighboring countries stockpile weapons of mass destruction, and you've got the makings of a perfect storm ripe for genre consumption.

Sarah makes the case that society needs horror to channel and express the emotions bottled up inside us. It's a way to let off steam, burn off excess emotion like physical exercise burns of excess calories. Because what happens to excess calories? They gather and settle, turning into fat that weighs us down. It's the same thing with excess emotion - it festers, grows, and settles with no outlet. Emotional flab. It weighs us down, becomes overstuffed baggage we can neither move nor close after awhile.

And while some may dismiss horror (and other genre fiction for that matter) as nothing more than pure escapism, I'd caution those quick to trivialize or reject its therapeutic benefits. And I'd counter that with a big "what if." What if society has no outlet for its collective fears? These emotions can only be contained for so long. What's the risk to individual and the collective if fear and stress and frustration have nowhere to go? The human capacity to absorb stress isn't limitless. It can be stretched and strained, but, like balloons, there is a breaking point. There's only so much air a balloon can take; similarly, there's only so much emotional strain a human being can absorb.

Balloons break. But people?

Therein may lie the greatest thing to fear of all.

(More with Sarah Langan at Dark Scribe Magazine)