Jason Brant's Blog, page 30

Dream Sequences Suck

The Tall One (my wife for you new folks) always laughs when we're watching a movie or TV show and a dream sequence starts. She knows that I'm about to go on an epic rant.

Now, I'm not talking about any old dream sequence. If a character sees something scary in their dreams, or has a premonition, and it comes true later, that's fine.

What I'm rambling about, are the dreams that you think are a real part of the story, but end up just being a stupid gotcha! thing that writers do. You know, where a major character dies and then someone wakes up and everything is cool, roll credits. That's such bullshit.

The worst example of this that I can think of is in the final Twilight movie, Breaking Dick, or whatever it was called (it was so bad that it should have been called Breaking Jason Brant's Will to Live). Before you start laughing and pointing at me for watching those horrid movies, you should know that I was basically dared to do it, and, like Marty McFly, nobody calls me a chicken.

So, I watched them. Every agonizing minute of them. The worst part, like a kick to the nuts, was at the end. I'm going to spoil it for those of you haven't watched them yet, and you should thank me for that. I'm possibly saving you from suicidal thoughts after viewing them.

This 'epic' (HAH!) battle takes place at the end of the final movie. A bunch of vampires and other... things?... get in a big fight in a field. Main characters die. I'm actually growing a little interested at this point, to be honest. It takes balls to kill of a main character, particularly so many at once. Well, interested might not be the right word, but I wasn't thinking about sticking a fork in my eye for a few minutes.

So, people are dying, heads are ripped off, yada yada. The kind of stuff vampires should be doing.

And then... BANG... it's all a vision. None of it happened. Everyone is fine. The series ends shortly thereafter, roll credits.

The entire fucking finale of these shitty movies ended up being a dream? There is no finale at all? This crap has been building up for how long and when the villains finally show up they just split? Everything is cool?

That is the kind of dream sequence I'm talking about. It usually happens in a show, movie, or book where nothing much is going on. The writer knows this garbage sucks, so they make something crazy happen, then they just take it back.

I hate that. It's a total cop out.

Looking back though, that was the perfect ending for those movies. They were sorry, the ending was atrocious, it all fit.

... somehow my rant about dream sequences turned into a rant about Twilight. Sweet.

P.S. I haven't read the Twilight books, I'm strictly talking about the films. If you're a fan of the books, don't get all moody, I'm not shitting on them.

P.P.S. I bet they do suck though.

West of Hell Omnibus in Audio

The entire West of Hell series is now available in audiobook! Somehow, I forgot to post this to my blog. I suck.

Grab your copies here: Audible | Amazon | iTunes

The trilogy comes in at nearly 12 hours long. As I've said before, Robert Martinez, narrator extraordinaire, is amazing as Mad Dog McCall. Here is a sample of the book:


For those who already have the first two, here are the links for Sheol: Audible | Amazon | iTunes

I know that a lot of you are getting impatient to get Consumed (The Hunger #2) in audio. All I can do is apologize. Believe me, I'm just as frustrated as you are. Hopefully it'll be available soon.

Devoured Audiobook Giveaway

Audiobook Reviewer is giving away a free  copy of Devoured (The Hunger #1). That's a $20 audiobook for nothing - not too shabby. You can enter the contest below. Here is a sample of the audio:



a Rafflecopter giveaway

April Fool's Fun with a Nerf Gun

There's nothing quite like scaring my wife as soon as she gets home from work. I'm such a nice husband.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

In case you didn't know, they're remaking TMNT into a live-action movie. And I'll be damned, but the trailer looks pretty good. There was a rumor going around that the Turtles would be aliens, but that appears not to be the case.

And wow, the Turtles look super bad ass.

I grew up watching this cartoon, having epic battles with the action figures, and playing the great SNES game. The first movie, surprisingly, holds up really well. There are a lot of adult jokes in it that I definitely didn't get as a kid, including this gem:


Now that is some funny writing!
I watched the first two movies a couple of years ago for the first time since I was a kid. The first was pretty damn good. The second was not. All of the adult material from the first was removed from the second. Now, these are kids movies, primarily, so that makes sense. But it's a rare film that can appeal to both adults and kids, and I think the first was one of those.
Anywho, when I was waging those epic battles against The Foot, I was always Leonardo. My brother was Donatello.
Who were you?

Werewolf Prank

I'm a big fan of prank videos, particularly of the scary kind. Scare Tactics used to be a favorite show of mine. I love the idea of scaring the shit out of people for fun. Watching my wife lose her shit at haunted houses makes my Halloween worthwhile every year.

Damn, I'd love to do this to someone...

Damn It, Kevin Bacon

This dude just gets cooler and cooler. I want to be this awesome. There's a reason a billion memes are based on him.

30 years after Footloose, The Bacon does this on The Tonight Show. It doesn't get much cooler than that.

Very Creepy Short Film

Check out this 2 minute short film. Creepy!

It's Friday!

It's Friday.

And I'm working on the sequel to ASH.

Drink one for me!

Petition to Use Real Names on Amazon

There is a petition circulating where people are trying to force reviewers to use their real names on Amazon. Some authors are signing it. Anne Rice is even on board.

I say, fuck that.

If you bought one of my books, it is yours. If you want to cherish it and put it on a mantle and pray to it, that's cool with me (send me a pic of that). If you want to tear the pages out and wipe your ass with them because you hate it so bad, that's cool with me (don't send me a pic of that). You want to leave me a scathing review on Amazon that says I write like a brain-damaged monkey on meth, that's cool with me. I might think you're an asshole, but hey, so am I.

You took a chance on one of my books. I'm grateful for that. Don't get me wrong, no one wants to get shitty reviews, but it's a part of the game. Taking away the privacy of customers will have a chilling effect on reviews. I'm not OK with that. I want you to have your privacy and I want you to speak your mind.

So, dear freaky readers, you can say or do whatever you want about my books, anonymously or not. It's ridiculous to think that authors can write books under a pen name, but customers can't review the same way.

Most reviewers are helpful, good people. We don't need to punish them because of a handful of assholes.

/BrantRant