Orrin Grey's Blog: Shovel Murders & Monologues, page 63
February 21, 2011
Monster Awareness Month Days 12-18
Day 12 & 13: Mothra vs Godzilla (1964) & Destroy All Monsters (1968)
I passed on all the Godzilla movies that were part of Monster Awareness Month because I'd already had my fill of them when I did my Godzilla movie marathon for Innsmouth Free Press, and found that they didn't hold up well to my memories of youthful nostalgia. I didn't actually watch Destroy All Monsters for that, either, though I saw it when I was a kid and thought it was awesome then. Who knows what it would be like now?
Day 14: The Valley of Gwangi (1969)
Because of the vagaries of fate, I actually watched this one after Gargoyles (below), so this was technically the last of the movies for Monster Awareness Month that I hadn't already seen. It's a Ray Harryhausen movie about cowboys fighting dinosaurs. That probably tells you everything you need to know about whether you'll like it or how much. For me, it wasn't Harryhausen's best or his worst, but there was lots to like. I think my favorite part was that Gwangi was purple. There need to be more purple dinosaurs.
Day 15: Gargoyles (1972)
What would have been a pretty good Star Trek episode is, instead, a pretty awful movie. I'm a sucker for weird roadside attractions and people finding bones of monsters, but beyond that about the only good thing I can say here is that the suits (which represent some of the first work of monster legend Stan Winston) are much better than you'd expect. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is the usual long shots of people driving around in obviously non-moving cars or climbing on rocks, and pretty much all the action takes place in a cave in the desert. So all the stuff you could expect in an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, except without the wisecracking robots.
Day 16: Jaws (1975)
In honor of Monster Awareness Month, I finally got my wife and roommate to watch Jaws for the first time. They were both suitably impressed. The end.
Day 17: Alien (1979)
We are at this point (sort of at the point where we got to Jaws, actually) into a stretch of movies that really need no introduction, and there's nothing I can say about them that everybody doesn't already know. The Alien franchise was one of my earliest fandoms, and I used to love the movies and watch them all to death, but I'm also one of those people who thinks that Aliens is the superior installment, so…
Day 18: The Thing (1982)
Picking a favorite movie from off the Monster Awareness Month viewing slate would be hard. There's Hellboy, after all, and there's King Kong. But if I did have to pick one, and it wasn't one of those two, then it would be this one, hands down. I think everything about this movie is brilliant, and I think that the titular monster is one of the best of all time. In a world where this movie exists, I don't know why we ever have debates about the potential viability of remakes.
This was the second movie that I solicited something for this month, this time an awesome visual tribute from the incredible Thomas Boatwright.
I passed on all the Godzilla movies that were part of Monster Awareness Month because I'd already had my fill of them when I did my Godzilla movie marathon for Innsmouth Free Press, and found that they didn't hold up well to my memories of youthful nostalgia. I didn't actually watch Destroy All Monsters for that, either, though I saw it when I was a kid and thought it was awesome then. Who knows what it would be like now?
Day 14: The Valley of Gwangi (1969)
Because of the vagaries of fate, I actually watched this one after Gargoyles (below), so this was technically the last of the movies for Monster Awareness Month that I hadn't already seen. It's a Ray Harryhausen movie about cowboys fighting dinosaurs. That probably tells you everything you need to know about whether you'll like it or how much. For me, it wasn't Harryhausen's best or his worst, but there was lots to like. I think my favorite part was that Gwangi was purple. There need to be more purple dinosaurs.
Day 15: Gargoyles (1972)
What would have been a pretty good Star Trek episode is, instead, a pretty awful movie. I'm a sucker for weird roadside attractions and people finding bones of monsters, but beyond that about the only good thing I can say here is that the suits (which represent some of the first work of monster legend Stan Winston) are much better than you'd expect. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is the usual long shots of people driving around in obviously non-moving cars or climbing on rocks, and pretty much all the action takes place in a cave in the desert. So all the stuff you could expect in an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, except without the wisecracking robots.
Day 16: Jaws (1975)
In honor of Monster Awareness Month, I finally got my wife and roommate to watch Jaws for the first time. They were both suitably impressed. The end.
