Bryan Cassiday's Blog, page 5

Romero’s Dead

George Romero is dead.  He pretty much invented the zombie grindhouse flick with his Night of the Living Dead.  The modern zombie story wouldn’t be thriving today without Romero.

Zombies were lumbering oafs in the movies like in White Zombie before Night of the Living Dead came along.  Essentially harmless unless commanded to do evil by someone like Bela Lugosi, they lumbered around with dead eyes.  They lumbered around in Night of the Living Dead too, with one important difference–they had developed a taste for living flesh, especially the human kind.  But they weren’t picky; they ate living bugs, as well.

Their evolution into flesh eaters made them the horrifying creature that they are today in movies and books.

Save 50% on Zombie Apocalypse: The Chad Halverson Series

Save 50% on Amazon Kindle on July 10 on Bryan Cassiday’s horror epic Zombie Apocalypse:  The Chad Halverson Series.  Will Chad Halverson survive long enough to find out what the government is hiding about the zombie apocalypse?

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Kindle Scout campaign for Bryan Cassiday’s new thriller

The Kindle Scout campaign for Bryan Cassiday’s new thriller Force of Impact has launched at Kindle Scout.  Read seven sample chapters for free.

Here is the cover image:

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White Light White Heat–Twin Peaks, episode 8, season 3

Got a light?

Got a light?

How weird was Twin Peaks episode 8, season 3 last night? The show entitled “White Light White Heat” was following the narrative of Agent Cooper’s doppelgänger and his escape from jail, and then it veered off on another tangent altogether, back to the dropping of the A-bomb. Very bizarre. I kept watching it though, trying to figure out what was going on. I believe it was some kind of impressionistic view of mankind after the dropping of the bomb at White Sands, and then there are some alternate realities thrown in. Many of the images remind me of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. This episode is the weirdest and most inexplicable yet of season 3, a season of many weird episodes so far, but nothing like this one, which is sui generis.

Blood Drive review–Bloody Good

Blood Drive is a wild and crazy show on the SyFy network.  It’s a brutal grindhouse series reminiscent of the Walter Hill movie The Warriors and Quentin Tarantino flicks.  Unlike Tarantino flicks, and to its credit, it doesn’t contain long spiels of banal dialog.  It doesn’t have time for endless dialog.

The cars in Blood Drive are something else.  You see, they don’t run on gas; they run on human blood.  After all, what can you expect in 1999?  Say what?  1999?  I must have been asleep that year.  Oh well, the first episode was ludicrous fun with a plethora of action, violence, and oceans of blood.  Whether the rest of the episodes can maintain the churning momentum remains to be seen.  (How many times can you watch humans being fed into car engines amid blood splatter?)  But so far, so good.  This show has plenty of energy and brazen panache abetted by a driving rock score, all of which I found refreshing.  And then there’s Christine Ochoa, the most vicious of the bloodthirsty racers.  How can we forget her?

The Outlaw’s Terminology for Writing Fiction

Character development:  usually an excuse for being boring.

Denouement:  a French term indicating that not a damn thing is going to happen in this story.

Plot:  when a writer falls victim to excessive scheming.

Deus ex machina:  the writer has painted himself into a corner.

Terminology for Writing Fiction

Character development:  usually an excuse for being boring.

Denouement:  a French term indicating that not a damn thing is going to happen in this story.

Plot:  when a writer falls victim to excessive scheming.

Deus ex machina:  the writer has painted himself into a corner.

It’s a winner

Bryan Cassiday’s short story “Boxed” was published in the new Darkwater Syndicate anthology Shadows and Teeth Volume Two, which has just won the International Book Award for best horror fiction anthology of 2017.

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Alien: Covenant–I recommend it

I saw Alien:  Covenant. I really like it. How does Ridley Scott sleep at night dreaming this stuff up? Any horror movie that has Wagner’s Entrance of the Gods to Valhalla on its soundtrack has got to be good. And did I mention that thing called Alien? Plenty of grisly Alien attacks, some terrifying silvery dust, and a new white mutant Alien that looks almost human.  I’m not going to tell you how this creature came about.  Suffice it to say, it all fits in with the plot and that cave they go into.  I don’t want to give anything away.

I enjoyed the intriguing ending, too, which keeps you guessing until . . .

No director alive does horror better than Ridley.

Shadows and Teeth Volume Two–a new horror anthology

Bryan Cassiday’s horror story “Boxed” is included in the new anthology Shadows and Teeth Volume Two.  Don’t miss it.

Prepare for extreme horror. This unique collection of ten stories features a range of international talent: award-winning authors, masters of horror, rising stars, and fresh new voices in the genre. Take care as you reach into these dark places, for the things here bite, and you may withdraw a hand short of a few fingers.

In “Boxed,” a group of strangers trapped in an elevator run short of time and bullets as they attempt to discover who among them is infected with a deadly plague.

Buy it now at Amazon.

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