Stephen Graham Jones's Blog, page 266

Mixer’d

#leftcontainerBox {
float:left;
position: fixed;
top: 10%;
left: 70px;
}

#leftcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
clear:both;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;

padding-bottom:2px;
}


#bottomcontainerBox {
height: 30px;
width:50%;
padding-top:1px;
}

#bottomcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
height: 30px;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;
}


Mixer Publishing‘s letting me run all the tabs/genres this issue. Featuring a cool introduction by Brian Evenson. Seven stories in seven days, complete with story notes and an afterword.

The Gospel of Z

#leftcontainerBox {
float:left;
position: fixed;
top: 10%;
left: 70px;
}

#leftcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
clear:both;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;

padding-bottom:2px;
}


#bottomcontainerBox {
height: 30px;
width:50%;
padding-top:1px;
}

#bottomcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
height: 30px;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;
}


coming 1.7.14 from Samhain In the ten years since zombies killed the world, Jory Gray has found exactly one person who matters. Her name is Linse. But when he wakes to find her gone, to join the church, his world falls apart all over again. Jory’s suicide mission to save her will lead him deep into the restricted zone, into the bowels of the military, the underbelly of the church, and, worse, it will give him a glimpse into a past that’s supposed to be ten years dead, a past still contained in a document that never should have existed: The Gospel of Z

We’re All Happy Now, Stitches

#leftcontainerBox {
float:left;
position: fixed;
top: 10%;
left: 70px;
}

#leftcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
clear:both;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;

padding-bottom:2px;
}


#bottomcontainerBox {
height: 30px;
width:50%;
padding-top:1px;
}

#bottomcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
height: 30px;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;
}


Awards Stitches completely owns: best death-by-umbrella ever, in the history of whatever best cat-murder in a long, long time (to specify, this is the death of a cat, not Gage 2.0) best ‘bet I can extract your intestines and make them into a balloon-dog’-scene best high-heel-to-throat And, Stitches, he deserves some nominations, too. He camps it up with the best of them. And the whole set-up of this, it’s slasher-by-numbers. There’s the inciting prank, the necessary interval of time, for all the pranksters to grow into proper victims, and then there’s the big party. Seriously. Remember in Scream, or Cherry Falls, how there’s a lot of story before the party? A lot of set-up? Not so here. They’re handing out invitations nearly immediately, and then it’s a quick fast-forward to the ‘parents are gone/invite everybody over night. Which is also, conveniently, a return to the scene of the crime. And somebody’s birthday. It’s a perfect storm for slashers, I mean. If Stitches hadn’t risen, then some other slasher would have. And Stitches makes all the necessary obeisances to its predeccessors: Stitches quips like Freddy Krueger, he looms just out of frame like Michael, and he’s just as unkillable as Jason. All in all, man, if you like slashers, then this is definitely quality stuff. Highly recommended. So hoping there’ll be a sequel.

My Ten Most Iconic Movie Bits

#leftcontainerBox {
float:left;
position: fixed;
top: 10%;
left: 70px;
}

#leftcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
clear:both;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;

padding-bottom:2px;
}


#bottomcontainerBox {
height: 30px;
width:50%;
padding-top:1px;
}

#bottomcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
height: 30px;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;
}


These are the ten movie clips that are always playing in my head, the ones that I don’t feel I’d be the same me without, my cine-DNA, I suppose. But, no, these clips aren’t necessarily the most iconic from all of film. There’s no “You had me at hello” or “Make my day” or “Of all the gin joints” or “I’m walking here”-stuff. All of which is cool and great, of course (here for more like that). Just, that’s stuff I watched, not stuff that part of me’s always trying to live. If that can make any sense. And, yeah, only one of them’s as recent as 2000, looks like. I guess the stuff that’s going to be formative has to kind of hit you when you’re formativing. Makes a certain kind of sense. I guess a kind of sister-post to this would be the one I did on music, “Look What the Cat Dragged In.” ( and, these are mostly scrounged clips, so, if you notice one’s showing up dead, maybe drop a comment, let me know? thanks )     Tell me about it, stud This is probably the clip that’s ruined me the most. Looking back on just about every decision I’ve ever made, this is pretty much responsible.     Come with me if you want to live Every time I write, this is exactly the moment I’m reaching for. Seriously. Every. Single. Time.     I’ll make you famous I wanted both for him to make me famous and to  . . . → → →

On Found Footage

#leftcontainerBox {
float:left;
position: fixed;
top: 10%;
left: 70px;
}

#leftcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
clear:both;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;

padding-bottom:2px;
}


#bottomcontainerBox {
height: 30px;
width:50%;
padding-top:1px;
}

#bottomcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
height: 30px;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;
}


