Charlie Walls's Blog, page 2

At the Mountains of Madness Movie!

Jonesing for a big screen adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness? Upset after del Toro’s stab at it failed? Congratulations, there’s already an A+ Mountains movie… or two of them… er, I mean…let me explain.

I’m going to start with giving a quick rundown of Mountains’ plot, so bear with me here. At the Mountains of Madness: A scientific expedition to Antarctica discovers a crazy huge and uncharted mountain range, and some of the scientists camp at the base to study the mountains. They discover an ancient race of aliens. Stuff happens, scientists die. The last two scientists standing discover a cyclopean city snuggled into the mountain range; they learn that the alien race arrived at Earth long ago and created a slave race of creatures (shoggoths). The kicker here is that all other life on Earth was created by accident while the aliens built the shoggoths. The scientists are chased away by some gigantic “thing.”

Let’s list a couple of key plot points:

Scientific expedition to Antarctica
Giant unknown mountains/city in Antarctica
alien master race; amorphous/shape changing slave race
human life created accidentally as a by-product/unimportant to creators
Giant monster at the end (portends the end of life on Earth?)

Okay, we’re at least on the same page as far as the story goes. Now for the movies—I want to draw your attention to two movies. The first probably isn’t too hard to guess: John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). For the second…deep breath…promise not to tar and feather me? Okay here goes: Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012). Yeah, I know. Apparently, everyone else hated this movie, but I really liked it. Maybe it doesn’t work so well as a prequel to Alien (maybe it’s kind of cheap to throw the xenomorph in at the end), but I enjoyed it as a science fiction-horror movie and as an upside-down adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness.

The point of this essay is to go through how both movies perfectly adapt different points of Mountains, and if mashed together comprise a better movie, and a better adaptation, than any “official” adaptation of Mountains we’ll ever get. I suggest you’ve seen both movies and read the novella at some point in your life before reading the article (and if you haven’t, what are you doing with your life?).

Like with Mountains, I’m going to start with a rundown of The Thing. A scientific expedition to Antarctica is disturbed by a helicopter trying to kill a sled dog. A trip over to the helicopter’s camp and our heroes learn about the un-icing of an alien spaceship and the subsequent release of a creature. What follows is a suspenseful, gory struggle against an alien being that absorbs and metamorphizes into any living being it can get its amorphous tentacles on. The scientists must keep the alien from getting back to civilization or else the world is doomed. At the end of the movie, two of our heroes sit among the fiery remains of the camp, watching each other, each wondering if the other is the creature. Best case for humankind: both men freeze to death before help arrives.

Now for Prometheus: The discovery of a clue to mankind’s origins on Earth leads a team of explorers to a distant planet. Two brilliant young scientists lead the expedition that eventually lands on a planet with giant, pyramid-like structures. They meet a race of godlike beings who created life on Earth but who are disgusted by their creations. Craziness happens next, but it’s not relevant to Mountains.

Here’s a shitty table looking at relevant (really? “relevant” twice in two sentences?) parts of both movies.

THE THING
PROMETHEUS


Antarctic scientific expedition
Scientific expedition


Discovery of long slumbering, shape-changing alien race.
Uncharted, ancient city discovered


Human-kind in peril
Humans were created by alien race that is unhappy with its creation

NOTE: The Thing carries a claustrophobic atmosphere of being assaulted/trapped by the frigid weather. Prometheus is a dark, atmospheric movie as well, along with the horror at discovering humanity’s genesis.

Basically, if you take away the movie titles and leave behind the plot points you have Mountains: An Antarctic scientific expedition discovers an uncharted, ancient city and a long slumbering, shape-changing alien race. You may have to squint a bit at Prometheus to get Mountains (not so much at The Thing), but hopefully, I’m somewhat articulate and you get where I’m coming from. Just don’t watch Prometheus as an Alien movie (ignore Ridley Scott, IMDB, and everywhere else), watch it as a loose Mountains adaptation and as a sci-fi-horror flick.

