C.M. Saunders's Blog, page 18

RetView #40 – Mysterious Island (1961)

Title: Mysterious Island

Year of Release: 1961

Director: Cy Endfield

Length: 101 mins

Starring: Michael Craig, Joan Greenwood, Michael Callan, Gary Merrill, Dan Jackson, Herbert Lom

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I remember seeing this film one wet afternoon as a kid, and being absolutely captivated by it. It’s the kind of boy’s adventure that just appeals to your sense of boldness and wonder. The original story was written by Jules Verne in 1874, and became an integral part of the so-called Voyages Extraordinaires, a sprawling series of no less than 54 novels published between 1863 and 1905 which included such classics as Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The book has been adapted at least eight other times over the years, most recently in 2012, but this 1961 version from Columbia Pictures is perhaps the most popular and enduring. It was directed by Cy Endfield, whose career highpoints came when he directed the seminal war film Zulu (1964) and wrote the sequel, Zulu Dawn (1979).

The year is 1865. It’s the height of the American Civil War, and a huge storm sweeps through a Confederate POW camp where a ragtag crew of Union soldiers led by Captain Cyrus Harding (Craig) are planning an escape. Using the storm as cover, they grab a couple of Confederates who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, pile into an observation balloon (the 19th Century equivalent of a stealth bomber) and make their getaway. The balloon carries them clean across America and over the Pacific Ocean, until another storm strikes and the balloon starts losing gas forcing them to land on, you guessed it, a mysterious island. The escapees quickly regroup and assign roles, with one poor bloke becoming designated ‘vegetable finder’ which must have looked great on his CV. It doesn’t take long before the intrepid group run into a giant crab. As you do. Now if you’ve ever wanted to see a bunch of men fight off a giant crab with sticks, this is the film for you. They eventually succeed in tipping it over into a conveniently boiling geyser and eating it. Brilliant. At various points they also encounter a giant flightless bird and some massive bees, along with a couple of very prim, unconscious English ladies who have been shipwrecked. Apart from the volcanoes and all the crazy big animals running around, the island begins to resemble utopia, but the group are still determined to leave and make their intentions clear by building a big boat from scratch. Personally, I’d rather chill on the island with it’s plentiful supply of food and wait to be rescued than take my chances at sea with no supplies in a boat I made myself, but that’s just me.

Then things start turning weird. More weird, I mean. The group stumbles across a lovely cave and a treasure chest containing guns, maps, and other useful shit, and then they find the mother of all payloads, the Nautilus (Captain Nemo’s legendary submarine) hidden in a subterranean passage. But before they can investigate fully, they are attacked by a rogue pirate ship, which is promptly sunk in a mysterious explosion, and most bizarrely of all, Captain Nemo himself (Lom) walks out of the sea dressed up as a giant shellfish and delivers the best line of the whole film: “Contact with my own species has always disappointed me.”

Burn!

Over a nice meal aboard the Nautilus, Captain Nemo reveals to the castaways that the giant creatures are the result of a series of genetic experiments designed to solve the world’s food shortages. He also claims responsibility for sinking the pirate ship, and reveals the entire island is about to be destroyed by a volcanic eruption. Bummer. But not to worry, Captain Nemo uses his ingenuity to refloat the knackered pirate ship and help the group make their getaway.

Mysterious Island is now widely known for the (then) groundbreaking stop motion animation by Ray Harryhausen, which became known as dynamation. In many ways it paved the way for other Harryhausen vehicles like Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Clash of the Titans (1981). His first feature film, Mighty Joe Young (1949) won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. The scene where the Union soldiers bust out of prison and escape in a hot air balloon were filmed in Church Square, Shepperton, Surrey, while most of the indoor scenes were filmed in nearby Shepperton Studios, and the beach scenes were filmed in Castell-Platja d’Aro in Catalonia, Spain. It would perhaps be too much of a leap to say this film still stands up today, especially in the special effects department. The truth is, it’s horribly dated. But the acting is superb and as slices of nostalgia go, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Trivia Corner:

Fifty minutes into the movie, Sgt Pencroft (Herbert) sings a song from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. However, Treasure Island wasn’t written until 1883, while the movie is set in 1865. Oops.