Day 17: Alien (1979)
We are at this point (sort of at the point where we got to Jaws, actually) into a stretch of movies that really need no introduction, and there's nothing I can say about them that everybody doesn't already know. The Alien franchise was one of my earliest fandoms, and I used to love the movies and watch them all to death, but I'm also one of those people who thinks that Aliens is the superior installment, so…
Day 18: The Thing (1982)
Picking a favorite movie from off the Monster Awareness Month viewing slate would be hard. There's Hellboy, after all, and there's King Kong. But if I did have to pick one, and it wasn't one of those two, then it would be this one, hands down. I think everything about this movie is brilliant, and I think that the titular monster is one of the best of all time. In a world where this movie exists, I don't know why we ever have debates about the potential viability of remakes.
This was the second movie that I solicited something for this month, this time an awesome visual tribute from the incredible Thomas Boatwright.
February 20, 2011
Monster Awareness Month Days 12-18
Day 12 & 13: Mothra vs Godzilla (1964) & Destroy All Monsters (1968)
I passed on all the Godzilla movies that were part of Monster Awareness Month because I'd already had my fill of them when I did my Godzilla movie marathon for Innsmouth Free Press, and found that they didn't hold up well to my memories of youthful nostalgia. I didn't actually watch Destroy All Monsters for that, either, though I saw it when I was a kid and thought it was awesome then. Who knows what it would be like now?
Day 14: The Valley of Gwangi (1969)
Because of the vagaries of fate, I actually watched this one after Gargoyles (below), so this was technically the last of the movies for Monster Awareness Month that I hadn't already seen. It's a Ray Harryhausen movie about cowboys fighting dinosaurs. That probably tells you everything you need to know about whether you'll like it or how much. For me, it wasn't Harryhausen's best or his worst, but there was lots to like. I think my favorite part was that Gwangi was purple. There need to be more purple dinosaurs.
Day 15: Gargoyles (1972)
What would have been a pretty good Star Trek episode is, instead, a pretty awful movie. I'm a sucker for weird roadside attractions and people finding bones of monsters, but beyond that about the only good thing I can say here is that the suits (which represent some of the first work of monster legend Stan Winston) are much better than you'd expect. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is the usual long shots of people driving around in obviously non-moving cars or climbing on rocks, and pretty much all the action takes place in a cave in the desert. So all the stuff you could expect in an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, except without the wisecracking robots.
Day 16: Jaws (1975)
In honor of Monster Awareness Month, I finally got my wife and roommate to watch Jaws for the first time. They were both suitably impressed. The end.
Day 17: Alien (1979)
We are at this point (sort of at the point where we got to Jaws, actually) into a stretch of movies that really need no introduction, and there's nothing I can say about them that everybody doesn't already know. The Alien franchise was one of my earliest fandoms, and I used to love the movies and watch them all to death, but I'm also one of those people who thinks that Aliens is the superior installment, so…
Day 18: The Thing (1982)
Picking a favorite movie from off the Monster Awareness Month viewing slate would be hard. There's Hellboy, after all, and there's King Kong. But if I did have to pick one, and it wasn't one of those two, then it would be this one, hands down. I think everything about this movie is brilliant, and I think that the titular monster is one of the best of all time. In a world where this movie exists, I don't know why we ever have debates about the potential viability of remakes.
This was the second movie that I solicited something for this month, this time an awesome visual tribute from the incredible Thomas Boatwright.
February 16, 2011
Fundraising
Anybody reading this is probably familiar with Innsmouth Free Press by now, but if you're not, they're an excellent publication where I regularly write a column on international horror cinema. I've also sold a story there, and I'll be in their forthcoming Historical Lovecraft anthology alongside awesome folks like Molly Tanzer and Jesse Bullington, among others. Basically, they're a great place with obviously smashing taste and they regularly give away quality fiction and non-fiction absolutely free, and right now they're holding a fundraiser to help pay the bills and keep the "vast huddle of sagging gambrel roofs and peaked gables" afloat.