EXTRA CREDIT: Time for a little thought experiment (psst…this is why I wrote this art-tickle). I want to you pretend you’re watching The Thing. I’m going to give you the synopsis of a Mountains film, using The Thing as the template while interjecting specific attributes from Prometheus and tweaking certain explanations. Get ready for the ultimate Mountains adaptation that’s already been made.

Opening: We’re going to nix The Thing’s spaceship opening and insert the opening for Prometheus. 2 billion years ago, a spacecraft lands on Earth, a humanoid alien (we’re going to exaggerate his features a bit more than Prometheus; think 8 feet tall, four arms, large skull) drinks an iridescent liquid and then dissolves into a waterfall. The alien’s DNA strands mix with the water.

Title: Helicopter chasing Malamute. Continues like The Thing. McCready and Dr. Cooper fly over to Nords’ camp just like in the movie. They find a burned down camp and… instead of a partially uncovered spacecraft, they find an excavation site, a tunnel leading into the ice.

McCready and Cooper follow the steps into the ice and turn a corner to find a massive cavern filled with giant pyramid-like buildings lined up (Prometheus scene when they first discover the pyramids, except these are beneath the ice instead of on an alien planet) (also, these structures are the “Mountains of Madness.” Since we know there are no gigantic mountains in Antarctica, these mountain-shaped structures are hidden under the ice).

Cut to the kennel scene in Thing, all this happens with McCready and Cooper gone. Childs takes charge at base camp.

While crazy shit happening back at camp, McCready and Cooper discover control with sleeping “creator” aliens in chairs, just like in Prometheus. Cooper fiddles with buttons on computers and accidentally opens some files. The pair watch 3-dimensional history video: creator aliens land on Earth (throwback to opening scene), they begin to build a civilization. The creators experiment to build amorphous creatures to build and work for them (shoggoth/thing). As a shout-out to the original story, a creature develops from the by-product, a bubbling mass of throw-away fluid, a cucumber-shaped animal. Time passes as creators watch over shoggoths building their “mountains,” and eventually notice the cucumber animals. They force the shoggoths/things to destroy the cucumber animals. (but generations have passed and the cucumbers’ fecal matter is in the soil and water—life on Earth as we know it develops from the shit of an accidental by-product tossed aside by the creators as they built shoggoths/the thing) Later, the shoggoths rise up against the creators. The creators manage to imprison the last few shoggoths and then induce Cyro-type-sleep.

There’s a loud noise and a tremor in the cavern and McCready and Cooper flee back to their camp with the knowledge of what they’re dealing with and humanity’s humble beginnings. They agree not to share the details of what they learned. The pair arrives back at camp amid the chaos following the kennel scene in the original movie. The rest of the movie basically follows the plot of The Thing, with the exception of occasional tremors that shake the camp and at some point, McCready shares what he and Cooper learned at Nord camp.

END: McCready and Childs staring at each other amid the burned-out ruins of their camp. The largest tremor yet occurs and the ice cracks. From the cracks, tendrils like the mid-transition Thing reach out. Either several or one large Thing/shoggoth pulls itself out of the ice below, free at last to eat/change/spread across the Earth. AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS.

[image error]Nicholas Roerich

 

I think this would be a better Mountains adaptation than even del Toro would’ve put forth, and the best part, 99% of that footage is already out there. You can already watch that movie. I basically described The Thing while smashing in a couple of scenes from Prometheus. This is how I think of both movies, separately and together.

The horror of this works on three levels: personal—characters we know are fighting this creature and are dying, all while being trapped by the setting. global—this giant/multiple shoggoth(s) at the end can’t be defeated by McCready and Childs; it’s going to get out and wreak havoc on all current life on Earth. Cosmic—life on Earth is a joke, an accident. It isn’t some glory bestowed by a loving creator or even a natural marvel due to evolution. Life on Earth is a result of the shit left behind by a by-product that developed from the trash of another creation.

At the Mountains of Madness is already adapted, partially twice and whole once, and it’s glorious. Do yourself a favor, go back and read the novella, then watch the two movies. As an extra, read “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell and watch the original adaptation, Howard Hawkes’s The Thing from Another Planet.