Bouncing Souls – Vol II (review)

One of the few bright spots in this shittest of years is provided by Bouncing Souls, who never disappoint. They may be mellowing slightly as the New Jersey punks advance in years, but the spark is still there. Volume II comes hot on the heels of last year’s stonking Crucial Moments EP, rather than coming hot on the heels of Volume I. In fact, there is no Volume I. There’s a 20th Anniversary Series of EPs which ran to four volumes, but that’s a different thing entirely. So what do we have here? Ten re-imagined and re-recorded classics and one new track, that’s what. On some level, it does resemble a greatest hits compilation of sorts in that some of their best songs are included like Ghosts on the Boardwalk, Kids and Heroes, Simple Man and Hopeless Romantic, alongside some deeper cuts like Highway Kings and Say Anything. But as I alluded to before, they may be here, just not as you know them. It seems to be in-vogue now for artists to go back and revisit their back catalogue. While not strictly a fan of the approach, I’m not against it either. I think one reason why it’s become so popular, apart from becoming an ideal way to resolve various contract disputes, is the rate at which technology is developing. When some of these tracks were originally recorded they sounded like they’d been bashed out in someone’s garage, which was kinda the point. But now, we have orchestras, drum machines (not as horrible it sounds) and the kind of polished production values that would make Def Leppard jealous making this largely minimalistic set essential listening.

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As guitarist Pete Steinkopf said in a recent interview, “We initially wanted to recreate some of the stripped-down vibe of the acoustic sets, but if anything, these versions are much more involved than the original versions. The first day we got to the studio Will said something like ‘we’re not gonna just make an acoustic record, right guys?’ We were like ‘hell no’ and then we were off to the races.”

I must admit, I was a bit wary of hearing the new version of Gone. It’s one of my favourite songs of all time, and I didn’t want my memories tainted by some jazzed-up abomination. Happily, my fears were unfounded. Sure, Gone is the driving riff to be replaced with understated acoustics reminiscent in places, bizarrely enough, of mid-period Cure. Quite a few of these tracks have that feeling, harking back to a much simpler time. Another example is the only new song here, World on Fire, which was released as a single earlier this year and sees the band exploring their lighter, janglier side.

While this may not be a definitive work, or even properly representative of BS as a band, it rounds out their body of work nicely and adds another dimension to some great tunes. If I have one criticism, it’s that they could’ve gone bigger. Volume II only features eleven tracks from a repertoire of hundreds. But the BS ethos has always been ‘less is more,’ and I guess this paves the way nicely for Volume I.

Volume II is out now on Pure Noise records.

Announcing the Autumn 2020 Table of Contents!

I can’t wait for the world to read Loose Ends!

34 Orchard

It’s been an interesting journey this time around, but we’re delighted to announce the Table of Contents for our sophomore issue—coming to this website on November 10!

In this issue, twenty-one artists from everywhere burn worlds to the ground in terrifyingly beautiful ways, featuring the following art, fiction and poetry:

In the Witch House — Chris Campeau

fairy ring — Clay McLeod Chapman

I Tell the Moon — Carol Despeaux Fawcett

Phantom Touch — Amar Benchikha

You Do the Hokey Pokey — Jay Abramowitz

Not Your Kid — Juleigh Howard-Hobson

Fish — Corin Scher

Seven Vignettes about Rats (Creative Nonfiction) — Kali Meister

A Plastic Life — Desirae Terrien

The Jet Black Knight — Lorna Wood

Extinction — Page Sullivan

Polka Dot — MK Roney

A Walk to the Pond — Elizabeth J. Coleman

Loose Ends — C.M. Saunders

Amy’s Game — Liam Hogan

Every Piece (is Sacred) — Hunter…

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Brewtality

My short story Grower is included in the new anthology Brewtality, out now on Evil Cookie, a new publishing company set up by the uber-talented K Trap Jones. All the stories in this book have a common them, which is something very close to my heart: alcohol.

