So what do you think are the five most influential horror films of all time? Not what are the best, or what are the most frightening, but the ones that had the biggest impact on films and on the culture as a whole?
Here’s my list
1) Dracula 1931
2) Frankenstein 1931
3) The Wolfman 1941
4) Godzilla/Gojirra 1954
5) Night Of The LIving Dead. 1968
If you think another film should be on this list, what is the movie and which film should be cut and why?
The plans I had for tonight were destroyed by a pizzeria.
I had a two hour long training session at my day-job today. It was pretty interesting but the room it was held in was very frigid. An hour later my toes still were numb from the cold. I decided I wanted something hotter than microwave meal for lunch. Next door there is a pizza place, Regent’s Pizza. I studied their menu carefully and selected a couple of slices from a pizza that had no mushroom and plenty of meat. (Deep dish — which I am going to have to avoid from now on.)
After eating the pizza I found a slice of mushroom in the box. I was, as Prince Humperdink put it ‘most put out.’ I called and complained. They agreed that no mushrooms should have been in the pizza.
My stomach has informed me that there were indeed mushrooms present. I have spent this evening cramped and unhappy. Luckily I have not vomited, but that just means tomorrow will be my special bathroom day.
Joy oh joy
This is going to be a short little post because I am utterly exhausted and will be climbing into bed in the very near future. It’s been a busy week at work and I’ve continued to put in the hours on my novel, Cawdor.
What I want to talk about tonight is one of the best books I have read on how to be a better writer. The book is The First Five Pages by Agent Noah Lukeman. Many of the books on writing that I have read deal with broad concept level writing. How to construct plots, beginning middles and ends. That sort of thing and that is very important. (Two books I would recommend are Writing The Breakout Novel by Donald Maass and Beginnings Middles and Ends by Nancy Kress.)
The First Five Pages should be on yourself with those two books. What Mr. Lukeman does with his book and help you diagnose and fix the detailed problems that get books rejected quickly. He gets down into the weeds of the matter and shows you how to tell a weed from a flower. The chapters are clear and concise, building on each other to lay open the complex task that is writing. At the end of each chapter there are work assignments to help you learn the lessons.
This book is exceptionally well written and deeply insightful. Cawdor is going to be stronger novel because of it, If you are struggling with taking your writing to the next level, I think this book would help tremendously.
So last night I watched an atmospheric horror film from the early sixties, The Innocents (1961) based on the novella The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James.
The story is about a young and inexperienced nanny, Miss Giddens – played wonderfully by Deborah Kerr – who is sent to look after the household and two young wards who are the niece and nephew of her employer. Their uncle wants nothing to do with the children, being a bachelor and happy in his lack of responsibilities.
The household, Bly House, is in the country and the characters are isolated there, living in their own little world. Things seem normal enough until Miles, the young nephew is sent home, expelled from school under mysterious circumstances. Miles is played by the outstanding young actor Martin Stephens best known to me as the David the leader of the alien children in the classic SF film The Village Of The Damned. He is equally good here playing an equally stranger and terrifying child.
Events take a turns for the strange and Miss Giddens begins to suspects that not only is the supernatural afoot in the household, but that the two innocent children are hiding terrible secrets and that the innocence is all lies and deceit.
This film works its horror without overt acts of violence or scenes of random brutality. It is a slow piece, with careful photography that builds suspense and tension with understated shots, and a disdain for photographic trickery. The image above is one of the ones I found most unsettling in the film. I can’t explain the image too much without indulging in spoilers, but it is the heart of the story right there in one image.
Today’s horror films have, in general, lost all sense of the unease that should be at the heart of horror. There is way too much attention paid to pain, suffering, and dismemberment. Torture-porn is not horror in my opinion. Horror comes from that moment when the sand shifts under your feet and the world no longer works the way you thought it did. This film capture that emotional wonderfully.
Yesterday, Nov 15, my short story horror The House Of Bad Blood, was published by the semi-pro webzine, The Edge of Propinquity. It deals with mature themes and language.
Its publication has certainly lifted my spirits.
From One Jonah Goldberg
There is so much that is wrong with what was written by Mr. Goldberg in the above excerpt. To bring up an opponent’s possible political cost from such a horrendous crime is the kind of tack left to propagandist and not any form of serious thinker or writer.
If this was an example of Islamic terrorism since 9-11, then you can’t really say that Bush 43 kept us safe and prevented all attacks on US soil after 9-11 either. John A, Muhammad, the DC sniper from 2002, was convicted and recently put to death for acts of terrorism within the united States.
What takes this sentiment of Mr. Goldberg’s into lunacy is that reflect on the Obama administration. As though Major Hasan would not have snapped in the same way had John McCain and the Goddess been elected in 2008. (There is no ideology save Conservatism and Palin is it profit. Blessed is her flirt and may peace be upon her.) In all likelihood this would have happened exactly the same way and then of course there would be silence from Mr. Goldberg about how this reflected poorly on the president.
A bit headachey today, will say more tomorrow.
So here is a story that is about to be placed into the trunk. It was a semi-finalist in the Writers Of The Future contest, but has been unable to find a paying home. Please enjoy it and others of mine in the trunk.
The Station On The Edge
by
Robert Mitchell Evans
“We’re going to die!” Peymon’s voice cracked as he trembled in his seat. I can’t say I blamed him. Things didn’t look at all good right then, and they grew steadily worse. Paymon was a small man with a thin frame, nearly nonexistent chin and a enough nose for three men. His short black hair was as unsettled as Paymon himself.
“Shut up or I’ll eject you right now!” An empty threat; the police cruisers shooting at us held my attention, not his bloody whining.
“Can we make the jump?” Carol was cool, either from manipulated genes or a natural ice-queen personality. I couldn’t tell which. Carol was much more to my liking. she was tall with long rich blond hair, more than ample curves, and blue eyes that color I’ve heard Earth’s sky used to be.
So it is open enrollment at work for our healthcare and other benefits. This year I am taking care of something I should have done at the last open enrollment, upping my life insurance to cover the cost of the condo should something happen to me. I want to make sure my sweetie-wife has no worries about where she will live if that happens.
So I got on line and made the changes and upped the coverage to cover the outstanding price on the condo.
This has left me with a curious sense of my own mortality. I’ve been married less than two years, and I was never married before and never had a mortgage before. Somehow making these changes really brought home to me that death is out there waiting for me.
(It didn’t help passing the scene of a deadly bicycle/auto accident on the way to work Monday.)