David Dubrow's Blog, page 44
September 23, 2015
New Short Story Published!
Revised, expanded, updated, and more relevant than ever, my short story
How to Fix a Broken World
has been published by Liberty Island!
A blackly humorous tale of creeping insanity, of social media and obsession with current events, it's a short, punchy read. And, best of all in these harsh economic times, it's absolutely free! What are you waiting for? Click over and get reading!
A blackly humorous tale of creeping insanity, of social media and obsession with current events, it's a short, punchy read. And, best of all in these harsh economic times, it's absolutely free! What are you waiting for? Click over and get reading!
September 21, 2015
Everyday Horror
Living in Florida, one thing you have to get used to is the bugs. We have a lot of them out here, because the whole state is basically a swamp resting atop a gigantic slab of limestone. Mosquitoes, spiders, slugs, you name it, we got it.
Cockroaches are particularly common. We call them Palmetto bugs or water bugs, but stripped of euphemism, they're roaches. There are two kinds of roaches: the massive black ones that are horrible to deal with and the slightly smaller brown ones that are horrible to deal with. When we first moved out here, the house we rented occasionally burped out a big, black roach that our cats wanted nothing to do with, so I'd usually have to get rid of it in some fashion.
The problem is that if you step on one, it squirts out sickening bug guts everywhere and the disgusting hairy legs come off. If you try to pick one up with a paper towel it might squirm out onto you because it's a boneless, wriggling monster. There's nothing about roaches that doesn't inspire loathing. My favorite way to eliminate them is to suck them up with a vacuum cleaner's wand attachment: you don't have to get too close to it and if you're quick and get it from behind, it won't run under something you can't reach.
Seeing one in your space is a gut check every time. I know few men who are blase about such vermin. Exterminators excepted, of course.
They come up through plumbing, through cracks in walls, through anything. You can keep your house as immaculate as an operating room and you'll still find one every once in a while.
Geckos, of which there are many in Florida, will occasionally kill a roach if they're hungry enough. I saw the aftermath once in our back patio: the gecko had torn the roach's head off and splattered its guts everywhere. It looked like a murder scene in miniature. Fascinating and disgusting all at once. Hannibal Gecko Lecter and one of his victims.
When I dropped my son off at preschool today and we put his lunchbox in his cubby, one of his teachers came up to me and asked, "How good are you at dealing with roaches?"
Terrible. I'm really, really not good at dealing with them at all.
"Let's see what you've got," I said.
It was one of the big black stripy ones, clinging to the wall over the toilet tank in the kiddie bathroom. Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it.
I went over to the paper towel dispenser and got a wad of paper towels. Then I looked at it, figuratively girding my loins. Despite my fairly high comfort level with violence, I just didn't want to be there right then. I wanted to be home.
And then, of course, the teacher said, "Oh, that's okay, I'll have Ms. C take care of it."
I knew exactly what she was doing: shaming me into action. It worked.
I made a grab for the roach. It fell, scuttled, threatened to escape under the fixtures. I stomped on it just enough to hurt it but not squish its sickening bug guts everywhere, picked the twitching thing up with the paper towels, crushed it, and threw it away.
After the teacher thanked me for my heroism, I said, "Oh, that's okay. It's actually good. I've already done the worst thing I'll do all day, so the rest of the day'll be easy."
I gave my little boy a hug and a kiss and sent him off to learn in a roach-free environment.
Then I went home and took a Silkwood shower.
Cockroaches are particularly common. We call them Palmetto bugs or water bugs, but stripped of euphemism, they're roaches. There are two kinds of roaches: the massive black ones that are horrible to deal with and the slightly smaller brown ones that are horrible to deal with. When we first moved out here, the house we rented occasionally burped out a big, black roach that our cats wanted nothing to do with, so I'd usually have to get rid of it in some fashion.
The problem is that if you step on one, it squirts out sickening bug guts everywhere and the disgusting hairy legs come off. If you try to pick one up with a paper towel it might squirm out onto you because it's a boneless, wriggling monster. There's nothing about roaches that doesn't inspire loathing. My favorite way to eliminate them is to suck them up with a vacuum cleaner's wand attachment: you don't have to get too close to it and if you're quick and get it from behind, it won't run under something you can't reach.
Seeing one in your space is a gut check every time. I know few men who are blase about such vermin. Exterminators excepted, of course.
They come up through plumbing, through cracks in walls, through anything. You can keep your house as immaculate as an operating room and you'll still find one every once in a while.
Geckos, of which there are many in Florida, will occasionally kill a roach if they're hungry enough. I saw the aftermath once in our back patio: the gecko had torn the roach's head off and splattered its guts everywhere. It looked like a murder scene in miniature. Fascinating and disgusting all at once. Hannibal Gecko Lecter and one of his victims.
When I dropped my son off at preschool today and we put his lunchbox in his cubby, one of his teachers came up to me and asked, "How good are you at dealing with roaches?"
Terrible. I'm really, really not good at dealing with them at all.
"Let's see what you've got," I said.
It was one of the big black stripy ones, clinging to the wall over the toilet tank in the kiddie bathroom. Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it.
I went over to the paper towel dispenser and got a wad of paper towels. Then I looked at it, figuratively girding my loins. Despite my fairly high comfort level with violence, I just didn't want to be there right then. I wanted to be home.
And then, of course, the teacher said, "Oh, that's okay, I'll have Ms. C take care of it."
I knew exactly what she was doing: shaming me into action. It worked.
