Slasher Speak

Own Your Inner Homophobe

2011-08-16T05:35:00.012-04:00

Michele Bachmann is, quite simply, a twat of exponential proportion. Now, before the feminists go wild, I mean that in the British sense of a derogatory insult, a pejorative meaning a fool, synonymous with the word twit and not the more vulgar euphemism for a certain part of the female anatomy. And she is. And I challenge anyone to argue the point.

All one had to do was watch Bachmann’s little performance on Sunday’s Meet the Press, during which she evaded nearly every direct question on LGBT issues raised by host David Gregory, to fully grasp this concept. Repeating what must be the new Republican mantra of “I am running for the presidency of the United States” over and over again like a stoned Stepford wife in answer to almost every question posed by the journalist, Bachmann came across looking like a bona fide caricature of America’s other favorite conservative sound bite whore, Sarah (“I can see Russia from my house!”) Palin.

But, please, don’t take my liberal-leaning word for it. Watch for yourself:

Now, setting aside for a moment the contemptibility of the few comments she did make and what her refusal to answer specific questions communicated, it’s her caginess that really irks me. Listen, if you are going to be a bigoted, gay-hating, homophobic hypocrite with a closet-case husband who runs a clinic that engages in conversion therapy (and accepts government dollars to do it), then (wo)man-up and own it. Don’t sit there with that smug little plastic grin on your face and pretend you’re getting one over on the American people – well, at least the ones with an ounce of critical thinking skills. Sadly, there will undoubtedly be a handful of supporters (from the Westboro Baptist Church, no doubt) who will buy into her shtick, but the majority of conservatives must have winced during that segment of Sunday’s show. Seriously, while I’m tickled as pink as Sherlock from The Magic Garden that someone as outrageously inept as Bachmann has sashayed onto the national stage in her Manolo Blahniks, you got to ask yourself: Is this really the best that the Republican Party has to offer?

And, just so there are no claims of partisanship on my part levied, I’ll go on record as saying this tendency of our politicos – regardless of their party affiliation – to dodge, hedge, and sidestep questions has risen to the level of an art form and needs to stop. We need to demand real answers to our real questions. Journalists need to practice journalism again and not worry about incurring future favor with the public relations machines that bring guests – and thereby ratings – to their shows. Media outlets need to worry less about making journalism sexy and bring back hard-hitting investigative reporting. Most importantly, we, as news consumers, need to stop accepting the journalistic drek that we’re fed through the mainstream network news outlets.

As for Bachmann, we needn’t worry. Even with the shortcomings of modern journalism, you can smell the excrement of her message from a mile away wearing nose plugs. Her campaign will implode once hubby Marcus is caught in a public restroom sting or the photos of him and one of his rentboy travel companions come to light or – as they always do. Or she’ll choke on her next corndog and no one at the state fair will know the Heimlich Maneuver.

Either way, this woman will never make it near the White House. Count on it.

Corndoggin' with the Bachmann's

2011-08-15T05:45:00.000-04:00

Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words.

The Glory of 'Unnatural Acts'

2011-08-04T19:01:00.001-04:00

Unnatural Acts: Harvard’s Secret Court of 1920 is the story about – really – one man’s vision and determination to bring a hidden piece of history from the darkness into the light. To understand the labor of love that this play has been for the creative forces behind it, a brief history of the project:

Unnatural Acts is the brainchild of Tony Speciale and concerns a secret cadre of Harvard University administrators who launched a campus-wide witch hunt into the private lives of its students that resulted in the expulsion of a group of promising young gay men and several subsequent suicides in the 1920s. After reading journalist Benoit Denizet-Lewis’ account of the real-life events in a 2003 OUT Magazine article and being further inspired by Yale alumnus William Wright’s 2005 book Harvard's Secret Court: The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus Homosexuals (St. Martin’s Press), Speciale – along with fellow Columbia University MFA candidates Nick Norman and Heather Denyer – gained access to these Secret Court documents held in the Harvard archives in 2006. After Denyer photocopied and meticulously decoded all 500 pages of the fragmentary archival documents, playwright Norman began to write scenes using the Secret Court testimonies and correspondence as his primary source material.

After nearly three years of setbacks – including Norman’s early withdrawal from the project – Speciale continued to tirelessly massage the source material and explore ways to dramatize the story of the Secret Court. In the spring of 2009 – having graduated from Columbia with an MFA in directing and landing a gig as Associate Artistic Director at the Classic Stage Company in New York’s East Village – Speciale and Denyer reconnected and decided to revive the project under a new group collaborative model. The Harvard Project – the play’s initial working title – went through another rigorous round of intense research, improvisational exercises with a newly configured collective of actors and technical crew (dubbed the Plastic Theater) during a five-week period in August of 2009. At the end of this first workshop, a new story structure began to take shape and an entirely new draft of the play was written.

Speciale and his multidisciplinary company presented The Harvard Project shortly after as a staged reading before an audience of more than 200 at The East Thirteenth Theater in New York. Following audience feedback solicited via an electronic questionnaire, a second workshop ensued; this time, the focus of the play expanded to include not only the institutional prejudice suffered by the men of Perkins 28 – which references the dormitory room of undergraduate Ernest Weeks Roberts where the men gathered – but also how their personal relationships buckled under the intense public scrutiny and emotional weight of the scandal. A few short weeks later, a second staged reading took place.

Buoyed by audience reactions to the two staged readings, the ensemble regrouped for a third and final workshop – with the play undergoing a title change. A third staged reading of the newly dubbed Fair Harvard was presented. By April of 2010, Speciale was fielding options to produce the play. It was ultimately his own employer – Classic Stage Company – who committed to producing Fair Harvard, with the stipulation that the ensemble brainstormed a new title.

In May of 2010, Classic Stage Company announced that Unnatural Acts: Harvard’s Secret Court of 1920 would be the crowning jewel of its 2010-2011 season. An official website for the production launched later that same month with the goal of raising $100,000 to cover production costs. The play made its official off-Broadway bow on June 23rd of this year. The show opened to critical acclaim and it enjoyed several extensions before coming to a close on July 31st. Having had the distinct pleasure – no, privilege – of seeing Unnatural Acts on the night before it closed that weekend, it’s easy to see why and one of those rare times when something lived up to the hype surrounding it. (This year’s “it” musical The Book of Mormon also comes to mind.) Not surprisingly, word on the street is that the show’s entire off-Broadway run has been circled by commercial producers who have been gauging the show’s viability for a bigger (Read: Broadway) future outing.

For the uninitiated, live theater has the power to be a transformative experience. It’s the one performance medium where no one – not the audience members, not the actors, not the stage crew – knows the exact outcome of a particular performance. And each outcome can be a tad different, with each night’s performance being slightly nuanced by the onstage chemistry of the ensemble, or unforeseen technical glitches, or an audience’s energy being unexpectedly strong – or weak – on a particular night. There is no greater energy and feeling of possibility and promise than that of a live theatrical show, whether it be a dramatic play, glitzy musical, or an elaborately staged pyrotechnic spectacle of dance and acrobatics (i.e. a Cirque du Soleil production).

Simultaneously intimate and epic in scope, Unnatural Acts is a haunting slice of gay American history that resonates with both the timeliness and timelessness of its societal intolerance theme. Indeed, as we bear witness to same-sex marriages taking place all around New York, Unnatural Acts reminds us of just how far we’ve come (while there’s always the Westboro Baptist Church and the Vatican to remind us just how far we’ve yet to go). Speciale and his company of 11 actors (several playing dual roles) transport audiences back to the hallowed halls of the venerable university, where the 1920s in the post-WWI weary Cambridge landscape were beginning to roar louder than pre-war moral values.

The story is straightforward: The discovery of incriminating letters following an undergraduate’s suicide prompts a five-member secret panel of Harvard administrators to launch an aggressive investigation into campus “homosexualism”. In an effort to rid their respected campus of this “disease”, school authorities – acting with neither scruples nor restraint under the protective cloak of the virulent homophobia of the time period – go about their inquisition unchecked, audaciously asking the young men about masturbatory habits, their sexual relations with same and opposite gender partners, and leading questions about their comrades. When one student finally cracks under the terror of their unrelenting interrogation, the floodgates open and names are named. With the cards stacked against them and under the manipulation and emotional blackmail of the panel, each successive student folds under the pressure and one betrayal after another seemingly seals the undergrads’ fates.

There is a palpable sense of fraternity among the show’s stellar ensemble — no doubt due in large part to the improvisational aspect of the way the story fleshed out and the dual roles that several play as co-authors. Nick Westrate, in particular, delivers a knockout performance as Ernest Weeks Roberts, son of a retired congressman and social lynchpin of the daringly decadent covert company of gay young men who gather in defiance of prohibition to drink gin, swish about in unabashed rebelliousness against the reigning heterocentric ideals of the day, and engage in taboo acts in their exploration of the love that dare not speak its name. That these gay bacchanals take place in a dormitory within the uptight world of conservative Harvard University speaks to the world of privilege these young men come from and both their recklessness and arrogance in believing in their own invincibility. Even assistant classics professor Donald Clark (Jerry Marsini) walks that fine line between moralistic tradition and social evolution, guardedly discussing banned books of the time like Havelock Ellis’ Sexual Inversion with a curious student.

Other performance highlights from Unnatural Acts include Jess Burkle's interpretation of Edward Say, Roberts’ flamboyant best friend. Burkle deftly balances the character’s exaggerated mannerisms and howlingly funny one-liners early on in the play with the decidedly weightier emotional material that comes later with remarkable skill. Actors Joe Curnutte and Frank De Julio also shine. Curnutte plays upperclassman Nathaniel Wollf, theatrical mentor to De Julio’s sophomore and aspiring thespian Keith Smerage. The big brother/little brother dynamic between the two is rendered beautifully and believably by these two actors and the love that blossoms between them comes across as achingly honest. When one betrays the other during the interrogations in a desperate attempt to salvage a future in medical school, the other’s sense of loss – ingeniously set against a Shakespearian monologue that the two rehearsed earlier in their courtship – will absolutely break your heart.

The striking theatricality of this engrossing docudrama is greatly enhanced by Justin Townsend’s formidable lighting work, particularly his use of shadow and light during the tribunal scenes or when he shrewdly backlight’s the set’s towering bookcase backdrop to dramatic effect. The theatre’s three-quarter space adds an almost voyeuristic intimacy that heightens Speciale’s highly stylized staging, while Walt Spangler’s understated period set design adds a neutral, masculine backdrop that allows costumes by Andrea Lauer to give marvelous glimpses of the young men’s individuality lurking under the traditionalism of the day’s dress code. Factor in an exquisitely choreographed show-stopping scene in the first act that features overlapping montages performed in slow-motion, and Unnatural Acts has all the fluidity of an extravagant musical — without either music or extravagance.

Even when the play touches on the histrionic tone of Matt Crowley’s groundbreaking 1968 play The Boys in the Band – particularly during an extended party scene in Perkins 28 – it never veers completely off course and retains its prevalent air of authenticity. Although the play loses a bit of its dramatic momentum early in its second act (partially due, I think, to the intermission itself), it builds to a heartrending climax that includes a tour de force monologue by actor Brad Koed who is accompanied by the rest of the ensemble with a chorus of dialogue snippets and a choreographed ballet of synchronized motions that intensify in volume and tempo. By the time Koed’s Eugene Cummings begs the central question of the play – “If it occurs in nature, how can it be unnatural?" – the audience is as emotionally wrought as the actors appear. Unnatural Acts ends with a simple roll call of the inevitable fates of its characters – admittedly an overused device in such epilogues but forgivable here because it seems logically appropriate and affords the story its final dramatic punches to the gut.

Simply unforgettable in every sense of the word, Unnatural Acts is live theater at its very best — easily on par with A Normal Heart in terms of its emotional resonance and compelling narrative.

Deconstructing Jude: Maternal Madness in ‘Mother’s Boys’

2011-03-27T21:42:00.001-04:00

Jamie Lee Curtis toplines Canadian helmer Yves Simoneau’s Mother's Boys, a visually stylish psychothriller about the bonds between mothers and their sons — and the sometimes psychopathic ties that bind them.

Curtis shines as Jude Madigan, a prodigal mother from hell who returns after three years of gallivanting around Europe and tries unsuccessfully to charm her way back into the lives of the husband and trio of blank-faced sons she abandoned. But despite Jude employing the most beguiling of her feminine wiles, estranged husband Robert (thick-browed Peter Gallagher) doesn’t bite, instead filing for divorce with plans to start a new life with assistant school principal Callie (Joanne-Whalley-Kilmer). She fares no better with her sons, who have taken to the sweet-natured Callie like traumatized puppies much to Jude’s consternation.

Eldest son Kes (Luke Edwards) has fared the worst, perhaps because he’s able to grasp the concept of the mental illness at work here even if he can’t understand the full implications of Jude’s sociopathology. Freud would have a field day with the big elephant of an Oedipus complex in the room here, especially when Jude rises like Hera from the baths, displaying to Kes in full nudity her Caesarean scar that both marks the spot of his physical entrance into the world and symbolizes the special, lasting bond between mother and son. Furthering the manipulation, she explains to the boy how she was in labor with him for two days because he didn't want to leave her. It’s one the film’s genuinely disturbing moments, appropriately alternating between discomfiting and skin-crawling.

The venerable Vanessa Redgrave has a welcome – albeit underutilized – supporting role as Jude’s mother, Lydia, whose own complicity in turning a blind eye to her daughter’s abuse at the hands of her father is hinted at in a hospital bed confessional. The scene is pivotal, and the audience can almost see Curtis cross over the thin line between sanity and insanity she was straddling to begin with. Despite some serious pathology at work here and the constant undercurrent of psychosexual tension, the film is surprisingly psychology-light, opting instead for full-tilt thriller territory that never quite gets past a half-tilt. Unfortunately, the story lurking beneath Elliot Davis’ moody cinematography and Barbara Cassel’s overdressed sets demands more than the film is ultimately able to deliver before devolving into a clichéd, implausible ending reliant on a perfect storm of circumstances.

Curtis has a grand time playing against type as villainess here, ditching her damsel-in-distress past with gleeful unrestraint. From the moment she drives into town in a flurry of white – car, outfit, stylish locks – you just know she’s put her babysitting, prom-going, train-riding days long behind her. It’s a glorious role reversal and Curtis proves she’s up for the task. In one of the film’s best scenes, Jude pays Callie a visit at the boys’ school and in a moment of deranged abandon smashes a framed photo of the reconfigured Madigan family – her family – against her own forehead in an attempt to frame Callie for assault. The ensuing gotcha grin as Jude picks up a sliver of glass and slices her forehead is pure Curtis smirk. It’s hard to fault her then when the threadbare script by Barry Schneider and Richard Hawley leaves her to chew on the scenery a bit. Even when she’s channeling Glenn Close and sliding dangerously close to parody, Simoneau pulls her back from the cliff; Jude, the character, isn’t quite as lucky by film’s end.

Best of the Rest - 2010 Edition

2010-12-31T16:56:00.004-05:00

Over the past few days, I’ve shared with you my picks for the ten best albums and songs of 2010. But what about the rest – movies, television, and books? I had to do more in 2010 than just listen to music, right? So here a few of my other “Best of…” selections that colored last year.

BEST MOVIE: It was trippy, hallucinogenic, artfully directed, and buoyed by a pair of stellar performances. I’m speaking, of course, of Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky’s brilliant psychosexual suspense thriller revolving around a young ballet dancer performing dual roles in Swan Lake. Natalie Portman catapulted herself onto Hollywood’s A-list with her powerful turn as Nina Sayers, the driven ballet ingénue who finds her rise to stardom within a New York City ballet company complicated by one hell of a nervous breakdown. Barbara Hershey turns in a career-best performance with her role as Nina’s stage mother-from-hell, a relentless, driving force of maternal over-protectiveness who’s sporting some serious baggage of her own. Filmed with a stylistic franticness by cinematographer Matthew Libatique, Black Swan is an outlandishly melodramatic throwback to 70’s-style giallo that’s visually arresting, intellectually captivating, and just plain nail-bitingly good.

BEST BOOK: It was hard to make a call on a “best” book this year. There were so many great titles in 2010 that I really enjoyed, making my third year of book reviewing duties at Dark Scribe Magazine more of a pleasure than ever. There was Sparrow Rock, Nate Kenyon’s seriously creepy apocalyptic chiller about teens trapped in a bomb shelter after a nuclear attack. And Lisa Morton’s spooky debut, The Castle of Los Angeles, about a haunted theater and the ghost of a serial killer who decides to upstage a production based on his crimes. There was The Wolf at the Door, Jameson Currier’s gorgeous elegy to gay midlife wrapped within a traditional ghost story narrative set at a haunted New Orleans gay guesthouse. In the same vein (albeit a different genre), there was Stephen McCauley’s Insignificant Others, another beautifully rendered look at gay men at the crossroads of their lives and the myths of monogamy. John R. Little continued his trend of making me cry at the end of every one of his brilliant time-slip novellas with Dreams in Black and White. Peter Straub and Stephen King both added to their impressive – and ever- expanding – bibliographies with A Dark Matter and Full Dark, No Stars, respectively. Needless to say, neither was a disappointment.

But the best book of 2010, hands down, was also the weirdest and hardest to categorize. With magicians and sorcerers (here referred to as “hexslingers”), gods and monsters, western shootouts, and more audacious gay sex than anything you’ve likely read last year, A Book of Tongues by Gemma Files is one of those novels for which no number adjectives is adequate in describing it. But I’m going to try! That this ambitious, wildly imaginative, Aztec mythology-laden slice of genre-defying speculative fiction set in the post-Civil War American West is a debut novel makes its merits even more noteworthy. Everything here in Files’ debut is carried out with sheer precision – language, dialect, setting, mythology. The very definition of enthralling. Best part: This is part one of a planned trilogy.

BEST TELEVISION SHOW: Yes, True Blood and Dexter continued to deliver with stellar new seasons this year. Modern Family continued to make me howl with laughter, while freshman comedies Hot in Cleveland and Mike & Molly harkened back to a time when sitcoms were actually funny. And, yes, even an old(er) ratings stalwart like Desperate Housewives showed what a quick trip to the ladies powder room (in this case, the cast addition of the delectably slinky Vanessa Williams) could do to freshen up a tired face starting to show its age. But it was a gory, plot-light little survival drama on a basic cable network that gets my vote as last year’s Best Television Show.

The Walking Dead – based on the long-running monthly black-and-white American comic book series of the same name – turned out to be the water cooler show of the year and the most watched show in AMC’s history. The story is simple: In the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, a group of survivors travel across a ravaged American landscape trying to dodge the shuffling, flesh-eating undead while attempting to wrap their heads around immense personal losses and their own seemingly insurmountable odds. While the former offers nothing new – we’ve seen and read about the decaying dead noshing on the living ad nauseum since 1968’s Night of the Living Dead – it’s the latter that makes this show the unlikely hit it has deservedly become. While the show – the brainchild of frequent Stephen King adapter Frank (The Mist, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) Darabont – has taken some heat for its uneven writing, this is still a surprisingly engaging, moving drama about people and their relationships with each other and the (in this case, quickly dying) world around them.

A few unfinished pieces from the music-oriented “Best of…” lists:

BEST MUSICAL RETURN: Jennifer (The Power of Love) Rush returned to fill the power-diva void left by the late Laura Branigan and Celine Dion, who has unwisely opted to curtail her vocal acrobatics on more recent recordings. Although the material on Now Is the Hour – her first album of new material in more than thirteen years – may be Euro-generic in spots, Rush’s distinctive throaty warble is like the return of an old friend.

BEST GREATEST HITS COMPILATION: After releasing eight albums and selling more than 57 million copies of them worldwide, it’s a head-scratcher why the UK’s Robbie Williams isn’t a bigger draw here stateside. He’s got photogenic, boy-band good looks, possesses a terrific, multi-octave singing voice, oozes charisma and that British wink-wink wit we seem to gobble up, and has that outlandish bad boy image that keeps him in the media spotlight for myriad vices and oddities including chain smoking up to 60 cigarettes a day, prescription pill addiction, alcoholism, and drug-induced UFO sightings. By all accounts, the guy’s the male equivalent of Amy Winehouse. So, if you’ve yet to experience the former Take That member’s solo efforts, may I humbly (albeit strongly) suggest that you pick up a copy of his superb second greatest hits compilation, a comprehensive, marvelously packaged three-CD set called In and Out of Consciousness: Greatest Hits 1990–2010? Includes 39 songs that explore William’s diverse pop sensibilities, his ear for clever hooks, and his talent for some of the most witty, engaging lyrics in the modern pop era.

Top Ten Albums of 2010

2010-12-30T01:02:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I shared with you my picks for the ten best songs of 2010. Expanding on the music theme a bit, here are my ten favorite albums of the year:

#10) Cyndi Lauper | Memphis Blues

Sadly, Lauper garnered more attention in 2010 for appearing as a contestant on Donald Trump’s The Celebrity Apprentice than she did for this startlingly accomplished blues album. Despite having remained #1 on the Billboard Blues Album Chart for 14 consecutive weeks, Lauper failed to ignite much mainstream interest in this concept album that cements her versatility as a true musical renaissance woman. Surprisingly, her New Yawk accent – here falling somewhere between trademark squeaky warble and roadhouse twang – lends itself quite well to this collection of alternately rollicking and bluesy tracks — even if Lauper lacks the authority and grit of a traditional blues vocalist.

#9) TIE Jakob Dylan | Women + Country and Brendan James | Brendan James

Ok, you may think that a tie for my 9th favorite album of 2010 is a merely a ploy to sneak in an extra selection, but, in truth, these albums represent a single choice for the two best efforts by very different –yet equally exceptional – male singer-songwriters. Dylan’s folk-rock pedigree is on fine display on this second solo outing sans The Wallflowers, while James’ sophomore effort – here sporting a more accomplished commercial sound than his 2007 debut – wisely keeps the modern-day troubadour and his trusty piano front and center. Lush lyrics and melodies that range from plaintive and meditative to uplifting and inspirational make the music of these two gents put the likes of the bland (and confoundingly more popular) John Mayer to shame.

#8) Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark (OMD) | History of Modern

The veteran synth-pop group’s 11th album (and first since 1996) is pure 80’s prom on a plate. It was as if the band’s original line-up (Andy McCluskey, Paul Humphreys, Malcolm Holmes, and Martin Cooper) had locked themselves away in a time capsule, isolated from any music post-1985. The result is this ebullient collection of uptempo synthpop perfection tempered with a few of the band’s signature moody ballads that will make you feel like you’ve stepped into the celluloid world of a John Hughes movie all over again.

#7) The New Pornographers | Together

The Canadian ensemble’s fifth album blends a decidedly distinctive Beatles aesthetic with the group’s trademark symphonic bombast and soaring, hook-laden choruses on this unassuming collection of breezy, folky-rock throwbacks. The supergroup’s four primary vocalists – A.C. Newman, Neko Case, Dan Bejar, and Kathryn Calder – seamlessly trade vocal duties and anchor the collection like four distinct colors on the same artist’s palette. As likely to snatch your breath with their poetic lyrics as they are to drive you to compulsive toe-tapping with their sunny harmonies, The New Pornographers continue the brilliant musical experiment they began with 2000’s Mass Romantic.

#6) Scissor Sisters | Night Work

On its third album, the colorful NYC band eschews the trademark subtle homoerotic playfulness of its first two efforts with this brasher, rainbow flag-waving set of queer subculture set to music. Aiming less for mainstream gay sensibility here, frontman Jake Shears and company strike out to explore the darker underbelly of the gay ghetto. The result is a bolder, less compromising effort that audaciously explores the promiscuous hedonism and sometimes violent fetishism of the gay sexual underground – perhaps the direct result of Shears’ year-long binge in East Berlin. As always, the Scissor Sisters’ music itself is grounded in the articulate, smart-pop sensibilities of the Pet Shop Boys and emboldened by the sleazier, high-energy sexuality of Dead or Alive, while the vocal tradeoff between Shears and Ana Matronic calls to mind the falsetto versus baritone brilliance of Jimmy Somerville and Sarah Jane Morris, circa The Communards era.

#5) Groove Armada | Black Light

The electronic music duo of Andy Cato and Tom Findlay proudly wears its New Order, Gary Numan, and Human League influences on its sleeves on this, the elder statesmen of dance music’s sixth studio album. Deep, propulsive rhythms and synthesized bass lines form the backdrop for the Armada’s latest coterie of vocalists – including Bryan Ferry, Nick Littlemore, Fenech Soler, SaintSaviour, Jess Larrabee, and Will Young. The result is stylish, sophisticated dance music with a decidedly 80’s vibe that gives the album a trans-generational quality.

