Kevin Lucia's Blog, page 9

Text and Subtext 36: The Beast Within

You have to ignore a somewhat sketchy backstory - as to how eating human flesh transformed someone into a mutated monster (like a wendigo, but that explaination is never offered) - but even so, this is an entertaining and gory movie about a teenage boy fighting to keep his “heritage” at bay as his body goes through some “changes.” Hard to miss the coded subtext of adulthood and sexual awakening as something hideous and monstrous, but don’t worry, it doesn’t take itself that seriously. It’s a bloody, gory good time with that great 80s/90s practical effects. Check it out, now.

How A Christian Fell in Love With the Horror Genre #14

In Re-Animator, Bride of Re-animator, and Beyond Re-animator, a classic and time-honored tale is told and retold in all of its splattery, puply glory: Don’t play God. Don’t try to reanimate the dead. Don’t use science to probe into areas that are not man’s province. Don’t assemble a body from dead body parts, and don’t conduct unethical experiments on unwilling – or dead – subjects.

It always ends badly.

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Text and Subtext 35: The Slayer

The Slayer is 80s horror gold, the kind of movie that represents the best of what 80s B movies had to offer. Four people stranded on an island, one woman who’s convinced her nightmares come to live and manifest, and something picking people off one by one. This one had some nice suspense, and a very classic 80s horror ending. A lot of fun, check it out on Tubi.

How A Christian Fell in Love With the Horror Genre #13

I don’t write horror, I write “inspiration supernatural suspense thrillers”….or, something.

A couple years passed. I met Abby – my wife – got married, settled down, landed a full-time job teaching junior high English, and started the process of raising a family. At this point, all pretenses of my being a science writing had vanished. I stopped reading and watching science fiction (with the exception of the latest Star Wars and Star Trek novels, of course), and I’d gotten very busy writing something...else.

But what?

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Text and Subtext 34: Crypt of Dark Secrets

There are some bad 70s and 80s movies that we’re thankful have been made, (because we like our junkfood, oh yes we do) and then there are some which we wonder how did these get made? Crypt of Dark Secrets belongs in the latter category. I’m pretty sure it didn’t have any real actors in it at all.

Anyway, there’s this Army Ranger, and he lives on an island in a swamp in Louisanna, and some thieves kill him to get his retirement money, and then Dambala brings the Army Ranger back to life by making out with him, and then there are voo-doo dolls, curses, backstory, and this one naked chick (Dambala) dancing over and over again. If that sort of thing sounds like a good time, check it out on Tubi.

How A Christian Fell in Love With the Horror Genre #12

In Sinister, Ethan Hawke plays a desperate and driven true-crime writer looking for his next big break. After a lukewarm career writing fiction, and the fast fame he experienced with his first true-crime novel, Hawke’s character is desperate to maintain his writer’s life, and doesn’t want to have to “lower himself” by teaching and editing textbooks. He wants to provide for his family by following his passion...something all artists can relate to.

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Text and Subtext 32: The Werewolf and the Yeti

Yep, it’s another Paul Naschy joint. In this one, you’ve got an archelogist obsessed with finding the Yeti. who doesn’t listen to advice, goes and gets lost in the Tibetan mountains, and is found by two hot werewolf chicks who turn him into a werewolf so they can have a lover (of course, he disagrees, kills them, and escapes), and once you mix in a band of savage warriors who like to rape, pillage, and kill, along with the Yeti - who doesn’t really show up until the last act - and you’ve got a good time. Also, interestingly, Lon Chaney’s THE WOLFMAN has its fingerprints all over this. Check it out on Tubi.

How A Christian Fell in Love With the Horror Genre #11

6.

My life falls into shadow, and I ask...Why?

A momentary and only slightly annoying biographical pause.

“I want an explanation, please, for all of the soul-sick, broken-hearted people who become so hollowed by their aloneness that they turn on the gas, eat the business end of shotgun, or find a ceiling beam that can take their weight. I want sense made of this. I want to know the reason why…and since none is forthcoming, either from above or those around me, I’ve decided to try and find an answer on my own. So far, the best—the only—way for me to work toward this is through writing horror stories.” – Gary Braunbeck, To Each their Darkness

A lot more than just my reading tastes changed during the time period which spanned 1997 – 2001. My life changed dramatically, also. My four year college basketball career – which had served a primary focus and driving force in my life – had ended, leaving me adrift and directionless. I was at the tail end of a two-year stint at a fairly expensive Bible College, with no clear academic or vocational goal in mind. I certainly wasn’t planning on entering the ministry anytime soon, that was for sure.

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Text and Subtext 31: The Zero Boys

This is one of those quintessential 80s movies that’s somehow way better than it should be. A bunch of macho paintballers go out into the wilderness and suddenly find themselves in a real fight to the death. Think a lower budget Rambo with surprisingly adept acting (witha heavy dose of machismo and and some moderate misogyny), and you’re on target. This is great time, and fun watching. Catch it on Tubi.

How A Christian Fell in Love With the Horror Genre #10

I bought The Stand in the most innocuous of places: a yard sale (knowing how King discovered his father's old and yellowed horror paperbacks in an attic years after his father abandoned him, I somehow think he'd approve). It's a cloth-bound hardcover edition, without the cover wrap, and one corner of it looks like it's been chewed by a cat. It's also the “Author's Preferred Edition,” and therefore the only edition I've ever read.

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