I made a grab for the roach. It fell, scuttled, threatened to escape under the fixtures. I stomped on it just enough to hurt it but not squish its sickening bug guts everywhere, picked the twitching thing up with the paper towels, crushed it, and threw it away.
After the teacher thanked me for my heroism, I said, "Oh, that's okay. It's actually good. I've already done the worst thing I'll do all day, so the rest of the day'll be easy."
I gave my little boy a hug and a kiss and sent him off to learn in a roach-free environment.
Then I went home and took a Silkwood shower.
September 18, 2015
Friday Links: The Yeast Men, Strange Behavior, and Mermaid in a Manhole
As you rush headlong into the weekend like a metaphorical thing doing something quite fast, look back on what you might have missed in the world of the bizarre and horrific and just plain weird:
1967 proved to be a very, very strange year, and Ghost Hunting Theories details why. There's Bigfoot, UFOs, ghosts, Mothman, and more!Sean Eaton baked up some analysis of Lovecraft contemporary David H. Keller at his must-read, never-miss R'lyeh Tribune : "Keller’s The Yeast Men (1928) depicts an alternative universe closely parallel to our own in the early 20th century. Superficially it appears to be science fiction because of its weird pseudo-technology. However, the paraphernalia that appear in Keller’s fiction have a different, even playful quality when compared to the devices and extrapolations invented by other pulp science fiction writers of the time." I've already made all the yeast infection jokes in my life I care to, so don't think you've got to pick up the slack here.
The House of Self-Indulgence
reviewed the 1981 Australian horror film Strange Behavior: "Now, I don't want to sound like a broken record. But what the fuck, guys? Strange Behavior is probably the ultimate film in the milfy lady scientists wielding syringes that contain iridescent liquid genre. Think about it. Not only is Gwen Parkinson (
Illustration by Frank Brunner for Chaosium's Stormbringer 4th Edition Rulebook.
1967 proved to be a very, very strange year, and Ghost Hunting Theories details why. There's Bigfoot, UFOs, ghosts, Mothman, and more!Sean Eaton baked up some analysis of Lovecraft contemporary David H. Keller at his must-read, never-miss R'lyeh Tribune : "Keller’s The Yeast Men (1928) depicts an alternative universe closely parallel to our own in the early 20th century. Superficially it appears to be science fiction because of its weird pseudo-technology. However, the paraphernalia that appear in Keller’s fiction have a different, even playful quality when compared to the devices and extrapolations invented by other pulp science fiction writers of the time." I've already made all the yeast infection jokes in my life I care to, so don't think you've got to pick up the slack here.
The House of Self-Indulgence
reviewed the 1981 Australian horror film Strange Behavior: "Now, I don't want to sound like a broken record. But what the fuck, guys? Strange Behavior is probably the ultimate film in the milfy lady scientists wielding syringes that contain iridescent liquid genre. Think about it. Not only is Gwen Parkinson (Illustration by Frank Brunner for Chaosium's Stormbringer 4th Edition Rulebook.
September 16, 2015
A Few Thoughts About Editing Your Indie Book Plus Book News
(This post is not intended to point fingers at individuals, nor is it a reaction to a particular book.)
After having read dozens of indie- and self-published books over the last year or so in several different genres, I've found some common threads that link them together as indie fiction and separate them from traditionally-published books.
Most prominent is the lack of editing. The vast, vast, vast majority of writers need an editor, or, if nothing else, a competent, experienced proofreader to make their work ready for prime time. There really is no acceptable number of typos or grammatical mistakes allowable in a published work. The expression "the perfect is the enemy of the good" doesn't apply to publishing.
There are, of course, more subjective elements to your book that may or may not benefit from a story editor: character arcs, plot arcs, dialogue, a clearly-defined antagonist, etc. They're important, but their very subjectivity puts them up for debate. (The subject of a later post will cover the relative value of having a book editor review your book.) I'm talking about having everything spelled properly. No wrong word choices like "vocal chords" or "it's" when you mean "its." Microsoft Word doesn't fix run-ons, comma placement, and subject-verb agreement, and if you can't do it (most writers, remember, cannot), you must find someone to fix these errors for you.
Yes, I know it's expensive. And time-consuming. And a pain in the ass and a gut check and you still have to do it because if you don't do it you're putting out marginal work. These things count. We've all read traditionally-published books with grammatical errors, yes. But just because some people put out substandard work, it's no excuse for you to do the same. Do you want to be good for an indie, or just plain good?
Get it professionally edited, and if you can't, get it proofread. It shows you care about the reader.
My other concern is book formatting. I've read some books that were horribly formatted. There's no excuse for that. If you can't or won't have your book professionally formatted, download this invaluable guide, follow the instructions, and you'll have formatted your book properly. Mark Coker is my personal hero for writing this guide and making it available for free.
The bottom line is that publishing is all about being detail-oriented. Including self-publishing.
In other news, The Nephilim and the False Prophet has been sent to educated, literate readers I trust to sanity-check it. The end is nigh!
After having read dozens of indie- and self-published books over the last year or so in several different genres, I've found some common threads that link them together as indie fiction and separate them from traditionally-published books.
Most prominent is the lack of editing. The vast, vast, vast majority of writers need an editor, or, if nothing else, a competent, experienced proofreader to make their work ready for prime time. There really is no acceptable number of typos or grammatical mistakes allowable in a published work. The expression "the perfect is the enemy of the good" doesn't apply to publishing.