#4) Brandon Flowers | Flamingo

The Killers’ charismatic crooner throws a curveball out to fans on his first solo outing, a flavorful homage to his native Las Vegas that brims with personality. His unabashed love of all things 80’s remains (thankfully) intact, with some Springsteen-like flavorings that call to mind the Boss in his mellower recent years. Wisely, Flowers balances his solo aspirations here with The Killers’ past efforts, creating a more personal collection of songs that possess all the familiar new wave catchiness of the band he’s fronted through a trio of albums (and one compilation set).

#3) Natalie Merchant | Leave Your Sleep

After a protracted maternity leave, the former 10,000 Maniacs frontwoman returned with this eclectic collection of poetry set to folk-meets-world music. Dizzyingly and dazzlingly brilliant — and well worth the wait since 2003’s underappreciated The House Carpenter’s Daughter. Highlight: The unadulterated childhood whimsy of “Bleezer’s Ice Cream”, a quirky ditty about Pomegranate Pumpernickel and twenty-seven other curious concoctions of the titular frozen confection.

#2) Elton John & Leon Russell | The Union

Alright, I predicted that this one would be a Grammy darling, sweeping everything including the coveted “Album of the Year” category; yet, surprisingly, this brilliant collection that saw the legendary John trading vocals and going piano-to-piano with comeback kid Russell barely made a blip on Grammy voters’ radar screens. Top-notch songwriting is given first-class production by a first-rate producer – T-Bone Burnett – while high profile musical luminaries like lyricist Bernie Taupin, Neil Young, Brian Wilson, and Booker T. Jones all stop by to lend a hand. The result is this lush, bluesy collection of poignant reflections on a romantically imagined America. The musical terrain is rustic (evocative of an early 70’s cross-country road trip), while the warm familiarity of John’s instantly recognizable hunky bass blended with Russell’s sandpapered lazy drawl is like comfort food for the ears.

#1) Arcade Fire | The Suburbs

The Canadian band’s latest has catapulted them from indie darlings to mainstream modern rock mainstays. Understatedly ambitious but accessible, The Suburbs is, quite simply, a masterpiece. From their elaborate instrumentation to their thinking-man’s lyrics, the songs here scream to be played in college campus coffeehouses everywhere and analyzed over double shot mocha lattes. The lyrical maturity and sophisticated musical arrangements are striking, both belying and celebrating the youthfulness of the young men and women behind the music. Like old souls, each song in the collection offers some form of rumination – sometimes lamentation – about the time we squander as adults romanticizing the wasted time of your youth. An artistic triumph of an album.

Up Next: The Rest of the 'Best'!

Top Ten Songs of 2010

2010-12-29T11:02:00.001-05:00

Year-end lists. Publicly, we humbly apologize for them; secretly, we love them. They present wonderful opportunities to sort and catalog the cultural mile markers – music, movies, books, television, and events – that we passed along the highway of our memories in a given year. Following are the songs that comprised the soundtrack of my 2010.

#10 “Little Lion Man” | Mumford & Sons

One of the most well-deserved breakouts of the year comes from this quartet of London-based folk-rock harmonizers who epitomize the best of the nu-folk movement with this intelligent, banjo-frenzied track that will leave you wedged between knee-slapping hoedown and tea-sipping introspection. The riotous explosion of sound here – from the bluegrass banjos and acoustic guitars that take center stage to the piano notes and low-pitched upright bass that stand back a bit – contrasts sharply (and beautifully) with the song’s decidedly lamenting lyrics.

#9 “Heartbreak on Vinyl” | Blake Lewis

From his sorely underappreciated 2009 disc of the same name, this retro celebration of the vinyl format and those relics known as record shops is an infectious dance track with an undeniably 80’s nostalgic feel. This wistful dancepop anthem – with its cheery story-song ode to analog at its center – is like chicken soup for the dancefloor enthusiast’s soul.

#8 “Get Outta My Way” | Kylie Minogue

A contagious guilty-pleasure pop confection from the veteran pop diva’s impressive Aphrodite set. As mindless and mouth-watering as a sugary wad of bubblegum, this smart, irresistible club thumper was about as hook-smart and beat-savvy as anything gracing club sound systems this year. Minogue – the Australian Madonna – proves why she’s a mainstay on the club scene and dance charts after nearly three decades.

#7 “Soldier of Love” | Sade

After an eight-year absence, the veteran group – anchored by the distinctive and instantly recognizable vocal styling of the notoriously reclusive, press-shy Sade Adu – returned with this musical equivalent of a shot of espresso – classy, concentrated, and highly pressurized. Grounded by a deceptively simple military cadence that employs a straightforward regular kick drum and delayed snare, “Soldier of Love” insinuates itself with its radio-jazz sheen and ultra-cool lyrics like “I'm at the borderline of my faith, I'm at the hinterland of my devotion.” From the album artwork to the slick accompanying video, Sade proves that it still oozes hip nonchalance after dropping albums in four decades – and counting – while retaining its patent luxury brand of international intrigue and an aura of mystery.

#6 “Not Giving Up On Love” | Armin van Buuren vs. Sophie Ellis-Bextor

This gorgeously melancholy dance track pairs Dutch trance producer and DJ Armin van Buuren and English singer-songwriter Sophie Ellis-Bextor, while the stunning Sophie Muller-directed video showcases the photogenic songbird lounging on the sun-drenched deck of a boat on the Mediterranean Sea and dancing the night away at a club on the party-island of Ibiza. Will be featured on the sinfully underrated Ellis-Bextor’s forthcoming 2011 set Make a Scene.

#5 “You Don’t Know Love” | Editors

Tom Smith’s monotonic, Crash Test Dummies-esque vocals ground this rhythmic track from the indie band’s 2009 set In This Light and On This Evening. With an urgent, propulsive tempo and its haunting, multi-tracked choral vocal bridges, “You Don’t Know Love” is sinister, foreboding, monochromatic moodiness at its very best. Recalls Real Life’s 1983 moody synth-goth gem “Send Me an Angel”.

#4 “The Suburbs” | Arcade Fire

The sublime title track from this well-deserved “Album of the Year” Grammy contender is an introspective lamentation on the innocence of adolescence fading into the cynicism of adulthood. Like a late summertime day captured through the grainy, golden filter of an old 8mm film projector, this song perfectly captures the melancholy essence of disillusion, while its repetitious, melodic chord progression compliments the lyrics in every respect.

#3 “Moneygrabber” | Fitz & The Tantrums

This slice of retro Motown hipness is as cool as a zoot suit. With lead vocal duties volleying between band founder Michael Fitzpatrick and Noelle Staggs, the brash, decidedly 60’s-influenced pop stylings of this infectious track make for one helluva foot-stomping throwback that had me swooning and crooning along. Thanks Criminal Minds for putting this one on my radar!

#2 “History” | Groove Armada featuring Will Young

With a career-changing featured vocal by the UK’s inaugural Pop Idol winner, this hauntingly eerie 80’s throwback calls to mind the falsetto luster of Jimmy Somerville’s days with Bronski Beat and The Communards. The irresistible Grum Remix takes this superb song to the next level of hypnotic trance.

#1 “Howl” | Florence & The Machine

This fierce, thumping tribal track from Ms. Welch’s brilliant 2009 set Lungs rumbles, roars, and then explodes into a musical bellow, impaling the listener with its raw, primal force. The musical equivalent to having your jugular ripped open during sex. Not an official single release, but it damn well should be.

Tomorrow: My Top Ten Albums of 2010

Slasher Clash, Round 5: Michael Myers Versus ET

2010-09-09T05:47:00.008-04:00

Sometimes inspiration is found in the unlikliest of places. This latest installment of Slasher Clash was inspired by the recent press junket for the upcoming Disney film YOU AGAIN, of all things. During one of the interviews, co-stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver discuss their respective roles in the classic horror films HALLOWEEN and ALIEN. Here’s a listen:

The actresses’ discussion got me thinking about putting these iconic films up, head-to-head, for a little slasher-clasher. Which film is better: HALLOWEEN or ALIEN? Now, before my faithful readers get all technical on me and start denouncing ALIEN’s status as a slasher film, we’re going to employ some latitude here and look at the film within the framework of the classic slasher formula:

A group of unsuspecting victims is lured to an isolated location under false pretenses;
The killer’s destructive force is reactivated;
The killer (in this case an alien creature) is kept in the shadows for most of the film while systematically stalking a group of victims;
The killer appears to be unstoppable;
There is an underlying vice (in this case corporate greed) at play here so that the killer’s actions against the interlopers are “justified”;
The cast is whittled down to one remaining “Final Girl”;
Final Girl does battle with the killer;
Killer is seemingly killed and Final Girl survives;
Hint/foreshadowing that the Final Girl is not really free from the horror she’s just survived (more implied in the case of ALIEN).

Although the fit is loose, the slasher cap fits well enough on the head of ALIEN for the purposes of comparison. So, how does John Carpenter’s iconic holiday-themed slasher measure up against Ridley Scott’s classic outer space screamer? Here are some of my thoughts:

TAGLINE:

HALLOWEEN: “The Night He Came Home”
ALIEN: “In Space No One Can Hear You Scream”
WINNER: ALIEN

SETTING:

HALLOWEEN: Everyday middle-class suburbia in autumn
ALIEN: Deep space, season indeterminate
WINNER: Nothing beats the stark reality and façade of our own suburban childhoods in HALLOWEEN.

MUSIC:

HALLOWEEN: John Carpenter’s synthesizer-laden score reflects the low-budget aesthetic of his film.
ALIEN: Jerry Goldsmith’s moody, minimalist sound echoes the isolation of deep space.
WINNER: Hard to deny the adrenaline rush that comes from Carpenter’s thumping escalation.

FINAL GIRL:

HALLOWEEN: Jamie Lee Curtis as the virtuous high school babysitter Laurie Strode.
ALIEN: Sigourney Weaver as the tough-as-nails spacecraft Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley.
WINNER: Duh. (Like there was a doubt in your mind where I’d fall on this one!)

KILLER:

HALLOWEEN: A stoic, masked killing machine – 6+ feet of pure evil personified.
ALIEN: A highly aggressive extraterrestrial killing machine – 7+ feet of pure alien terror.
WINNER: Tough choice, but the ambidextrous, multi-mouthed, chest-bursting ET-on-steroids wins by a hair – if only for its sheer unpredictability at the time.

SUSPENSE:

HALLOWEEN: Creepy set pieces, killer POV shots, effectively stark music, and a solid 45 minutes of foreshadowing, and Carpenter skillfully ratchets up the tension with each passing minute of the film’s running time.
ALIEN: An almost claustrophobic sense of isolation, an unpredictable life form, eerie, ambient music, and Scott’s near-flawless execution of the Dallas-with-a-flamethrower-in-the-air-shaft sequence was cause to nearly climb out one’s seat in the movie theater.
WINNER: It’s a draw. Two perfect examples of cinematic suspense.

CAST:

HALLOWEEN: A deliriously over-the-top Donald Pleasance and a cast of relative unknowns, including the film debut of Curtis.
ALIEN: Seasoned cast of character actors including Veronica Cartwright, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Ian Holm, and the then-relatively unknown Sigourney Weaver.
WINNER: Hard to beat the thespian pedigree of the Nostromo’s ill-fated crew.

BODY COUNT:

HALLOWEEN: Five…plus a dog
ALIEN: Five via titular creature…plus one robotic man who is decapitated with a fire extinguisher.
WINNER: Again, it’s a draw. Violence in both is more implied than actually scene, although one could imagine the ALIEN deaths being far more gruesome and painful.

FINAL CHASE SCENE:

HALLOWEEN: After discovering the dead bodies of her friends, plucky babysitter Laurie limps, gimps, and hobbles her way through two houses, is trapped in a flimsy closet, and throttled before uttering the classic line “Was the boogeyman…”
ALIEN: After discovering the still-breathing bodies of her cocooned crewmates, determined Ripley grabs the Calico kitty and makes haste for the escape pod – only to battle ‘ole ugly post-launch.
WINNER: Ok, so Curtis frustratingly drops the keys too many damn times, but for its sheer unrelenting, unrepentant pace and duration, HALLOWEEN wins this one hands-down.

Vince’s Final Score:

HALLOWEEN: 4
ALIEN: 3
TIED: 2
WINNER: By a butcher knife’s length…HALLOWEEN.

Alright, now it’s your turn to weigh in. To refresh, in this corner, weighing in at 91 minutes and made on a shoestring budget of $320,000, the story of butcher knives and beleaguered babysitters in HALLOWEEN:

In the opposite corner, clocking in at a hefty 119 minutes and a heftier $11 million price tag, the tale of the crew of an ill-fated spaceship and the extraterrestrial nasty that climbs aboard in ALIEN:

Now, it's time for you to weigh in below. HALLOWEEN or ALIEN? Vote in the poll and leave your comments below. Let the boxing gloves come off...

Disclaimer: No slasher film was hurt in the making of this blog.

An Exercise in 'Perversion'

2010-09-03T13:24:00.003-04:00

I’ve always liked my horror one of two extremes – either completely safe and formulaic (i.e. just about every slasher film ever made) or completely twisted to the point of inducing extreme reactions (i.e. FEED, THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, TEETH). Budding filmmaker and all-around entrepreneur Chris Moore, a film student at the University of North Carolina’s School of the Arts, has crafted an absorbing, twisted little flick with the decidedly too-the-point title PERVERSION that falls squarely into that latter category.

PERVERSION is a nightmarish, nearly hallucinogenic, psychosexual thriller that calls to mind bits of 1976’s BLACK CHRISTMAS and the more recent THE STRANGERS infused with a gender-reversed dose of 1982’s THE SEDUCTION with Morgan Fairchild. The story concerns a teenage agorophobe named Ryan (played by triple-threat screenwriter/director/actor Moore) who begins to suspect that his creepy neighbor is actually a depraved pedophile who’s developed an obsession with him. Adding to the suspense is a horrific back story in which Ryan and his family were attacked and sexually victimized by a group of masked strangers in a church rectory one Christmas Eve, leaving his parents dead, his younger sister institutionalized, and him a virtual shut-in. And just to make sure that poor Ryan never quite recovers in his head, the perpetrators were never caught.

The film follows Ryan through a series of encounters with someone who wants him – badly. Danger is ever-present with a series of sexually provocative phone calls, someone in the attic spying on him through a vent in the ceiling, and someone peeping on him in various states of undress and while he sleeps through windows and closets. Who’s behind this titular perversion? The predatory neighbor? The masked men who once attacked Ryan and his family? Or is the whole affair some internal manifestation of the trauma Ryan underwent?

PERVERSION is an independent film in every sense of the word. It’s got a rough low-budget look, and the acting (aside from Moore who is surprisingly solid in the lead) is commensurate with what one would expect from a film school outing. But to truly assess and appreciate the value of a project like this, one really needs to watch the film through a more critical, less technical eye to see the smooth, shiny diamond beneath the jagged layers of rock.

What the film may lack in technical merits, it amply makes up for in its gusto and sheer nerve. Major props to Moore for completely inverting the final girl-in-peril trope here with a gender-reversed final boy. Moore also gets an appreciative eyebrow raise for drawing on the taboo subject of male sexual victimization. Countless films have employed the rape of female characters as either weak character motivation or, worse, as a titillating plot point. In a sense, through his use of an attractive male character as the object of sexual obsession and violence, Moore subjugates that overused device. In one particularly harrowing scene, Ryan is forced to strip and follow the perverse commands of his stalker – who appears to be watching from the vent in his bedroom – via telephone. It’s an audacious and very brave scene, one that makes the viewer intensely uncomfortable on several levels – exactly what true horror should do. Moore missteps a bit with the employment of multiple voices during this sequence – clearly used to denote either the presence of more than one predator or to reinforce a multi-personality at work – that at times elicits laughs versus gasps and subsequently breaks some of the tension. My only other minor gripe with this otherwise flawlessly executed scene is that Moore, who includes a gratuitous nude scene elsewhere, eschews nudity here in favor of cutaway shots. Moore missed an opportunity here to elevate the nudity from gratuitous to relevant, using it to reinforce the character’s vulnerability and the nakedness of the sexual violence at work here.

PERVERSION is enough to establish Moore as a young filmmaker to keep an eye on. He possesses a cinematic gutsiness that belies his years, and he clearly shows here that he’s not afraid to take a risk. With a solid eye for genuinely creepy shots and angles that add layers of atmosphere to the film and a good feel for the underlying rhythm of a film from an editing side, he’s got potential to produce some quality works given the right budget, cast, and technical support. PERVERSION is a bold, perverse pleasure to behold.

To purchase PERVERSION on DVD, click here.

‘Piranha 3D’ – The Art of Remaking the Ripoff

2010-08-26T08:14:00.009-04:00

When Steven Spielberg’s JAWS was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public in the summer of 1975, it was inevitable that its success would spawn dozens of killer fish clones. Although Italian filmmaker Enzo Castellari would capitalize with the most literal killer shark ripoff (1980’s GREAT WHITE), the aquatic monsters came in many variations – a killer whale in ORCA (1977), a giant octopus in TENTACLES (1977), the titular nasties of BARRACUDA (1978), even a Moray Eel in the deceptively marketed THE DEEP (1977). But it would be B-movie maestro Roger Corman who would make the most enduring mark on the post-JAWS glut of marine marauders with his 1978 offering PIRANHA.

Shot on a shoestring budget of $600,000 (in comparison to JAWS then-impressive $8 million) during two months in the spring of 1978, the original PIRANHA was directed by then-unknown Joe Dante (THE HOWLING, TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, GREMLINS) working from a screenplay by John Sayles (ALLIGATOR, THE HOWLING, RETURN OF THE SECAUCUS SEVEN). Like JAWS, the plot of PIRANHA features a bunch of arrogant people-in-charge who ignore all warnings of impending danger and lots of unsuspecting swimmers – here frolicking in the water at a summer camp and riverfront resort – who fall prey to the razor-toothed fishies.

Flash forward 32 years later. Surprisingly, while many of the innumerable HALLOWEEN knockoffs that populated much of the release schedule in the early 80’s were mined dry in a series of tedious slasher remakes, Corman’s cult classic is among one of the only deep water horror flicks of the late 70’s to be fast tracked to remakeville.

So, how does one make a remake of a ripoff something special, memorable even? You hire a director with some solid genre credentials under his belt; you embrace the ripoff elements of the source material, throw in copious amounts of bare breasts and (literally) buckets of blood, and then amp the whole thing up in the amazing new RealD™ three-dimensional technology that made films like AVATAR and ALICE IN WONDERLAND an active versus passive audience experience.

The story is simple: An underground earthquake creates a huge fissure beneath fictional Lake Victoria and releases scores of prehistoric flesh-tearing piranha upon the spring break crowd gathered at water’s edge to party, MTV-style. Lost in their Ecstasy and booze-fueled hormonal bliss, the hapless partiers don’t heed the local sheriff’s pleas to get out of the water until it’s too late. Soon it’s shredded flesh time in the blue lagoon. Requisite subplot involves the sheriff’s teenage son who shirks babysitting responsibilities to play location scout for a GIRLS GONE WILD-like filmmaker, whose rented boat runs aground as the titular aquatic slashers circle, waiting for the next body to fall in the water.

Under Alexandre Aja’s (THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake and HIGH TENSION) lively direction, PIRANHA 3D joyfully retains every bit of the exploitation element of Corman’s original. There’s a playfulness throughout that keeps the film from taking itself too seriously, thus enhancing the film’s B-movie pedigree. And rather than try to hide its JAWS influences, PIRANHA 3D wears them proudly on its sleeve with Aja embracing the ripoff elements at work here – almost lovingly – so that much of what he crafts plays like dutiful homage versus uninspired knockoff. Just try to watch the film’s pre-credit sequence with Richard Dreyfuss humming “Show Me the Way to Go Home” in his knitted fisherman’s cap and not smile from ear to ear.

Three-dimensional gags abound, with Aja throwing everything from augmented double-D’s to honest-to-God vomit at the audience – and far be it from me to either confirm or deny that even a severed penis may or may not float by in one of the nastiest sight gags in cinematic history. And while the three-dimensional splendor of the Sapphic underwater ballet sequence may be lost on yours truly, I’m guessing a bunch of fifteen-year-old boys somewhere will be poised with a pause button on their TV remote when this thing hits DVD in a month. The violence is over the top, with an attack scene surrounding an MTV-style floating stage and surrounding flotilla rivaling – if not surpassing – the carnage in the opening scenes of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. The death sequences are downright gag-inducing at times (refer to either the Propeller Girl or Parasailing Girl sequences).

Acting is spot-on B-grade perfection, with Elizabeth Shue trading in her adventures in babysitting for escapades in saving her kids from man-eating fish and VAMPIRE DIARIES cutie Steven R. McQueen playing it with as much earnestness as his baby face can muster. Jerry O’Connell (of SLIDERS and JERRY MACGUIRE fame) and BACK TO THE FUTURE’s Christopher Lloyd battle it out to see who can chew the most scenery, with O’Connell’s leering porn entrepreneur keeping pace with Lloyd’s raving tropical fish expert frame for frame. And to answer the burning question: Yes, O’Connell rocks the red Speedo.

Savvy viewers may also recognize Ricardo Chavira (Carlos from DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES) as one of an ill-fated team of underwater geologists, while Ving Rhames continues to enjoy his typecasting as a painfully heroic deputy sheriff. My one casting complaint: Reducing the wonderful – albeit perennially underrated – Dina Meyer (of STARSHIP TROOPERS and the SAW franchise fame) to expensive fish bait here as one of the underwater geologists with nary a line of dialogue.

Yes, PIRANHA 3D veers dangerously close to satiric overload at times, and Aja frequently comes close to tipping the delicate balance between comedy and horror with the proliferation of bad taste that abounds – particularly in the death scenes (which traditionally evoke a sense of sympathy in horror, not guffaws). Yet it’s hard to resist the energy and almost gleeful sadism he brings to the script penned by Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger, the screenwriting team responsible for last year’s SORORITY ROW remake.

With boobies, bad taste, and blood, PIRAHNA 3D is the perfect recipe for escapist summer fun, a throwback to the monster movie matinee modernized for a new generation.

Books, Barbra, and Bad First Dates

2010-05-30T18:37:00.013-04:00

For the second year, I volunteered to take the helm of the Horror Writers Association’s presence at BookExpo America (BEA). For those not in the publishing world, BEA is the country’s largest gathering of publishing professionals during which new titles are unveiled, authors meet their book-buying public (namely, librarians, educators, and retailers), and lots of business is done. This year’s event was again held in New York City at the Javits Center, a worthy venue in its size and capability to handle the thousands of attendees.

This year I decided to stay in the city for the duration. Last year, I schlepped back and forth on the Long Island Railroad, which proved disadvantageous once I realized all the free books I’d score. So this year I loaded up Alexis (Yes, my car has a name – get over it!) with the HWA’s snazzy new trade show display and enough provisions to get me through the week, programmed Penelope (Yes, my GPS also has a name – move along people!), and started off. Now, those who know me know that I’m somewhat of a homebody, so driving into Manhattan from the eastern end of Long Island isn’t exactly an everyday occurrence. So there was, admittedly, a bit of anxiety. Over what, I’m not exactly certain, but there’s something intimidating to the uninitiated about the volume and speed of traffic in New York City.

But by the Queens Midtown Tunnel, I was getting the hang of the whole thing and holding my own. As I approached my hotel (chosen because it’s the city’s only lodging with its own complimentary parking garage), I scanned the block trying to locate the entrance to the parking structure. As Penelope informed me that I had reached my destination, I still couldn’t see it and panic crept in. And I passed my hotel.

Deep breathing ensued as I waited patiently for Penelope to chime back in with her recalculated route. But Penelope apparently decided to cop an attitude with me at that most inopportune moment and gave me the silent treatment (despite loud, expletive-ridden protestations to the contrary from yours truly), leaving me to quickly figure out the alternate directional flow of the busy city streets and decipher on my own. Happily, I managed to make it around the damn block, unscathed, and located the hotel and Alexis’ sanctuary for the next few days.

Once I checked in, I lugged our trade show display over to the Javits. Although I had all day on Tuesday to set the booth up, my compulsion to be ahead of schedule compelled me to at least drop off the container housing our display. Although the display packs neatly into a barrel-shaped container on wheels, it weighed a bit more than I had anticipated and I was schwitzing by the time I made it the three blocks to the Javits.