Without giving too much away, Grower is about a guy who finds a tooth in his beer, and things just get weirder for him from there. It’s one of the most bizarre and flat-out surreal, stories I’ve produced in a long time. In fact, it’s probably one of the most bizarre and flat-out surreal, stories I’ve produced EVER. I wrote the original draft in the heady pre-COVID summer of 2019 whilst living in Guangzhou, and drinking far too much cheap Chinese beer. I was swigging on a can one night when I started thinking… what if?

This story was rejected by another prospective publisher I sent it to on the basis of being, “Too skin-crawlingly gross.” They also added, “The descriptions throughout this story were uncomfortably visceral and gruesome.” That’s a win for any horror writer, and I’m glad Trap wasn’t as squeamish and sensitive.

The original version featured a can of Budweiser as the vessel of doom, because I wanted to emphasise the discovery of something weird deep inside the ordinary and I hate Bud with a passion. Too gassy. But later I had a rethink, and decided it would be much more fun if I ditched the Bud in favour of a made-up brand of craft beer (just as I would in real life). Also, credit for that final killer line has to go to Trap himself.

Just look at this ToC!

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I am truly humbled to be in such great company.

Brewtality is out now on paperback and ebook on Evil Cookie publishing.

Retview #39 – They Live (1988)

Title: They Live

Year of Release: 1988

Director: John Carpenter

Length: 94 mins

Starring: “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, Keith David, Meg Foster, Peter Jason

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And now we arrive at yet another worthy entry in this series for horror maestro John Carpenter following The Fog, The Thing and Christine, and we haven’t even come to Halloween yet. Despite making back its entire budget of $3 million in its first weekend in theatres, upon release They Live offering was largely met with lukewarm reviews and indifference. Richard Harrington wrote in The Washington Post, “It’s just John Carpenter as usual, trying to dig deep with a toy shovel. The plot for They Live is full of black holes, the acting is wretched, the effects are second-rate.”

Ouch.

However, like so many other Carpenter films, They Live soon gathered traction and built a dedicated cult following further down the line. Since then, it has become known in underground circles as a bona fide sci-fi horror classic in the vein of Terminator and Robocop, containing all the elements essential for such an illustrious title such as satire, social commentary, a healthy dose of humour and, of course, some explosions. Its cultural impact is so profound that more than three decades after it came out, those perma-woke hipsters over at Rolling Stone are still writing articles about it.

The plot is pretty basic. Renowned wrestling star Roddy Piper, now sadly departed, plays Nada, a good-natured drifter who befriends construction worker Frank Armitage (David, who also played Kurt Russell’s sidekick in The Thing). Near a soup kitchen in a local shanty town he discovers a church full of scientific equipment, shortly thereafter the entire place is razed to the ground by police and Nada salvages a box of sunglasses. He steals one pair, and hides the rest in a dumpster.  Upon trying out the glasses the first thing he notices is that all the ads that surround us in our daily lives are really vehicles for hidden subversive messages or commands like ‘obey’ and ‘marry and reproduce.’ And that’s just the beginning. The glasses also allow him to see for the first time that the legions of yuppies populating Los Angeles, and presumably the rest of the world are, in fact, aliens. When the nasty aliens learn that Nada is well on the way to uncovering the truth, he essentially takes TV worker Holly Thompson (Foster) hostage, until she throws him through a window. Now a fugitive, Nada meets Armitage and, after a marathon six-minute street fight, finally succeeds in forcing a pair of sunglasses on his disbelieving buddy. Now alert to the truth, the two pair up to try to stop the alien invasion.

The idea for the movie came from a short story by Ray Nelson called “Eight o’clock in the Morning,” which was originally published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1963. It was later developed into a comic with the much snappier title Nada which was published in the Alien Encounters anthology in 1986. Carpenter acquired the film rights to both the original short story and the comic book, and used them as the basis for the screenplay which he wrote under the pseudonym Frank Armitage, which was also the name of David’s character. The name is actually an allusion to H.P. Lovecraft, one of carpenter’s favourite writers, who named a character in his classic The Dunwich Horror Henry Armitage. Ironically, most Lovecraftian horror involves a hidden or unseen world, a core element of They Live.