Fundraising is never an easy proposition in the best of circumstances, so myself and some other writers have done what we could to sweeten the pot. If you give any amount, not only will you receive an e-book copy of novella by Josh Reynolds and another novella by Innsmouth's own Silvia Moreno-Garcia, but you'll also be entered into a raffle to win a copy of Cthulhurotica. But that's not all! On top of all that, I've also thrown in a copy of my out-of-print debut novella The Mysterious Flame to the raffle, and all-around great guy Tom English has contributed a copy of the rare (and pricey!) Bound for Evil, a Shirley Jackson Awards finalist that contains my story "The Reading Room," alongside tales by folks like Ian Rogers and Simon Strantzas, among others.
That's a lot of reasons to donate a little something, and I hope you do! IFP is looking to raise $1500, and I'd like to help them reach that goal.
Fundraising is never an easy proposition in the best of circumstances, so myself and some other writers have done what we could to sweeten the pot. If you give any amount, not only will you receive an e-book copy of novella by Josh Reynolds and another novella by Innsmouth's own Silvia Moreno-Garcia, but you'll also be entered into a raffle to win a copy of Cthulhurotica. But that's not all! On top of all that, I've also thrown in a copy of my out-of-print debut novella The Mysterious Flame to the raffle, and all-around great guy Tom English has contributed a copy of the rare (and pricey!) Bound for Evil, a Shirley Jackson Awards finalist that contains my story "The Reading Room," alongside tales by folks like Ian Rogers and Simon Strantzas, among others.
That's a lot of reasons to donate a little something, and I hope you do! IFP is looking to raise $1500, and I'd like to help them reach that goal.
February 12, 2011
Monster Awareness Month Days 7-11
I've had a sort of rough couple of days, so there's been a maybe longer than usual delay here, and my heart may not be entirely in it, but I have been watching movies for Monster Awareness Month when I could, and I think these should bring us pretty close to up-to-date. Beware, there will be spoilers for The Quatermass Xperiment, at least.
Day 7: The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
Heading into Monster Awareness Month, there were six or so movies on the docket that I hadn't seen before. Of those, The Quatermass Xperiment (which I've been misspelling as "Quartermass" all these years) was the one I was the most looking forward to. Partly because it was a Hammer movie, and I have loved pretty much every Hammer movie I've ever seen, and partly because I'd heard great stuff about it, though I've heard even better stuff about the later Quatermass and the Pit, which I still haven't seen.
I was not disappointed. To say that Dr. Quatermass himself was better than the monster might seem like damning with faint praise until I told you that the monster was a bodiless space vampire octopus! Let's put another exclamation point in there for good measure! But seriously, as great as that is, it couldn't outdo Quatermass storming around, yelling out orders and berating people. He was spectacular! I've heard that Nigel Kneale didn't like this portrayal of his creation, to which I can only say that, with all due respect, Mr. Kneale was wrong.
Also interesting to me, at least, is how the monster from The Quatermass Xperiment prefigures the bodiless Ogdru Hem from Mike Mignola's Hellboy mythos and, especially, the basic germ of The Conqueror Worm's plot. Good stuff!
Day 8: The Abominable Snowman (1957)
Another favorite of mine from the Hammer vaults. I'll be talking a little more about this one over at Innsmouth Free Press later this month sometime (I'll provide a link when it happens), but in the meantime I got a friend of mine to do a review of it for Monster Awareness Month. He's actually a little harder on it than I would be, but my affection for Hammer films of all stripes is well-documented.
Day 9: The Fly (1958)
Could it really be the only Vincent Price movie in the whole month? Travesty! But seriously, this is a pretty classic movie, and while it's maybe a little slow and talky to modern sensibilities, it sets up a lot of great scenes that've become justifiably famous. I need to catch the sequels soon, and re-watch the remake, which I remember being great but haven't seen in years. A little surprised it's not on the list for this month, and if I was putting together an alternate, it definitely would be.
Day 10: The Blob (1958)
Winner of the Best Monster Theme Song category, that's probably the best thing The Blob has going for it. I mean, besides being about a giant jello mold from space. Which is quite a bit. I liked some of the miniature shots, especially toward the end with the Blob attacking the movie theatre.