Our booth was in an excellent location in the 2900 section, right next to our friends at the Mystery Writers of America. Pleased, I dropped the container off, briefly scouted around (marveling at the construction of a few very elaborate booths some of the larger publishing houses were in the process of putting up), and then headed back to the hotel. Mission accomplished, I spent a quiet night in the hotel with a Lean Cuisine and a copy of John R. Little’s DREAMS IN BLACK AND WHITE.

Tuesday arrived and it was time to bring the last few things for our display (postcards, signage, and a revolving postcard carousel) over to the convention hall. Let me just say that I absolutely love this event. From the start of the convention, there is a palpable buzz of excitement in the air – plus, being around all those books makes me positively giddy. I made quick work of setting up our booth; despite a daunting amount of bars and crossbeams and fabric panels and lights, the display is surprisingly easy to assemble. During the set-up, I met Margery and Steve Flax. Margery is the administrative manager for MWA – and, let me tell you, the woman is packing some serious energy! Organization seems to be her middle name, even if her military-like efficiency was a bit scary at first. Steve is her husband, a nice guy who clearly shares his wife’s love of all things mystery and literary. Together, they made quite the team and I immensely enjoyed getting to know them a little better as the week went on.

Booth assembled, I awaited the arrivals of my trusty booth volunteers. Martel Sardina, fresh in from the Midwest, arrived first. Martel is one of those rare young writers who take advantage of every opportunity and experience (HWA-sponsored and otherwise) presented her, investing in her career the time and money necessary to make lasting connections and to put herself in the path of people who could be useful further along on her career path. She impresses the hell out of me, plus I enjoyed her company during Stoker Weekend in Burbank last year so I was thrilled that she signed up to volunteer at BEA. Editor extraordinaire Ellen Datlow arrived a little later, wanting to scout out the booth’s location for opening day of the exhibition hall the following day. I may tease Ellen (mercilessly at times, I suspect) but I have a profound respect for the woman. She is, by and large, the preeminent speculative fiction editor of our time, having edited too many anthologies and magazines to count. Plus, she’s just a sweet lady, knows just about everybody it seems (although she’s surprisingly shy by her own admission), and pulls together some of the best genre anthologies out there.

Tuesday night was the much-ballyhooed keynote address by one Ms. Barbra Streisand, who apparently has so much passion for design that she penned a book – aptly titled MY PASSION FOR DESIGN. I wasn’t particularly interested in hearing her talk, but I was frightened that the Velvet Mafia might somehow get wind of my skipping out on La Streisand and promptly rescind my membership, taking back that marvelous toaster in the process. So Martel and I decided to attend the event, getting decent seats about twelve rows or so from the stage, off to the right side.

So, how was Barbra, you ask? Streisand is a queen – a bona fide, bow-before-me-and-kiss-my-ring queen. There really is no other way to say it, phrase it, or otherwise communicate the essence of this larger-than-life monarch of modern-day pop culture. Everything about her oozes royalty, from her mannerisms to her speech pattern, from the way others react to her to the way everything in her path is staged just so for her arrivals and departures. Not content to simply stand before a podium and say what she had to say about this “passion for design” of hers, La Streisand had to stage her remarks within the context of an interview. Oh, yes, a full-scale, armchair interview complete with foliage behind her and a coffee table in front of her. (You didn’t expect her to actually hold her own notepad scribbled with her remarks, now did you?) And La Streisand wouldn’t deem just any interviewer worthy of grilling her about paisley pillows and damask drapes – no, she had to have a celebrity interviewer, here in the form of Oprah BFF/gal pal Gayle King (who took that six degrees connection to the talk show queen and is still inexplicably running with it!).

So the publisher introduces King, who in turn introduces Streisand (even the publisher of her own book is too common to be up to the task of reading an introduction in Barbra’s eyes). We are then treated to a little over an hour of La Streisand fawning over her own impeccable sense of style and feigning outrage over the color orange. High point in the program came when La Streisand neatly dodged a full-on stroke when King questioned her about why the flowers outside her house had to match the color scheme within. “Because the exterior of your home should be an extension of the interior,” Babs responded, her disdain of King’s suburban commonness apparent in her condescension. Good stuff, indeed. Suffice to say that La Streisand is about as detached from the economic crisis that has gripped most of our nation, as she is oblivious to the fact that while she was waxing philosophical about the many shades of red, the roomful of professionals whose industry is under siege by runaway technology, a generational apathy toward reading, and a declining literacy rate in this country might not give a rat’s ass about how her preference for certain colors is psychologically linked to her allegedly poverty-ridden childhood. Still, it was Streisand, and as a card-carrying gay man, I fulfilled my duty to listen attentively, even managing a moment of unobserved swooning when she delicately pushed a non-existent stray hair from her face with a pale blue-tipped finger.

So Wednesday came and the exhibitor hall opened to long lines of eager attendees ready to scavenge for free swag. Fellow author Gary Frank showed up bright and early, rounding out our volunteer quartet. The HWA booth was ready for business, with the always-fabulous Alexandra Sokoloff (just try to say or write her name without that particular modifier attached!) up to bat first with her book signing of THE UNSEEN. Unfortunately, St. Martin’s Press did not ship either her paperback copies of UNSEEN for her booth signing or her galleys of BOOK OF SHADOWS for her main autograph area signing – causing poor Alex to forfeit the latter while improvising during the former with hardcover copies of her first three novels that she had resourcefully brought with her. Always the consummate professional and eternal optimist, Alex did not let the shipping mishap stop her from making connections with those who stopped by our booth.

The HWA booth continued to rock throughout the two days, with our participating authors enjoying steady lines and giving away every single book they brought. Jonathan Maberry, who I swear is the hardest working genre writer today, and newcomer Roger Ma (author of THE ZOMBIE COMBAT MANUAL) enjoyed particularly long lines that stretched well into the next aisle. Ellen signed copies of BEST NEW HORROR: VOLUME TWO at the HWA booth, as well as THE BEASTLY BRIDE during a coveted spot in the main autograph area; Martel signed copies of the anthology BOOK OF DEAD THINGS; Gary signed copies of his two Medallion novels INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY and FOREVER WILL YOU SUFFER; Jameson Currier signed copies of his Black Quill Award-winning collection THE HAUNTED HEART AND OTHER TALES, as well as his new novel THE WOLF AT THE DOOR; Kelly Jameson signed SHARDS OF SUMMER and DEAD ON; and Connie Corcoran-Wilson signed copies of her new collection HELLFIRE & DAMNATION.

Also got to finally meet Dark Scribe Press’ go-to girl for fantastic book covers – Deena Warner of Deena Warner Designs. She was there with her husband Matt, a terrific horror author. You know when you picture someone in your mind and have that preconceived idea of how they’ll sound and act in real-life? Well, happily, Mr. and Mrs. Warner were every ounce the warm, personable couple I’d envisioned all these months dealing with them via email. Speaking with them was a delight, and I felt like I’d known them for years (well, I kinda-sorta have…). I did miss meeting their handsome little tike, Owen, on Thursday but managed to score a signed poster by children’s book illustrator (and frequent Jamie Lee Curtis collaborator) Laura Cornell for their new addition.

Overall, the new HWA booth was very well-received, particularly by those familiar with our past efforts. We spoke with numerous librarians and potential new members throughout the event, and made good connections with both MWA and SFWA. I had a nice chat with SFWA Board member (and former President) Michael Capobianco, and our booth and brisk activity may have inspired his organization’s future participation at BEA. I’ve always felt that the genre writing organizations should work more closely with each other so it was nice to exchange some ideas, share some information and insight, and make those personal connections.

Some other highlights of BEA 2010:

The swag! Since I had the car with me, I indulged in more of BEA’s infamous book booty this year. (This year's haul pictured above.) Brought home just over 50 free books, with signed copies of William Peter Blatty’s CRAZY, Cherie Priest’s DREADNOUGHT, Dan Well’s I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER, Sara Gruen’s APE HOUSE, Emma Donoghue’s ROOM, and the legendary R.L. Stine’s FEAR anthology among the treasures. My two favorite finds: an unsigned galley of Michael Cunningham’s BY NIGHTFALL and a signed ARC of Justin Cronin’s THE PASSAGE, which I stood on line for with Steve Flax from MWA. If anyone doesn’t think that there are still “buzz books” out there, one had only observe the mega-marketing dollars Ballantine spent on Cronin’s BEA appearance – with billboards across the front of the Javits, badge holders emblazoned with the book’s title, ads in PW’s SHOW DAILY, and two mobbed author signings.

Meeting HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME final girl Melissa Sue Anderson, quite by accident! After coming off William Peter Blatty’s line, I noticed someone holding up a copy of a book with an attractive, familiar-looking blond on the cover. (At BEA, the harder working publicists will often go right out into the crowds when their author is signing with a copy of the book to generate more traffic on that author’s line.) Sure enough, I quickly realized it was Virginia Wainwright herself and made a beeline over to her autograph line. She was there hawking (er…I mean promoting) her LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE memoir THE WAY I SEE IT: A LOOK BACK ON MY LIFE ON LITTLE HOUSE. Looking no worse for the wear of the last nearly thirty years since her classic slasher, Anderson was quite personable – although she may have glanced around discreetly for security when I asked her to inscribe my copy of her book with “Happy Birthday to Me.” We chatted briefly about mutual friend and former castmate Lesleh Donaldson right before I realized that I hadn’t brought my camera with me(!). Photo op dashed, I was resigned to my one-of-a-kind signed book and my pleasant exchange with one of Crawford Academy’s elite!

One of the high points of the week for me – being the self-proclaimed reality TV junkie that I am – was meeting Ethan Zohn, a professional soccer player who became the winner of SURVIVOR: AFRICA. Folks may not know that Zohn recently battled a rare type of cancer called CD20-positive Hodgkin's lymphoma, with which he was diagnosed in May of 2009 and then underwent a stem cell transplant later that same year. Happily, his CT scan was clear last month and he is now in full remission. There was always something immensely likeable about Zohn on SURVIVOR amongst all the outwitting and outplaying, and news of his cancer just hit me hard for some inexplicable reason. Plus, he used his fifteen minutes of fame to give back to the world through several AIDS- and animal-related charitable endeavors – including Grassroot Soccer, a nonprofit organization that trains professional soccer players to teach African children, through a tailor-made curriculum, about HIV/AIDS prevention. In any event, Zohn is now trying his hand at writing – with a delightful interactive children’s book (I believe the first in a series) that finds his cartoon character likeness traveling to South Africa and exploring the culture and traditions with a soccer enthusiast friend named Tawela. It was a real honor to meet Zohn and to shake his hand, expressing to him how happy I was that he beat cancer. He signed a copy of his book for me and graciously posed for a photo to mark our meeting. Here’s wishing Zohn, one of the genuine good guys and a true survivor, much good health and happiness in his future. (If you’re a fan of Zohn’s like I am, why not consider clicking on the link above and making a small donation?)

Most surreal moment of BEA week came while standing on line for Justin Cronin. There I am minding my own business, trying not to feel the throbbing pain after three straight days on my feet, when I look up and see Dr. Ruth Westheimer – all forty-two inches of her(!) – standing not two feet away from me. Just strolling down the main aisle, sucking the life out of a candy wrapper of some sort. Now, not being one to let celebrities of any kind pass by without forcing an interaction upon them, I giddily (and, apparently, with a touch of what was perceived as acute psychosis) called out, “Hey! Hi, Dr. Ruth!” and waved like a six-year-old who just encountered a clown at the circus. Needless to say that the diminutive good doctor turned on her slingbacks and made haste in the opposite direction!

The end of BEA week for me was capped by the Lambda Literary Awards. The brilliant Lee Thomas, whose IN THE CLOSET, UNDER THE BED collection Dark Scribe Press had the honor of publishing late last year, was up for an award in the Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror category. Since Lee couldn’t make the trek north-eastward from Texas, I decided to represent. My good friend Jameson Currier agreed to be my date for the festivities, and, one short cab ride uptown to the School of Visual Arts Theater later, we found ourselves immersed amongst the LGBT literati. Ok, well, crammed into the excruciatingly hot lobby of an un-air conditioned theater with a standoffish group of oddly-attired writers, publishers, et al, is a more apt description – but, hey, a boy can glamorize, can’t he? Yeah, this one surprised me a bit. I was really taken aback by how unapproachable most of the folks were – including those representing the Lambda Literary Board of Directors, who I just assumed would have been making the rounds, introducing themselves to people, thanking them (ahem) for their generous contributions, etcetera. But they weren’t, and the night began badly in that sense. Having been to the Bram Stoker Awards, I can unequivocally say that the horror crowd is a much warmer bunch.

Alright, so things didn’t start off with a bang, but surely an awards show put on by a bunch of creative gay people would be nothing short of a Broadway production, right? Wrong. Lethargic doesn’t even begin to describe how anemic the awards ceremony was – so much so that even comic Eddie Sarfaty seemed bored by this bunch of literary stuffed shirts. At one point (and I sincerely kid you not) the young man who helped hand out the awards could actually be seen nodding off from his seat on the stage(!). Newly-out lesbian country singer Chely Wright, advertised as either a performer or a presenter, was a no-show, with no explanation given. There were a few high points, including Pioneer Award recipient Larry Kramer’s genuinely touching acceptance speech, Lynne Breedlove’s hysterical acceptance for her book Lynne Breedlove’s One Freak Show in the Transgender category, and Rakesh Satyal’s musical acceptance set to the tune of Lady Gaga’s BAD ROMANCE (even if it did overstay its welcome after the first dozen verses!).

Strangely, for a bunch of etiquette-driven queens and kings who should know better, poor form was on high display that night, with awardless nominees walking out after their category was announced and presenters bowing out after their gig was up if just to show that they were too important to stay for the whole show. Didn’t their mommas ever teach them that it’s polite to root for other people, even in the face of losing? We won’t even touch fashion, with folks actually showing up dressed down in jeans and sneakers. Would it kill people to play grown-up for one night and show a modicum of class – or does it have to be gay club night in New York? The whole thing was downright bizarre and a bit too tacky for my taste – which included a lovely black pinstripe suit with turquoise shirt and patterned tie. Thankfully, neither Jim nor I had purchased a ticket to the after party, which I can only imagine was more of the same cliquishness.

Low point of the night was walking up to a certain anthology editor (to whom I contributed an essay, gratis, to his well-received anthology and never so much as got an invite to participate in a single book signing or reading in the New York area) after the ceremony to introduce myself outside the theater and seeing that the guy clearly had no fucking clue who I was and, essentially, politely blowing me off right on 23rd Street. Ouch. (Luckily, karma is a bitch and the guy lost his own bid for one of the non-descript hunks of glass everyone seems obsessed with winning.)

Alas, Lee’s collection did not win that night, but as he so eloquently said on Facebook shortly after the event, he’d rather lose in a strong category than win in a weak category. Now that, folks, is real class.

Not to end on a negative note, I must point out that, awards debacle aside, I really like and support – both financially and in principle – the Lambda Literary Foundation. They’ve got what appears to be a marvelous new Executive Director, a gentleman named Tony Valenzuela, and an excellent new webmaster, Antonio Gonzalez, who has done wonders updating the Lambda Literary website. Overall, the Lambda Literary Foundation does some marvelous work in supporting and promoting LGBT literature. Like every organization, they do some things better than others. I’ll still support them – even if I bypass their next awards “gala.”

We’ll just chalk our first up-close-and-personal moment up to a bad first date.

Back to the Boiler Room in ‘Nightmare’

2010-05-11T05:01:00.000-04:00

Remakes: The much-abhorred pariahs of the current cinematic landscape, a trend that won’t seem to die despite scathing critical and fan reception. But, if opening weekend box office receipts for the reboot of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET franchise are any indication, it’s a trend that’s here to stay – for awhile, at least.

I think I’ve been quite even-tempered about horror remakes, neither overly extolling their virtue nor proclaiming them to be the end of the world. That said, they’re starting to wear on my nerves a bit. The ones that work are the ones that take on lesser-known films or those that were so poorly made to begin with that the only way is up. Conversely, those that don’t work well are the ones that attempt to take on films that were pretty damn good to begin with. Some are a direct hit-or-miss for me. Rob Zombie’s reimagining of HALLOWEEN – hit; reboot of FRIDAY THE 13TH – miss. Three-dimensional slasher fun of MY BLOODY VALENTINE – hit; SyFy Channel remake of CHILDREN OF THE CORN – colossal, embarrassing miss. Inbred depravity of THE HILLS HAVE EYES – hit; teenage depravity of PROM NIGHT – miss. And until Hollywood takes heed and starts choosing films thatcould actually benefit from a second pass (See The Five Slasher Remakes You Meet in Heaven for my own inspired suggestions), I suspect there will be more misses than hits in the foreseeable future. Still, there are other remakes that fall somewhere in between for me – BLACK CHRISTMAS, SORORITY ROW, THE HITCHER, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, THE STEPFATHER, THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. Neither hit nor miss, these remakes found a way to playfully toy with their source material just enough for me to find some redemptive value despite their other more obvious shortcomings.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET will fall squarely into this latter category, leaning slightly more toward a bona fide misfire (due mainly to the original film’s iconic standing in horror film history) but possessing a few saving-grace elements of a hit. Based faithfully on Wes Craven’s groundbreaking film of the same name from 1984, this newfangled NIGHTMARE finds equally celebrated Freddy Krueger – spectral child killer extraordinaire – once again dream-stalking the children of a group of vigilante parents who killed him. Again, the parents (BLUE STEEL’S Clancy Brown, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS’ Connie Britton) remain secretive while the teenagers attempt to stay awake at all costs, with Freddy methodically hunting each of the Elm Street children in dreams that take them back to a pre-school where he molested them years before.

Although the boiler room, red- and green-striped sweater, and the legendary blade-tipped glove are all back and on full display, director Samuel Bray brings little, if anything, new or innovative to the proceedings. The film is competently shot and visually slick, but there’s just a dreamy feeling of going-through-the-motions throughout that makes this one a bit of a snoozefest. One of the more fascinating aspects of any remake for me is the filmmakers’ choices of what stays and what goes. Here, screenwriters Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer (who genre fans will undoubtedly soon hate for his work on the upcoming remake of John Carpenter’s THE THING remake) opt to keep the victim pool relatively small as in Craven’s original, with several of the more infamous set pieces (such as the Johnny Depp “blood geyser” scene) left out while others (the bathtub/glove between-the-legs shot, the levitation/flaying scene, and the jailhouse death) included.

So, those are the misses. How about the hits? Surprisingly, the one aspect of the film that I expected to be its strongest asset here – namely, the casting of comeback kid Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger – isn’t. Although props to Bray and company for refreshingly toning down Freddy’s campy sarcasm that we had to endure in the later original NIGHTMARE sequels and to the special effects team for Freddy’s decidedly more realistic burned face, Haley does yeoman’s work here, his voice sounding heavily filtered and monotone and about the farthest thing from sinister as one can get. Whereas Robert Englund found a way to bring his personality out through the role, Haley gets swallowed up in it, rendering him indistinguishable.

The film’s high points rest with a few members of the overall respectable cast. Although Rooney Mara never quite measures up to Heather Langenkamp as the new Nancy, Kyle Gallner (JENNIFER’S BODY, THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUTT) has enough of a unique screen presence to fill some of the void. (And, no, it has nothing to do with his on-screen appearance in a Speedo…OK, maybe a little!) Kellan Lutz (of TWILIGHT fame and PROM NIGHT remake infamy) shows up briefly (sadly, a missed opportunity to showcase his newly-acquired Calvin Klein underwear modeling skills).

But the real treat of the new NIGHTMARE is Katie Cassidy, who stands out as Kris (here in the Tina role from the original). Cassidy – who has been the shining light of the CW’s MELROSE PLACE reboot as Ella, a second-generation Heather Locklear – has positioned herself (whether intentionally or not) as a genuine scream queen, with roles in the remakes of both WHEN A STRANGER CALLS and BLACK CHRISTMAS, as well as a gig on last year’s ensemble slasher TV series HARPER’S ISLAND. In NIGHTMARE, Cassidy brings an authentic sense of fear to her role, from her blood-curdling scream in the film’s diner-set opening to her inevitable bedroom demise. It’s not often that you’ll hear me say something positive about the seemingly endless string of interchangeable star-harlots passing themselves off as young Hollywood, but Cassidy is the real deal and an actress to watch. It’s very clear from the expansion of the original character’s role here that the filmmakers knew they had something special in Cassidy – and wisely capitalized on it.

The new A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET plays it safe – safe enough not to inspire the wrath of loyalists like Rob Zombie did with Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN, but too safe to leave its mark as anything other than a pointless clone. If the intention of this NIGHTMARE update is to entice the new Red Bull generation onto Freddy’s playground, then, unfortunately, I suspect the film’s lack of distinguishing character and originality – that the original had in spades – will leave the monkey bars empty. Less enthralling than somewhat enjoyable, this new Freddy outing is more a mildly bad dream than full-blown nightmare.

Plunging the Depths of Mediocrity in ‘Descent 2’

2010-05-10T12:58:00.002-04:00

When Neil Marshall’s THE DESCENT was released to widespread acclaim in 2005, it was clear that the film was something special and one of those singular successes that seemed to scream: “Please don’t sully me with a sequel!”. But such wishful thinking is pure naïveté in these days of super-sized Hollywood cash-ins, especially when one looks back at other “shoulda-stood-alone” horror films – PSYCHO, JAWS, HALLOWEEN, THE EXORCIST, even JEEPERS CREEPERS – whose artistry simply seemed exploited when filmmakers sought to extend the original narratives of their classic cinematic predecessors.

Now, I know that rationale counters the argument I’ve used countless times before to defend the dreaded remake – stating that the existence of such doesn’t negate the artistry of the original. But sequels are a different animal. While the remake is essentially a reinterpretation of the source material, a sequel by virtue extends the original source material, thus bringing with it the ability to alter the original narrative in some ways. Small distinction, perhaps – but one I think is important in considering THE DESCENT 2.

Picking up with the rescue of the first film’s apparent sole survivor Sarah (Shauna Macdonald), THE DESCENT 2 focuses on the investigation into the fates of the remaining members of the original film’s all-girl expedition team. The film starts weakly, with an improbable sequence of events that includes local law enforcement basically ripping freshly-sedated Sarah out of her hospital bed to lead a rescue team back down into the uncharted cave system. Factor in a trio of rescuers who go recklessly off grid in an effort to bypass the intrusive media and a ridiculously convenient elevator to take them all there, and you’ll find yourself cynically bracing for disappointment.

Forgive the first twenty minutes of the film, however, and you’ll be rewarded with something passable in the annals of horror film sequels. For once the passages start to narrow and Sarah’s memory of recent events starts to flash before her eyes, a bit of that throat-tightening sense of claustrophobia that was exploited to such marvelous effect in the original film kicks in. And when imbecilic Sheriff Vaines (Gavan O’Herlihy) shoots off his pistol, rocks come a tumblin’ down, and our team of would-be rescuers quickly finds itself trapped with the subterranean cave-dwelling stars of the first film. Search-and-rescue becomes kill-or-be-killed.

Part of the problem with sequels (and remakes, to a degree) is that the audience has traveled down the same familiar road together before, thus knowing what the impending terror looks like and is capable of. So the creative forces behind the sequel have two options: show the audience what’s behind Door #2 or give them more of what they’ve come to expect. Although the former is trickier to pull off (think ALIENS), it’s a far more effective approach to generating scares that feel fresh. DESCENT 2 director Jon Harris opts instead for the latter here, giving audiences liberal glimpses of the wall-scaling, scurrying creatures and exponentially more limb-ripping, blood-spraying violence. The result is mixed, with more of the same – recycled scares, if you will – peppered with a scarce amount of the emotional resonance of the original film.

It’s here, with its lack of emotional timbre, that THE DESCENT 2 makes its biggest blunder, reducing it to its expected level of mediocrity. The first film worked so effectively because it centered on a unique cast of well-developed characters. Even if one or two of the female spelunkers from the first film failed to stand out individually, Marshall’s script took considerable time and effort establishing the women as an authentic, cohesive group of friends, with believable group dynamics and enough natural camaraderie that the audience was invested in their fates. Here, there is little for the audience to invest in – with a subplot involving the sheriff’s female deputy bonding with Sarah over their shared status as mothers feeling forced. The trio of screenwriters responsible for DESCENT 2 – J. Blakeson, James McCarthy, and James Watkins – does manage to offer a tease of the original film’s emotional underpinning during a pivotal scene in which another character from the first film shows up and an unresolved central conflict from that film is re-opened like an old, painful wound. It’s a welcome, frustrating hint of potential amidst great averageness.