In the years since it came out, the movie has been taken as a metaphor for Reagan’s America, with Carpenter himself throwing fuel on the fire in various interviews. In a nutshell, the more political elements of the movie are derived from the director’s growing distaste with 1980’s commercialisation and consumerism, especially the economic policies promoted by the president which were dubbed Reaganomics. Carpenter once said, “I began watching TV again [and] quickly realized that everything we see is designed to sell us something.”

In keeping with the OTT eighties trend of cramming as many naff one-liners in each film as was humanly possible, Piper’s peak comes with the sublime, “I’ve come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubblegum,” second only to, “Life’s a bitch. And she’s back in heat.”

A remake has been mooted since around 2010 but details remain elusive. One thing is certain, if any cult movie would benefit from a big-budget, modern-day makeover, it’s this one.

Trivia Corner

Even politically-conscious pop punk stalwarts Green Day paid homage to They Live in the video for their single Back in the USA from the 2017 compilation Greatest Hits: God’s Favourite Band.

It Came From the Darkness

I’m proud to have been invited to contribute to It Came From the Darkness, an anthology put together by Red Cape Publishing and Philip Rogers to raise money for the Max the Brave fund.

Please follow the link to find out more about the cause.

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(from the official press release):

“A huge number of horror writers, poets, artists, and film makers have come together to support the cause and offer the reader something special. Each piece of writing begins with the same five words, but the stories themselves are all wonderfully varied. So dig in, take each tale one bloody bite at a time, and beware of what comes from the darkness.

Includes stories from David Owain Hughes, Matthew V. Brockmeyer, Tim Lebbon, Lou Yardley, Cortney Palm, Lee Franklin, MJ Dixon, Singh Lall, and many, many more.”

The book is released on October 30th.

Sker House 2020

Like most other people, I am struggling to take any positives from 2020. One positive, however, is the fact that I’ve had more time to reassess things, and tackle some of those jobs I’ve been putting off. One of those jobs was revising my novel, Sker House, my attempt at the ‘Great Welsh Haunted House Story.’

I worked on it sporadically for five or six years, mainly because there was so much research involved because I wanted it to be as factually accurate as possible. Sker House, and many of the places I talk about in the book, are real, and so are some of the local legends I reference including that of Kenfig Pool and the Maid of Sker. Well, they are at least as ‘real’ as legends can be, anyway. The book also incorporates some documented historical events, like the awful practice of wrecking and the Mumbles Lifeboat Disaster, which didn’t actually happen in Mumbles, but here at Sker Point.

In 2016 I got to a point where I was just done with Sker House. I was so desperate to get it out there, I forewent the process of looking for a traditional publisher, commissioned my old mate Greg Chapman to design a cover (based on an old postcard I found of the original Sker House) and decided to publish it myself. Or more accurately, via a now-defunct writer’s collective I was then part of.

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Though it became my biggest selling book and picked up some great reviews, truth be told, I’ve never been 100% happy with the version of Sker House I originally put out. The plot was a bit meandering and unfocused in places, and I slipped into using the passive voice a bit too much. The back end of the book felt a bit rushed, and there were a few silly grammatical errors and the odd missing apostrophe or comma. In places I forgot I was writing for an international audience, and referenced things like the Dissolution of the Monastries without actually saying what it was, or what the implications were and how it tied in with the story. From a more practical standpoint, the formatting was also a bit wayward. I was still learning the ropes then and experimenting with different techniques and software.

Some things seem fine the first dozen times you read them, but if you go back and read them a thirteenth time years later you’ll probably find some things you’d like to change. The beauty of self-publishing, apart from maintaining complete creative control, is that you can do just that. During this re-write I also added 4,000 words or so to the original. I’m not sure how that happened because my intention was to do the opposite, but there you go.

Helped largely by a succesful Bookbub promotion, the first edition is my biggest selling book which means a lot of my readers already have it. If you’re one of the few thousand who are in possession of the original (now substandard) version, get in touch and I’ll send you a free copy of the 2020 remaster.

If you still haven’t visited Sker House, why not take advantage of the special relaunch offer I’m running and do so now?