So what do you think of the mash-up? Any other films you’d throw into the ring? Pour on the hate, I’ve got my… Actually, I can’t find my umbrella. Shit. Never mind.

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Haunted Roads pt. 2

Founded in 1821, Columbus, Mississippi is one of the larger towns in the area with a population of just under twenty-five thousand, and like all Old South towns, is home to several supposed “hauntings.” On May 17, 2016, a pair of friends and myself checked out the two haunted roads in Columbus. Next up is Armstrong Road.

Here’s how the legend goes— The area where the train tracks cross over Armstrong Road is haunted by a young woman’s ghost. While waiting for her husband to return from the war, the young woman learned that he died in an accident on the train. She refused to believe the news and set up a vigil to wait for his return, often walking the tracks. Nights, she carried a lantern during her walks. Eventually, grief consumed the young woman and she stepped into the path of an oncoming train. Witness reports vary but many claimed to see the apparition of the young woman while others saw the light of the flickering lantern. They say, if you park your car on the tracks, turn off the engine and lights, and honk three times, you’ll see the woman’s lantern appear in the distance and race towards you. Apparently, it’s the ghost of the woman believing her husband’s train has finally arrived.

As I drove onto Armstrong, the headlights caught orange “Road Closed” diamonds standing on both sides of the drive, and a truck length later, we passed through an opened gate and another “Road Closed” sign. “But hey, the gate’s open,” I said to Brandi and Blake.

Like Nash, Armstrong was hard-packed gravel, but this one showed signs of erosion on both sides and was very bumpy. Uneven marshy forest surrounded Armstrong, and we bounced over a shallow trench that appeared to be purposefully dug rather than naturally eroded.

“Maybe flooding is an issue and that’s why the road is closed,” Blake said.

The wetland ended and high trees snuggled in close; Armstrong was much narrower than Nash, a one-vehicle-only type of road. A large, leafy limb blocked half the road, and I carefully steered the pickup around it. Then, unbelievably, the road narrowed further, and the ground started to rise.

At the apex, over-worked train tracks bisected the road. “RR Crossing” signs alerted us to its presence ahead of time. After checking for coming locomotives, I parked on the tracks and we studied the tracks both ways. To the left, in the distance, we could see a light, appearing to be a streetlight, and nearer, what appeared to be a safety reflector.

Then I honked three times. We waited, listening and watching into the dark. Ten minutes passed. I turned the truck and the lights off, Brandi didn’t protest so much this time. We listened. I restarted the truck, climbed out, and walked around the truck, checking around the tracks and snapping a few pictures. The three of us checked the pictures after I climbed back in—only train tracks disappearing into the darkness.

I backed off the tracks and then paused, looking around.

“Want to try one more time?” Blake said.

I did.

Pulled back onto the tracks and once again pressed the horn three times. We waited another ten minutes. The only light was the streetlight off in the distance. “Well damn,” I said and backed off the tracks, turned around on the hard shoulder, and drove back to town.

Scrolling around Google Maps, I decided to drive around to the other end of Armstrong and check out that section. I didn’t drive straight through because the road appeared to deteriorate dramatically after the tracks—according to Google, a creek crossed over Armstrong (Blake wondered if perhaps the bridge was out).

At an awkward five-way stop, I turned back onto Armstrong. Here the road was wider and a little less bumpy. Less than a mile down Armstrong we passed a gated landfill and less than a mile after that we came to several large “Road Closed” signs, blocking the road. Here, tired and slightly disappointed, we decided to turn around and head home.

Once again, we experienced no overt paranormal occurrence. Armstrong was a disappointment because it ended so quickly and because it has such a creepy backstory.

Taking both roads into account, I think Armstrong Rd definitely has the better legend (Nash Rd’s backstory seemed kind of silly), but Nash Rd was more fun to investigate (See Haunted Roads pt. 1). Despite not seeing a ghost, Nash felt creepy and the overgrown cemetery redeemed it slightly. Overall, we didn’t see a ghost or any ghostly lights but did enjoy a fun night.