Day 11: Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
This is another movie on the list that I (weirdly) hadn't ever seen. I'd seen parts of the skeleton sequence, of course (who hasn't?) and lots of shots from other parts of the movie, but I'd never actually watched the whole thing. Jason and the Argonauts is obviously a spiritual relation to Clash of the Titans, which I did see about a million times when I was a kid. And like Clash of the Titans, the monsters here are top notch, especially the hydra and the aforementioned skeleton army. But, like Clash of the Titans, the rest of the movie wasn't as enjoyable. There's some great bits, and some really interesting themes such as the gods' realization of their own mortality, Jason's defiance of the gods, and the futility of Palais's acts of murder. But none of these are ever really delivered on, just sort of brought up and left hanging.
I think my favorite thing, besides the monsters of course, was the revised explanation for the armed men that burst from the hydra's teeth being those who had been slain by the hydra. That was awesome!
Day 7: The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
Heading into Monster Awareness Month, there were six or so movies on the docket that I hadn't seen before. Of those, The Quatermass Xperiment (which I've been misspelling as "Quartermass" all these years) was the one I was the most looking forward to. Partly because it was a Hammer movie, and I have loved pretty much every Hammer movie I've ever seen, and partly because I'd heard great stuff about it, though I've heard even better stuff about the later Quatermass and the Pit, which I still haven't seen.
I was not disappointed. To say that Dr. Quatermass himself was better than the monster might seem like damning with faint praise until I told you that the monster was a bodiless space vampire octopus! Let's put another exclamation point in there for good measure! But seriously, as great as that is, it couldn't outdo Quatermass storming around, yelling out orders and berating people. He was spectacular! I've heard that Nigel Kneale didn't like this portrayal of his creation, to which I can only say that, with all due respect, Mr. Kneale was wrong.
Also interesting to me, at least, is how the monster from The Quatermass Xperiment prefigures the bodiless Ogdru Hem from Mike Mignola's Hellboy mythos and, especially, the basic germ of The Conqueror Worm's plot. Good stuff!
Day 8: The Abominable Snowman (1957)
Another favorite of mine from the Hammer vaults. I'll be talking a little more about this one over at Innsmouth Free Press later this month sometime (I'll provide a link when it happens), but in the meantime I got a friend of mine to do a review of it for Monster Awareness Month. He's actually a little harder on it than I would be, but my affection for Hammer films of all stripes is well-documented.
Day 9: The Fly (1958)
Could it really be the only Vincent Price movie in the whole month? Travesty! But seriously, this is a pretty classic movie, and while it's maybe a little slow and talky to modern sensibilities, it sets up a lot of great scenes that've become justifiably famous. I need to catch the sequels soon, and re-watch the remake, which I remember being great but haven't seen in years. A little surprised it's not on the list for this month, and if I was putting together an alternate, it definitely would be.
Day 10: The Blob (1958)
Winner of the Best Monster Theme Song category, that's probably the best thing The Blob has going for it. I mean, besides being about a giant jello mold from space. Which is quite a bit. I liked some of the miniature shots, especially toward the end with the Blob attacking the movie theatre.
Day 11: Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
This is another movie on the list that I (weirdly) hadn't ever seen. I'd seen parts of the skeleton sequence, of course (who hasn't?) and lots of shots from other parts of the movie, but I'd never actually watched the whole thing. Jason and the Argonauts is obviously a spiritual relation to Clash of the Titans, which I did see about a million times when I was a kid. And like Clash of the Titans, the monsters here are top notch, especially the hydra and the aforementioned skeleton army. But, like Clash of the Titans, the rest of the movie wasn't as enjoyable. There's some great bits, and some really interesting themes such as the gods' realization of their own mortality, Jason's defiance of the gods, and the futility of Palais's acts of murder. But none of these are ever really delivered on, just sort of brought up and left hanging.
I think my favorite thing, besides the monsters of course, was the revised explanation for the armed men that burst from the hydra's teeth being those who had been slain by the hydra. That was awesome!