*I SHOULD POINT OUT THAT THIS INVITATION APPLIES TO THE BOOK ONLY. NOT THE ACTUAL HOUSE.*

I said something like that before and got a solicitor’s letter from the owner. I’d prefer that didn’t happen again. 

The revamped, revised, rewritten, and remixed Sker House is available on ebook and paperback.

Onwards and upwards

RetView #38 – Rabid (1977)

Title: Rabid

Year of Release: 1977

Director: David Cronenberg

Length: 91 mins

Starring: Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore, Joe Silver, Howard Ryshpan

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Before Scanners, Videodrome, and the 1986 remake of The Fly made Canadian writer and director David Cronenberg a household name, came this comparatively little-known cult classic. Despite the implications of the title, Rabid has nothing to do with animals, and everything to do with a woman who undergoes experimental surgery and spontaneously develops a strange penis-looking appendage under her armpit. This instrument, though, isn’t for fun, it’s for sucking blood and spreading disease. Hence the ‘rabid’ of the title. Okay, I guess some more information is required.

Rose, played by porn star Marilyn Chambers in her first attempt at a ‘serious’ role, is riding pillion on a motorcycle driven, not very well, by her boyfriend Hart (Moore), when they take a nasty tumble. They both survive, but find themselves in a clandestine plastic surgery clinic overseen by the slightly creepy Dr Dan Keloid (Ryshpan) who decides to perform radical new surgery on the comatose Rose, who is the more badly injured. When Rose finally awakens from her coma, she inadvertently injures a fellow patient. It is then revealed that Dr Keloid’s experimental procedures have caused a mutation in Rose’s body, leaving her able to subsist only on human blood. Furthermore, anyone she takes blood from soon morphs into deranged, murderous zombie-like creatures, which isn’t really ideal for anyone. Understandably freaking out, Rose discharges herself from the hospital (but not before causing some more mayhem) and sets off on a cross-country hitchhiking trip whilst the police and medical fraternity try desperately to apprehend her in the face of a swelling epidemic. With the situation now out of control, a state of martial law is declared in Montreal whilst an array of scientists and doctors work feverishly to develop a cure.

Sure, as many films of this era were, Rabid is camp as hell in places and it takes a while to get going, but there is a lot to admire here. Not least the performance of Chambers, who plays the role of Rose with clarity and impressive depth. Her transition to mainstream movies, however, ultimately failed and she was back in the porn industry several years later amid claims she’d been ‘blackballed’ by Hollywood. Tragically, on 12th April 2009 she was found dead by her 17-year old daughter the cause of death determined to be a cerebral haemorrhage and aneurysm linked to heart disease. She was 56. In hindsight, it’s highly likely that Cronenberg cast her largely because of her porn background, rather than in spite of it. There is a raw sexuality bubbling beneath the surface throughout, from the penis thing growing out of Rose’s armpit to the almost orgasmic reaction she has when she feeds. Some of the special effects aren’t so special, but Rabid benefits from a cohesive narrative and a solid plot, something missing from a few more lauded Cronenberg movies. The bleak ending also sticks in the mind, which I won’t spoil for you here. When it was released, most of the Western world was being swept away on a tide of spit, vehemence and punk music, and some of that attitude bleeds through into the movie which when viewed in retrospect seems to portray Rose as a vulnerable, even unwilling, catalyst for change.

Rabid is seen by many Cronenberg aficionados to be inexorably linked with his 1975 offering Shivers and true, the two films do share many similarities. The Den of Geek website points out that if Shivers represented Cronenberg’s brief foray into zombie territory, Rabid can be seen as a tentative exploration of the vampire genre, if only for the blood sucking. There has been no shortage of discussion about Rabid in the forty-something years since its release, with the overriding opinion being that whilst it fades into mediocrity when compared to some of his later work, it marks an important junction in the then-fledgling writer/director’s career. A largely-faithful remake directed and co-written by Jen and Silvia Soska and starring Laura Vandervoort premiered at the London Frightfest Festival on August 26th 2019.

Trivia Corner:

Cronenberg has stated that he originally wanted the sassy Sissy Spacek to play the lead, but the studio vetoed his choice because of her accent. Okay, then. Interestingly, Carrie, Spacek’s tour de force, was released during the production of Rabid, and a poster can be seen when Marilyn Chambers, Spacek’s eventual replacement for this role, walks past a movie theatre.