Kudos to Harris and crew for once again not shying away from an atypical dark ending, with DESCENT 2’s last frames similar to the first film’s decidedly downbeat original UK ending. The fact that I even yelled out “Oh, man…you’ve got to be kidding me! After all that?” at the end of the film is testament that they did something right in getting me to buy in – even if only a little.

Mother, Movie Star

2010-05-09T14:07:00.006-04:00

"My mother was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. There are moments when I remember her beauty, unadorned, unposed, not in some artificial place like a set or a photo call but rather captured outdoors in nature, where she took my breath away. When those moments surface, I miss her the most."

So begins Jamie Lee Curtis’ intimate essay about her complicated relationship with her mother, Janet Leigh, in the May issue of MORE MAGAZINE. Part eulogy and part autobiography, Curtis crafts a beautiful tribute to the late Hollywood legend and candidly discusses their complex, yet durable, mother-daughter bond. In the piece, Curtis opens up about everything from her mother’s split from father Tony Curtis to Leigh’s most complicated relationship of all – with her own body.

The essay is equal parts elegiac and celebratory, giving great insight into Curtis’ own life and personality in the process. Reading how Leigh fretted over her figure (“Like anyone who becomes famous for what they look like, when that commodity starts to change, the relationship with it deteriorates," Curtis writes.) or how their mother-daughter relationship suffered from a lack of genuine intimacy ("She took good care of me – my needs were always met and she showed up to everything – but there was no real intimacy... She belonged to the people when really she should have just been ours."), it’s easy to put Curtis’ own directions in life into context – from her criticism over plastic surgery and body-conscious Hollywood to her own decision to scale back on her film work for the sake of her children.

Here’s a great new interview that Curtis gives to Better.TV from the set of her MORE photo shoot.

Genre fans will fondly remember two on-screen pairings between Leigh and Curtis, the first being in John Carpenter’s masterpiece 1980’s seaside ghost story THE FOG. And, in honor of Mother’s Day and as a fan of both women, I offer this poignant scene from the second – 1998’s HALLOWEEN: H20 – in which Leigh’s secretary character offers Curtis’ (horror iconic) Laurie Strode some motherly advice:

They Had Me at Laura Innes!

2010-05-07T21:38:00.001-04:00

One of my favorite pastimes is following pilot season and the network upfronts - the time (usually in May) when the networks hold meetings with the press and advertisers to announce their new shows for the fall, spring, and summer TV seasons and allow the advertisers to buy time "up front."

Here's a promising early NBC pick-up:

THE EVENT is an emotional high-octane conspiracy thriller that follows Sean Walker (PARENTHOOD'S Jason Ritter), an Everyman who investigates the mysterious disappearance of his fiancée, Leila (Sarah Roemer), and unwittingly begins to expose the biggest cover-up in U.S. history. Sean’s quest will send ripples through the lives of an eclectic band of strangers, including: newly elected U.S. President Martinez (Blair Underwood); Sophia (ER's Laura Innes), who is the leader of a mysterious group of detainees; and Sean’s shadowy father-in-law (GILMORE GIRLS' Scott Patterson). Their futures are on a collision course in a global conspiracy that could ultimately change the fate of mankind. Ian Anthony Dale (DAYBREAK) and Emmy winner Željko Ivanek (DAMAGES) also star in this ensemble drama.

‘Shutter Island’: Stylistic Hot Air

2010-03-07T09:32:00.003-05:00

Watching the bewildering box office hit SHUTTER ISLAND this weekend, I was reminded of the lyrics from British group Talk Talk’s 1982 eponymous song:

I'm tired of listening to you
Talking in rhymes
Twisting round to make me think
You're straight down the line

All you do to me is talk talk
talk talk, talk talk
All you do to me is talk talk

Ok, so maybe Martin Scorsese has earned the right to engage in an indulgent mess of a film like SHUTTER ISLAND. After all, this is the guy responsible for classics like TAXI DRIVER, RAGING BULL, GOODFELLAS, and CASINO. But, understanding that Scorsese knows his way around a tight suspense thriller (CAPE FEAR, anyone?) makes this exercise in cinematic excess all the more puzzling – and, ultimately, disappointing.

Scorsese directs from a script by Laeta Kalogridis (pulling double duty here as an Executive Producer) based on the novel by Dennis (MYSTIC RIVER) Lehane. It’s 1954 when the film opens on two US Marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), making their way through the Boston Harbor Islands to the titular location, where a hospital for the criminally insane and a MIA murderess await. Investigation into the missing female inmate’s whereabouts ensues as a hurricane bears down on the island and the increasingly ominous hospital shrinks thwart the federal lawmen’s access to pertinent patient records. DiCaprio, who spends the majority of the film furrowing his brow, reveals some personal motivations of his own for wanting this assignment in the first place, while the mostly venerable cast including Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, and the always-outstanding Patricia Clarkson imbue the proceedings with a sense of prestige and solemnity despite the trench-coated silliness that abounds.

But this flashback-laden, dialogue-heavy talkfest quickly overstays any welcome Scorsese is able to establish with cinematographer Robert Richardson’s opening shots of the imposingly creepy titular island. He’s heavy-handed with his clues and red herrings, giving away the film’s big SIXTH SENSE-style twist ending within the first ten minutes of the film from DiCaprio’s first headache to his early maniacal chain smoke on the deck of the boat transporting them to the island. Scorsese spends the bulk of the film (clocking in at a hefty two hours and eighteen minutes) moving DiCaprio from location to location around the island engaging everyone from psychiatrists to psychopaths in endless conversation.

It’s all overplayed to the point of tedium so that by the time the competently executed finale rolls around, we’re checking our watch trying to calculate the remaining running time while mulling over the Applebee’s menu in our head.

SHUTTER ISLAND is not without its bright spots. Ted Levine makes a memorable appearance playing the institution’s sinister warden. Mainstream audiences will recognize him as serial killer “Buffalo Bill” from 1991’s THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, while savvy genre buffs will note that Levine was the uncredited voice of Rusty Nail, the murderous trucker in 2001’s JOY RIDE. His appearance is so welcome among the seemingly endless dialogue that one half hopes he’ll ask DiCaprio to “put the lotion in the bucket” with his man bits tucked inconspicuously between his legs. Comeback kid Jackie Earle Haley (so achingly brilliant in 2006’s LITTLE CHILDREN) also shows up briefly as a bruised and battered patient.

Other highpoints include Dante Ferretti’s atmospheric production design and longtime Scorsese collaborator Robbie Robertson’s decision to eschew an original soundtrack for an eclectic selection of modern classical music that’s as bold as it is beautiful (albeit irritatingly thunderous at times).

Visually, SHUTTER ISLAND hits all the right marks – from set design to costumes. It’s the convoluted script and anemic pacing that makes this one trip worth putting off until the DVD arrives. If you like psychological thrillers heavy on the psychobabble and light on the actual thrill, however, catch the next ferry to your local multiplex.

Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

When Basinger Goes Bad

2010-03-01T04:22:00.002-05:00

There should be an annual award for the marketing executive who best captures the essence of a film with its tagline. If there were, then the team behind 2008’s WHILE SHE WAS OUT would have won hands-down.

With a limited theatrical release in December of 2008 before being unceremoniously dumped into home video oblivion in April of last year, WHILE SHE WAS OUT boasts the telling tagline: “Everyone has a breaking point. Tonight, she reaches hers.” Nine words ably convey all you need to know about this slightly better-than-average, revenge-fueled, I-am-woman-hear-me-roar flick, but for those who enjoy lengthier pontifications about such films, I oblige with the more extensive recap and critique that follows.

WHILE SHE WAS OUT is Scottish director Susan Montford’s directorial debut, with screenplay work by Montford based on the acclaimed short story by Edward Bryant (which first appeared in the premiere issue of PULPHOUSE: THE HARDBACK MAGAZINE in 1988 and went on to become one of Bryant’s most anthologized short stories).

Oscar winner Kim Basinger plays Della Myers, an unhappy housewife in upwardly mobile suburbia, where luxury condominiums reside behind gated entrances and every driveway is adorned with a BMW and an SUV. The film opens with Della’s husband Kenneth (Craig Sheffer) coming home from a hard day at work only to be less than impressed with his wife’s serious lack of domestic skills. After enduring a tongue lashing and an angry fist through the sheetrock, Della is eager to escape her suburban nightmare for hell of a different kind: the shopping mall on Christmas Eve.

Out into the rainy night to secure more wrapping paper for gifts for her twins, Della is surprisingly frustrated to find the mall packed with last-minute shoppers and no parking spots. Her ire increases when she spots an old land yacht taking up two premium parking stalls, so much so that she quickly scribbles an angry note about what a “selfish jerk” the owner is and leaves it on the windshield.

Despite the crowds and bothersome inconsiderates, Della is grateful for the temporary reprieve from her miserable life and quickly dismisses the nuisances to indulge in the comforting ordinariness of the mall experience – admiring some sexy lingerie, treating herself to an overpriced mall coffee (although she inexplicably eschews the chocolate biscotti), and perusing luxury beauty products at the salon. Just as poor Della loses herself in the mundane, she runs into an old college friend who reinforces just how dismal her life really is. After her credit card is declined in the Hallmark store, forcing her to pay cash for the wrapping paper (a true nightmare for the upwardly mobile), Della resigns herself to returning home.

In the parking lot, she casually passes by the egregiously parked old car and notices that the snide little note she left is gone.

Uh oh.

Before you can process the thought and before poor Della can shift the SUV into reverse, the mysterious car pulls in behind her, blocking her exit, with car stereo blaring. But Della is in no mood for games, folks. She gets out of her SUV and confronts the most laughably politically correct band of thugs – including Huey, the requisite African-American (Jamie Starr), Vingh, the requisite Asian-American (Leonard Wu), Tomás, the requisite Hispanic (Luis Chávez), and (just to make sure we don’t break too many cultural barriers here and maintain some semblance of Aryan order) the requisite Caucasian ringleader, Chuckie (Lukas Haas, who’s all grown up and smarmy to the max). Enter a hapless mall cop whose attempts to intervene get him two bullets in the brain for Christmas. No, kids, Daddy won’t be home for the holidays.

While the thugs panic and lament the ramifications of Chuckie’s rash actions, Della hightails it out of there, jumping the curb and taking off down the road. That sheetrock-smashing, whiskey-swilling louse of a husband of hers must not be looking too bad at this point.

With no one to call (an earlier scene involving a forgotten cell phone charger already foreshadowed this cinematically requisite lack of communication with the outside world) and with the thugs in hot pursuit, Della speeds along seemingly deserted roads until she crashes the SUV into a construction site where a new spread of upwardly-mobile homes just like hers is being built – almost in an architectural nod to INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. Resourcefully, she grabs a flare and toolbox from the trunk before she takes flight into the maze of half-finished homes.

What ensues is a relentless game of cat-and-mouse through the construction site and the surrounding woods. Our Benetton band of hooligans proves surprisingly resilient, developing expert forest ranger skills in tracking Della (cracked tree branches, disturbed earth, correctly identifying and following the scent of her perfume).

But Della is dealing with some serious issues of her own, carrying more baggage than will fit in her little red toolbox. Faster than you can say BURNING BED, Della channels her inner rage and turns the tables on her attackers. ‘She’s gone bad, man,” utters the Asian.

Indeed she has, my friend. Not since Sarah Palin has a woman over forty gone so rogue.

Della dispenses with all of the minority thugs first, her magic toolbox enabling her to employ great creativity in her kills that include a broken neck, a screwdriver through the back of the throat, and a tire iron up the nose. Jason Voorhees would be proud.

Finally, it’s her and ringleader Lukas Haas – and he is fittingly impressed. “You are one tough bitch. And that is hot.”

“Husband, house, security – every woman’s dream,” Chuckie continues, appraising her with remarkably astute observations on her life. “But what you’ve longed for is the wind in your hair.”

He finally draws her out when his psychological mind games strike the right nerve. “A woman’s purse can tell her whole life story,” he taunts with a thinly-veiled threat to go after her kids. Della emerges from her hiding place, but the has-she-snapped-or-hasn’t-she denouement will have you questioning whether she’s giving in to built-up sexual frustration or animal-like cunning. (Hint: Bet on the latter.)

With this last of her attackers dispatched, a preternaturally determined, newly confident Della takes off for home, a woman on a mission to reunite with her children. As she walks through rain-soaked suburbia, tubes of wrapping paper in hand, softly humming “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”, you just know that a few lug nuts came loose during her most excellent Christmas Eve adventure, leaving her more than slightly unhinged.

By now, having survived the extreme horror of the night, her abusive husband looks nothing more than a pathetic pissant. Sure the ending is cheap and you see it coming from a mile away, but still, it’s true to everything that came before it. It’s like a subtler version of the microwave finale in THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT remake – all there so that the audience can enjoy that last macabre laugh with the film’s heroine.

WHILE SHE WAS OUT plays like a super-efficient slasher film that dispenses with the body count and introduces us to the final girl in the first frames. That the extended final chase scene actually makes up the bulk of the movie is where WHILE SHE WAS OUT earns some props for playing with convention. Montford demonstrates respectable enough chops for pacing and action sequences, although the repetitiveness of the search-and-destroy scenes border on overkill after awhile.

Basinger essentially carries the film, and she shakes, quakes, quivers and shivers with admirable aplomb. Props again to Montford and casting director Shannon Makhanian for recognizing that a woman over forty can bring a welcome maturity to the damsel in distress role while matching the physical agility of her younger scream queen counterparts. Not since Lee Grant in VISITING HOURS or Lauren Bacall in THE FAN has a mature horror heroine been this much fun.

Rent this one with THE BRAVE ONE and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and have yourself a marathon night of womanly revenge.

Poetic Death

2010-02-28T11:07:00.007-05:00

There are few things I enjoy more than opening a package and finding my contributor copies of a new book featuring my work. Yesterday, I excitedly ripped open an envelope containing a hot-off-the-presses copy of DEATH IN COMMON: POEMS FROM UNLIKELY VICTIMS. My involvement in this project is especially exciting because it marks my professional poetry debut.

Taking his cue from the Edgar Lee Masters' classic SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY, Rich Ristow, the editor of the project, pitched an irresistible concept: a collection of poems told from the viewpoints of the victims of a fictional mass murderer. The collection would begin with a faux news story detailing the gruesome discovery of countless bodies in the basement of one Charles Lee Eaton, a 62-year-old loner. The victims were to vary across a broad demographic range, with no commonality except for wadded up pieces of paper with handwriting stuffed into their mouths. Creepy, right?

So, thanks to Rich's patience and excellent editorial guidance, my two contributions - "Tyro" and "Chatroom Hustler" - sit alongside accomplished, award-winning poets like Michael Arnzen and Marge Simon and Christopher Conlon. In "Tyro", I imagined that Eaton had an apprentice, while "Chatroom Hustler" is told from the point-of-view of a teenage male prostitute who is lured into the mass murderer's den via an Internet chatroom.

In reading the collection last night, I'm impressed by the quality of the poems Rich accepted and how that one unifying faux news story held these wildly divergent poems together so well. If you've never had an interest in poetry but like horror, then DEATH IN COMMON would be an excellent starting point in what could turn out to be a rich and rewarding reading experience for those open to gettings their goosebumps in new ways.

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Ristow (along with new business partner Scott Colbert) went the distance with this collection, rescuing the project from its former publisher who rushed out an earlier (and reportedly inferior) product. Both gents have formed the fledgling Bandersnatch Books, and I'd encourage my readers to support these guys by pre-ordering a copy of DEATH IN COMMON.

"Here's a link to make it easy," he offers, smiling.

‘The Stepfather’: Paternal Instincts of the Familiar Kind

2010-02-15T19:59:00.002-05:00

One of the inherent problems with remakes – unless the creative forces behind them really veer from the source material (think John Carpenter’s THE THING) – is that the audience knows what’s coming. And when an audience walks into a theater with a good idea of how it will all pan out, logically, building suspense is an uphill battle. Such is the main problem with last year’s remake of THE STEPFATHER, an otherwise competent thriller whose main crime is familiarity.

Like its 1987 predecessor, the new and improved STEPFATHER concerns a psychopath (here played with deranged calm by NIP/TUCK’s Dylan Walsh) who has a penchant for loving and leaving (and butchering) entire families. Chameleon-like, our dangerous Daddy is just one pair of contact lenses and a box of Just For Men hair coloring away from his next set of victims. Following the prologue in which we see the aftermath of the titular character’s Christmas-time massacre of his current family, psycho pappy hits the road for Oregon where he quickly spies desperate divorcée Susan Harding (the always solid Sela Ward) and kids at the local grocery store. On cue, conversation and flirting ensue.

Flash forward six months, and stepfather-to-be has ingratiated himself into the Harding’s lives in tree-lined suburbia. But while young’uns Beth (Skyler Samuels) and Sean (Braeden Lemasters) take to the new paternal figure in their life, teenage son Michael (Penn Badgley) arrives home from military school with eyebrows and suspicions raised. And he’s not the only one. As the film progresses, those closest to the Harding family (the ex-husband, the concerned sister, the nosy feline-loving neighbor) also become suspicious of the man who’s got aversions to family photos and filling out his W-2 form — and that’s when the film’s respectable body count begins.

The whole thing comes to a head when Michael, with girlfriend Kelly (Amber Heard) in tow, uncovers the secret of the locked cabinets in the Harding house basement. If the whole thing sounds a bit like a Hardy Boys novel, well, it kind of is — right down to Badgley’s quasi-rebellious teen earnestness and the dark-and-stormy-night finale.

Acting is above-average here, with veterans Walsh and Ward ably aided by a recognizable supporting cast that includes Jon Tenney, Sherry (ER) Stringfield, and Paige Turco. Badgley, while lacking the qualities that endeared fans of the original to Jill Schoelen’s final girl, is an appealing enough ‘final guy’ — while Amber Heard is reduced to a clothing-challenged sidekick, spending the majority of the film’s running time in either her underwear or a bikini. Heard – who’s not unfamiliar to genre fare with roles in ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE and ZOMBIELAND already under her belt, while upcoming roles in AND SOON THE DARKNESS, THE WARD, and DRIVE ANGRY (from the team that brought audiences MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D) seem certain to cement her status as a bona fide scream queen – deserves better here than the film’s PG-13 T&A element.

Director Nelson McCormick and screenwriter J.S. Cardone both show marked improvement here over their last collaboration, 2008’s colossal PROM NIGHT misfire. McCormick’s direction hums along at an appropriately brisk pace, occasionally getting bogged down a bit by some extraneous bits of character exposition and dialogue in Cardone’s otherwise faithful treatment of Donald Westlake’s original screenplay.

Where THE STEPFATHER falters is in the lack of risk the creative team takes with the source material. There are very few variations on the original film, with killer Daddy escaping at film’s end and already chatting up his next family. Hey, if Rob Zombie decided that Michael Myers needed a backstory, couldn’t Cardone come up with something for David Harris? Getting to know the why behind this always-a-stepfather-never-a-Dad character has some serious potential, and almost feels somehow necessary considering the brutality of the character’s modus operandi. That would have been interesting. And any hints of freshness (including a few bits of homoeroticism between Walsh and well-pectoraled Badgley) are never fully realized. There are no surprises to be found here, no bit of originality that takes the film in a slightly different direction from the original. And a slight detour on a road less traveled would have made all the difference in this otherwise respectable slasher/thriller.

When Homicidal Harry Met Three-Dimensional Fun

2010-02-14T08:39:00.011-05:00

(In honor of Valentine's Day, a reprint of my review of last year's MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D that appeared on the now-defunct website FEAR ZONE.)

Remember when horror movies used to be fun? When movie going was an actual experience, one not wrought with endless analysis? In our increasingly hypercritical times, when everyone with an Internet connection is an armchair quarterback, horror films have become victim to our own cynicism. Surprisingly, a strong dose of authentic, cinematic entertainment – the kind that requires nothing more than a bag of greasy popcorn and an arm to grab hold of – returned to theaters this week last year by way of an unlikely source: the dreaded remake.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D plays like a pure, golden era slasher circa 1980’s but updated with modern technology and a shrewd understanding of its own limitations. Purists of the original will be relieved to find that the movie pays dutiful respect to its 1981 source material while modernizing it for an audience that has missed out on the simplicity of old school escapism.

Like George Mihalka’s original, the action of MY BLOODY VALENTINE centers around an industrial town and its blue collar lifeblood, in both cases the Hanniger Mine. In an opening sequence that grinds anything resembling subtleness into the ground, the audience witnesses Harry Warden (the underrated, shoulda-been-a-slasher-icon from the original film) awakening from a coma after a mining explosion leaves him a sole survivor with vengeance on the mind. When Warden’s newfound homicidal tendencies kick in, there isn’t an inch of hospital not coated with blood, guts, and gore. The audience has no doubt that this is a roller coaster ride set into motion and there’s no getting off.

Flash forward ten years as the late mine owner’s son, Tom Hanniger (SUPERNATURAL’S Jensen Ackles), whose inexperience caused the infamous explosion that set off Warden’s psychopathic rampage, returns to Harmony to inherit and close the mine. Personal drama sticks close to the source material as Tom finds one-time love Sarah (Jaime King) now married to his one-time friend and new town sheriff Axel Palmer (DAWSON’S CREEK alum Kerr Smith). In a twist on the original film’s love triangle, there’s also a subplot that reveals Axel to be a philandering husband, cheating on the earnest Sarah with one of her grocery store employees (Megan Boone).

Before Tom has unpacked his bags at the local motel, someone with a penchant for miner’s garb and a pickaxe dispatches with Axel’s former high school sweetheart Irene (Betsy Rue in one of the longest full-frontal nude scenes in horror film history) and her sleazy truck-driving hookup named Frank (played with surprising aptitude – and an admirable derrière – by screenwriter Todd Farmer).

Soon there are myriad murders and more red herrings than you can shake a pointy pickaxe at. Has Harry Warden, who seemingly escapes at the end of the film’s prologue, come back to further exact his vengeance? What secrets do mine manager Ben Foley (Kevin Tighe) and former Harmony lawman Sheriff Burke (Tom Atkins) harbor in connection with old Harry Warden? Do Tom’s whereabouts for the past ten years play any part in the mystery? Like the best slashers, MY BLOODY VALENTINE – past and present – have that element of mystery at their core. Farmer and co-screenwriter Zane Smith (working from the late John Beaird’s original screenplay) do a commendable job layering the plot just enough to keep the audience guessing without overpowering the essence of the slasher formula at play here.

Acting is heads and shoulders above the usual slasher fare, with none of the actors giving the impression that they’re slumming it in slasher territory as is too often the case. And while Ackles and King doing solid work here, it’s Smith who elevates his role to something not often seen in the medium. He proves remarkably capable of carrying a large part of the film, imbuing his well-scripted character with the flaws and attributes necessary to deliver an honest, nuanced performance as three-dimensional as the special effects. Rue is something of a revelation here (3-D boobies notwithstanding) and Boone proves herself one of the most competent screamers since Jamie Lee Curtis. But the gem of the supporting cast is genre favorite Tom Atkins, whose substantive role as Harmony’s retired sheriff provides a glorious dose of horror nostalgia. His appearance here makes MY BLOODY VALENTINE seem like one big welcome home party for homesick slasher fans weary from a spate of lifeless PG-13 remakes and torture flicks. Kudos to casting director Nancy Nayor for locking him down for this triumphant genre return.

Director Patrick Lussier knows his way around a slasher film and clearly has affection for his low-budget Canadian predecessor. Pacing is tight, with scarce time to regroup after the various terror sequences he expertly stages and executes. There’s more than one obligatory wink to the forty-something crowd who grew up watching the original film on late night cable — with some of the best set pieces from the 1981 film making updated appearances (think clothes dryers, blood-soaked candy boxes, and falling miner outfits). Even when the extended prologue’s mine-set conclusion seemingly leaves off where the original film did, older fans are almost left with the impression that this is the sequel that never was.

Lussier also knows how to optimize the film’s amazing RealD™ technology, using the three-dimensional experience for not only all the expected tricks involving objects hurling toward the screen but also to immerse the audience in everything from the depth of the mine sequences to ordinary sets. This multifaceted approach to use of the technology creates a lushness to the film not seen in the last round of 3-D features in the 80’s (PARASITE, anyone?) — one that will draw audiences in and involve them in the film itself.

There was bound to be a slasher remake that hit its mark much in the same way John Carpenter’s THE THING or Philip Kaufman’s INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS did for their sci-fi predecessors. Slasher fans may have found their credible remake in MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D. With skill and genuine fondness for an oft-maligned genre, Lussier and company extract all those elements that worked in the original film, improve those that didn’t, and infuse the proceedings with their own creative flair and a technology that never overpowers but enhances the overall movie experience.