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NOTE: Plan to return to trace inscription on the obelisk and honk at Nash Rd cemetery. Possibly give Armstrong another try.

NOTE 2: Two other places of interest in Columbus—1: Friendship Cemetery (Grieving Angel gravestone & confederate soldier ghost). 2: Princess Theatre

Below the Stairs – Tales from the Cellar

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This anthology is available today on Amazon from Austrailian publisher OzHorror. It’s edited by Steve Dillon and features my short story “Below Ground” alongside some horror giants including Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell. Click THIS link to purchase. See below:

This, the second in our ‘Things in the Well*’ series of anthologies, contains 21 short, scary tales from below the stairs. A common theme, each story is longer than the preceding one, adding to the effect of being drawn down the stairs into a gloomy cellar. To present the best tales we could find, we’ve included a few reprints from some of the world’s best horror writers (Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, H.P. Lovecraft, Paul Kane) plus new tales from modern masters and stories by some (as yet) lesser known writers.

The Thing in the Cellar by David H. Keller

The Root Cellar by Toby Bennett

The Basement Apartment by Mark Allan Gunnells

Trapped by Theresa Derwin

Purgatory in Perpetuity by David Turnbull

The Cellars by Ramsey Campbell

Breeding Black by Chad Lutzke

The Memory Man by Steve Dillon

Bloodworms by Noel Osualdini

Below Deck by K.N. Johnson

An Endless Echo in Every Empty Space by Matthew R Davis

The Vaults by Katherine Wielechowski

Creakers by Paul Kane

The Bone Vine by Erin Cole

The Stairwell by Chris Mason

Below Ground by Charlie Walls

Hell’s Event by Clive Barker

The Watchman by Brian Craddock

Eyes of Glass by Stephen Herczeg

Under the Pyramids by H.P. Lovecraft with Harry Houdini

Warding by Kev Harrison

*The first ‘Things in the Well’ anthology is “Between the Tracks – Tales from the Ghost Train” and is available separately.

Haunted Roads pt. 1

Founded in 1821, Columbus, Mississippi is one of the larger towns in the area with a population of just under twenty-five thousand, and like all Old South towns, is home to several supposed “hauntings.” On May 17, 2016, a pair of friends and myself checked out the two haunted roads in Columbus. First up is Nash Road, aka Three-Legged Lady Road.

Like all urban legends, the stories about Nash Road vary a bit, but here’s the gist. A young girl was kidnapped, dismembered, and her body parts thrown into the woods that lined the road. Later, the girl’s mother went searching for her daughter but only found one of her legs, and distraught, the mother carried the leg up and down the road looking for her daughter. The hauntings can be traced back to an old church that was once located on Nash Road. Apparently, when the church was no longer in use, a satanic cult began using it for human sacrifices, the young girl being one of those sacrifices. Motorists who stopped at the church, turned off their headlights, and honked their horn three times would entice the three-legged lady to make an appearance. First, she’d knock on the roof of the car and then race the driver to the end of the road, hitting the car with her body the entire time and trying to run them off the road. Some have claimed to have dents in their cars after visiting Nash Rd. Even though the church no longer exists, witnesses say honking at the site of the old church will also draw out the three-legged lady.

Not far from nine pm, I made a left onto Waverly Ferry. From the passenger seat, Brandi held the GPS as it sketched our route across the screen. “Okay,” she said, “in one-point-three miles take a left.”

“That’s Nash Road?” I asked.

“That’s it.”

“Okay, this is it,” Brandi said.

I tapped the breaks and looked left. There was a slight plateau breaking off from the road, looking very much like a turn-off or driveway, but after three feet a perfect line of trees obliterated any road that may have been there. Headlights shined behind us so there was no chance to investigate. Google Maps recalculated, and in an eighth of a mile, I turned left onto Nash, a poorly lit blacktop.

