Kevin Lucia's Blog, page 10

Text and Subtext 30: The Horror that Rises from the Tomb

You may be cool, but you’ll never be Paul Naschy cool. So cool, in this movie, he plays both the good guy and the bad guy. There’s an evil sorcerer/vampire/warlock thing who get executed, and to keep him dead, his head is chopped off. Of course, the head is kept seperate from the body, and years later, the head is reuinted with the body, and all sorts of shenangins ensue. Watch it on Tubi.

How A Christian Fell in Love With the Horror Genre #8

In the cold light of adulthood, there are many ways this experience can be rationalized, and maybe even explained away as trivial. Regardless of what we actually blundered into exploring that old house, our experiences in the Devil House marked a turning point in my reading and writing interests.

Abruptly, aliens, creatures, and monsters from other planets paled in comparison to the terrors and monsters that could be found right here, in the dark and shadowy corners on our own world…or inside the human heart.

Which, of course, begged the question: This was Cooperstown, New York. Home of the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Corvette Museum. The place couldn't get any more “All-American,” and it was a picturesque hub of tourist activity. Someone in this “picturesque, All-American” town harbored some...unique hobbies, to say the least. This contrast intrigued me far more than aliens, starships, lasers or transporters ever could.

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Text and Subtext 29: The Werewolf and the Vampire Woman

I’m on a Paul Naschy kick. He’s like the 70s Spanish John Saxon. An icon. If a Spanish horror movie had Paul Naschy in it, you knew you were in for a ride. I’m no cinema historian by any means, but it seems like for a period there, he was in every Spanish horror movie coming out.

Anyway, this is a fun flick. A little more intense than the title implies. Even with the dubbing, Paul carries himself with a strange sort of dignity and grace, and this is certianly no “Frankenstein VS. Wolfman.” Check it on Tubi.

How A Christian Fell in Love With the Horror Genre #7

The room I entered was dusty, cluttered, and it smelled old. Twigs and rags littered the floor. The yellowed and stained wallpaper was peeling, and the floor creaked with every step. At the room's far end, two doors on either side of a fireplace led into the next room. From my vantage point I saw what looked like bricks on the floor. Except they looked organized. Almost if they'd been laid out in a pattern.

“Hey. Guys. When did you come here last?”

There was a slight pause, and then, “Not since last spring. Why?”

I craned my neck, trying to get a better look. “Well, last time…did you see bricks on the floor in the far room? Laid out, in like…patterns?”

Silence.

“Um. No.”

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Text and Subtext 33: Exorcism

This Paul Naschy flick didn’t quite work for me. A little of a departure from some of the other films of his I’d seen, it was an attempt at a slow-burn “Excorcist” rip-off, and it doesn’t quite hold up for me. It’s a little two slow, and in this case, our possessed girl just comes off as an entitled rich girl. I dunno. Unfortunately, this just didn’t land for me, but check it out for yourself on Tubi.

How A Christian Fell in Love With the Horror Genre #6

Anecdote:

Why the Hell do I Love this Creepy Stuff?

Disclaimer: I'm writing this after several whiskeys. Obviously, I'll edit the grammatical gaffes; but the fluid stream-of-consciousness writing I'll leave intact. In any case, this book is exploring why I, as a Christian who believes in God and believes Christ died on the cross so we could be with God someday, would love the weird, macabre, dark freakiness of the horror genre.

I sometimes have no freaking clue. I just finished a schlokey 80's horror movie called The Pit on Shudder. It's about a sexually disturbed boy who hears an evil voice from his Teddy Bear telling him to do things, and also discovers a pit out in the woods with flesh-eating creatures in it, which he then feeds all the terrible people who have bullied him. Now, it's an eighties movie, so while there's nudity and gore, it's not over-the-top or gratuitous. Even so. It's a pretty messed up movie for a Christian to watch. So why the hell am I watching it?

I honestly dunno.

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How A Christian Fell in Love With the Horror Genre #5

4.

The Invasion of the Monstrous

As I've already mentioned (I feel like this is a phrase I'll definitely be editing out because of over-usage), I initially wanted to write science fiction, and it wasn't just because I grew up on a steady diet of Star Trek – and eventually Star Wars – novels. In 10th grade I discovered the Foundation series by Issac Asimov. For whatever reason, this series grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I eventually read through all of them (thankfully our high school library had the whole series), and by the time I'd discovered the link between Asimov's Foundation and his Robot series and his other books, I was convinced I wanted to be a science fiction writer.

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Text and Subtext #28: Demons

This is one of those movies that presents itself as one thing, then turns out to be another thing entirely. Not a bad flick, for all let. Less horror, more supernatural mystery, really. And bonus points for the creepy ick twist at the end I wasn’t expecting. All in all, not a bad way to spend an evening. On Tubi.

How a Christian Fell in Love With the Horror Genre #4

During the past two days of writing, I played The Boogey Man and The Ice Cream Man in the background. The Boogey Man, a terribly cheap movie shot on video, was about an evil, cursed mirror that captured the essence of a brutal murder, and as the movie goes on, it plays out images of that murder years later to torment the children of the husband and wife murdered. The past, though buried, isn't dead. It's still there, it still torments us, and sometimes, it's lethal.

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Text and Subtext #26: ARCADE

Peter Billingsley, John Delancie, and Seth Green (for, like fifteen minutes)? Sure! Sign me up. A post-TRON, pre-LAWNMOWER man riff on the dangers of virtual reality and AI. Full of campy fun and terrible special effects, (a dead as a wooden corpse performance by Billingsley) I bet Billingsley was thinking if he’d just had his Red Rider BB gun with the compass in the stock, he could’ve sorted all this out a lot sooner. Watch on Tubi now.