Mike Thorn's Blog, page 37

New Review of Darkest Hours in ReadingNReding

"As a graduate student, some stories in Darkest Hours hit a little too close to home. The story 'Sabbatical,' for example, offers a wonderful look into the agony and anxiety that accompanies the thesis writing process. This particular story shows the brilliant craftmanship behind this collection."

Huge thanks for this!

Read the full review in ReadingNReding.

MUBI Notebook Launches a 5-Part Star Wars Dialogue Between Me, Chelsea Phillips-Carr, Neil Bahadur, Isaac Goes and Isiah Medina

"I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and writing about George Lucas’s work, especially his Star Wars films; I hold this six-part series in extremely high regard, especially the prequel trilogy. In my Bright Lights Film Journal article Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: George Lucas’s Greatest Artistic Statement?, I discuss the breadth of Lucas’s extratextual reference and his brazenly unique sensibility. In George Lucas’s Wildest Vision: Retrofuturist Auteurism in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), I pay serious mind to Lucas’s interest in cinematic form and his avant-garde background, unpacking the ways in which his early experimental projects inform his later work.

For the purpose of this dialogue I wanted to hear input from several of my favorite film critics. I categorize Disney’s spin-off entries separately from Lucas’s work, given the corporation’s decision to disregard his existing outlines, but some of the contributors acknowledged the new films’ relation to (or distance from) the existing saga. I decided to pose broad, open-ended questions about these films, hoping to open up the possibilities for conversation as much as possible."

Read Part 1 here.

New 5-Star Review of Darkest Hours in Cedar Hollow Horror Reviews

"I had to stop reading three stories due to the fact that I was reading in the dark. I had to cover a mirror and keep the bedside lamp on."

Read the full review in Cedar Hollow Horror Reviews

New Review of Darkest Hours by Alex Landers for One Critical Bitch

For her website One Critical Bitch, visual artist, critic and playwright Alex Landers wrote the most in-depth review of Darkest Hours yet. Read it here.

Some of my favorite excerpts:

“As an opener, the short and sweet 'Hair' provides the special kind of hook that makes you afraid to continue, but somehow calls for multiple readings of its beautifully grotesque sentences. We are often made to believe that the unimaginable is the most terrifying, but the images Thorn conjures up are so horrifically imaginable that they’ll give you pause. And if you’re a true fan, you’ll probably push on.”

“Think again on Theodore’s desire: his hair lust is, in itself, horrific. But its his genuine, honest excitement as a lust-driven human that is both relatable and totally unmanageable. As hair grows on Theodore, so does our want for more: more grotesquerie, more cringeworthy vocabulary, more dunks in the hair-laden tub. It’s ingenious, really, in its metaphor for the genre itself. Horror can be an acquired taste – one that has the tendency to grow on you.”

“Darkest Hours is horror for horror people. For the ‘confirmed ghost story and horror film addict,’ if you will. But it’s also for people with strong emotions and a desire for philosophical thought. Funny, how horror often is.”

Huge thanks to Alex Landers! If you enjoy insightful and beautifully written criticism, hers is a site to follow.

Top 10 Lists for 2018 (Books, Films, Albums)

Starting in 2017, I decided to post a new top 10 films list every January 1. This year, I've decided to do the same for books and albums.

Books
01. Moby-Dick; or, the Whale, Herman Melville (1851)
02. It, Stephen King (1986)
03. Songs of Innocence and of Experience, William Blake (1789)
04. Melmoth the Wanderer, Charles Robert Maturin (1820)
05. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (1818)
06. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf (1927)
07. The Monk, Matthew Gregory Lewis (1796)
08. Ulysses, James Joyce (1922)
09. McTeague: A Story of San Francisco, Frank Norris (1899)
10. The Obscene Bird of Night, José Donoso (1970)

Films
01. Prince of Darkness, John Carpenter (1987)
02. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, George Lucas (2005)
03. La Région Centrale, Michael Snow (1971)
04. The Crowd, King Vidor (1928)
05. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Tobe Hooper (1974)
06. Citizen Kane, Orson Welles (1941)
07. Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles, Chantal Akerman (1975)
08. Alae, Lillian Schwartz (1975)
09. New York Subway, Billy Bitzer (1905)
10. Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages, D.W. Griffith (1916)

Albums
01. Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys (1966)
02. Streetcleaner, Godflesh (1989)
03. Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath (1970)
04. Street-Legal, Bob Dylan (1978)
05. Pornography, The Cure (1982)
06. Electronic Meditation, Tangerine Dream (1970)
07. "Heroes", David Bowie (1977)
08. Treasure, Cocteau Twins (1984)
09. From the Inside, Alice Cooper (1978)
10. Structures from Silence, Steve Roach (1984)

2017 Awards Eligibility and Publications Summary

I've seen a few "2017 Awards Eligibility" posts popping up, so I've prepared my own (yes, I feel awkward about it, but yes, I feel like I should probably do it anyhow). I go into detail on my site, but here's my year's publication rundown: my debut collection Darkest Hours contains 16 stories, including 7 original publications; 5 stories published in other anthologies and magazines (including Dark Moon Digest and DarkFuse [R.I.P.]); 11 entries for "Thorn's Thoughts" on Unnerving's site; 9 "Devious Dialogues" posts on Vague Visages co-written with A.M. Stanley, 3 book reviews for Vague Visages; and 13 other film reviews/articles (including appearances in MUBI Notebook, The Film Stage, The Seventh Row, Rupert Pupkin Speaks and Kendall Reviews).

It was a good year personally, if a hellish year globally.

Guest Post on Kendall Reviews: Mike Thorn’s 10 favourite Horror films from the 2010s

"Horror cinema still suffers from the burden of David Edelstein’s reductive, vaguely moralizing mid-2000s condemnation of 'torture porn.' Throughout the 2010s, the genre has mostly strayed away from the urgency, viscera and political heft of films like The Devil’s Rejects (2005) and Hostel (2005), opting instead for low-budget supernatural found footage fare (see most of Blumhouse’s output) and prestige exercises in genre-deaf bluffing (see most of the most popularly praised titles of the past three or so years). I tend to like horror films that proudly inhabit their genre, paying respect to its central affect while also demonstrating formal knowledge and identifying new possibilities. I prefer to see horror films pushing boundaries within a contemporary context than vaguely 'cerebral' repetitions of the past. Limiting myself to one title per director, I’ve highlighted ten of my favorite horror films released between 2010 and 2017 (organized chronologically)."

See my picks on Kendall Reviews.

Photos from the Second Darkest Hours Launch

Owl's Nest Books hosted the second launch for Darkest Hours last night.

Check out some photos from the event on my website.

"All in the Family," by Jennifer Loring & Mike Thorn, Slated for Publication in Tales from the Id - Behind the Mask

The brilliant Jennifer Loring and I co-wrote a domestic occult horror-thriller with shades of Satanic ritualism and urban myth. It's being published in Behind the Mask - Tales from the Id, edited by Steve Dillon and featuring reprints by the likes of genre legends such as Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, Algernon Blackwood and Edgar Allan Poe. The book also includes a piece by Mark Allan Gunnells, who wrote an awesome novella called #MakeHalloweenScaryAgain for Halloween Carnival Volume 1.

Yes, I'm excited.

New Review of Darkest Hours in Sci-Fi & Scary

Lilyn G. of Sci-Fi & Scary on Darkest Hours: "...contains the most diverse selection of stories that I’ve ever read from a single author. "

Read the full review here.