There are, of course, more subjective elements to your book that may or may not benefit from a story editor: character arcs, plot arcs, dialogue, a clearly-defined antagonist, etc. They're important, but their very subjectivity puts them up for debate. (The subject of a later post will cover the relative value of having a book editor review your book.) I'm talking about having everything spelled properly. No wrong word choices like "vocal chords" or "it's" when you mean "its." Microsoft Word doesn't fix run-ons, comma placement, and subject-verb agreement, and if you can't do it (most writers, remember, cannot), you must find someone to fix these errors for you.Yes, I know it's expensive. And time-consuming. And a pain in the ass and a gut check and you still have to do it because if you don't do it you're putting out marginal work. These things count. We've all read traditionally-published books with grammatical errors, yes. But just because some people put out substandard work, it's no excuse for you to do the same. Do you want to be good for an indie, or just plain good?
Get it professionally edited, and if you can't, get it proofread. It shows you care about the reader.
My other concern is book formatting. I've read some books that were horribly formatted. There's no excuse for that. If you can't or won't have your book professionally formatted, download this invaluable guide, follow the instructions, and you'll have formatted your book properly. Mark Coker is my personal hero for writing this guide and making it available for free.
The bottom line is that publishing is all about being detail-oriented. Including self-publishing.
In other news, The Nephilim and the False Prophet has been sent to educated, literate readers I trust to sanity-check it. The end is nigh!
September 14, 2015
GNoH Book Review: Alchemy by Chris James
At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, I reviewed the novel Alchemy: A Story of Perfect Murder by Chris James:
"Set in England in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century, it tells the story of insanity, hallucinogenic drug use, death, and magic using multiple characters, shifting points of view, and trial testimony."
It's a story, and there's murder in it. But is it perfect? Click to find out!
"Set in England in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century, it tells the story of insanity, hallucinogenic drug use, death, and magic using multiple characters, shifting points of view, and trial testimony."
It's a story, and there's murder in it. But is it perfect? Click to find out!
September 11, 2015
Friday Links: Creepy Mannequins, God Kuzya, and a Danish Pulp Haul
It;s been a short week for many of us, what with the Monday holiday and all, but you should still take some time to look back on what's happened over the last several days in the world of the bizarre, unusual, and horrific.
Anything Horror brought us a review of 2013's Wasteland: "The Last Man scenario is a compelling one for filmmakers, however, and not just because of the dramatic potential: you don’t need a large cast or budget, just a few isolated, abandoned locations. You could probably fill a room with the DVDs of movies like this. So a filmmaker wanting to add to the collection needs to do something special to make theirs stand out. Tom Wadlow’s WASTELAND, filmed in Derby, England, made a good attempt at standing out, by focusing on the emotional impact of a survivor of an apocalypse."Nev Murray, who is thankfully on the road to recovery, reviewed Peter Giglio's Shadowshift at his Confessions of a Reviewer!! : "Characters – there are a few but the main people to look out for in this are obviously Chet, Tina and Hannah. Chet is, how can I put it, vile? Yes vile. This is a man who has been using his gift for years and couldn’t care less who it affects or what damage he does. He’s just out for himself. He is horrible to Tina but sweet to Hannah. The only reason for that is because he thinks she has a gift too." Ghost Hunting Theories wrote a particularly creepy piece about mannequins, replete with disturbing photos: "I wanted to live among mannequins. I guess I hadn't realized how eerie it is. It's kind of like being in a relationship with someone who takes up space but adds nothing to the experience."
Jim Mcleod reviewed the movie Goddess of Love at his
Ginger Nuts of Horror
: "In the early part of the film we get hints at Venus' mental instability, nothing too serious, just little hints that things might not be so right with her. In particular the use of her neighbors loud music to show her anguish and inner pain is spectacular in execution. The way in which the bass is distorted to extreme levels and the camera shakes that appear on film during these episodes is wonderful. Is the music real? Is it really so distorted and intrusive or is it all just a figment of her imagination?"
Breakfast in the Ruins
showed us some of his Danish pulp haul. It's okay if you don't know what a Danish pulp haul is. Give it a look!Cracked's For Monsters Only was the subject of a must-read post from
Zombo's Closet of Horror
: "Carrying this humor angle to the extreme was Cracked's For Monsters Only: The Official Magazine for All Monsters! Begun in 1965, and running through to its 10th and last issue in 1972, its funny cartoons and illustrations, wacky John Severin drawn comics and covers, and wide assortment of crazy-captioned movie photos populated by aliens, monsters, and other assorted creatures (and their victims), were aimed at the reader’s funny bone instead of his or her jugular vein."At the invaluably incredible
R'lyeh Tribune
, Sean Eaton discussed John L. Steadman's H.P. Lovecraft & The Black Magickal Tradition: "Steadman’s tone is respectful. He is, after all, a practitioner himself, though not an uncritical one. Readers can decide for themselves based on his thorough presentation of the material. Among the traditions surveyed are various Vodou cults, Wiccan covens, the Typhonian Order, the Church of Satan, and—of interest to this writer—the Chaos Magick Pacts, a kind of post-modernist, Libertarian collection of disparate magickians. H.P. Lovecraft & The Black Magickal Tradition is a well-researched, accessible and thought provoking book—an excellent base for further exploration of this fascinating subject."God Kuzya was detained by police in Russia: "Russian police have detained the self-styled “God Kuzya,” the head of a notorious radical cult accused of whipping and torturing members of his group, most of them women. Investigators found the equivalent of $4 million in his seven Moscow apartments. 38-year-old Andrey Popov, a visually impaired man, nicknamed God Kuzya after his dead parrot, is infamous for his claim, made in one of his speeches: “I was God who created Christ. I have already done eight times what Christ did.”"Here, I wrote a two-minute review of the movie Nightcrawler and discussed a horror cliché that I'd like to see go by the wayside. Illustration by Tom Sullivan for Call of Cthulhu's
S. Petersen's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters
.