Found Footage. I love it when a term contains the conceit, just because, by accepting the term, you’ve already bought into the trick: this movie you’re watching, it’s an artifact. Which of course means that it’s real. And if a horror film can have you convinced of that before even watching—it’s a feat. Most horror on the screen strives for that. Found footage horror starts there. The analogue in fiction are those shoebox novels, that pretend to be documents and forms and snapshots recovered by a single editor and shaped very little—just a bunch of papers in a shoebox. Never mind that they’re all made-up. The fun is going into it knowing they are, and then doubt slowly creeping up on you. Film works a little differently, though. We’re not as conditioned to maintain a defensive level of interpretation between us and the text. Just because of the immediacy, I suspect. And because we think we can trust our eyes. Found footage exploits this. At the same time, everybody’s fairly tired of it, yes? Yet found footage, it just keeps on keeping on, never mind the audience’s resistance. Why? Really, I think the first is nearly always budget: you can conceivably shoot a found-footage horror movie for not very much at all. So it looks unprofessional? Of course it does. These are victims of horror, not moviemakers. And of course tied in with shooting on the cheap is pulling a Blair Witch Project at the box office, getting dollars and dollars back for every penny  . . . → → →

Eviler, Deader

#leftcontainerBox {
float:left;
position: fixed;
top: 10%;
left: 70px;
}

#leftcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
clear:both;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;

padding-bottom:2px;
}


#bottomcontainerBox {
height: 30px;
width:50%;
padding-top:1px;
}

#bottomcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
height: 30px;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;
}


How many grails are left now, in American horror? I mean, untouched, un-remade. Exorcist, Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, American Werewolf in London. Surely there’s another iconic one or two I’m missing, but, I mean, Jason and Freddy and Michael and Leatherface have all been updated, a new Carrie’s on the way soon, and I guess the only reason Ghostface has missed that treatment lo these seventeen years later is that the franchise is still alive. The Evil Dead, though, man. There’s rabid fan bases, there’s cult followings, and then there’s everybody who knows all of Ash’s lines by heart. If any movie was going to be allowed to stand, you’d think it’d be this one. It was likely the loyalty of Ash’s army that finally guaranteed this remake would happen, though. Loved or hated, the box office is going to be there for this one, as possibly portended by the second installment (1987) being considered already some strange species of remake (even though it’s not, in spite of that it kind of is, a little). And, of course we all know the formula for remakes by now: you redeliver all the key scenes while injecting enough strange into the proceedings that we feel like we’re on slightly unfamiliar ground. The movie doesn’t get so much ‘fixed’—nobody would ever say Sam Raimi’s hilarious and goretastic 1981 original (or the sequel) was broken—so much as repackaged with slicker production values, to appeal to a new audience. Maybe there’s just something more horrifying if the characters on-screen have haircuts  . . . → → →

A Thousand Words on Madison County

#leftcontainerBox {
float:left;
position: fixed;
top: 10%;
left: 70px;
}

#leftcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
clear:both;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;

padding-bottom:2px;
}


#bottomcontainerBox {
height: 30px;
width:50%;
padding-top:1px;
}

#bottomcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
height: 30px;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;
}


I haven’t been this impressed with a slasher in a good long time. I want to say since Cabin in the Woods. And before that . . . Tucker & Dale vs. Evil? Behind the Mask: Leslie Vernon? Except none of them quite play it Golden Age, either. And that’s good, don’t get me wrong. As you can tell from Demon Theory and The Last Final Girl, self-aware’s more than fine with me. Almost all the slashers to come all along after 1996 have been the children of Scream, after all, if not clones. And you can hardly ask for better parentage. But there’s been hybrids, too. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. Cry_Wolf, Kill Theory. Maybe even The Hole, if you squint just right. And there’s been straight-down-the-middle throwback slashers like Hatchet, say. And, though it prefers the ‘grindhouse’ label, still, Deathproof’s by the numbers, and hardly embarassed of its slashery goodness. And just a couple of days ago I was talking about The Mooring, which has that same throwback appeal. And that’s an appeal that’s not about nostalgia, but tone and delivery—a lack of irony coupled with a seriously low budget. This is where Madison County lives and breathes. And, before you ask, no, I have no clue why that’s got to be the name. In itself, it’s not bad, but it’s kind of evocative of a certain ‘bridges’ romance novel, eventually starring Clint Eastwood . . . Could be there’s some territorial dispute I’ll never understand. Maybe Madison County’s trying to reclaim  . . . → → →

Three Things We (Horror Folk) Can Learn from The Mooring

#leftcontainerBox {
float:left;
position: fixed;
top: 10%;
left: 70px;
}

#leftcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
clear:both;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;

padding-bottom:2px;
}


#bottomcontainerBox {
height: 30px;
width:50%;
padding-top:1px;
}

#bottomcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
height: 30px;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;
}