February 7, 2011
Monster Awareness Month Days 3-6
Day 3: King Kong (1933)
The original and still the best. King Kong is one of my favorite movies of all time! I recently listened to the commentary track with Ray Harryhausen and Ken Ralston, and they pointed out that the jungle scenes were inspired by Dore, which I had never thought about, but once it was pointed out, I could totally see it.
Day 4: The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
I had thought this was one of the ones I hadn't seen before, but I was wrong. I had seen it, but just forgotten most of it. That's probably because it was really boring. I'm as big a fan of Ray Harryhausen as anybody, but this one should've been called "The Guy Who Went to the Hospital," because that's mostly what it was about. There was definitely not enough monster. And at the end, they rode a rollercoaster up to shoot the monster and then got out of the car. They should've shot the monster from the moving car! Seriously, what kinds of action heroes are these guys? (Well, one of them was Lee Van Cleef, so he maybe gets a pass.)
The dinosaur was pretty great when he was around, though, and prior to my watching it my roommate dubbed it "The Beast from the Nether Reaches of Fathoms of Which There Are 10,000 (Actually 20)," so that was something, anyway.
Day 5: Godzilla (1954)
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms totally prefigured this movie (and also The Host, but I'll complain about The Host later. Still, the original Godzilla is pretty great. I wrote more about it a while back, over here.
Day 6: The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
I have a soft spot in my heart for this movie, probably because the Creature suit is still maybe the best rubber monster suit ever designed. It holds up better than the vast majority of special effects in anything ever, and still looks incredibly great more than fifty years later.
Unfortunately, the rest of the movie doesn't fare as well, but we had a lot of fun heckling it and observing the homoerotic tension (whether real or imagined) between the two male leads, and also all the incredibly dumb animals, which we dubbed things like the Simple Lungfish or the Amazonian Hurpdurp Bird.
So, it turned out there were no movies in this four-day stretch that I hadn't seen before. That'll get rectified starting tomorrow, though, with The Quartermass Xperiment, which is the movie I'm maybe most excited about out of the whole month! Stay tuned!
The original and still the best. King Kong is one of my favorite movies of all time! I recently listened to the commentary track with Ray Harryhausen and Ken Ralston, and they pointed out that the jungle scenes were inspired by Dore, which I had never thought about, but once it was pointed out, I could totally see it.
Day 4: The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)
I had thought this was one of the ones I hadn't seen before, but I was wrong. I had seen it, but just forgotten most of it. That's probably because it was really boring. I'm as big a fan of Ray Harryhausen as anybody, but this one should've been called "The Guy Who Went to the Hospital," because that's mostly what it was about. There was definitely not enough monster. And at the end, they rode a rollercoaster up to shoot the monster and then got out of the car. They should've shot the monster from the moving car! Seriously, what kinds of action heroes are these guys? (Well, one of them was Lee Van Cleef, so he maybe gets a pass.)
The dinosaur was pretty great when he was around, though, and prior to my watching it my roommate dubbed it "The Beast from the Nether Reaches of Fathoms of Which There Are 10,000 (Actually 20)," so that was something, anyway.
Day 5: Godzilla (1954)
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms totally prefigured this movie (and also The Host, but I'll complain about The Host later. Still, the original Godzilla is pretty great. I wrote more about it a while back, over here.
Day 6: The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
I have a soft spot in my heart for this movie, probably because the Creature suit is still maybe the best rubber monster suit ever designed. It holds up better than the vast majority of special effects in anything ever, and still looks incredibly great more than fifty years later.
Unfortunately, the rest of the movie doesn't fare as well, but we had a lot of fun heckling it and observing the homoerotic tension (whether real or imagined) between the two male leads, and also all the incredibly dumb animals, which we dubbed things like the Simple Lungfish or the Amazonian Hurpdurp Bird.
So, it turned out there were no movies in this four-day stretch that I hadn't seen before. That'll get rectified starting tomorrow, though, with The Quartermass Xperiment, which is the movie I'm maybe most excited about out of the whole month! Stay tuned!