Soon, the road turned into wide, hard-packed gravel, and a sign warned “Do Not Destroy County Property (being near the waterway, the forest was some kind of government preserve or something). Thick forest pressed against Nash from both sides. I slowed the truck and rolled the windows down, watching and listening intently. Brandi, unprepared to be so vulnerable, argued against going slow with windows down and eventually swapped places with Blake, who had sat quietly in the back seat. After a wide turn, the forest opened and we drove through a swamp—on both sides of the gravel road, crooked trees rose from standing water. Large bullfrogs croaked and insects chirped, but we didn’t hear ghostly moaning or even city sounds. The odd sensation of complete emersion into primitive nature smack in the center of the city felt disturbing enough without the ghost story.

Another large curve and we passed by a single-wide trailer with a lone light shining and two clunkers parked out front. The water receded and the forest once again swallowed us. I suggested we try our camera phones, maybe they could pick-up something we couldn’t see with our eyes. Rolling fifteen miles an hour, I held my phone out the window and snapped some quick pictures. Across from me, Blake shot a video on his iPhone. After several seconds, we checked our pictures and videos, hoping for a ghostly blur or something, but there was only dark and forest and the occasional blur from the headlights. Before continuing, I double checked the GPS, and to my surprise, found that according to Google, the pickup was sitting, unmoving, the street just at the point where Nash changed from blacktop to gravel.

Then we drove by the concrete blocks; around a curve there stood two concrete bricks the size of big screens and a metal farm gate. Everything was tagged with various crude and misspelled graffiti. “So this is what they meant by don’t damage county property,” I said.

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About a half mile from the graffiti the forest opened on the right side and there, surrounded by a rusted barbed-wire fence, was an overgrown field. Several tombstones peaked up from the tall grass, appearing ghostly white in the moonlight. Amid Brandi’s protestations, I pulled to the side of the road, parked, and climbed out. Blake and I walked to the small cemetery while Brandi waited on the road. One large obelisk stood near the road and away from the other stones, and on one side, in flowing script, was etched an insignia that filled the full two feet of stone. Blake attempted to read the epitaph, but time and darkness rendered that impossible (plan to return with newspaper paper and grease pencil). Near the tree line, we found two other grave markers, one an upright stone and the other a low beveled one, but there was nothing of interest inscribed on either. Although we didn’t know it at the time, this is the site of the old church—at some point, a return trip is planned to honk at this point.

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We moved on down Nash road. Occasionally throughout the drive, we came upon narrower cut through roads, all chained off. Several times I turned onto the drive and stopped before the chain, shining the headlights down the service road. Blake and I snapped more pictures. For a couple of minutes, I shut the truck off completely and shut off the lights. We sat in near darkness, the trees blocking most of the moonlight, and listened to the night sounds.

Later, we passed two more concrete landmarks on the waterway side of the road, these weren’t graffitied like the others. Around another bend in the road, we drove by a large corrugated metal building. A chain-link fence connected the building to two other similar buildings; large bay doors covered several walls, and a weak, orange light post shined. Soon after, on the same side, there was a regular looking brick house on a hill, enclosed by the dark forest. A porch light winked and a small SUV sat above us on the drive.

Less than a mile later, Nash ended at Plymouth Road. I checked GPS and the metal building and brick house were listed as churches; St. Peter church and Antioch church (there were no signs & they did not look like churches, also on the wrong side of the road). Turned onto Plymouth and discussed what we’d just investigated. Nash was a creepy road, but we experienced no overtly paranormal occurrence; made plans to return and further investigate cemetery/old church site.

We drove back into town, used the restroom and bought some tobacco and soda. Then on to the next haunted road in Columbus, Armstrong Road, which I’ll write about in a later post.

October Reading List

Here’s the list, in no particular order. I go into the works and add links below.