Bloody Bonus: For those of you who missed it, also check out my interview with MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D and JASON X screenwriter Todd Farmer at DARK SCRIBE MAGAZINE.

Or, prefer your slashers old-school? Then let's revisit the low-budget holiday horror of the original MY BLOODY VALENTINE.

Of Zombies and Stupidity

2010-02-12T18:55:00.001-05:00

So the Library of the Living Dead debacle gets even worse today, with this response from Dr. Michael West (the previously referred to “Dr. Pus”). Some choice parts for those not inclined to read the entire post:

“The reason I pulled the LBGT Anthology was NOT from complaints from the straight community, it was from complaints from the LBGT community.

They were upset that an Anthology written by straight authors could cast a bad light on the gay community. I had no complaints from the straight authors.

Some of the complaints from my LBGT authors were "gays will be displayed in a bad light", "This is a gimmick", [and] "No good can come from straight people writing about gays."

These gay authors are my friends as well as my authors. I did not want to upset THEM. Thus I pulled the Anthology.”

The good Dr. West, with all due respect, reacts in an incredibly shortsighted way by then announcing an exclusionary anthology that will include only LGBT writers.

First of all, good writing is good writing, regardless of an author’s sexual orientation. To categorically dismiss that “no good can come from straight people writing about gays” is simply the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard, and I would love to meet the dolt who uttered such twaddle. Secondly, I can tell you that the heterosexual writer can most certainly bring a unique perspective to the LGBT experience. I could not fathom the UNSPEAKABLE HORROR collection without the deeply personal and insightful works of writers like Sarah Langan, Kealan Patrick Burke, Scott Nicholson, Lisa Morton, and others. Their works measured up equally against those from LGBT-identified writers like Lee Thomas, Rick R. Reed, and Jameson Currier. None of the contributions to UNSPEAKABLE from our heterosexual brothers and sisters cast even the remotest of "bad lights" onto the LGBT community.

Quite frankly, the whole notion is pure rubbish.

It's the editor and publisher who steer an anthology in the direction they want to see it materialize based on their vision. We received more than one submission (from straight and gay writers) that pandered to the most adolescent clichés and stereotypes — including pedophilia and bestiality. And guess how we handled those submissions? We rejected them and focused instead on those quality submissions we received that spoke to the universality of the closet experience we were looking for.

What Dr. West and Mr. Tucker are attempting to do now with this ridiculous claim that the gay writers were to blame adds insult to injury. Gay writers weren’t to blame — nor were the stupid writers who think that a heterosexual writer can’t possibly write from a gay character’s perspective. No, the blame rests with the forces behind Library of the Living Dead who don’t appear to have any semblance of a pulse on the genre (or sub-genre, in this case) in which they publish.

Perhaps Dr. West has surrounded himself with amateur writers and editors who are giving him exceptionally poor advice. As my own experience creating the UNSPEAKABLE HORROR anthology proves, it can be done. You simply need to have a little more faith in your own abilities and start surrounding yourself by higher-tier professional writers and editors.

Of Zombies and Homophobia

2010-02-11T23:01:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, I saw a call for submissions from a small press publisher called Library of the Living Dead. They were looking for queer-themed zombie stories for an anthology tentatively titled ZOMBOLOGY: A QUEER BENT ON THE UNDEAD. Interesting concept, and I just so happened to have a story I had recently finished up that seemed to fit the bill.

So I sent the story off to the editor this past weekend. Within two days I received a cryptic email from the anthology’s editor, Bill Tucker, stating that “the publisher has pulled the plug on this anthology.” Weird, especially considering that the call for submissions had only gone out a short time before. But, hey, I run a publishing company and know that financial times are tough. I shrugged it off and didn’t think another thing about it.

Until this morning.

Apparently, the publisher (a man perhaps appropriately named “Dr. Pus”) pulled the proverbial plug on his own anthology in response to pressure from some of his own heterosexual authors involved with Library of the Living Dead. An excerpt from his own statement: “...with all the things that are going on in my life right now I didn’t think it all the way through. I became afraid I would upset people by publishing the book. That’s the reason in a nutshell...If any of you don’t know, I’m a huge supporter of the GLBT community. They are my brothers and sisters.”

To add insult to injury, he’s offered a kill fee to those who wrote stories — as if the indignation that the folks who submitted stories felt could be assuaged for a few dollars. Perhaps his West Virginia roots are showing, but this guy just doesn’t get it.

I’m not clear on how Dr. Pus considers himself to be “a huge supporter of the GLBT community” when he associates and does business with authors who are apparently so virulently homophobic themselves that they force him to cancel what sounded like a winning project. But, fact remains, he allowed himself to be swayed by fear of what others would think. There is a word for a person like this: coward.

As most of you know, I edited the UNSPEAKABLE HORROR: FROM THE SHADOWS OF THE CLOSET anthology in 2008 with Chad Helder. Our initial call for submissions was met with enthusiastic response from reputable, award-winning authors from both the horror and LGBT literary communities, including Lee Thomas, Sarah Langan, Rick R. Reed, Jameson Currier, Scott Nicholson, Kealan Patrick Burke, and Lisa Morton, among others. The book was published to widespread critical acclaim – including a rave review from FANGORIA – and reader response was overall positive.

Our anthology went on to win the prestigious Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in an Anthology last year — the first time an LGBT/horror anthology won the award in the sponsoring organization’s 22-year history. Just a few days ago, I was notified that InsightOut – the LGBT arm of the Book-of-the-Month Club – has picked up a special edition hardcover edition of UNSPEAKABLE HORROR for its spring catalog.

Not once during the planning, editing, pre-production, production, or post-release phases of the anthology did either Chad or I receive one word of negativity or anything remotely resembling homophobia. Had any author we knew or associated with advised, encouraged, or threatened us to drop the UNSPEAKABLE HORROR project, well, simply put, they would quickly become former associates. Period. Now, perhaps we’re better equipped at surrounding ourselves with true professionals than Library of the Living Dead, or perhaps our higher payment rates allowed us to attract a higher tier of talent. Either way, the idea of blaming pressure from those you work with for putting the kibosh on an announced project is simply lame. This guy caved in to homophobia, plain and simple. For that, I can only feel sorry for him.

Now, his supporters at Library of the Living Dead (including Mr. Tucker) are many, and most have jumped to his defense, praising his forthcoming and citing him as a nice guy. I have no doubt from everything that I’ve read that this Dr. Pus is indeed a nice guy. But, as fantasy author Jim Hines writes on his blog, this “nice guy defense misses the point.” Instead of defending Dr. Pus, these supporters should be rallying behind him with cries of indignation against the homophobes who put the screws to him. There should be calls for him to drop these authors from his roster versus dropping a planned project to placate a vocal minority from amongst the ranks of Library of the Living Dead.

If Dr. Pus is a true supporter of his LGBT brothers and sisters, then he’ll do more than just spout politically correct rhetoric. He’ll continue to publish quality LGBT horror fiction – as he’s apparently done in the past – in spite of whatever backlash he receives from a few of his associates. Library of the Living Dead shouldn’t pander to the prejudices of a few, nor should it backpedal — as Tucker appears to be doing now with his own intimations that the project was pulled over concerns that it might “be seen as a gimmick and would not have quality stories in it.” Have a little more faith in yourself as an editor, good sir. A good editor will steer an anthology in the direction of his or her vision and will work tirelessly to find those quality submissions. As someone who successfully put an anthology of LGBT horror together, they’re out there.

I encourage all of my readers to email Mr. Tucker and the good folks at Library of the Living Dead (zomboqueer@gmail.com) or visit their discussion forum and offer your support for their ZOMBOLOGY: A QUEER BENT ON THE UNDEAD. Let them know that there is a place for innovation within the horror fiction field and that LGBT themes are welcome.

Otherwise, perhaps that second volume of UNSPEAKABLE HORROR has found its theme…

The Gratitude List

2010-01-01T06:44:00.014-05:00

Well, there goes another decade. Forget all the sayings: Time flies whether you're having fun, working your ass off, or putting off until tomorrow what you should be doing today. Maybe it's a function of middle age now, but I'm finding that there just aren't enough hours in the day to accomplish all that my busy mind dreams up for me in terms of personal goals, professional objectives, and daunting deadlines.

One thing that routinely gets pushed off to the side is reflection time. That period of looking back and assessing life, cataloging accomplishments and failures, and the simple act of giving thanks for the myriad blessings – big and small – that make life the magical journey it is. So today, New Year's Day, the start of a new year and a new decade, I'm stepping back, taking stock, and sharing some of the things I'm most grateful for from the past year — a gratitude list, if you will.

2009 was a year of tremendous growth, change, and reconnection for me, and I'd like to share some of the highlights I'm most grateful for:

I'm grateful for my health (despite my best attempts to test my body at every turn with poor eating and exercise habits) and the health of my father and those I love;

I'm grateful for the man I've called my partner in life for 21 years now, a man who despite my frequent testing of his patience still loves me, makes me laugh, and makes me feel safe and warm in this sometimes scary, cold world;

I'm grateful for my abundance of friends who love me in spite of...well, me;

I'm grateful for my dogs, Sydney and Kirby, for their unconditional love and daily doses of pet therapy when I walk through the door exhausted and worn down by a day in my life;

I'm grateful for the entrepreneurial spirit with which I've been blessed;

I'm grateful for the economic crisis that inspired me to pay down credit card debt this year;

I'm grateful for my new day job that, despite every initial misgiving, has served as a reminder of why I went into healthcare administration to begin with and is allowing me to reconnect with my passion for service to others;

I'm grateful for the loyalty of co-workers who took a leap of faith in joining me on the new venture;

I'm grateful for my creativity and the ability to write and use words to evoke emotion in others;

I'm grateful for my Bram Stoker Award and even more grateful of what it represented for the larger LGBT community;

I'm grateful for my friend and frequent collaborator Chad Helder, with whom I was proud to share Stoker honors;

I'm grateful for the opportunity to travel to Burbank this year to attend Stoker Weekend and to meet and mingle with so many of my writer friends and literary colleagues;

I'm grateful for those virtual friends I met and bonded with in real, flesh-and-blood life this year — especially (but certainly not exclusively) Chad, Jim Currier, Lisa Morton, Nanci Kalanta, Alex Sokoloff, Ellen Datlow, and Martel Sardina;

I'm grateful for my #1 fan, Amanda Reyes, whose slipping me a copy of THE LITERARY SIX to sign for her at Dark Delicacies this past summer still makes me smile;

I'm grateful for my friend Jamie Rose who found the time between teaching and tango to schlep from Malibu to Burbank to attend my book signing and for her endless generosity of spirit and creative passion;

I'm grateful for network television for having the keen insight to showcase the enduring talents of veteran character actresses like Veronica Cartwright, Susan Sullivan, Christine Baranski, and Swoosie Kurtz;

I'm grateful that creativity is alive and well on television in shows like TRUE BLOOD, DEXTER, and MODERN FAMILY despite the glut of reality-based and tabloid shows that seem to clog the pores of ingenuity;

I'm grateful for the guilty pleasure of CW's reboot of MELROSE PLACE, made an even guiltier pleasure by the return of Laura Leighton, Daphne Zuniga, Josie Bisset, Thomas Calabro, and Heather Locklear;

I'm grateful for all the music that made up the soundtrack of my 2009 — from the husky lushness of Adele to the outrageousness of Lady Gaga to the remastered bliss of Alison Moyet;

I'm grateful for all the superb books I read this year and for those marvelous literary surprises I found when I least expected to like Jameson Currier's THE HAUNTED HEART AND OTHER TALES, Rio Youers' MAMA FISH, and Paul Ben's KELLAND;

I'm grateful that print magazines survived another year. I don't quite know what I'd do if FANGORIA and ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY didn't continue to arrive in my mailbox;

I'm grateful for my blogging brethren in the League of Tana Tea Drinkers for their inspiration, friendship, and endless supply of food for thought — especially John Cozzoli, Jeff Allard, and the camp-tabulous Pax Romano;

I'm grateful for Eric Arvin's fascination with the male gluteus maximus that's on fine display on his Daventry Blue blog;

I'm grateful that Jamie Lee Curtis allowed herself the opportunity to make another film this year (excited for YOU AGAIN in 2010!) and for her undeniable effect on my digestive regularity;

I'm grateful that important movies continue to be made – from films that inspire to films that make us squirm in discomfort at the naked humanity they display on the screen – and for the actors who bravely open themselves up to absorb the characters they play. This year, no single actor did so more than Mo'Nique in PRECIOUS and I'm grateful for her unflinching performance;

I'm grateful that Hollywood execs continue to "get" Kathy Bates and that they continue to revere Meryl Streep for the acting royalty she is;

I'm grateful for the marvel that is Facebook for reconnecting me with childhood friends and old classmates alike, and for making it so easy to keep up with everyone's lives;

I'm grateful for the warm sense of nostalgia that SYRIUS XM Radio's "80's on 8" brings me – complete with original MTV VJ's Alan Hunter, Nina Blackwood, Martha Quinn, and Mark Goodman sharing DJ duties – every day while driving to and from work. If you have to get older, then having Haircut 100, Culture Club, Duran Duran, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood along for the ride doesn't seem quite so bad;

I'm grateful for straight guys who get it;

I'm grateful for the enduring appeal of the slasher film;

I'm grateful for my loyal Slasher Speak readers who come back when I find the precious time to actually write something;

And, lastly, I'm grateful for the endless possibilities that this magnificent enigma of life holds for each of us.

Here's to reaching out and grabbing a strand of that endless possibility in 2010! Happy New Year, everyone.

Good Tidings...

2009-12-25T10:02:00.013-05:00

Wishing all of my (very) patient readers and blog followers a very Merry Christmas! I'm sending all of you a photo of Santa's newest elf to tide you over until my next bloody installment...

Hope to be back blogging with all of you soon. I started a new daytime gig at the end of November that is literally eating away at all of my available writing and blogging time. Someday, it would be nice to make the living I'm accustomed to from my writing and editing, but for now, it's all about juggling daily bills with my wish-list activities. Hopefully, there will be more slashing and speaking here in the very near future.

But, for now, I leave you to enjoy family and friends around the Christmas tree and wish each of you a magical, memorable holiday.

Merry Christmas, Happy (Belated) Hanukkah, and Happy Kwanzaa (tomorrow) to all!

Happy Birthday to...

2009-11-22T16:52:00.008-05:00

...the incomparable Jamie Lee Curtis. The all-time best scream queen turns 51 years young today, and she's even more fabulous than she was when my ten-year-old self caught sight of her those many years ago in a little slasher flick called HALLOWEEN. As you may know, I've been slightly smitten ever since.

Lighting 51 blood red candles for her today and sending her a virtual copy of HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME so she can relive her slasher days (even if she wasn't in the flick!).

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Horror...

2009-11-07T08:51:00.005-05:00

...to bring you the following indulgent gay musical interlude:

Love. This. Song.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.

In the Spirit of the Season...

2009-10-31T06:23:00.011-04:00

"The Horrors of J"

Piano tinkles signal autumn bloodshed as
jagged grins of butchered jack-o-lanterns
scream in the bloody night of Samhain.

Tendrils of creeping mist wrap
vengeance upon leprosy of the heart
as clippers slice through murky depths.

Scarlet sprinkles the celluloid images
of prom kings and queens and severed heads
roll down the catwalk of adolescent shame.

Winter snow soaked with crimson
like garish cherry snow cones when
trains bullet along revenge-tinged tracks.

Sun drenched highways scorch as
Dingos dodge murderous games on macadam
black and tarry with the stench of death.

The returning moon of All Hallows Eve
surgically slices through Hippocratic oaths
and pastel scrubs run red with sisterhood.

Undying evil thrives in pagan pop culture
revisiting the graves of carved out souls
twenty score seasons after the carnage of Samhain.

Volts of electronic plasma bring
slaughter to the denizens of salvage
mechanical incarnations of high-wattage death.

A penultimate bow as harvest moons burn bright
orange in the glow of circles come full
falling…falling…falling into final escape.

© 2009 Vince A. Liaguno

(Illustration by Kevin Kobasic)

Blogging Bits (and Bloody Body Parts)

2009-09-28T20:13:00.003-04:00

It’s been quite some time since I’ve ventured out of my slasher closet and explored the wide world of horror blogging. There is so much quality coming out of the blogging community these days, with members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers leading the charge.

Some recent blogging bits that caught my eye and might interest you as well:

The persuasive John Skipp (talented author of THE LONG LAST CALL and JAKE’s WAKE) talked me into including the newly-released THE HILLS RUN RED in BUTCHER KNIVES & BODY COUNTS (the forthcoming anthology on slasher films that I’m editing for Dark Scribe Press), so effusive was his praise for this film. Freddy in Space offers some balance to dear Skipp’s unbridled enthusiasm. (Don’t worry, Skipp…the essay is still included!)

Jeff Allard over at Dinner with Max Jenke offers up a thoughtful retrospective on the merits of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.

Max over at The Drunken Severed Head gets creepy-crawly with the pontiff.

My favorite Final Girl Stacie Ponder brings her penchant for movie posters into the public domain.

Chad Helder explores the stigma of horror poetry over at Unspeakable Horror. Speaking of horror poetry…

…my own first professional stabs at verse can be found in the new anthology DEATH IN COMMON: POEMS FROM UNLIKELY VICTIMS (Daverana Enterprises). Taking a cue from Edgar Lee Master’s classic SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY, this collection explores unique lives lived and lost, connected only by the shadowy serial killer who murdered them. Among the contributing writers with whom I’m honored to share the table of contents are Michael Arnzen, Wrath James White, Christopher Conlon, Marge Simon, and Steve Vernon. My own contributions – “Tyro” and “Chatroom Hustler” – are the results of working with a patient and supportive editor like Rich Ristow. I hope you’ll read Chad’s blog post and then go right out and pick up a copy of this marvelously macabre collection. Expand your horizons a bit and enter the twisted world of horror poetry – this isn’t your high school poetry reading list, I promise.

Fascination with Fear’s Christine Hadden offers 10 good reasons you should be watching HBO’s TRUE BLOOD and offers an extended rant on Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN II.

My Kindertrauma buddies let loose on the latest remake, this time SyFy Channel’s miscast, misguided, and otherwise missed opportunity version of Stephen King’s CHILDREN OF THE CORN. And while I’m with dear Unkle Lancifer on child actor Preston Bailey not having the same fright appeal of the original’s John Franklin as Isaac and the spot-on assessment of Kandyse McClure as a “borderline intolerable one-note harpy”, I’m going to disagree with him on the new and improved Malachi (Daniel Newman). Newman holds his own against Courtney Gains in the original – plus he has better hair. Oh, hell…who am I kidding? I was just hoping he’d turn up shirtless over at Billy Loves Stu…

…where pal Pax Romano has taken to cataloging the Best Bare Chests in Horror. In the first two installments, he ponders the pec-tacular appeal of such hottie horror hunks as Ryan Reynolds, Jesse Bradford, Christian Bale, and the entire cast of THE COVENANT. I smell a calendar.

Speaking of Billy Loves Stu’s proprietor, belated thanks for his lovely bequeathing me with a 2009 HOT ZOMBIE AWARD for excellence in horror blogging! Now, I was a shoo-in to win in my category – Best Blog By a Gay Man Obsessed with Jamie Lee Curtis – but it was still a thrill (Miss Jody Watley, if you’re nasty!) to be recognized in such a…unique…way. Somebody get this man off of ZOMBIELAND’s website pronto!

Writers like good reviews even better than awards, so imagine my happiness over two wonderful reviews for THE LITERARY SIX from Ross Horsley over at the esteemed Retro Slashers and Pax Romano over at Billy Loves Stu – who, I swear, is not paid to be so damn nice to me! Three years after the book’s release, it’s very gratifying to come across reviews like this from folks who’ve enjoyed it. Thanks, gents!

Speaking of shameless self-promotion, I had the distinct honor of being the guest du jour on The Funky Werepig on September 20th, where I talked for about an hour and a half about writing, editing, slasher films, and some broad named Jamie Lee. Some of my blogging brethren were on hand during the taping including Amanda Reyes of Made-For-TV Mayhem and, yes, Pax Romano from Billy Loves Stu. Special thanks to hosts Greg Hall and Jezzy Wolfe for graciously welcoming me into their playpen, asking great questions, and making me sound far more accomplished than I have any right to sound. An extra special nod, too, to the delightful and wickedly talented Fran Friel who talked me up to great lengths during her own episode!

Among the newer LOTT D blogs that I’ve enjoyed becoming acquainted with these past few months is the delicious Day of the Woman, the brainchild of the equally yummy (it’s not patronizing when a gay guy says it, so relax, people!) Brittney-Jade Colangelo. Ms. Colangelo is a ferociously fierce blogging ingénue who explores "the feminine side of fear." Her posts are articulate and firmly rooted in the female perspective (which is woefully lacking in the horror genre on all fronts). Interspersed between her thoughtful essays, popular features like “Terrible Poster Tuesday” and “Bitch of the Month”, and the occasional vlog (video blogs), you’ll find my favorite feature, “Woman of the Week”. Past honorees in this DOTW feature include real women like Diablo Cody and Danielle Harris to fictional dames like Sookie Stackhouse. Frequent guest Brian Solomon from The Vault of Horror also adds to this weekly worship of wonderful women, his most recent being a thoughtful tribute to the sublime Sigourney Weaver. Colangelo shows that age is just a number with a maturity that belies her years. Plus, she’s just freaking adorable in a Rumer Willis kind of way. Deserving winner of a 2009 HOT ZOMBIE AWARD for Best Blog Written by a Gay Man Trapped in the Body of a Sexy Young College Co-Ed.

Other notable newbies include:

Frederick from My Monster Memories explores horrors past in a charmingly retro blog, where you’ll find everything from DARK SHADOWS to DINOSAURS ATTACK, from Fulci to FRANKENSTEIN.

I Love Horror is another LOTT D newbie. Great reviews and thoughtful debates by Brad McHargue. Particularly good was his take on the importance of horror blogging which landed over at FANGORIA.

Evil On Two Legs has long been a favorite, and their weekly feature on DVD releases is one of the best on the web. Corey and Jon do an outstanding job coming up with fun features, their decidedly catty “Fashion Of…” segments being among my personal favorites.

Finally, head on over to the League of Tana Tea Drinkers homepage, where you can learn a little (OK, in some cases way more than you want to) about the talented folks behind your favorite horror blogs. Recent profiles include: John Cozzoli (Zombos Closet of Horror), Ryne Barber (The Moon Is a Dead World), Curt Purcell (Groovy Age of Horror), John Kenneth Muir (Reflections on Film/TV), Chad Helder (Unspeakable Horror), Nate Yapp (Classic Horror), Jeff Allard (Dinner With Max Jenke), Kim Paffenroth (Gospel of the Living Dead), Christine Hadden (Fascination With Fear), and Casey Criswell (Cinema Fromage, among others.

There Will Be Dirt...

2009-09-19T13:17:00.008-04:00

OK, since neither DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES nor TRUE BLOOD are on tomorrow night, how about tuning into The Funky Werepig, a wonderfully wacky Blog Talk Radio show hosted by Gregory L. Hall? Why, you ask? Because yours truly will be the featured guest. Yes, that’s right: The guy behind Slasher Speak will…speak!

Better yet, you can call in and heckle me! The show goes live tomorrow night at 9:00 pm EST and runs for about an hour and a half. The call-in number is (646) 929-1147. You can also join the live chat during the show here.

So what will I be talking about? [Insert evil laugh] Let’s just say that names will be named, and I’m spilling the dirt on where the bodies are buried.

I’d tune in if I were you.

Introducing Christopher Ransom...

2009-09-18T05:03:00.010-04:00

Christopher Ransom didn’t set out to write a haunted house novel. But, after the Colorado native – along with wife, Pia, and their three rescue dogs, Cowboy, Nacho, and Tater-Tot – relocated from Los Angeles to Mineral Point, Wisconsin, he found inspiration all around him. Lots of it, in fact.

Ransom had moved into a 100-year-old former birthing house, essentially a home-like alternative to hospital labor and delivery wards where women once went to give birth. This was further confirmed when the couple found an old sepia-tone photograph of a half a dozen or so maids, nurses, and midwives standing on their front porch. One nightmare later, the one-time failed screenwriter – who also did stints in hardware, reptile care, and advertising sales – spent the next three years crafting his debut novel.

Published in the UK on January 1st of this year, THE BIRTHING HOUSE quickly reached #6 on The Sunday Times list of fiction paperback best-sellers. St. Martin’s Press wisely acquired the project stateside, and the book was released last month with a big promotional push and some impressive blurbs from the varied likes of Jack Ketchum, Jacquelyn Mitchard, and literary darling Sara Gran. Praise like this, for example, from author Michael Marshall (THE STRAW MEN, THE INTRUDERS):

“A stunning debut — swaddling the reader in dread from the very first sentence, and spiraling into a heart-stopping climax.”