Anything Horror brought us a review of 2013's Wasteland: "The Last Man scenario is a compelling one for filmmakers, however, and not just because of the dramatic potential: you don’t need a large cast or budget, just a few isolated, abandoned locations. You could probably fill a room with the DVDs of movies like this. So a filmmaker wanting to add to the collection needs to do something special to make theirs stand out. Tom Wadlow’s WASTELAND, filmed in Derby, England, made a good attempt at standing out, by focusing on the emotional impact of a survivor of an apocalypse."Nev Murray, who is thankfully on the road to recovery, reviewed Peter Giglio's Shadowshift at his Confessions of a Reviewer!! : "Characters – there are a few but the main people to look out for in this are obviously Chet, Tina and Hannah. Chet is, how can I put it, vile? Yes vile. This is a man who has been using his gift for years and couldn’t care less who it affects or what damage he does. He’s just out for himself. He is horrible to Tina but sweet to Hannah. The only reason for that is because he thinks she has a gift too." Ghost Hunting Theories wrote a particularly creepy piece about mannequins, replete with disturbing photos: "I wanted to live among mannequins. I guess I hadn't realized how eerie it is. It's kind of like being in a relationship with someone who takes up space but adds nothing to the experience."
Jim Mcleod reviewed the movie Goddess of Love at his
Ginger Nuts of Horror
: "In the early part of the film we get hints at Venus' mental instability, nothing too serious, just little hints that things might not be so right with her. In particular the use of her neighbors loud music to show her anguish and inner pain is spectacular in execution. The way in which the bass is distorted to extreme levels and the camera shakes that appear on film during these episodes is wonderful. Is the music real? Is it really so distorted and intrusive or is it all just a figment of her imagination?"
Breakfast in the Ruins
showed us some of his Danish pulp haul. It's okay if you don't know what a Danish pulp haul is. Give it a look!Cracked's For Monsters Only was the subject of a must-read post from
Zombo's Closet of Horror
: "Carrying this humor angle to the extreme was Cracked's For Monsters Only: The Official Magazine for All Monsters! Begun in 1965, and running through to its 10th and last issue in 1972, its funny cartoons and illustrations, wacky John Severin drawn comics and covers, and wide assortment of crazy-captioned movie photos populated by aliens, monsters, and other assorted creatures (and their victims), were aimed at the reader’s funny bone instead of his or her jugular vein."At the invaluably incredible
R'lyeh Tribune
, Sean Eaton discussed John L. Steadman's H.P. Lovecraft & The Black Magickal Tradition: "Steadman’s tone is respectful. He is, after all, a practitioner himself, though not an uncritical one. Readers can decide for themselves based on his thorough presentation of the material. Among the traditions surveyed are various Vodou cults, Wiccan covens, the Typhonian Order, the Church of Satan, and—of interest to this writer—the Chaos Magick Pacts, a kind of post-modernist, Libertarian collection of disparate magickians. H.P. Lovecraft & The Black Magickal Tradition is a well-researched, accessible and thought provoking book—an excellent base for further exploration of this fascinating subject."God Kuzya was detained by police in Russia: "Russian police have detained the self-styled “God Kuzya,” the head of a notorious radical cult accused of whipping and torturing members of his group, most of them women. Investigators found the equivalent of $4 million in his seven Moscow apartments. 38-year-old Andrey Popov, a visually impaired man, nicknamed God Kuzya after his dead parrot, is infamous for his claim, made in one of his speeches: “I was God who created Christ. I have already done eight times what Christ did.”"Here, I wrote a two-minute review of the movie Nightcrawler and discussed a horror cliché that I'd like to see go by the wayside. Illustration by Tom Sullivan for Call of Cthulhu's
S. Petersen's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters
.
September 9, 2015
A Horror Cliché to Be Eliminated
Inspired by this excellent article by Kayleigh Marie Edwards, I will discuss a cliché that I would like to see go by the wayside, as it's become such a tiresome theme in not just horror, but genre fiction in general: the cliché of the Hypocritical Christian.
For reasons that go beyond the scope of this piece, modern culture has elevated hypocrisy to the unofficial Eighth Deadly Sin, despite how common it is. We are all hypocrites in some fashion or other, but when it comes to religious hypocrisy, where the sinner has the guff to quote Scripture to explain the basis of his beliefs, that's somehow a bridge too far. This has an element of gotcha in it, as the rulebook for Christians is so widely available: the Bible. It's easy to point out sections of the Bible that aren't followed and demand that the offending Christian follow them or be damned as a hypocrite. That this all-or-nothing approach is never required anywhere else in modern life is immaterial: the accusation is what counts. Religious hypocrites are, to some, particularly galling, and must be denounced. Especially in fiction. More especially in horror fiction. Even two of horror's most famous authors have indulged in it: Clive Barker and Stephen King.