February 3, 2011
Monster Awareness Month Days 1&2
Yesterday kicked off Monster Awareness Month. I didn't post anything up here to celebrate, because I was busy being snowed in by the Snowpocalypse or whatever you want to call it. But I plan to drop in every few days and at least talk about the movies that've gone by on the list, breaking it down day by day.
Day 1: Frankenstein (1931)
What is there left to say about Frankenstein? There are no shortages of reasons why it's a classic, and maybe the most famous and respected movie of the whole month. That said, it still doesn't manage to top any of my favorites lists. It's not my favorite Boris Karloff movie, it's not my favorite James Whale movie, it's not my favorite of the Universal monster films, it's not even my favorite Frankenstein movie. But it's still pretty great, if you somehow haven't seen it already.
Day 2: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
The first movie on the list that I hadn't seen before. It was definitely interesting, and surprisingly frank in its sexuality at times, but I can see why it never quite attained the fame of its Universal counterparts. It's still got the feel of a silent movie more than most of the Universal ones, in spite of all the talking that goes on. There's a lot of well-handled scenes and suitably epic laboratory sets and nice shots of gaslight London, though, and that definitely counts for something.
Day 1: Frankenstein (1931)
What is there left to say about Frankenstein? There are no shortages of reasons why it's a classic, and maybe the most famous and respected movie of the whole month. That said, it still doesn't manage to top any of my favorites lists. It's not my favorite Boris Karloff movie, it's not my favorite James Whale movie, it's not my favorite of the Universal monster films, it's not even my favorite Frankenstein movie. But it's still pretty great, if you somehow haven't seen it already.
Day 2: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
The first movie on the list that I hadn't seen before. It was definitely interesting, and surprisingly frank in its sexuality at times, but I can see why it never quite attained the fame of its Universal counterparts. It's still got the feel of a silent movie more than most of the Universal ones, in spite of all the talking that goes on. There's a lot of well-handled scenes and suitably epic laboratory sets and nice shots of gaslight London, though, and that definitely counts for something.
February 1, 2011
Final Notice
Tomorrow is the first day of Monster Awareness Month. That's a link to the website, where all the posts will be happening. There's also a forum here. The list of movies is still here and there's a place where we'll all be rating them here, and I think you can join in and rate them too, but don't quote me on that.
We're apparently going to be hit with the mother of all blizzards in the next couple of days, so who knows whether I'm going to survive or not (I'd better, I still haven't seen Jason and the Argonauts), but if I do I'll be posting here every few days with thoughts on the movies, as well as anything else monster-related I manage to turn out.
If anyone else is doing anything special to celebrate monsters this month, feel free to tell me about it here or wherever you can, and I'll do my best to draw attention to it. Cheers!
We're apparently going to be hit with the mother of all blizzards in the next couple of days, so who knows whether I'm going to survive or not (I'd better, I still haven't seen Jason and the Argonauts), but if I do I'll be posting here every few days with thoughts on the movies, as well as anything else monster-related I manage to turn out.
If anyone else is doing anything special to celebrate monsters this month, feel free to tell me about it here or wherever you can, and I'll do my best to draw attention to it. Cheers!
January 28, 2011
Monster Month PSA
This is just a reminder that Monster Awareness Month is starting in just a few days. This coming Tuesday, specifically, though related content is likely to start as early as this weekend or Monday right here. The official content will be showing up there, but I'll try and talk about it and the movies we're watching for it and other monster-related topics all month long.
Here's a list of the movies, if you want to follow along at home. There's a few on there that I've never seen (more than I would have expected, in fact) and some that I haven't seen in awhile, and some others I just love, and a couple I hate, and maybe one or two that I'm indifferent about! So it'll be an adventure. Stay tuned!
Here's a list of the movies, if you want to follow along at home. There's a few on there that I've never seen (more than I would have expected, in fact) and some that I haven't seen in awhile, and some others I just love, and a couple I hate, and maybe one or two that I'm indifferent about! So it'll be an adventure. Stay tuned!