Read my in-depth interview with Chris here at DARK SCRIBE MAGAZINE .

The Five Slasher Remakes You Meet in Heaven

2009-09-14T19:30:00.013-04:00

So, Jeff Allard over at Dinner with Max Jenke recently posted “Five Slasher Remakes That MUST Happen Before the World Ends.” His choices were (in descending order): THE FUNHOUSE, THE BURNING, PIECES, THE PROWLER, and CURTAINS. Inspired choices indeed.

That got me thinking. If the dreaded remake is here to stay – at least for the immediate future – which slashers could actually benefit from a reimagining? So, feeling inspired by my fellow blogger’s fantasy list, I set out to compile my own.

5. MOTEL HELL

Even though there have been rumblings about this one for what seems like forever, I’m including it on my list because it’s been in development hell for several years now, its eventuality nothing close to a certainty just yet. And when I tell you my vision, you’re going to groan. Loudly.

Two words: Rob Zombie.

Think about it — the ultimate grindhouse version of one of the campiest, moodiest slasher films ever. Just picture Zombie’s take on Motel Hello and its characters — proprietors Farmer Vincent and sister Ida, Ivan and the Terribles, lecherous Sheriff Bruce, Biker Bo and final girl Terry, hookers Debbie and Suzi, swingers Edith and Bob, and Reverend Billy. Come on! This is one time that Zombie’s penchant for casting his buddies would actually work. Picture it: Karen Black as Ida? Sherri Moon-Zombie as hooker Debbie? Sid Haig as Ivan or Reverend Billy? Bill Moseley as Sheriff Bruce? Brad Dourif as Farmer Vincent? William Forsythe as swinging Bob? Dee Wallace or Priscilla Barnes as swinging Edie? Danny Trejo as Biker Bo? Lew Temple and EG Daily as two of the Terribles?

Who better to capture the seediness of a rural, out-of-the-way roadside motel? Imagine Zombie’s take on certain elements of the film: the psychedelic spiral wheel that’s used to hypnotize the throat-slit victims being harvested in Farmer Vincent’s secret garden or the scene where Vincent and Ida nitrous oxide the swingers or the cow-in-the-middle-of-the-road trap that the hapless hookers stumble upon and ensuing car chase or the final chainsaw showdown in the slaughter house.

Admit it. The Grand Guignol/heavy metal possibilities here are endless.

4. HUMONGOUS

Like the better known HELL NIGHT and THE FUNHOUSE, HUMONGOUS was one of the few sub-human slashers that had all the right elements – a good back story, a creepy isolated location, interesting character dynamics (by slasher standards anyway), and killer music – and an overall crappy execution. Indeed, the original is more known in slasher circles for its frustratingly dim lighting and what you can’t see more than the genuine sense of atmosphere PROM NIGHT director Paul Lynch was able to create.

Yes, a return to Dog Island is a must-see travel destination, complete with loony Ida’s Labor Day rape that spawns ‘ole Humongo, a pack of vicious dogs, a quintet of carefree, free-wheeling teens out for a pleasure cruise on Daddy’s yacht, a stranded boater adrift in a fog bank, destructive sibling rivalry, and blueberries. Lots of blueberries.

I can hear the bones snapping now.

3. SILENT SCREAM

An off-campus boardinghouse by the sea. A trio of college students. A dark family history. A secret staircase.

No, I’m not describing the plot from a Nancy Drew detective novel but rather the deliciously gothic elements of the oft-overlooked 1980 slasher SILENT SCREAM. This movie basically screams remake, and it’s got a small enough original audience balanced by just the right amount of name recognition to pique interest old and new alike. Plus, the film’s got some intergenerational appeal, with roles for an attractive ingénue or two, a fierce middle-age actress good at crazy, and a beloved veteran actress with a penchant for stern. (Who are your choices for old Mrs. Engels and her deranged daughter Victoria? I’m thinking that the sorely underrated Belinda Balaski is due for a comeback…)

2. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

That this one hasn’t already been fast-tracked for a remake is beyond me. It’s got source material that needs only minor tweaking —an updating of “the six most bizarre murders you’ll ever see” and perhaps a retooling of the mask-ripping finale. In addition, the whole “Crawford Academy Top Ten” fits perfectly with the GOSSIP GIRL generation’s obsession with social status. There’s the Agatha Christie-style mystery at its core, a large ensemble of characters to murder inventively, and the still surprisingly untapped concept of birthday parties as a backdrop.

One quick note to remake producers. I’ve got only three requisite nods to the original that must be included: Etienne must sniff the panties, Steve must deep-throat the shish kebab, and Winston must give Mrs. Patterson (better known as “mommy”) head.

1. CURTAINS

Like Mr. Allard, CURTAINS also tops my list of remake-musts. As I’ve written elsewhere, CURTAINS is an unpolished gem with a great, simple slasher set-up (a half-dozen actresses vying for a coveted movie role), terrific setting (an out-of-the-way mansion in snowy winter), decidedly frightening killer (old hag face), some creepy imagery (the eyeless doll standing in the middle of the rain-slicked road, arms outstretched) and some of the best murder set pieces ripe for the picking (ice skating, anyone?).

As I shared at Dinner with Max Jenke, I actually tried (unsuccessfully) for nearly two years to secure the remake rights to this film, first tracking it down through the Canadian company that held its international distribution rights and then to the American company that acquired its international catalog. I got so far as to connect with an attorney for the new company, but emails went unreturned and talks went nowhere.

My idea for the remake: the ultimate slasher geek’s dream. Same plot, only age the storyline with its audience. Six former scream queens (think mid- to late-40s) vying for a coveted role in a SCREAM-like slasher, with a seventh being duped by the lecherous director into spending time in an insane asylum for research. All converge on the mansion of the director and are quickly snowbound with the hag-faced killer from the original. Oh, the casting possibilities. Think of all the slasher gals from our youth who we’d like to reconnect with, leading off with CURTAINS alums Lesleh Donaldson (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, FUNERAL HOME) and Sandee Currie (TERROR TRAIN). Perhaps Jamie Rose (JUST BEFORE DAWN) or Amy Steel (APRIL FOOL’S DAY, FRIDAY THE 13TH, PART 2) or Anne-Marie Martin (PROM NIGHT, THE BOOGENS) or Linda Blair (HELL NIGHT) or Largo Woodruff (THE FUNHOUSE) or Adrienne King (FRIDAY THE 13TH) or Lenore Zann (VISITING HOURS, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME) or…

You get the point.

‘Sorority Row’: I Know What You Did Last Semester

2009-09-13T21:57:00.005-04:00

Let’s get past the inevitable groans first: SORORITY ROW is a remake. It’s loosely based on THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW (1983) and the screenplay “Seven Sisters” by Mark Rossman (credited here as an Executive Producer as well). It follows on the heels of a spate of remakes, reimaginings, and reboots of 70’s and 80’s slasher fare of varying quality, including HALLOWEEN, FRIDAY THE 13TH, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, PROM NIGHT, MY BLOODY VALENTINE, BLACK CHRISTMAS, TOOLBOX MURDERS, THE HITCHER, APRIL FOOL’S DAY, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, and HALLOWEEN II.

There. Now that’s out of our systems.

In both films, we’ve got sorority sisters and a prank gone wrong. In the original, a tyrannical housemother is accidentally shot on the day after graduation; in this case, it’s a fellow coed who is accidentally killed during pledge week with a tire iron. In both films, there is a pact. In the original, the girls decide to dump the body in a swimming pool until they can figure out what to do; in the remake, the girls decide to dump the body down an abandoned mineshaft and move on with their lives. Two films – two different takes on the bonds of sorority sisterhoods and the ill-effects that conspiracies of silence can bring. But in both cases, the end result is death by unseen slasher.

But this rebooted Theta Pi is nothing like your mother’s early 80’s garden variety sorority. No, these are some seriously bad girls gone wild of the trash-talking, raucous partying, 90210-on-steroids variety. The action begins during pledge week when a vindictive prank against a two-timing frat boy involving a feigned roofie overdose leads to a coed’s grisly death. In a scene lifted right out of I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, the sorority sisters briefly weigh existential matters of the conscience against the practicality of ruined young lives. Despite the protestations of good girls Cassidy (Briana Evigan) and Ellie (Rumer Willis), the scales tip in favor of saving their own asses – largely due to the persuasive reasoning of future politician’s wife and ringleader Jessica (Leah Pipes) – and poor Megan (Audrina Patridge) finds her dead self being dragged toward the mineshaft in one of the most tragic wastes of good Victoria’s Secret lingerie ever.

Flash forward eight months later and the Theta Pi sisters are graduating. Nothing much has changed, but the emotional effects of their pact are evident on some of the girls. Chugs (Margo Harshman) is drinking and pill-popping her way toward VALLEY OF THE DOLLS territory; Ellie’s general mousiness and fragility are even more pronounced; and Cassidy has distanced herself from her sisters, more content to be in the arms of boyfriend Andy (Julian Morris) and making plans to steal away together after one more obligatory appearance at the Theta Pi graduation night farewell extravaganza. Only Jessica remains true to form, plotting, conniving, and bitching her way through graduation week festivities, including lunch with boyfriend Kyle (Matt Lanter, 90210’s Liam) and his senatorial father (Rick Applegate) who issues a stern warning that there’d better not be any skeletons in her closet that might jeopardize his White House aspirations. If he only knew.

Before you can ask “What’s Ryan Phillippe up to these days?”, cell phones are ringing and the girls begin getting text messages from the presumed dead Megan. And when the bloodied coat that they wrapped her body in resurfaces in the basement of the sorority house, it isn’t long before a hooded figure begins dispatching with the coeds – and anyone unlucky enough to be sharing their company – with a seriously pimped-out tire iron, version 2.0. The red herrings are plenty — from Megan’s creepy sister Maggie (Caroline D’Amore) and Chug’s brother Garrett (Matt O’Leary), the emotionally frazzled frat boy from the earlier prank, to housemother Mrs. Crenshaw (STAR WARS’ Princess Leia herself, Carrie Fisher).

Script work by Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger (working with Rossman’s “Seven Sisters”) is mostly tight, with solid characterizations established (only the bland Claire character seems without discernible personality traits), a plausible set-up with the deadly prank and its aftermath, and just enough plot twists and turns to keep the audience guessing at the identity of the killer. Disappointingly, their solid work throughout most of the film falls apart in the third act, with the killer’s unmasking (or disrobing in this case) a real letdown that has little emotional resonance.

Director Stewart Handler (a relative newcomer whose main previous directorial credit is 2007’s THE WHISPER with LOST’S Josh Holloway) shows respectable acumen for the slasher formula, playing up all the usual tropes (characters going off alone at the most illogical moments, copious female nudity, teenagers engaging in sex, drugs, and rock and roll) while keeping the post-SCREAM self-references and witty banter down to a dull roar. And while, no, there are no cool cameos by any of the original SORORITY sisters, there is a respectful nod to the first film by way of a bird-tipped walking stick.

Production values are high, offering a slick presentation that may take getting used to by the over-40 set who equate slasher films with a more grainy 35-millimeter, low-budget aesthetic. Although the opening party scenes are punctuated by that over-stylized frenetic camera work and rapid-fire editing that seem a staple now in anything directed for the MTV generation, the jittery camerawork eventually subsides at least somewhat.

Acting is surprisingly strong, with props to Leah Pipes, who is superb in the role of über-bitch Jessica. No actress in recent memory has raised snark and snarling to an art form this well since Heather Locklear. Note to the CW: Cast this young lady on the MELROSE PLACE reboot, stat! Fisher brings the camp element en masse, delivering some of the best lines in the film as only an actress of her stature and age can. Her gun-toting scenes in the kitchen are worth the price of admission alone. The biggest surprise came from my lack of familiarity with the “offspring” girls – Rumer Willis (daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis) and Briana Evigan (daughter of MY TWO DADS and BJ & THE BEAR alum Greg Evigan). Watching the film, I easily mistook Evigan for Willis, with her uncanny resemblance to Demi — right down to the smoky rasp of her voice. Theories of the two being switched at birth aside, both actresses show considerable acting chops, especially Evigan who shines in the early scenes during the aftermath of the girls’ prank.

It’ll be interesting to see how this new SORORITY ROW ages over time. Unlike the original, there are cultural references aplenty, from nods to social networking sites like Facebook to the characters’ reliance on technology like text messaging and cell phones. Amusingly, lost cell phone signals have now become the clichéd plot device du jour, replacing the old “Someone’s cut the phone lines!”convention. Where the hell are that Verizon guy and his entourage when you need them?

Competent while breaking no new ground, SORORITY ROW is a faithful addition to the slasher canon, with blood, boobies, and a body count — like chicken soup for the slasher enthusiast’s soul.

FDA Issues Urgent Activia Yogurt Recall...

2009-09-06T13:39:00.006-04:00

...following unexpected side effects.

Warning: Activia yogurt contains Bifidus Zombilaris that may cause more than occasional bouts of virulent diarrhea.

Movie Review: Halloween II (2009)

2009-08-31T05:04:00.005-04:00

(Caution: Falling spoilers ahead…)

If experience has taught Rob Zombie anything, it’s to never say never. After his much ballyhooed HALLOWEEN reimagining in 2007, the former White Zombie frontman-turned-filmmaker attested that he’d never touch the inevitable sequel. But – in our culture of decisional turnarounds – fans knew Zombie would be back from the first mention of his reboot’s opening weekend numbers.

Zombie’s sequel – like Rick Rosenthal’s original 1981 sequel – begins where the original left off and quickly moves to the local hospital where Laurie (and Annie in Zombie’s sequel) is taken following her first encounter with Michael Myers. But whereas Haddonfield Memorial was the backdrop for Rosenthal’s entire film, Zombie opts to condense the hospital aspect into a 15-minute bloodbath before moving into entirely original territory.

A year after the events of the first film, we meet up with Laurie Strode (again played by Scout Taylor-Compton), psychologically and physically scarred, prone to nightmares and reliant on psychotropic drugs to deal with her psychopathic problems. Now orphaned, Laurie lives with BFF and fellow Myers survivor Annie (the returning Danielle Harris) and her father, Sheriff Lee Brackett (Brad Dourif, also doing a second tour of duty here). Despite her enduring post-traumatic stress, Laurie goes through the motions of daily life, including a job at the local coffee shop run by Uncle Meat (WKRP IN CINCINNATI’S Howard Hesseman) and hanging with new friends Mya (Brea Grant) and Harley (Angela Trimbur).

We also meet up again with Dr. Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) – also a changed man following the events of the first film – now an egomaniacal opportunist trying to parlay the tragedies of Haddonfield into cold hard cash with a tell-all book about the Myers saga. Aided by an efficient publicist (played by Mary Birdsong of RENO 911! fame) who thinks his methods of self-promotion are crossing serious lines of decency, Loomis spends most of the film refuting any accountability for the mishandling of Myers’ case and letting loose on reporters eager to point out the exploitative aspects of his book. In one of the film’s best scenes, veteran character actor Robert Curtis Brown portrays Kyle Van Der Klok, the distraught father of Kristina Klebe’s strangled Linda from the first film, who approaches Loomis at a local book signing and lashes out at him before wielding a gun and being taken down by security. (For those tracking the “six degrees of Jamie Lee Curtis” moments, Brown played preppy Todd in TRADING PLACES.)

Meanwhile, in the third thread of the story, Michael Myers (Tyler Manes in a hulking reprisal of his role from the first film) makes his way back to Haddonfield in time for the titular calendar designation, cutting a wide and bloody swath across the landscape. Victims along the way include MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D’S full-frontal gal Betsy Rue, Red Rabbit strip club owner Big Lou (Daniel Roebuck), and a hapless stripper (Sylvia Jeffries), appropriately named Misty Dawn, among others.

The three threads of Zombie’s screenplay eventually come together. Laurie learns of her tainted lineage via Loomis’ book and, out of her mind over the implications, sets off on an alcohol-fueled binge with Mya and Harley at a Halloween costume party. Michael comes a-calling for little sis and takes down anyone (and everyone) in his path. In his luxuriously-appointed hotel suite, meanwhile, Loomis’ viewing of himself on a TV talk show with ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic (in a baffling and misguided cameo) is interrupted by a special news report claiming that notorious serial killer Michael Myers is back in town and taking hostages. The action converges in an abandoned barn where madness and mayhem play out and no one escapes unscathed.

Love him or hate him, Rob Zombie is an interesting filmmaker. He’s got a visual style – think 70’s exploitation grindhouse here – that gives his films a gritty realism missing from some of his slicker genre counterparts. Visually, HALLOWEEN II has some brilliant sequences, ranging from a gorgeously foreboding exterior shot of Myers making his way across an autumn-tinged field to Annie’s slow-motion turn-and-run. If it’s possible, Zombie ratchets up the sound levels even more than previous films with auditory accompaniment to the killings here sounding like bombs going off – it’s a device that works to almost discomfiting effect. Myers doesn’t just stab people here – he stabs them angrily. Props to Manes for imbuing the character with genuine rage without uttering a single word.

Visual styling aside for a moment, where Zombie falters is in his script work. Yes, there are clever extensions of logic at play here – particularly in the way Laurie comes to learn that she is Michael’s sister. But then there are areas of the film that seem intentionally blurred, enough to nag at the viewer long after the end credits roll. For example, while it’s (maddeningly) clear that the hospital massacre early in the film is a figment of Laurie’s nightmares, the disappearance of Michael’s body isn’t made as obvious. Is the sequence with the coroner’s van part of Laurie’s nightmare – or does that really happen? If it really happens, why isn’t anyone particularly concerned that Myers’ body vanished? The characters all seem resolved that Myers is dead – yet in the absence of his corpse, this seems illogical in light of the trauma they’ve endured. Ditto for the fact that it takes Myers a full year to make it back to Haddonfield – just how far did that coroner’s van get before it collided with the cow? (Yes, I said cow.) Same goes for the denouement – which muddily hints that at least part of Laurie’s encounter with her brother is a hallucination and makes it increasingly difficult to distinguish between reality and Laurie’s madness. And although the film’s final frames appear to give us clarification – and perhaps the ultimate truth that there’s not as much of a line separating reality from madness as we might think – it still leaves an ambiguous taste in the mouth, like a faint spice in an ingredient-laden soup.

Likewise, Zombie frustrates with his inconsistent ability to craft characters. While he ably demonstrates that he’s a writer capable of creating characters the audience can connect with, he also appears to suffer from bouts of laziness with others. For example, he’s able to develop very real, three-dimensional characters in Laurie and Annie, depicting – and even expanding upon – the authentic relationship between the two. You believe these two friends have been through hell and back and are closer because of it. When Annie is attacked, your stomach tightens and you actually feel for her. And when her luck finally runs out in the film, Laurie’s heartrending reaction is wrought with a genuine sense of grief that the audience shares. Conversely, he imbues the new characters – notably Laurie’s new friends Harley and Mya – with nothing resembling personality or distinguishing character traits. When they die, the audience feels nothing.

But my biggest criticism with the film is in Zombie’s overreliance on dream sequences, particularly those involving his younger self (now played by Chase Wright Vanek) and his late mother (played again by Zombie’s real-life wife Sherri Moon-Zombie). Listen, I’ve defended Zombie’s penchant for repeatedly choosing actors from the same casting pool as previous films – after all, directors like Woody Allen and others have done this for decades with great result. And you don’t mind seeing hardworking thespians like Danny Trejo or Daniel Roebuck rewarded with colorful roles after years of respectable, if lackluster, supporting parts. But when you have to come up with ridiculously superfluous dream sequences in order to cast your own wife (admittedly, surprisingly decent in the first HALLOWEEN outing), you lose a bit of artistic credibility in my book. Zombie goes so far here as to inject a flashback scene from Myers’ days at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium during which his mother gives him a white plastic horse with some gibberish about thinking of her whenever he looks at the horse. The whole idea of going back and inserting this into the chronology of the first film comes off as a cheap manipulation of the audience. The scenes themselves – filmed in garish whites with Moon-Zombie and Vanek in the company of a white steed – are completely unessential to the narrative and actually slow down the film’s pacing. It’s overindulgent nonsense masquerading as highbrow surrealism that gives Zombie’s detractors some concrete footing in their criticism.

Interestingly, the high points in HALLOWEEN II come from unexpected places for me – here in the form of three performances that surprised and delighted. Taylor-Compton, who I had pegged as a second-rate Jamie Lee Curtis in the first film, actually impresses here with her authentic portrayal of a trauma survivor. Like Curtis’ dead-on performance of a damaged older version of Laurie Strode in 1998’s HALLOWEEN: H2O, Taylor-Compton wears the scars of her horrifying past in all their ugly reality here. Her acting range takes her from frightened to frantic as the movie progresses, and her last scenes are nothing short of haunting. Ditto for the amazing Octavia Spencer, a brilliant character actress with dozens of supporting credits to her name, who gets to show some serious dramatic chops here in the noteworthy small role of Nurse Daniels. Despite Spencer’s far-too-brief screen time, she manages to pull off one of the most harrowing scenes in the film with such unrelenting emotional realism that she’s able to elicit one of the few moments of genuine empathy in the entire film. And for every cameo that Zombie misses the mark on (blink and you’ll miss TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2’s Caroline Williams), he scores a bull’s-eye with others – here with the all but unrecognizable Margot Kidder who turns in an excellent, understated performance as Laurie’s psychiatrist.

So where does Rob Zombie go from here? First, he stays away from the HALLOWEEN franchise; he’s brought all he can to the series, for better or worse, giving us his take on the source material in the first film and then bringing a bit more of his own vision to this sequel.

Done. Nothing more to see here, folks…move on.

It’s rumored that he’s now eyeing a remake of THE BLOB, which was already successfully tackled in 1988. Personally, I’m ambivalent. Part of me would like to see him bring us something wholly original, something entirely the vision of Rob Zombie. But part of me is intrigued by the idea of what he could bring to this science fiction classic, remembered less for the technical and artistic aspects of the film itself and more for its concept. Might just be safer territory than taking on a beloved slasher classic and risking the anger and wrath of the stalk-n-slash loyalists.

The Understated Brilliance of Formula in ‘Final Exam’

2009-08-24T19:42:00.008-04:00

College campuses have been fertile ground for slasher films, going back as far as 1932 with the sorority sisters revenge flick THIRTEEN WOMEN before hitting the mainstream in 1974 with BLACK CHRISTMAS. In the 90’s and beyond, the tradition continued with films like URBAN LEGEND, CRY_WOLF, and SCREAM 2.

While the cost of higher education soared in the Regan-era 80’s, the college crowd in the slasher films of that decade paid for their tuition in blood – literally – in films like THE DORM THAT DRIPPED BLOOD, THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW, TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT, and FINAL EXAM.

FINAL EXAM is a painfully sincere 1981 entry in the slasher canon that’s light on gore and nearly tension-free, with a grainy grindhouse look that even a respectable DVD transfer can’t hide. But look a little closer and you’ll find a rather insightful commentary on the randomness of modern society that’s carried through in every aspect of the film.

In the post-credit prologue, a student couple is making out in a convertible parked by a lake on the campus of March College. The set-up is by-the-numbers: an uneasy girl who wants the top back up and declarations of love before she’ll offer herself to a horny, feather-haired football quarterback. Branches snap, the car bounces slightly, and before the jock can finish explaining why they’re better off parking on campus than some deserted road, a butcher knife slices through the convertible’s roof. Our hapless frat boy is swiftly pulled up through the roof and flung onto the hood of the car where we see the knife plunge repeatedly downward. Girl screams. End scene.

Cut to neighboring Lanier College, where much time is spent introducing us to the usual assortment of potential victims preparing for the end of the semester and...wait for it…final exams. There’s Courtney (Cecile Bagdadi), a Laurie Strode knock-off from the virtue and insecurity right down to the hair; the oddly named Radish (Joel S. Rice), a pocket-protected flaming nerd who makes SAVED BY THE BELL’S Screech look butch by comparison; Wildman(Ralph Brown), the clichéd vulgar dumb jock; Mark (John Fallon), the preppy, over-privileged all-American frat boy; Lisa (DeAnna Robbins), the worldly promiscuous coed sleeping with her lothario Chemistry professor; Janet (Sherri Willis-Burch), the lovestruck, wide-eyed Southern belle; and Gary (Terry W. Farren), the sensitive, gullible fraternity pledge. Let’s double-check our slasher roll call: final girl, leading man, nerd, dumb jock, slut, and loving young heterosexual couple (here standing in for the lone black guy who dies first) – all present and accounted for.