I've mentioned this at length in my review of Clive Barker's The Scarlet Gospels: "If there is one central theme running throughout The Scarlet Gospels, it’s explicitly anti-Christian. Every time Christianity is mentioned, it’s linked to hypocrisy, abuse, and evil. Carston Goode, the ghost who brought both Norma and D’amour into the events of the story, was one such hypocrite. Despite 'a deep-seated faith in the generosity of the Lord his God,' Goode is a sorcerer with a secret life of sexual deviance."
In Stephen King's Carrie, The Mist, and The Shawshank Redemption, the greatest (human) antagonists often quoted the Bible as a motivating factor in their menace.
Films like The Last Exorcism also carry this theme forward; indeed, it's difficult to find a positive representation of Christianity in contemporary horror movies at all, and you'll have to go back to the 1970's and 1980's to find examples. In The Exorcist , Father Karras sacrifices himself to save the possessed Regan, and in Omen 3: The Final Conflict , we see a vision of Jesus Christ at the end, when Damien is sent back to Hell. It's a safe bet that if there's a pastor in a horror movie made within the last thirty years, he'll be a bumbling incompetent at best, or if he's wearing a black cassock and white collar, a sexual deviant.
There are occasional exceptions, of course: From Dusk Till Dawn 's Jacob Fuller, for example (note that this movie is almost twenty years old). Graham Hess in 2002's Signs . The Rite. Nevertheless, Christianity has been used as a punching bag for writers either looking to plant an ideological flag or are too lazy to find a more interesting antagonist. For the sake of that ever-elusive originality, if nothing else, it's time to put this cliché to rest.
It's no longer daring or trendy or cutting edge to see a sinning priest. The pendulum's swung so far that way that it's rare to see, in genre fiction, a priest who isn't a criminal or idiot or hypocrite.
For reasons that go beyond the scope of this piece, modern culture has elevated hypocrisy to the unofficial Eighth Deadly Sin, despite how common it is. We are all hypocrites in some fashion or other, but when it comes to religious hypocrisy, where the sinner has the guff to quote Scripture to explain the basis of his beliefs, that's somehow a bridge too far. This has an element of gotcha in it, as the rulebook for Christians is so widely available: the Bible. It's easy to point out sections of the Bible that aren't followed and demand that the offending Christian follow them or be damned as a hypocrite. That this all-or-nothing approach is never required anywhere else in modern life is immaterial: the accusation is what counts. Religious hypocrites are, to some, particularly galling, and must be denounced. Especially in fiction. More especially in horror fiction. Even two of horror's most famous authors have indulged in it: Clive Barker and Stephen King.
I've mentioned this at length in my review of Clive Barker's The Scarlet Gospels: "If there is one central theme running throughout The Scarlet Gospels, it’s explicitly anti-Christian. Every time Christianity is mentioned, it’s linked to hypocrisy, abuse, and evil. Carston Goode, the ghost who brought both Norma and D’amour into the events of the story, was one such hypocrite. Despite 'a deep-seated faith in the generosity of the Lord his God,' Goode is a sorcerer with a secret life of sexual deviance." In Stephen King's Carrie, The Mist, and The Shawshank Redemption, the greatest (human) antagonists often quoted the Bible as a motivating factor in their menace.
Films like The Last Exorcism also carry this theme forward; indeed, it's difficult to find a positive representation of Christianity in contemporary horror movies at all, and you'll have to go back to the 1970's and 1980's to find examples. In The Exorcist , Father Karras sacrifices himself to save the possessed Regan, and in Omen 3: The Final Conflict , we see a vision of Jesus Christ at the end, when Damien is sent back to Hell. It's a safe bet that if there's a pastor in a horror movie made within the last thirty years, he'll be a bumbling incompetent at best, or if he's wearing a black cassock and white collar, a sexual deviant.
There are occasional exceptions, of course: From Dusk Till Dawn 's Jacob Fuller, for example (note that this movie is almost twenty years old). Graham Hess in 2002's Signs . The Rite. Nevertheless, Christianity has been used as a punching bag for writers either looking to plant an ideological flag or are too lazy to find a more interesting antagonist. For the sake of that ever-elusive originality, if nothing else, it's time to put this cliché to rest.
It's no longer daring or trendy or cutting edge to see a sinning priest. The pendulum's swung so far that way that it's rare to see, in genre fiction, a priest who isn't a criminal or idiot or hypocrite.
September 7, 2015
Two-Minute Movie Review: Nightcrawler
Call it a black comedy, call it a searing indictment of local television news, Nightcrawler is a glorious train wreck of a movie you can't look away from. Nothing's wasted in Nightcrawler: there's no fluff, there's not one scene or moment out of place. It's all about Louis Bloom, an extremely terrible person with an ambition to make money that is literally unstoppable.
There's a dreadful inevitability to the film, which is both its greatest flaw and its real strength. You know where the story's going. There are no surprises. Whenever there's a choice to be made that an ethical person would find troubling, Louis jumps in with both feet and a creepy smile. There's only one path for Louis, so as a viewer, you have to just sit back and marvel.
A man without a past to speak of, Louis is bizarrely opaque, despite that every scene has him in it. We know he's motivated by money, we know he's blissfully free of the slightest of moral qualms, but that's it. He speaks in the blandest corporate-speak you've ever heard, full of hysterical cliche and non-sequitur, and occasionally dips into a disquieting kind of menace that you have to think about to make sure you heard correctly. Jake Gyllenhall does a near-perfect job of portraying him in all of his insectile charm.