January 25, 2011
Historical Lovecraft Cover & TOC
Sorry I've not been posting more. Things have been hectic. But I come bearing gifts! The TOC and full cover of Historical Lovecraft are up over at Innsmouth Free Press. For convenience, though, I'll reproduce the table of contents here:
The City of Ropes | Albert Tucher
The Far Deep | Josh Reynolds
The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins | Molly Tanzer
A Meeting On The Trail To Hot Iron | Joe Pulver
The God Lurking in Stone | Andrew G. Dombalagian
The Saga of Hilde Ansgardottir | Jesse Bullington
The Second Theft of Alhazrad's Manuscript | Bradley H. Sinor
Black Hill | Orrin Grey
Inquisitor | William Meikle
Shadows of the Darkest Jade| Sarah Hans
Manuscript Found in a Trunk from Extremadura [translated from French] | Meddy Ligner
Silently, Without Cease | Daniel Mills
The Chronicle of Aliyat Son of Aliyat | Alter S. Reiss
The Seeder from the Stars | Julio Toro San Martin
What Hides and What Returns | Bryan Thao Worra
If Only to Taste Her Again | E. Catherine Tobler
An Interrupted Sacrifice | Mae Empson
Pralaya: The Disaster | Y. W. Purnomosidhi
Ngiri's Catch | Aaron Polson
Black Leaves | Mason Ian Bundschuh
The Good Bishop Pays the Price | Martha Hubbard
Red Star, Yellow Sign | Leigh Kimmel
An Idol for Emiko | Travis Heermann
Deus ex Machina | Nathaniel Katz
City of Witches | Regina Allen
Ahuizotl [translated from Spanish] | Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas
I bolded mine. Cuz, y'know, it's my website. But really the big draws here are probably the other folks. It's a pretty good lineup, with some interesting-sounding stories. And I can tell you without hyperbole that Molly's story is worth the cover price all by itself.
Also, for those of you who may've missed it before, this seems like a good time to re-mention that the TOC and preliminary cover of Delicate Toxins are both up at the Side Real Press website. So go check that out, if you haven't already.
The City of Ropes | Albert Tucher
The Far Deep | Josh Reynolds
The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins | Molly Tanzer
A Meeting On The Trail To Hot Iron | Joe Pulver
The God Lurking in Stone | Andrew G. Dombalagian
The Saga of Hilde Ansgardottir | Jesse Bullington
The Second Theft of Alhazrad's Manuscript | Bradley H. Sinor
Black Hill | Orrin Grey
Inquisitor | William Meikle
Shadows of the Darkest Jade| Sarah Hans
Manuscript Found in a Trunk from Extremadura [translated from French] | Meddy Ligner
Silently, Without Cease | Daniel Mills
The Chronicle of Aliyat Son of Aliyat | Alter S. Reiss
The Seeder from the Stars | Julio Toro San Martin
What Hides and What Returns | Bryan Thao Worra
If Only to Taste Her Again | E. Catherine Tobler
An Interrupted Sacrifice | Mae Empson
Pralaya: The Disaster | Y. W. Purnomosidhi
Ngiri's Catch | Aaron Polson
Black Leaves | Mason Ian Bundschuh
The Good Bishop Pays the Price | Martha Hubbard
Red Star, Yellow Sign | Leigh Kimmel
An Idol for Emiko | Travis Heermann
Deus ex Machina | Nathaniel Katz
City of Witches | Regina Allen
Ahuizotl [translated from Spanish] | Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas
I bolded mine. Cuz, y'know, it's my website. But really the big draws here are probably the other folks. It's a pretty good lineup, with some interesting-sounding stories. And I can tell you without hyperbole that Molly's story is worth the cover price all by itself.
Also, for those of you who may've missed it before, this seems like a good time to re-mention that the TOC and preliminary cover of Delicate Toxins are both up at the Side Real Press website. So go check that out, if you haven't already.
January 15, 2011
From the Vault: The Shuttered Room & It!
I'm unveiling the first of what I hope'll become a semi-regular feature around here, where I talk about the old and awesome horror/monster/suspense movies that I love so much. I kind of already do that, but now I'm going to have a name for it.