The introductory scenes – while screenwriter/director Jimmy Huston’s earnest attempt at establishing character – are tortuous. Punctuated by schmaltzy, made-for-TV movie music, these early scenes are filled with woe-is-me ruminations like “If I don’t pass my chemistry test, my parents will stop making the payments on my car!” and other assorted teen angst about how tough life is, ultimately making it hard to empathize with much of the cast. There are lots of references to how empty the campus is; meanwhile the backgrounds are packed with extras. Also lots of ominous foreboding going on that masquerades as meaningful character interaction, like Courtney’s exploration of her resentment toward fellow coed Lisa and her seeming “free ride” through life about whom Radish (insightfully) predicts, “She’ll pay a price sooner or later – there is no free lunch.” There is if she’s got the meal plan, but that’s not really the point, I suppose.

There are some semblances of subplot here. In one, an elaborate fraternity prank during which masked gunmen “open fire” on a crowded quadrangle helps Mark ensure his passing grade on that chemistry test by creating a diversion. And while much of the film comes across outdated as one would suspect (antiquated fraternity pinning as a courtship ritual anyone?), this nearly 30-year-old scene plays with a particularly audacious political incorrectness in today’s post-Columbine world.

After what seems hours after the staged incident, the town’s redneck sheriff (Sam Kilman) finally shows up channeling Bo Svenson with a drawl. Needless to say, he’s not pleased to find out that the whole thing’s a fraternity prank and this sets the scene for his later refusal to come back to Lanier when the bodies start falling out of gym lockers.

Finally, after what seems like interminable chattering about love, life, and the pursuit of passing grades (in reality, it’s about 55 minutes), the body count begins. Four stabbings, one head pulled through a door, and one mildly inventive garroting involving gym equipment later and it’s off to the protracted final chase during which the killer (Timothy L. Raynor) arrives via dumbwaiter(!) and the telephones actually work! Courtney is pursued across campus through suddenly empty dorms, vacant cafeterias, and finally what appears to be a bell-less bell tower. Just when she’s cornered at the top and looks like she’s done for, the football coach (Jerry Rushing) – who, it’s alluded to in an earlier scene, is something of an accomplished archer – arrives with bow and arrow in-hand. He shoots but doesn’t score – the killer actually catches the shooting arrow with one arm(!) – and then makes haste up the stairs on a head-on collision with the descending killer that ends with the coach’s own arrow being thrust through his chest. Our killer hoofs it back up the stairs (this maniac is really put through his paces here) where Courtney has found a convenient two-by-four, which she promptly begins to pummel him with until he takes a Michael Myers-esque swan dive over the railing and plummets umpteenth stories to his “death.” Mmm hmm.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Courtney comes down the stairs and walks within inches of our killer’s supposedly lifeless body in the film’s requisite Adrienne King-in-a-canoe scene. After the traditional ankle grab, resourceful Court picks up the killer’s butcher knife – which has opportunely landed right there within reach of his body – and stabs him exactly one dozen times. Having passed this test of survival (dare I say, her final exam), she takes her well-earned battered and bloody stroll down the front steps of the building where she proceeds to cradle her head in her arms as the end credits roll.

Let’s give the detractors their due. Yes, at first glance, FINAL EXAM does seem like a cheap derivative. There are the requisite nods to HALLOWEEN, like when Courtney spies the killer lurking outside her dorm from a 2nd floor window or the standard killer POV shots or the shadow of the killer passing behind a clueless victim-to-be or the murky silhouette of the killer lying in wait just out of sight on a stairwell. There’s the film's score that sounds like a mash-up of the soundtracks from HALLOWEEN and HE KNOWS YOU’RE ALONE. FINAL EXAM also gives us all the illogic we come to expect from a slasher film. I mean, just how does cinema’s slowest moving killer make it back to Courtney’s room before Radish, who runs faster that a would-be bride on discount day at Filene’s Basement?

FINAL EXAM also lends some credibility to theorists who hypothesize that the slasher film is often chock-full of generous queer subtext. Indeed, one doesn’t need to look too deeply for the blatant homoeroticism in FINAL EXAM. If the master-servant nature between fraternity brother and pledge isn’t quite enough to convince you, how about Wildman’s overt nuzzling of pledge Gary’s ear before the rest of the frat gang strips him to his underwear and ties him to a tree? Bondage, tighty-whities, being force stripped by a gang of hunky college guys who seem to be enjoying the proceedings a little too much – can you say gay porn? Still not enough? Then try to look at John Fallon’s khaki-clad ass throughout the film and not use the word bottom.

Alright, so why haven’t I said much about FINAL EXAM’S killer? Well, there’s not much to say. Our killer has no identity – no name, no backstory, no signature mask. He’s a nondescript Caucasian male who wears jeans and an army fatigue jacket and drives a black panel van with no markings. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t grunt. He has no facial expressions, and Huston makes no effort to conceal him. Yet he’s an important aspect of FINAL EXAM’S underlying strength: its understatement.

Yes, that’s right, a slasher film that’s understated – understated to the point of being so bland, so generic, that it could be easily overlooked as yet another lifeless HALLOWEEN imitation. And it is, but yet it’s not. Confused? Let me try to explain.

I think Jimmy Huston was on to something – something he actually pulls off, but so subtly that he appears to miss the mark to less discerning viewers quick to dismiss this as yet another Carpenter clone. Huston appears to be making a comment on the changing landscape of the early 80’s, a decade in which everything – from sound to clothing to corporate career paths – was becoming so rote and routine as to be losing any semblance of character or individuality. It was the decade of the copycat – art forms copying themselves and artists cashing in. Different facade, same core. We saw it in everything from primetime soaps, to synthesized music, to, yes, slasher films. One led to another, to another, to another. Formula was cash, and cash was king. This genericism permeates throughout FINAL EXAM’S characterless college campus, its genre-defying unimaginative kills, its featureless protagonist. Even the absence of people of color in the cast seems to speak to a certain degree of societal white-washing if one looks close enough.

This theme of societal monotony comes full circle and is realized in the randomness of the film’s violence. Even in the bona fide HALLOWEEN clones, the killers weren’t without their reasons: a jilted lover in HE KNOWS YOU'RE ALONE, a traumatized fraternity pledge in TERROR TRAIN, a grieving brother in PROM NIGHT. Yes, it’s all about revenge of some kind, but there is genuine human motivation behind it.

There is a raison d’être, a reason for being.

But here, our killer has no reason. His acts of killing are random, monotonous. Even the film’s final girl is seemingly selected at random when she merely passes by the killer’s parked van. As fretful Radish says at one point in the film, “People are killed for no reason every day.” And so it is, too, in FINAL EXAM, that students are killed without premeditation, order, or any particular passion. Physical presence is the only prerequisite for being marked for death. Huston’s nameless, faceless, characterless killer represented all that was random and meaningless in the evolving culture of the 80’s. The senseless crimes of serial killers like Gary Leon Ridgway (The Green River Killer), Donald Harvey (Angel of Death), Ted Bundy, and Robert Hansen held working-class America in a grip of fear with their reign of seemingly random killings. AIDS didn’t make sense – it claimed random victims in a monotonous replication. There was randomness and monotony in the evolution of the corporate male experience in the 80’s (explored to the point of brilliant hyperbole in both the book and film versions of AMERICAN PSYCHO). There was even retail repetitiveness in everyday suburbia, where different designer labels were slapped on the same products – where arbitrary values were placed on certain yuppie accoutrements.

Huston’s film captures that uninspired time in our culture and the formulaic patterns of the time. Unfortunately, the irony of a formulaic slasher epitomizing everything that was mechanical about our evolving culture at the time was lost on the casual viewer hungry for a higher, bloodier body count and a flash or two of boobies.

Footnotes:

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? For Bagdadi (Courtney), Brown (Wildman), Fallon (Mark), and Ferren (Gary, aka Pledge), FINAL EXAM would be their only brush with filmland. Willis-Burch (Janet) made just one more movie, the aforementioned KILLER PARTY. Robbins (Lisa) went on to work on several daytime soap operas and did some episodic TV before dropping off the radar in the late eighties. Rushing (Coach) made thirteen additional films until 2000 when he retired from acting and opened a year-round wild boar hunting preserve near Taylorsville, North Carolina, called the Chestnut Hunting Lodge. Only Rice (Radish) and, interestingly, Raynor (Killer) continue to work in the industry today. Kilman (Sheriff) died in 1998 at the age of 57, after making only one appearance on DALLAS post EXAM.

DVD RELEASE: The DVD release, while nothing in the technical department to write home about, is worth the VHS conversion if only for the three cast interviews included.

Joel S. Rice (Radish) chats about the film’s six-week shoot in Shelby, North Carolina, and reveals that he left acting in the mid-eighties to pursue a Masters degree in Social Work. He eventually missed the entertainment industry and came back as a producer and has produced over 25 TV movies since the early nineties (although he did make a brief return to acting playing a math teacher in the family-friendly 2007 TV-movie SHREDDERMAN RULES, directed by Savage Steve Holland of cult-classic BETEROFF DEAD fame).

Cecile Bagdadi (Courtney) contributes an amusing anecdote about how she botched her first “scream test” while auditioning. After some practice, she landed the lead role and became such an effective screamer that her shrieks were actually used to dub other actresses in the film.

Sherry Willis-Burch (Janet) shares her memories of the difficulties in shooting her death scene, as well as her brief small-town fame in her Texas hometown. Willis-Burch, who’s now a 1st grade teacher, jokes that she eventually graduated to the final girl role in the Canadian-lensed KILLER PARTY.

The interviews are relatively brief, but it’s great fun to see these three and share in their fond memories of making FINAL EXAM some 28 odd years after the film’s release.

Breath In...

2009-08-19T18:29:00.012-04:00

...breath out.

You've made it halfway through the week!

Take a yoga moment for yourself today.

Happy Hump Day!

I Know What I Did This Summer

2009-08-16T12:14:00.018-04:00

So, it would appear that I’m back from my annual blogcation, that annual respite I allow myself during the month of July. Truth is, I’ve been swamped with projects and have been teetering at that frustrating crossroads in every writer’s life – between day job and writing – so the time away did me good, allowed me to catch up and regroup a bit.

In any event, I suspect this blog entry will be a hodgepodge of odds and ends meant to catch you up and finish some unfinished business. I sense a bulleted list on the horizon!

So, what did you think about HARPER’S ISLAND? First, I have to give some serious props to CBS for running the entire limited-run series – even if the network did screw the pooch a bit by relegating the show to Saturday nights (aka television’s graveyard shift). The show gained some serious momentum by the second half of its run, establishing genuine tension, peppering the proceedings with red herrings galore, and delivering a respectable body count. I was completely wrong in my guess of whodunit – suspecting that the unseen slasher was Maggie, the seemingly kindly wedding planner. Perhaps confirming why Agatha Christie stumped me every single time, it would appear that Maggie was, indeed, just a kindly wedding planner after all. (But, seriously, did they really have to let the poor thing’s body swing there outside the bar for so long?). I won’t ruin the big reveal for those of you waiting for the forthcoming DVD, but, suffice to say, the ending was fairly unpredictable and kept you guessing. Not surprised that CBS opted not to renew the series (the idea would have been to have another limited-run story arc play out with a new cast and new storyline) since the ratings were low by network standards despite respectable marketing efforts, but I hope some forward-thinking cable outlet will give the concept of another mystery/slasher limited-run series a shot. I hear some book called THE LITERARY SIX would make for some excellent source material!

During my blogging hiatus, I also managed to catch up on a few films I missed in the theaters. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed MIRRORS, especially going into it with the preconceived notion that it would suck ass. Far from the greatest horror film ever made, it nonetheless held my interest and gave me a few calculated shivers. I was equally surprised by how not-totally-bad the remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL was. Now, I preface that statement with the disclaimer that I want to be reincarnated as Kathy Bates and that I’d watch her sit on a stool and talk into a camera for two hours without blinking. But, like MIRRORS, I could think of far worse ways to spend a few hours of down time. Same goes for ONE MISSED CALL – the weakest of the lot – but still far from the worse films I’ve ever seen. OK, not exactly ringing endorsements, so want an actual recommendation? COLD PREY. I’m late to the game on this Norwegian-lensed snowbound slasher, but this film is the real deal. It’s everything fans loved about the old school slashers (relatively attractive cast making bad decisions in an impossibly isolated location with more flawed logic than Proposition 8), with the added appeal of genuinely tense direction, a truly frightening, believable villain, and a refreshing lack of self-referential humor and one-liners. This is a balls-to-the-wall slasher film – nothing groundbreaking, but authentic to its core.

Project-wise, I’ve made the tough decision to push THE RENEWED to the side right now, opting instead to pour all of my concentration into FINAL GIRL. I’ve got so many pans in the fire right now that limit my available writing time as it is, so I had to pick one to focus on. After taking an insightful online workshop with my friend Alex Sokoloff a few months ago, I determined that FINAL GIRL simply has more commercial appeal. During Stoker Weekend this past June, I pitched the novel to two publishers, both of whom asked to see it when it’s done. So, what’s it about? Here’s the logline (with special thanks to both Chad Helder and Ms. Sokoloff for lending me their ears in Burbank to get it just right):

A former criminal psychologist with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, a cub reporter who once jeopardized an old case, and a gay film historian form an unlikely alliance in tracking a serial killer targeting former scream queens and murdering them in elaborate re-creations of murder set pieces from 80’s slasher movies.

Oh, yes, my fellow slasher brethren, there will be trivia bits aplenty and more inside nods and winks to the diehard slasher fan than Sarah Palin makes political faux pas. This one’s decidedly a thriller with strong horror overtones. In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing more with you during new installments of ‘Writerly Stuff’.

Now that submissions have closed, editing on BUTCHER KNIVES & BODY COUNTS has commenced. This is going to be a whopper of a tome, and I’m very excited about the quality of the essays submitted. I’ll be making the long-delayed announcement about the remaining contributors who’ll be rounding out the collection as soon as one or two stragglers (and you know who you are!) submit their pieces. I think it’s safe to say that the book is on target for its April/May release, and there are some exciting plans in the works for the launch party (Hint: Think film premiere!). I’ve also been approached about editing a themed anthology by another publisher and am now waiting to hear back on the formal proposal. Details will follow if the publisher bites back.

Loving the new season of TRUE BLOOD! Thrilled that Jason Stackhouse is done with that Fellowship of the Sun church business and hope he soon gets back to his lothario (read: naked) ways. Looks like the plotline involving Maryann the Maened is escalating just in time for Sookie, Bill, and company’s arrival back in Bon Temps. Say what you will about that sharp-clawed, shapeshifting she-beast, but she sure knows how to throw one hell of a party!

Trashy pop culture-wise, I enjoyed a wonderful season of Kathy Griffin’s MY LIFE ON THE D-LIST and am now in the thick of things on the new BIG BROTHER and HDTV’s DESIGN STAR. On the former, I’m thrilled that prissy, preening Jesse is gone and hope nerdy Michele has the cajones to put loud-mouthed Chima and the spoiled brat-like Natalie on the block in the upcoming double eviction week. On the latter, I’m rooting for the adorable Dan Vickery to win because 1) he’s good with power tools and 2) HDTV needs another drop-dead hunk with piercing eyes hosting one of its shows.

I've also added a virtual bookshelf to the blog. These are all books that either influenced my writing or just gave me countless hours of reading pleasure over the years. In most cases, a little of both. I'm proud to call some of these writers friends and colleagues now, so I hope you'll give the list a glance. Maybe grab a copy of one or two of the books on my list from your local independent bookstore or library and help keep reading alive and well.

Finally, the League of Tana Tea Drinkers has remained quite busy these past few months – adding several new worthy members to its ranks: Cinema Fromage, Cinema Suicide, Classic Horror, Day of the Woman, Evil on Two Legs, Fascination with Fear, I Love Horror, Igloo of the Uncanny, and Uranium Café. The blogroll at the right has been updated with the LOTT D’s current lineup, so please take a few moments and visit these intriguing blog worlds. Plus, want to know something about the bloggers themselves? Then check out the new member profiles at the LOTT D homepage.

Slasher Clash, Round 4: Remake Rumble

2009-08-14T21:10:00.011-04:00

In this remake edition of Slasher Clash, will it be MY BLOODY VALENTINE'S three-dimensional reboot or FRIDAY THE 13TH'S return to Camp Crystal Lake? A miner with a pickaxe to grind or a mongoloid with a machete to swing? You decide!

In this corner, weighing in at a hefty 101 minutes, is the movie that stole hearts (literally):

And in this corner, clocking in at a slightly leaner 97 minutes, is a film that brought more bad luck to the unluckiest day of the calendar:

So, fellow Slasher Speakers, who will emerge victorious in the clash of the remakes? Vote now!

Slasher Clash, Round 4: Remake Rumble
In the clash of the remakes, will it be miner masks or hockey masks?

My Bloody Valentine 3-D
Friday the 13th (2009)

Body Count

Disclaimer: No slasher film was hurt in the making of this blog.

Wishing You...

2009-07-03T20:35:00.006-04:00

...a very happy and safe July 4th holiday weekend!

Hope your Independence Day is filled with stars, stripes, and a say-something hat to rival all others!

x/o Vince

The Stoker Weekend Chronicles, Part 2

2009-06-21T16:41:00.013-04:00

Friday morning. My body still hadn’t reset its internal clock, so although I was going to bed at 12:30 am PST, I was still waking up at my hardwired East Coast time of 5:30 am – which somehow also became 5:30 am PST(!). I know…I was confused, too. All I know is that I felt like I was running on fumes for most of my trip.

So, up and off to breakfast with Chad and Mike Hacker, despite a tempting offer from Nanci to join her and Tom Monteleone for breakfast at Denny’s. I don’t remember what the fellas had, but I had the most delicious Cobb omelet – basically everything that gets lumped into a Cobb Salad (minus the lettuce, thankfully) as the omelet filling. Scrumptious! We promised Lisa and John that we’d register early, so off we went to the hotel lobby to retrieve our name badges and goody bags. Great stuff in the bags – books, magazines, bookmarks galore, magnets, and more. Leisure was particularly generous, offering up one of their novels for every bag. I snagged a copy of Nate Kenyon’s THE REACH, which I had already read (great book, BTW), so I was hoping to swap with someone for perhaps something I hadn’t read (had my eye on Wrath James White’s SUCCULENT PREY). Of course, swept up in the whirlwind of Stoker Weekend, I completely forgot.

How amazing to finally meet and spend time with my friend and frequent collaborator Chad Helder. Most people we met couldn’t believe that we’d known each other since 2006, yet had never met until that weekend. Or that we’d managed to put together an entire project like UNSPEAKABLE HORROR using nothing but the Internet and telephone lines to connect when we had to. Chad is everything I’d hoped he’d be and more. Smart, personable, laid-back…he was the perfect weekend companion to share so many firsts. And we had a ball! So lucky am I to call him my flesh-and-blood friend now.

On Friday, I was scheduled to participate in two panels – one on anthology editing, the other on GLBT horror. A quick glance at the program and I saw that the estimable Stephen Jones (the multi-award winning editor of anthology series like THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR, FANTASY TALES, and DARK TERRORS) had been added to the panel that included myself and Chad, the venerable Ellen Datlow, R.J. Cavender, Bill Breedlove, and Kathryn Cramer (of the YEAR’S BEST FANTASY and YEAR’S BEST SF series). Now, I had heard all kinds of rumors and stories about Jones and, frankly, was beginning to lose my nerve. After all, what business did we have on a panel with the likes of him and Ellen Datlow and Kathryn Cramer? Hopefully, we could add something from the newbie’s perspective, but that was about it. To make matters worse, moments before our panel, I found Ellen (who was moderating the panel) in the hotel lobby and, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, asked her to please keep Jones from eviscerating us onstage if he found our presence bothersome. And, just to prove that the higher power has a sense of humor, Mr. Jones was standing right behind me when I said it. Insert foot in mouth as cursory introductions were made, slink away, and nearly die with embarrassment.

So, how’d the panel go, you ask? Considering how I’d set myself up (internally and with Jones), I’d say not bad at all. The veterans on the panel wowed with their vast experience and knowledge, while we newbies spoke when spoken to. Ellen did a fantastic job moderating, and Jones was quite astute and fair in his questions and comments. I think the audience may have winced for us a few times, but we came away from the experience all the better for it. Hey, if we’re going to play with the big fish, then we’d better learn how to swim faster, eh? High point of the panel: The spirited discussion that ensued when Ellen asserted that she reads slush and Kathryn categorically took exception, emphasizing that both Ellen and Stephen read works already published and that by virtue of their published status, these works are already pre-vetted and are thereby not true “slush” in the sense that most think of it. Interesting discussion that kept the audience (and the rest of us on the panel) rapt with attention. Low point of the panel: Jones politely calling Chad and me out for not sending him a copy of UNSPEAKABLE HORROR for consideration in MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR and internally debating whether or not it’d be poor form to correct him and tell him that I did indeed send a copy. In the end, I deferred to better judgment of not correcting him in a public forum and made mental notes to tell him privately at a later point in time (more on how that went later) and to send any future works to him via registered mail.

Next up was the GLBT Horror panel that Chad and I were participating on with the lovely Maria Alexander (whose lyrical “In Her Mirrors, Dimly” we were fortunate enough to have grace the pages of UNSPEAKABLE HORROR) and the effervescent Hal Bodner. Hal, who wrote 2005’s sexy vampire romp BITE CLUB, is the essence of a true character, the lovechild of Harvey Fierstein and Joan Rivers. An entertainment lawyer by trade, Hal now spends his days writing and as the proprietor of an “over-the-top” pet boutique called Heavy Petting. Indeed, everything about Hal is deliciously over-the-top…from his opinions (and there are many) to his warmth. He’s got stories galore with which to regale the willing listener, and he’s got more names to drop than Paris Hilton has handbags.

The panel went exceptionally well – decent attendance during which we met the equally handsome and intellectual Gabriel Novo, a first time writer’s conference attendee who’d wanted to hear more about us after the anthology panel. The questions were fantastic, the discussion lively, and the subject matter stimulating. The audience really seemed to walk away with quite a bit of food for thought, especially on the subject of whether or not the gay community should or needs to own its negative stereotypes in its literature and other artistic mediums. Mutual respect between and among the audience and the panelists for differing viewpoints was the overriding tone of the session. My little gray cells were refreshed, invigorated, and otherwise heightened during this enjoyable (albeit far too brief) hour.

Somewhere in between panels and pitches, Chad and I had the privilege of sitting in on two fantastic author readings. The first was the delightful Rain Graves, who has personality to spare and a fantastically contagious laugh. She read selections from her poetry collection BARFODDER. Stunning imagery and lyrical verse that skimmed across the mental palette with Rain’s rhythmic delivery. The second reading was by Thomas F. Monteleone. Now, if you want to learn about how an author should conduct a reading and fully engage an audience, Monteleone is your guy. He read one of his older stories – title escapes me at the moment – to a spellbound audience. Monteleone becomes his characters when he reads – wide-eyed boy, curmudgeonly grandfather, sinister grim reaper – all with equal skill and believability. Watching him move about the room and lock eyes with audience members as his voice went from a whisper to a hiss, his reading was one of the most unexpected treats of the weekend.

Dinner in the Daily Grill with Chad, Mike Hacker, Reesa Brown and her mother, Deborah. We were joined by Scott Bradley, one of the editors of last year’s pop culture masterpiece BOOK OF LISTS: HORROR. Scott and I became instant Facebook friends a few months prior to Stoker Weekend, so I was really looking forward to meeting him in person. You know, one of the things I liked most about the whole weekend was how real people were. Scott personified this genuineness – just a tall hunk of sweetness and sincerity through and through. My biggest regret is that I didn’t have more of an opportunity to hang out with Scott and his girlfriend Amy Wallace (another of the editors on BOOK OF LISTS: HORROR) – but, hey, there’s an old adage that says when you meet someone you connect with, you’re destined to meet up with them again.

The Gory Ghoul Ball hosted by Heather Graham and Medallion Press was the spectacle it promised to be. There was music and food aplenty, with partygoers decked to the nines in fabulous costumes. Admittedly, the air temperature in the packed ballroom was a bit on the stuffy side, so I moseyed in and out – alternating between watching the Slush Pile Players and sitting outside with Reesa, Chad, and Deborah and enjoying the almost preternaturally consistent Southern California weather. Wiped, I retired for the evening around 11:30 pm.