Some movies live up to the hype, some don't. Nightcrawler does. It's not quite a five-star movie, but if you want to spend some quality time in front of a screen, you'll have to go pretty far to find something better. Four stars out of five.
There's a dreadful inevitability to the film, which is both its greatest flaw and its real strength. You know where the story's going. There are no surprises. Whenever there's a choice to be made that an ethical person would find troubling, Louis jumps in with both feet and a creepy smile. There's only one path for Louis, so as a viewer, you have to just sit back and marvel.
A man without a past to speak of, Louis is bizarrely opaque, despite that every scene has him in it. We know he's motivated by money, we know he's blissfully free of the slightest of moral qualms, but that's it. He speaks in the blandest corporate-speak you've ever heard, full of hysterical cliche and non-sequitur, and occasionally dips into a disquieting kind of menace that you have to think about to make sure you heard correctly. Jake Gyllenhall does a near-perfect job of portraying him in all of his insectile charm.
Some movies live up to the hype, some don't. Nightcrawler does. It's not quite a five-star movie, but if you want to spend some quality time in front of a screen, you'll have to go pretty far to find something better. Four stars out of five.
September 4, 2015
Friday Links: Voices of the Damned, Backcountry, and Charles Dexter Ward
Labor Day approaches, promising labor for some of us and rest for the rest. While we look forward to the upcoming holiday, let's take a look back at what's happened in the world of the bizarre and horrific.
But before that, I want to give my buddy Nev Murray my best wishes for a speedy recovery. Hope you're up and at it again ASAP, Nev!
Infernal Cinema brought us the news that actress and author Barbie Wilde's collection of short stories Voices of the Damned would be ready for sale in October of this year: "Enter into the mind of Barbie Wilde, whose disturbing interior world teems with the voices of rebellious female demons, devilish witches, semen-hungry neo-vampires, raging gods and home invaders, the fiends of sleep paralysis, pint-sized store-front preachers with a whiff of sulfur, body horrors of the most grotesque kind, clandestine aliens and Zulu zombies."A Jamaican teenager stabbed a police officer after watching a zombie film: ""I don't know what get in a him. A from last night we were watching The Night of the Living Dead movie and him just start to act up. We normally watch a movie together on a Sunday night, but when I saw how the movie was going, I told them that I wouldn't watch anymore, so I left them to watch it, but after the movie, him just start quarrel with him sister and start mash up the tings inna the house," she explained." This story needs to be read in full to be believed. Pleasantly, the policeman is in stable condition.
At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, Joe Young reviewed the pilot of Fear the Walking Dead: "The idea for this show is particularly interesting as it is somewhat akin to Titanic in that we already know what happens, we just have a desire to see how it gets there. There is plenty of scope for many a crossover as there may well be survivors from this series showing up in the next series of The Walking Dead and there are already hints that one or more actors from The Walking Dead could appear in Fear The Walking Dead so we may see something of their earlier pre-apocalyptic lives."Terror Tales Vol. 5 Issue 5 from October 1973 was belched from Zombo's Closet, and it's a real doozy.Sean Eaton deconstructed Charles Dexter Ward in a pair of must-read posts at his uncannily insightful R'lyeh Tribune: "As the title suggests, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, is essentially a clinical study of psychic possession. It falls to the diligent family physician, Dr. Willett, to determine—from family report, genealogical records, correspondence, newspaper articles and his own observations—a terrifying diagnosis with frightful implications for all of humankind."Horror Movie a Day reviewed
Backcountry
: "The editing is frustratingly quick-cut during the more exciting scenes, and I'd like to think it was just cutting around whatever safety measures they had in place, or because they could only get a few frames, but it's just as obnoxiously hyper-edited during non-bear scenes, like when our hero Jenn (Missy Peregrym) tumbles down a hill and we get something like half a second of GoPro footage tossed in as she falls. I can't and won't understand what the appeal of this sort of editing is when you're obviously sending the actor (or her stunt double) down a hill anyway - zoom out a bit and show it in longer takes!"John Kenneth Muir gave us a fresh look at M. Night Shyamalan's Signs: "Stories tell people where they come from, and who they are; or who we think they are. So our perceptual sets include the stories we have heard all our lives, and
Signs
plays delicately with this idea. At one point in the film, we even see a drawing of a farmhouse much like Graham’s in a UFO book…as it comes under attack from alien ships in that illustration. This drawing suggests another important “sign” to interpret, a story of “truth” outside the selective exposure (self-reinforcing ideas) I mentioned above in regards to Graham’s world view. He comes out of his bubble of long enough to realize, "gee, that looks a lot like our house...""Here, I discussed some little-talked-about aspects of the Vester Lee Flanagan murders and what it's like to live with a geriatric housecat.Illustration from Call of Cthulhu's
H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands
supplement.
But before that, I want to give my buddy Nev Murray my best wishes for a speedy recovery. Hope you're up and at it again ASAP, Nev!