First up, I finally caught a double feature of a couple of movies that've been on my radar for some time, ever since I read (very briefly) about them in one of the many, many books on old monster movies that I've flipped through: The Shuttered Room & It!
The Shuttered Room (1967)
First off, The Shuttered Room is a bit of a disappointment, really. I'll take it by parts. THE GOOD: Really awesome buildings and sets. Some nice camera shots here and there. Oliver Reed as the lead creepy redneck would-be rapist. THE BAD: The music, the music, and the music. Probably some other stuff, but the music is seriously a standout here. It's not quite the most inappropriate music I've ever heard in a movie, and it's not quite the worst, but it's way up there on both lists.
It's also probably not the least Lovecraftian Lovecraft adaptation of all time but, again, it's right up there. Based on a Lovecraft story that's actually by August Derleth, it features a couple of Lovecraftian touches (names like Dunwich Island, and Whately, and the themes of inherited madness and things locked up in attics) but it exchanges most of his brand of cosmic horror for the menacing redneck variety.
The moral of the story? The first time your wife nearly gets raped on your already-not-very-promising trip back to her hometown, which you've already been told unequivocally to leave, it's time to pack up and go.
It! (1967)
Now this is more like it! Roddy McDowell owns the universe as Arthur Pimm (a reference to Arthur Gordon Pym? maybe) the best creepy Norman Bates-esque assistant museum curator ever, in a movie about a golem. Man, they seriously had me at "movie about a golem," but this one has it all. McDowell is in top form, giving a performance that makes me wish he'd gotten a chance to tackle some Lovecraft protagonists. The unrequited romance is cute. Jill Howarth is cute. And the ending just keeps getting more and more awesome. Plus, did I mention there's a golem? How had I gone so long without seeing this movie?
For all that it was a movie about a golem, you don't really expect a movie called something as generic as It! (there was apparently an alternate title at one point, Curse of the Great Golem, which would've been better, though I do appreciate the exclamation point in It!) to be all that spectacular, so it was a pleasant surprise when it was by far the winner of the evening.
First up, I finally caught a double feature of a couple of movies that've been on my radar for some time, ever since I read (very briefly) about them in one of the many, many books on old monster movies that I've flipped through: The Shuttered Room & It!
The Shuttered Room (1967)
First off, The Shuttered Room is a bit of a disappointment, really. I'll take it by parts. THE GOOD: Really awesome buildings and sets. Some nice camera shots here and there. Oliver Reed as the lead creepy redneck would-be rapist. THE BAD: The music, the music, and the music. Probably some other stuff, but the music is seriously a standout here. It's not quite the most inappropriate music I've ever heard in a movie, and it's not quite the worst, but it's way up there on both lists.
It's also probably not the least Lovecraftian Lovecraft adaptation of all time but, again, it's right up there. Based on a Lovecraft story that's actually by August Derleth, it features a couple of Lovecraftian touches (names like Dunwich Island, and Whately, and the themes of inherited madness and things locked up in attics) but it exchanges most of his brand of cosmic horror for the menacing redneck variety.
The moral of the story? The first time your wife nearly gets raped on your already-not-very-promising trip back to her hometown, which you've already been told unequivocally to leave, it's time to pack up and go.
It! (1967)
Now this is more like it! Roddy McDowell owns the universe as Arthur Pimm (a reference to Arthur Gordon Pym? maybe) the best creepy Norman Bates-esque assistant museum curator ever, in a movie about a golem. Man, they seriously had me at "movie about a golem," but this one has it all. McDowell is in top form, giving a performance that makes me wish he'd gotten a chance to tackle some Lovecraft protagonists. The unrequited romance is cute. Jill Howarth is cute. And the ending just keeps getting more and more awesome. Plus, did I mention there's a golem? How had I gone so long without seeing this movie?
For all that it was a movie about a golem, you don't really expect a movie called something as generic as It! (there was apparently an alternate title at one point, Curse of the Great Golem, which would've been better, though I do appreciate the exclamation point in It!) to be all that spectacular, so it was a pleasant surprise when it was by far the winner of the evening.