Halloween, edited by Paula Guran
Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre, edited by Paula Guran
A Night in the Lonesome October, by Roger Zelazny
Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
Halloween Masks: A Trio of Tales, by Jeffrey Thomas
Autumn Cthulhu, edited by Mike Davis

 

Halloween edited by Paula Guran

Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre edited by Paula Guran

Both are awesome books of Halloween themed short stories that’ll really get you in the mood for the best holiday of the year. The first one, Halloween, is comprised of classics and reprints, and the second one, Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre, is all original work. If you can only get one, I recommend the newer anthology simply because I hadn’t read any of the stories before and had read many of the classics in the first anthology, but you can’t go wrong with either.  [image error]

 

A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

  A very fun novel that perfectly encapsulates the feel and spirit of Halloween to me. Here’s the back-cover material:

          Loyally accompanying a mysterious knife-wielding gentleman named Jack on his midnight rounds through the murky streets of London, good dog Snuff is busy helping his master collect the grisly ingredients needed for an unearthly rite that will take place not long after the death of the moon. But Snuff and his master are not alone. All manner of participants, both human and not, are gathering with their ancient tools and their animal familiars in preparation for the dread night. It is brave, devoted Snuff who must calculate the patterns of the Game and keep track of the Players—the witch, the mad monk, the vengeful vicar, the Count who sleeps by day, the Good Doctor and the hulking Experiment Man he fashioned from human body parts, and a wild-card American named Larry Talbot—all the while keeping Things at bay and staying a leap ahead of the Great Detective, who knows quite a bit more than he lets on.

[image error] This is such a fun book and I can’t recommend it enough.

 

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

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            A masterwork of dark fiction and one of the best stories to usher in October and Halloween. A classic that needs no more explanation from little ole me.

 

Halloween Masks: A Trio of Tales by Jeffrey Thomas

Three short stories set on Halloween from a very underrated author. They are short and quick and creepy, and for only $0.99 on Kindle, if you love horror stories and Halloween and you don’t check this out, you’re doing yourself a disservice. For the price, this is one of the best Halloween-themed purchases I’ve ever made.

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Autumn Cthulhu edited by Mike Davis

            One of the creepier short story anthologies of the last few years. If Something Wicked This Way Comes expresses the childlike wonder of the season, Autumn Cthulhu goes way darker and is all creeping adult. Great group of stories and a great book. Fun note: I had a story rejected for this anthology…*sigh* One day.

 

So that’s my Halloween reading list. What do you read to get into the Halloween spirit? Note: Images are book covers from Amazon.com, and not mine.

October Horror Watch

I recently put together a calendar for the month of October. Each day is a new movie to watch leading up to Halloween. A note about the selections: Some of the movies were picked based on ease of finding. Most of the movies are available for free via Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime streaming services, and I’ve noted which site they can be found on. A handful of the movies I have at home; some of these I found online and noted where. There are only two movies I plan to rent from Amazon because they’re not available anywhere: The Thing (one of my favorite movies and for some reason, I don’t own it), and the original Halloween (Spoiler alert: for Halloween night).

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So here it is; feel free to watch along. Let me know if you substitute any movies.

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[image error] You can download the Word doc here: Watchfest Oct 17

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Coming October 2017

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Below the Stairs – Tales from the Cellar, edited by Steve Dillon and published by OzHorror, will be live October 2017. I’m very excited to share a TOC with Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell. You can check out the website here. My story “Below Ground” appears, short synopsis below.

Joel and Rinaldi witness something monstrous while on deployment in Iraq. The pair return home, believing they left it behind, but something followed them. In the wake of Rinaldi’s death, can Joel figure out what they uncovered before it’s too late for him, too?

Available Now

HAMMER OF THE GODS: RAGNAROK

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My Viking story “The Helm of Awe” closes out the anthology. Edited by Gavin Chappell. Cover art by freepik.com. Purchase Paperback Here

SWORDS AGAINST CTHULHU II: HYPERBOREAN NIGHTS

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I open up the anthology with “Coeval with Night and Chaos.” Edited by Gavin Chappell. Cover art by Lissanne Lake. Purchase Paperback Here

RIDING THE DARK FRONTIER II

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My story “The Black Sands Down in Mexico” appears. Edited by George Whilhite. Cover art by Lissanne Lake. Purchase Paperback Here

First blog post

If you stumbled across this, you’ll notice many of the pages are still blank and there’s not much content. My current blog is Here. I’m fiddling with this page now and if I like it more, I’ll start moving/updating my content on blogspot to here.

Thanks,

Charlie

UPDATE: I have now moved everything over from blogspot and will use this site as my official blog.

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