Holiday in the Splatterclub

My short story Holiday of a Lifetime is included in the Splatterclub’s first anthology, out now on Blood Bound Books. BBB, who have previously published my stories The Devil & Jim Rosenthal in DOA, Subject #270374 in DOA III, and The Others in Burnt Fur, are without doubt one of my favourite small presses. It is always a pleasure to work with them, and I’m overjoyed to continue our association.

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I wrote Holiday of a Lifetime in 2017, shortly after I came back from a trip to Thailand. While not quite the holiday of a lifetime, it came close. What it really did was open my eyes to some of the decadence and debauchery that goes on there on a daily basis. I thought Ibiza and Benidorm were bad (or good, depending on how you look at it) but nothing could prepare me for Bangkok and Pattaya.

Holiday of a Lifetime is about an Average Joe who, after being made redundant, decides to take his wife on a trip to Thailand. There, the couple let themselves go and indulge in everything the country has to offer. In fact, they let themselves go too far and come to realize that when something is done, it can’t be undone.

I honestly thought I’d overplayed my hand with this one. Blood, gore, extreme sex, sexual violence, it’s all here. I didn’t think I would be able to find a publisher willing to touch it, so kudos to BBB.

My mother is usually my biggest fan. She reads everything I have published. But I don’t think she’ll be reading this one.

Welcome to the Splatterclubis out now on paperback and ebook.

Tethered: A History

Tethered, my novella about internet rituals, is finally out on Terror Tract Publishing LLC. Yay!

Here’s a helpful blurb.

Craig, a journalism graduate trying desperately to get a foothold in a fading industry, is going nowhere fast. While searching for a project to occupy himself, he stumbles across a blog written by a girl called Kami about internet rituals – challenges undertaken by those seeking to make contact with ghosts or other supernatural entities.

Craig becomes obsessed, and when Kami suddenly disappears he goes in search of her. From there he is powerless to prevent his life spiralling out of control as he is drawn deeper and deeper into a dark, dangerous world where nothing is quite what it seems. A world populated not just by urban myths and hearsay, but by real-life killers.

He thinks he is in control, but nothing can be further from the truth.

And a look at the awesome cover by Becky Narron

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Tethered ended up taking on a bit of a weird structure, and is quite experimental in parts. It starts with a conversation between two flatmates, and the first half alternates between conventional storytelling and a mixture of mocked-up blog entries and news articles, while the second half returns to a more tried-and-tested format. I couldn’t help but get bogged down in the details, and the whole process took a lot longer than I wanted. The first draft resembled a pile of puzzle parts that I somehow had to piece together. I think they came together pretty well in the end. But I’m biased, obviously.

The title has a loaded meaning. In the traditional sense, ‘tethered’ means being being fixed or attached to something else (like reality), but a more modern usage it can be applied to using your smartphone to connect to the internet. Or something. This dual meaning made it the perfect choice, not just the respective definitions (both of which are relevant to the plot) but also because the title itself functions on multiple levels, which I hope the book also does.

After getting burned a few times over the years by rogue publishers, I’ve self-published my last few books, not just my X series which basically consists of fiction I’ve had published elsewhere, but longer original works, too, like Human Waste, Sker House and Dead of Night. There are many reasons why I do this, rather than go the traditional route. The process is much faster and I get to retain control over every aspect of the process from setting the price to the content and cover art.

The thing is, self-published authors get very little respect in the industry because there’s this attitude that anyone can do it, and you HAD to self-publish because your book wasn’t good enough to get published traditionally. There might even be some truth in that assumption, given the questionable quality of some self-published work out there. But without sounding too smug about it, I don’t think it strictly applies to me because my first half a dozen books were traditionally published. However, after a while out of the trad game, something approaching self-doubt crept in and I began to miss the competition.

Am I really good enough?

Is this book really good enough?

With the help of Terror Tract, I hope to answer some of those questions, and ask a few more.

Tethered is out now on paperback and ebook through Terror Tract Publishing LLC.