Infernal Cinema brought us the news that actress and author Barbie Wilde's collection of short stories Voices of the Damned would be ready for sale in October of this year: "Enter into the mind of Barbie Wilde, whose disturbing interior world teems with the voices of rebellious female demons, devilish witches, semen-hungry neo-vampires, raging gods and home invaders, the fiends of sleep paralysis, pint-sized store-front preachers with a whiff of sulfur, body horrors of the most grotesque kind, clandestine aliens and Zulu zombies."A Jamaican teenager stabbed a police officer after watching a zombie film: ""I don't know what get in a him. A from last night we were watching The Night of the Living Dead movie and him just start to act up. We normally watch a movie together on a Sunday night, but when I saw how the movie was going, I told them that I wouldn't watch anymore, so I left them to watch it, but after the movie, him just start quarrel with him sister and start mash up the tings inna the house," she explained." This story needs to be read in full to be believed. Pleasantly, the policeman is in stable condition.
At Jim Mcleod's Ginger Nuts of Horror, Joe Young reviewed the pilot of Fear the Walking Dead: "The idea for this show is particularly interesting as it is somewhat akin to Titanic in that we already know what happens, we just have a desire to see how it gets there. There is plenty of scope for many a crossover as there may well be survivors from this series showing up in the next series of The Walking Dead and there are already hints that one or more actors from The Walking Dead could appear in Fear The Walking Dead so we may see something of their earlier pre-apocalyptic lives."Terror Tales Vol. 5 Issue 5 from October 1973 was belched from Zombo's Closet, and it's a real doozy.Sean Eaton deconstructed Charles Dexter Ward in a pair of must-read posts at his uncannily insightful R'lyeh Tribune: "As the title suggests, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, is essentially a clinical study of psychic possession. It falls to the diligent family physician, Dr. Willett, to determine—from family report, genealogical records, correspondence, newspaper articles and his own observations—a terrifying diagnosis with frightful implications for all of humankind."Horror Movie a Day reviewed
Backcountry
: "The editing is frustratingly quick-cut during the more exciting scenes, and I'd like to think it was just cutting around whatever safety measures they had in place, or because they could only get a few frames, but it's just as obnoxiously hyper-edited during non-bear scenes, like when our hero Jenn (Missy Peregrym) tumbles down a hill and we get something like half a second of GoPro footage tossed in as she falls. I can't and won't understand what the appeal of this sort of editing is when you're obviously sending the actor (or her stunt double) down a hill anyway - zoom out a bit and show it in longer takes!"John Kenneth Muir gave us a fresh look at M. Night Shyamalan's Signs: "Stories tell people where they come from, and who they are; or who we think they are. So our perceptual sets include the stories we have heard all our lives, and
Signs
plays delicately with this idea. At one point in the film, we even see a drawing of a farmhouse much like Graham’s in a UFO book…as it comes under attack from alien ships in that illustration. This drawing suggests another important “sign” to interpret, a story of “truth” outside the selective exposure (self-reinforcing ideas) I mentioned above in regards to Graham’s world view. He comes out of his bubble of long enough to realize, "gee, that looks a lot like our house...""Here, I discussed some little-talked-about aspects of the Vester Lee Flanagan murders and what it's like to live with a geriatric housecat.Illustration from Call of Cthulhu's
H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands
supplement.
September 2, 2015
Things Nobody Tells You About Owning a Geriatric Cat
In my household we had three cats: Moku, a tortoiseshell; Connie, a ginger tabby; and Cyrus, a gray tabby.
Moku died several years ago. It was probably renal failure. We took her to her final vet appointment and had her put down. I wouldn't have cried, but my wife did, so I couldn't help a few tears.
Cyrus died a couple of years ago. He had a massively enlarged heart, was subject to weird fits, and pooped everywhere except the litter box. I cried when we had to have him put down, too. He was a very nice little cat and loved everybody.
Connie is still alive. He's 14 years old, 21 lbs, and has both diabetes and a thyroid condition. In addition to being a massive cat, he's also a massive pain in the ass. I suspect that his issues aren't terribly unusual for a cat his age, so I will list some of his idiosyncrasies so you understand what your cat might be in for once he or she reaches a certain age.Cleanliness: Connie has decided that washing himself is for lesser beings. He made this decision a couple of years ago and hasn't looked back since. So if we don't brush him on a semi-regular basis he just leaves clumps of orange fur everywhere he goes. It's not unusual to see a cat tumbleweed of fur rolling down the hall, drifting on the air conditioner breeze. I pick the tumbleweeds up when I see them.