  1. Horror can still be very disturbing and very complete without gore and nudity Is there even any profanity in The Mooring? I can’t think of it, if there is. Which isn’t to say over-the-top gore isn’t a complete riot, just all kinds of fun. I like it when I have to hide my eyes. Last time that happened, I guess, would have been Excision. First time? Probably The Exorcist. Well, okay, The Eyes of Laura Mars, but that wasn’t from gore, but absolute, undiluted terror; I was eight, I think. But, nudity in horror—for a long time the theory (or, maybe, just the practice?) was that it was enough of a pendulum swing the other way from gore that it allowed the visual palette of the film to achieve a kind of balance. Or is that just a rationalization? It could have been just as simple as the filmmakers knowing that, even if the story was thrown together and the production poor, there was still one way to lure their target demographic to the drive-in. One way that’s significantly cheaper than hiring a Tom Savini or a Kevin Williamson. And sometimes I think nudity in horror—in the slasher in particular—is just the director being all leery, taking advantage of girls fresh off the bus, as it were. It’s not called exploitation cinema for nothing. And nudity could even be setting the audience up to be punished, I suppose: if it’s thrilled when the clothes are peeled off, then what about when the skin  . . . → → →

Movies, 2012

#leftcontainerBox {
float:left;
position: fixed;
top: 10%;
left: 70px;
}

#leftcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
clear:both;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;

padding-bottom:2px;
}


#bottomcontainerBox {
height: 30px;
width:50%;
padding-top:1px;
}

#bottomcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
height: 30px;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;
}


Man, sat down to make this list on the last day of 2012, but stumbled into the opening line of a novel instead, and have been there ever since. 160, 170 pages in right now, and staring down that last chapter. Which, as always, is terrifying. So, to stall, here’s my list, taking into account the specific kind of loser I am—that is, one who somehow missed Final Destination 5, just because I got burned by Final Destination 4. But I should have just remembered how much I loved the first three. Now, though, FD5′s already cycled out of Redbox. So: soon, soon. Same with Innkeepers, which I keep hearing good about. And, to sum up beforehand: no, there’s no Hot-Tub Time Machine this year. No Machete. But there was one Cabin the Woods, and that maybe counts for both of them. And, like most of these lists, I’d guess mine’s leaning towards the latter half of the year, as that’s the half I can kind of sort of remember, if I squint just right: Best Opening Scene EVER, from ANYTHING, for ALL TIME: Rock of Ages Coolest MacGuffin I’ve seen since Pulp Fiction: it’s in Lockout Best Ante-Upper Since Scream: Cabin the Woods Best Combination of Gore and Pure Comedy Gold: Mon Ami Coolest Car Since In Time: Hit & Run Most Intense Final Sequence: Paranormal Activity 4 (spoiler, spoiler, see the movie first) Most SkyHigh / Scott Pilgrim under-the-radar slasher: Detention Surprisingly Good Sequels, So Deep into the Franchise: Paranormal Activity 4, Ice Age 4 (which also  . . . → → →

Chainsaw Massacre 3D

#leftcontainerBox {
float:left;
position: fixed;
top: 10%;
left: 70px;
}

#leftcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
clear:both;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;

padding-bottom:2px;
}


#bottomcontainerBox {
height: 30px;
width:50%;
padding-top:1px;
}

#bottomcontainerBox .buttons {
float:left;
height: 30px;
margin:4px 4px 4px 4px;
}


This deep into a franchise—really, I’ve lost count of the Texas Chainsaw Massacres—most horror series are  limping along, putting a movie out just to keep the brand in-house, that kind of stuff. Not here. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D is every single thing I want from a horror movie. And the story actually surprises me. Worse, I almost missed the whole thing. Because I accidentally read a review or two, and it’s so easy to pan the sequel to a remake, or however this one’s stacked. Really, I’d guess a lot of the bad reviews were pretty much written before the reviewer even saw the movie. The movie just confirmed what the reviewer thought going in. And, I understand the impulse: hating the new version is a way of showing allegiance to the old version. It’s a way of resisting the studios grubbing for remake dollars. And it’s low-hanging fruit: no, this Leatherface isn’t quite as scary as Gunnar Hansen’s. Yes, the grittiness of the original is gone, never to be done again. And no, we shouldn’t ever compromise, but TCM3D isn’t remotely a compromise. TCM3D knows exactly what it needs to do, knows that the audience is expecting certain things—a van of kids, a hitchhiker, ‘Texas,’ those red shorts, somebody getting hung on a meat hook; Leatherface—and so it rigs the story such that all of that starts unfolding as quickly as possible. No, as efficiently as possible. And in a completely fun way, and out at an All the Boys Love Mandy Lane kind  . . . → → →