Sleepiness: Connie doesn't like to do much of anything except eat, sleep, visit the litter box, demand wet food, demand momentary affection, and take showers. 95% of his time is spent sleeping on our bed. This is a problem when he doesn't wash himself because clumps of his fur stick to the covers. And occasional litter grains. Yuck.Thirstiness: Connie's had a lifelong fascination with water. This has been exacerbated by his recently-diagnosed diabetes, which makes him thirsty all the time, and his thyroid condition, which makes him hungry and thirsty all the time. We got him an electric water fountain, but no matter how clean I keep it he doesn't really drink from it: just puts his head under the stream. He really likes showers, and that's where he gets most of his water. If either of us stirs in the wee hours to pee or read or something, he figures we're up and loudly demands that we turn on the shower for him. I haven't had a shower to myself in months: he's always in there, getting soaking wet. Litter Issues: Connie's litter box habits aren't as exacting as they were when he was a younger cat. He sometimes misses entirely. He sometimes doesn't bury his poop. If we leave the bath mats on the floor in our bathroom long enough he'll pee on them. I don't know why. I just know that when we're done getting ready in the morning we have to hang up the bath mats or he'll pee on one of them. This is upsetting, but at least he's not peeing on a rug or something we can't throw in the washing machine. Yes, we've done the vinegar and baking soda thing. Many times.Get Me Mah Medicine: Connie needs medication: an insulin shot twice a day and a thyroid pill twice a day. These medications are not cheap, especially the insulin. The insulin's easy to administer: pull up some skin, inject the juice, and you're done. The pill's more challenging: some wrestling is required. Don't forget that he's usually wet from a shower during this process, at least for his morning pill. About a third of the time when I do it, he secretes the pill in his mouth until I've left and then spits it onto the bed or in his food dish. Mah Teef: Tooth decay, a not uncommon condition for ginger cats, has required several extractions, leaving him mostly toothless. He still eats dry food, but just gums and swallows it. When he eats wet food, he just licks up the gravy and leaves the bits behind. Also, he's got some weird fluid-filled cysts on his head and face that we haven't addressed because they don't seem to bother him and the vet doesn't think they're serious. So he's got that going for him.Weird Fears: Houses in Florida tend to have ceiling fans in most rooms. Connie is terrified of ceiling fans, especially when they're running. So we have to keep most of them off, including the one in our bedroom, or he'll stay under the bed and vomit and piss himself in terror.One Weird Trick: Connie's worst trick is to trot out of the bathroom after a shower, use the litter box, and walk back to jump up onto the bed and sleep. So you've got a big fat wet cat who doesn't wash himself, feet covered in litter, on your bed. Double yuck. We wash our bedding often.So that's our Connie. I'll probably cry when he dies, too, but there will be a little bit of relief as well. My little boy vacillates between wanting a new kitty (no new cats until Connie's gone) and hoping Connie lives forever.
Moku died several years ago. It was probably renal failure. We took her to her final vet appointment and had her put down. I wouldn't have cried, but my wife did, so I couldn't help a few tears.
Cyrus died a couple of years ago. He had a massively enlarged heart, was subject to weird fits, and pooped everywhere except the litter box. I cried when we had to have him put down, too. He was a very nice little cat and loved everybody.
Connie is still alive. He's 14 years old, 21 lbs, and has both diabetes and a thyroid condition. In addition to being a massive cat, he's also a massive pain in the ass. I suspect that his issues aren't terribly unusual for a cat his age, so I will list some of his idiosyncrasies so you understand what your cat might be in for once he or she reaches a certain age.Cleanliness: Connie has decided that washing himself is for lesser beings. He made this decision a couple of years ago and hasn't looked back since. So if we don't brush him on a semi-regular basis he just leaves clumps of orange fur everywhere he goes. It's not unusual to see a cat tumbleweed of fur rolling down the hall, drifting on the air conditioner breeze. I pick the tumbleweeds up when I see them.
Sleepiness: Connie doesn't like to do much of anything except eat, sleep, visit the litter box, demand wet food, demand momentary affection, and take showers. 95% of his time is spent sleeping on our bed. This is a problem when he doesn't wash himself because clumps of his fur stick to the covers. And occasional litter grains. Yuck.Thirstiness: Connie's had a lifelong fascination with water. This has been exacerbated by his recently-diagnosed diabetes, which makes him thirsty all the time, and his thyroid condition, which makes him hungry and thirsty all the time. We got him an electric water fountain, but no matter how clean I keep it he doesn't really drink from it: just puts his head under the stream. He really likes showers, and that's where he gets most of his water. If either of us stirs in the wee hours to pee or read or something, he figures we're up and loudly demands that we turn on the shower for him. I haven't had a shower to myself in months: he's always in there, getting soaking wet. Litter Issues: Connie's litter box habits aren't as exacting as they were when he was a younger cat. He sometimes misses entirely. He sometimes doesn't bury his poop. If we leave the bath mats on the floor in our bathroom long enough he'll pee on them. I don't know why. I just know that when we're done getting ready in the morning we have to hang up the bath mats or he'll pee on one of them. This is upsetting, but at least he's not peeing on a rug or something we can't throw in the washing machine. Yes, we've done the vinegar and baking soda thing. Many times.Get Me Mah Medicine: Connie needs medication: an insulin shot twice a day and a thyroid pill twice a day. These medications are not cheap, especially the insulin. The insulin's easy to administer: pull up some skin, inject the juice, and you're done. The pill's more challenging: some wrestling is required. Don't forget that he's usually wet from a shower during this process, at least for his morning pill. About a third of the time when I do it, he secretes the pill in his mouth until I've left and then spits it onto the bed or in his food dish. Mah Teef: Tooth decay, a not uncommon condition for ginger cats, has required several extractions, leaving him mostly toothless. He still eats dry food, but just gums and swallows it. When he eats wet food, he just licks up the gravy and leaves the bits behind. Also, he's got some weird fluid-filled cysts on his head and face that we haven't addressed because they don't seem to bother him and the vet doesn't think they're serious. So he's got that going for him.Weird Fears: Houses in Florida tend to have ceiling fans in most rooms. Connie is terrified of ceiling fans, especially when they're running. So we have to keep most of them off, including the one in our bedroom, or he'll stay under the bed and vomit and piss himself in terror.One Weird Trick: Connie's worst trick is to trot out of the bathroom after a shower, use the litter box, and walk back to jump up onto the bed and sleep. So you've got a big fat wet cat who doesn't wash himself, feet covered in litter, on your bed. Double yuck. We wash our bedding often.So that's our Connie. I'll probably cry when he dies, too, but there will be a little bit of relief as well. My little boy vacillates between wanting a new kitty (no new cats until Connie's gone) and hoping Connie lives forever.