Saturday was business day. It was time to slap on some casual business attire and prepare for meetings with publishers during the pre-arranged pitch sessions. Chad and I enjoyed a low-key breakfast together while I tried to boil an entire novel down into a succinct logline that would grab the publishers’ interest by the throat until they screamed to read the full manuscript. Met up with Alex Sokoloff near the elevators and the two of us went up to my suite where she was nice enough to hear my pitch and offer some words of encouragement. I seriously adore her – she’s whip smart, an über-talented storyteller, and has the most fabulous mane of blond hair that seems to be its own life force.

The pitch sessions were coordinated by Jeannie Eddy, with help from hubby (and HWA webmaster) Mark Worthen. Pitch sessions, for those of you who’ve never done one, are the literary equivalent of speed dating. You’ve got ten minutes to pitch your novel to an editor or agent – and at Stoker Weekend, you had the added challenge of doing so in a less than optimal setting: the hotel lobby. Imagine sitting there across from an editor from a major New York publishing house with one-sixth of an hour to sell your work while just mere feet away someone’s complaining to the desk clerk that the toilet in room 617 is clogged(!). Talk about disconcerting. But, somehow, Jeannie made it all work. How she tracked whose time was up, moved people up and down the schedule when someone didn’t show, and had those editors and agents spread as comfortably as possible across the hotel lobby, I’ll never know. Anyone who pitched on Saturday owed Jeannie and Mark a debt of gratitude for their generous help and coordination. My own pitch sessions went quite well, with both publishers asking to see THE RENEWED in various configurations – one wanting the entire manuscript, the other the first three chapters and a full synopsis. Both asked about what else I had in the pipeline, with one also asking to see FINAL GIRL when that was done. One even asked that I include the blurbage for THE LITERARY SIX with my submission, so maybe a retooling will be in order for a reprint someday. Fingers firmly crossed as I frantically work on the final rewrites of THE RENEWED.

Business behind me, it was time to get ready for Dark Scribe Press’ “Unspeakable 80’s” pre-Stoker Awards Banquet party and the big event afterward. The hotel staff had the room set-up appropriately (after some last minute reminders on layout), my DJ from Joe Diamond Enterprises showed up on time and with the music I had requested (and he was cute, to boot!), and Chad and Martel Sardina and JT Cummins were on hand to help hand out 200+ feather boas to guests as they arrived. The hour and a half flew by, but I managed to get some great photos. Feather boas really are the ultimate fashion accessory! Haircut 100, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Oingo Boingo, Icicle Works, Dexy’s Midnight Runners…the music just rocked!

On to dinner, yet another wonderfully overstuffed goodie bag, and then…the Stoker Awards. Unbeknownst to me, like a tribe that attracts its own, we ended up having what someone dubbed “The Gay Table.” Chad, Mike Hacker, Matt Schwartz, Derek Clendening, Hal Bodner, and I…with Nanci Kalanta, Maria Alexander, and Martel as our requisite (and quite fetching!) fag hags. Not quite sure how Maria’s dashing gent, Shad Ow, figured into the scheme of things, but let’s just call him “eye candy” for purposes of qualifying everyone’s role. Nerves had taken over by that point, and I honestly couldn’t tell you how my vegetarian lasagna was or what one person said during dinner. I just know Hal was talking.

So, as you know, we won the Stoker Award in our category – Superior Achievement in an Anthology. The moment came upon me like a speeding locomotive, and I wasn’t ready for it. First, the idea that John Skipp and Ellen Datlow presented the award was enough to send me into giddiness. But then, to hear one of the preeminent anthology editors of our time call my name and hand me a Stoker Award, the ensuing cheer from the audience…words fail me. (I grabbed Ellen’s hand the next day and tried to articulate just what it meant to have her present us with the award, but I’m certain words failed me yet again.) I know I spoke, tried not to completely flame-out like Sally Field in her 1985 acceptance speech at the Oscars, and said something about the lights being hot. It’s on tape and will hopefully be available to the viewing public soon. But, what I do remember, was feeling incredibly humbled to be accepting an award in the presence of Bill Breedlove and R.J. Cavender – two incredibly talented anthology editors with whom I had the distinct pleasure of becoming acquainted that weekend and whose works (Breedlove’s LIKE A CHINESE TATTOO, Cavender’s +HORROR LIBRARY: VOLUME 3+) I have the utmost respect for. I remember saying that the award was really for all of us in the anthology field, those of us working within our resources to keep the anthology format alive. And I meant every word of it.

Something else came to me standing on that stage. Earlier, during the anthology panel, Stephen Jones had asked Chad and I why our anthology was “queer horror” and just not “horror”. Wasn’t good horror with gay characters or themes enough without having to add the “queer” qualifier? Thrown a bit by the question, I just sat there like a dunce while Chad did his best to articulate an answer that spoke to easier identification by our intended audience. But there, on the stage standing in front of 250 or so fellow writers and editors, the answer came to me at the oddest moment. As I thanked my partner of 21 years for his unwavering support, I realized that I would be one of only two people that evening who hadn’t thanked a wife or a husband. That the commonplace spousal moniker used so freely by everyone else simply wasn’t mine to use. Not there in a Californian hotel, not back home in New York. The legal distinction between my relationship and that of legally married couples in the room was significant, and that was the reason that our horror had to be queer horror. That was the reason why our politics has to be queer politics, why our artistic expression has to speak to its queer elements. That separate does not mean equal is the horror of the queer experience. That, like much of horror in general, we approach life and those in it as outsiders looking in.

Photos taken, an appearance at the official after party made, champagne consumed, I retired to my hotel suite and clicked on Facebook to find confirmation of my earlier thoughts. Congratulatory messages from literary heroes like Lee Thomas and Michael Rowe and Jameson Currier and Scott Heim, from publishing trailblazers like Greg Herren and Steve Berman, all confirmed that Chad and I and our wonderfully unspeakable contributors did far more than win a Stoker Award that evening. We shattered the pink ceiling by becoming the first distinctly queer horror anthology to ever take home a Stoker in the 22-year history of the awards. Suddenly overwhelmed, humbled, and so completely at a loss for words, emotion overtook me and I sat awash in actual tears staring down at my laptop until sleep beckoned.

Sunday morning arrived, bringing two strange emotions with it. The first was an odd sense of melancholy that the weekend was drawing to a close. The closest thing I could associate with this reaction was the feeling I got as a teenager when a month of sleepaway summer camp was winding down. It was almost a sense of loss…a sense of imminent detachment from some real, newly discovered part of my life. An experience that was one-time only, a fusion of events, circumstances, people, and senses that could never be recreated again in totality. Weird, I know. The second was a sense of surrealism, a sense that something important had happened with which I still hadn’t fully connected. Even as I made my way toward the HWA business meeting – tall cup of Earl Grey in hand – and someone stopped me and asked me to sign his Stoker Weekend Program, I felt like events had powered forward and I was running to catch up with the reality of them.

The HWA Board met as a group for about two hours for its annual business meeting, the first time all four HWA officers – in this case, Deb LeBlanc, Heather Graham, Lisa Morton, and I – were in attendance at a live meeting. Trustees Ellen Datlow, Del Howison, and Rocky Wood, as well as legal counsel Les Klinger, were all on hand for a very productive session. Thankfully, Heather and I had devised a secret plan to leap up onto the table and belt out our version of “Do You Think I’m Sexy?” if things got heated, but that never came to pass. The great part about this Board is that everyone on it is forward-thinking and genuinely considers the membership at large when discussing plans for the organization. I have to credit Deb LeBlanc with this. She truly represents the organization with a sense of class and enthusiasm. Watching her in front of the Board or the membership, she’s truly an inspiration — funny, warm, and always professional. She’s set a tone for the HWA, appointed professional people to the right posts, and worked with a sense of quiet conviction in leading us. As much as Lisa Morton and John Little were responsible for the incredible success of Stoker Weekend, Deb’s leadership is a key reason why the HWA has grown its ranks. Deb gets a bunch of shit from some, legitimate criticism from others, but as I was reflecting on the weekend while writing up this recap, the good she’s done overwhelmingly overshadows any missteps our administration has taken along the way.

The general meeting with membership followed. Well-attended, enthusiastic bunch with terrific questions, concerns, and suggestions. The meeting could have gone on for another hour, but we were reminded by John Little that closing ceremonies were at hand. Chad and I ran into Stephen Jones and the lovely Mandy Slater along the way, Mr. Jones offering us his heartfelt congratulations on our Stoker win. We chatted with him for several minutes, during which I got to apologize for the copy of UNSPEAKABLE HORROR that never reached him. He spoke about WHC 2010 in Brighton, England, hoped we would attend, and mentioned the gay-friendly area in which the convention would be held. As we headed toward the closing ceremonies, that sense of surrealism again: the Stephen Jones just congratulated us on our Stoker win! Following closing ceremonies and a bunch of goodbyes that I’d rather not dwell on, the personable, farm fresh Joel Sutherland (apparently safe from a weekend’s worth of Hal hitting on him!) drove Derek Clendening and I back to Dark Delicacies for a group book signing for Lisa Morton’s new anthology, MIDNIGHT WALK. Most of the anthology’s contributors were there and signed up a storm. Great to meet some of my BUTCHER KNIVES & BODY COUNTS contributors like Mike McCarty and R.B. Payne.

Back to the hotel and an impromptu dinner with Lisa Morton, Scott Edelman, Gabrielle Faust, Joel and Colleen Sutherland, Derek Clendening, Rocky Wood, and my # 1 fan Amanda Reyes and her fiancé, David Cohen. Conversation and drinks flowed, Gabrielle and I picked (and picked and picked) at a delicious Apple-Blueberry Cobbler (a la mode, of course!), and soon it was time for more bittersweet goodbyes. Then, off to pack while half-watching the season premiere of TRUE BLOOD, and off for a few restless hours of sleep before my 7:05 am flight home.

Since my chronicles began with the action and adventure of JetBlue flight #350 nose-diving into the Rockies, I find it only fitting to close with the further thrills and chills of JetBlue flight #355, which hit turbulence somewhere over mid-Nebraska that did not end until we were over Pittsburgh. Yes, there were moments of sheer terror like the aircraft’s plummet and underwater dive beneath the Great Lakes (during which I staunchly clutched my pearls like Olivia de Havilland in AIRPORT ’77), but my recollections will only be challenged by those with far less credible historical recall. Suffice to say that I survived; arriving back home to loving arms and eager dog licks and armed with all the details of a glorious, memorable weekend to share.

The Stoker Weekend Chronicles, Part 1

2009-06-20T16:42:00.015-04:00

Yes, it’s taken me a full week to digest and process the event known as Stoker Weekend 2009. The people, the connections, the parties, the panels…oh, yeah, and the Stoker Award. So much to sort through and to try and adequately capture in words.

The people. Let’s keep the focus of this recap there. After all, those human connections we make are so much more precious than all the rest combined.

My trip started a week ago this past Wednesday. Standing on line to have my flip flops and nether-regions scanned for explosives at JFK, the lovely Nanci Kalanta – webmistress extraordinaire from Horror World – spotted me. Which meant that one of us owed the other a drink. I doubt that either remembers now which one owed and which one collected, so immediate was our connection, so instant our friendship. Yes, I believe Nanci to be yet another sister I’ve never had (the first being my longtime BFF Sondra Edwards, the third being discussed a bit later). Lovely, funny, sarcastic, candid…these are all the things I suspect I will love about Nanci for years to come, and they were on full display throughout the weekend.

Ok, for those of you who might have heard the rumors, yes, there was a traumatic mid-flight event. Now, depending upon who you listen to, there are slight discrepancies in the story. Nanci, as I’ve learned is not the best historian, given to untruths and the occasional nip of the bottle as she is, so one is well-advised to steer clear of her version of the JetBlue-takes-a-nosedive-over-the-Rockies incident. To further clarify, there were no screams — only an involuntary, manly shriek of “Oh, God!” Yes, one child may or may not have been frightened by said manly shriek, but 35,000 feet is a daunting height from which to plunge.

Moving on, we eventually landed safely at the peculiarly named Bob Hope International Airport in Burbank, after enjoying six hours of turbulent hell, one lousy complimentary bag of blue chips, and a bottle of water. There was no time to do much more than drop our bags and scream in delight that there was a Denny’s adjacent to the hotel; it was time to get to work. Off to the HWA suite, where Nanci and I helped stuff the loaded goodie bags. Met John Little and John Palisano for the first time, saw Deb LeBlanc and Connie Wilson again, and (finally) met the seemingly indefatigable Lisa Morton — now officially my third long lost sister. Lisa is an amazing person, an old soul who’s the epitome of calmness and strength under pressure. I was on the station adding Nanci’s Horror World contest envelopes, Greg Lamberson’s JOHNNY GRUESOME magnets, and bookmarks (so many bookmarks!) to the bags. Lisa and her co-organizer John Little run a tight ship, and those bags (all 250 of them) were stuffed by 10:00 pm or so. After a few delightful minutes sitting, chatting, and exchanging winks with Lisa over a catty inside joke we’ve shared since just before BEA, it was time to call pseudo Day One of Stoker Weekend officially over.

Wake up calls between Nanci and me kick-started Thursday morning. We decided to stop first at the Concierge Suite, access for which came with my small, but well-appointed suite in the hotel. Complimentary eggs, a toasted bagel, turkey sausage, bacon, and Earl Grey tea got us going and off we went to explore downtown Burbank. Charming streets with stores that ran in a rigid store-coffee shop-salon-coffee shop-store-salon-coffee shop rotation amused us for a bit, the best being a dusty used bookstore called, oddly enough, Movie World. Books piled as high as the eye could see created narrow aisles and a veritable death trap should anyone ever drop a match. Lots of elated “oohs” from Nanci in the horror section as she stumbled upon Matheson, Yarbro, and Faris titles that would serve her well during the upcoming weekend proper. Best reality-check: Spotting an ACCESS HOLLYWOOD crew that was stopping people as they passed the coffee shop storefront at which they were stationed for “random” on-camera questions posed to various celebs. Nanci and I made at least 4 passes in front of them before we realized – with great amusement – that we apparently weren’t Californian pretty enough to be deigned worthy of asking Paris Hilton where she shops for cheese.

Exploring Burbank is arduous work, and we needed reinforcements. We speed-dialed Kim Paffenroth (the other zombie guy), and the good doctor joined us within minutes. I had the pleasure of first meeting Kim a few weeks earlier at BookExpo, so meeting up was like seeing an old buddy again. A trip to the local mall (and a refreshing Mango Smoothie for me) was followed by an impromptu book signing at Barnes & Noble for Kim, where he signed their stock copies of GOSPEL OF THE LIVING DEAD. We left B&N, doubled-back and re-staged the signing when we realized we’d failed to capture the event on camera, and then took an ill-advised trek across one of Southern California’s infinite number of freeways to Burbank Boulevard. Once Nanci and I realized that flip flops and high-heeled boots (I’ll leave it to your imaginations who was wearing which) are not appropriate footwear for dashing across on-ramps and dodging gun fire from LA gangs, we made two final stops – one at a hat store, the other at a convenience store at which alcohol was procured and someone obnoxiously called for a potentially embarrassing price check on aisle three (again, I leave the assignment of actions to your imaginations). Kim was nearby the home of the friends he was staying with, so he chivalrously saw Nanci and me to our cab with promises of weekend meetings to come.

Nanci and I made our way back to the Burbank Marriott and quickly answered a distress call from lobby-stranded R.J. Cavender (the Stoker-nominated editor of the +HORROR LIBRARY+ anthology series) and connected for an early dinner in the hotel’s Daily Grill eatery. Editor-to-editor, R.J. and I shared our Bentley Little stories over a delicious Cobb Salad, Fried Calamari, and Nanci’s American cheese-less burger.

The arrivals were in full swing by the time we’d finished eating. The bar at the Daily Grill was quickly turning into a who’s who in the genre: Gord Rollo, Gene O’Neill (whose vibrant red hair mysteriously turns white in photos much to his consternation), the gorgeous Alexandra Sokoloff (of whom I’m officially a groupie), Brian Cartwright from Cargo Cult Press, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (not so much at the bar, per se, but rather dining, dignified-like with a female companion, farther down in the restaurant), F. Paul Wilson, and Shocklines’ Matt Schwartz. Best fanboy moment: Sitting with Alex Sokoloff at the bar perusing the program for the following night’s Gory Ghoul Ball (during which Alex and the incomparable Heather Graham, F. Paul Wilson, and assorted other genre luminaries were to take the stage in an all-star musical extravaganza) and commenting on the name Harley Jane Kozak. Harley Jane Kozak — as in the actress from HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW, ARACHNOPHOBIA, PARENTHOOD, and TV’s daytime soap SANTA BARBARA. “She’s in the band?” I asked incredulously, adding “And going to be here?” Alex responding that yes, indeed, Harley Jane was in the band and that “Hey, she’s right behind you.” Jumped up, squealed like a fifth grade girl opening the new issue of TEEN BEAT and proceeded to gush at poor, dumbfounded Harley Jane about how much I loved her as Mary Duvall McCormick on SANTA BARBARA and how sorry I was that they killed her character off, crushed by the letter “C” of the Capwell Hotel! Got it together, told her how much I love her mystery writing, and suggested an interview at some point in DARK SCRIBE MAGAZINE. Alex clicked a photo to commemorate Harley Jane’s meeting with her strange, gay, soap opera-loving fan!

One much-need shower and costume change later and it was off to the famed Dark Delicacies bookstore for an once-in-a-lifetime book signing. Two phone messages before I left: one from my UNSPEAKABLE HORROR co-editor Chad Helder saying that his plane had been delayed and that he was coming right to the bookstore from the airport, the other from my actress pal Jamie Rose who was leaving her house and would be at the signing by 8:00 pm.

Shared a cab over with Nanci, the too-adorable-for-words Gabrielle Faust, and UNSPEAKABLE HORROR contributor Michael Hacker and walked in to a veritable meet-and-greet of the horror genre’s best and brightest. Chad showed up as the festivities began, and we quickly met up with other UNSPEAKABLE contributors Maria Alexander, Reesa Brown (who was there with her capital “F” fabulous mother, Deborah), and Lisa Morton. Astutely, we found the perfect spot under a colossal air conditioning vent and signed more copies of the anthology than I ever expected. If you’ve never been to Dark Delicacies, then treat yourself at least once the next time you’re in or around Southern Cal. The store is a treasure trove of horror goodness, with enough books, DVD’s, posters, action figures and collectibles, and unique merchandise to make your eyes bleed (in a good way!). Del and Sue Howison are the legendary owners of this equally legendary establishment and know how to throw a warm-up act for Stoker Weekend!

Best moments of the Dark Delicacies signing? There were dozens, but I’ll make mention of just two. First was meeting the delightful Amanda Reyes (who pens the fabulous MADE FOR TV MAYHEM and AMANDA BY NIGHT’S RETRO ECETERO PAGE blogs) and her charming fiancé David Cohen. Amanda may very well be my biggest fan – out of the dozen or so that I lay claim to – and absolutely made my night when she sheepishly asked me if I’d mind signing the copy of THE LITERARY SIX that she’d brought with her. Would I mind? Honey, where’s the paparazzi to capture the moment? Amanda has an encyclopedic knowledge of slasher films, making me adore her even more, and will be a contributor in my forthcoming BUTCHER KNIVES & BODY COUNTS anthology.

High point of the evening was finally getting to meet my friend Jamie Rose, who was so unbelievably sweet to trek from Malibu out to see me and get a copy of UNSPEAKABLE HORROR signed. Jamie and I first became acquainted back in 2006 when I interviewed her for AUTOGRAPH COLLECTOR. With my love of slasher films (she was Megan in the ’81 backwoods slasher JUST BEFORE DAWN) and my fan worship of her in FALCON CREST (she played Victoria Gioberti), LADY BLUE, and just about every other movie and TV show she’s ever done, we clicked and have stayed in contact. In person, Jamie is even more stunning (heads turned when she walked into that bookstore, folks!) and is passionate about books and reading and dance. What a joy spending well over an hour with her and chatting about the arts, life, and comparing notes on various books. Her energy is contagious and she literally lights up a room with her intellect and warmth. You know how you build people up in your minds, only to be disappointed when you come face-to-face? Well, the opposite happened with Jamie. If it’s possible, I adore her even more now. (Plus, how cool for Amanda – also a fan of Jamie’s and her husband, the talented Kip Gilman –to meet her as well!)

Tired and worn out from talking to our adoring public, the weary horror writers made their way back to the hotel where the Daily Grill became a boisterous watering hole for the parched and sore-wristed. The UNSPEAKABLE gang was joined by Nanci, the marvelous Hal (BITE CLUB) Bodner, Angel Leigh McCoy, and DSM scribe Martel Sardina, who mesmerized us with the true life story behind a short fiction piece she’s working on that involves web cams and the emotional complexities of voyeurism. Funniest moment: When Chad and I were pondering aloud the possibility of a second volume of UNSPEAKABLE HORROR, perhaps involving the dangers of promiscuity and sexual compulsion in light of Martel’s story, and Mike Hacker suggested the subtitle “In the Bushes!”

As the night wore on and more drinks were consumed, our group began to disband, one-by-one, until only I was left to witness the entrance of Heather Graham and what can only be described as an actual, Hollywood-like entourage. I sat with Heather for a bit, meeting sons, adopted sons, drivers, costume designers, and the like, until my eyelids threatened to close for good. I bid the ever-voluptuous Ms. Graham, whose cups are forever spilling marvelously over (I can say that, I told her, because of my unequivocal gay good taste!), a good night and retired for the evening.

Next up: Stoker Weekend actually begins!

Real Monsters

2009-06-03T05:03:00.003-04:00

Please take a moment and read my friend Michael Rowe's disturbing piece at Huffington Post yesterday on two California morning radio hosts and their reprehensible tirade on transgendered children during which they advocate violence against children with gender identity issues. I'm hard pressed to believe that no matter where people fall on the issue, that anyone - liberal or conservative - would condone or not be outraged by this.

From Tips-Q:

"In a lengthy May 28th tirade on the "Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning" radio show heard in Sacramento, California on KRXQ 98.5 FM and Reno, Nevada on KDOT 104.5 FM, hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States verbally attacked transgender children. While discussing a recent story about a transgender child in Omaha, Nebraska and her parents’ decision to support her transition, the two hosts spent more than 30 minutes explicitly promoting child abuse of and making cruel, dehumanizing and defamatory comments toward transgender children.
You can listen to the entire segment beginning at 4:48 by clicking this link.

Among the comments made by the hosts:

ROB WILLIAMS [11:12]: This is a weird person who is demanding attention. And when it’s a child, all it takes is a hug, maybe some tough love or anything in between. When your little boy said, ‘Mommy, I want to walk around in a dress.’ You tell them no cause that’s not what boys do. But that’s not what we’re doing in this culture.

ARNIE STATES [13:27]: If my son, God forbid, if my son put on a pair of high heels, I would probably hit him with one of my shoes. I would throw a shoe at him. Because you know what? Boys don’t wear high heels. And in my house, they definitely don’t wear high heels.

ROB WILLIAMS [17:45]: Dawn, they are freaks. They are abnormal. Not because they’re girls trapped in boys bodies but because they have a mental disorder that needs to be somehow gotten out of them. That’s where therapy could help them.

ROB WILLIAMS [18:15]: Or because they were molested. You know a lot of times these transgenders were molested. And you need to work with them on that. The point is you don’t allow the behavior. You cure the cause!

ARNIE STATES [21:30]: You got a boy saying, ‘I wanna wear dresses.’ I’m going to look at him and go, ‘You know what? You’re a little idiot! You little dumbass! Look, you are a boy! Boys don’t wear dresses.’

ARNIE STATES [29:22]: You know, my favorite part about hearing these stories about the kids in high school, who the entire high school caters around, lets the boy wear the dress. I look forward to when they go out into society and society beats them down. And they end up in therapy.

To her credit, co-host Dawn Rossi stood up to Williams and States during the segment.Despite her apparent lack of familiarity with transgender issues, Rossi repeatedly defended transgender people and made an on-air apology for her colleagues’ defamatory remarks.

Take action now! Please contact KRXQ management in Sacramento, California, where the show is produced and demand that radio show hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States publicly apologize. Call on KRXQ to hold Williams and States accountable for their remarks and establish clear standards to ensure their media platform will not be used to condone or promote violence against any parts of the communities they serve.

John Geary
Vice President & General Manager
KRXQ-FM
(916) 339-4209
jgeary@entercom.com

Arnie States
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rad@robarnieanddawn.com

Rob Williams
On Air Personality
KRXQ-FM
(916) 334-7777
rwilliams@entercom.com

Please forward this link to any of your friends and others who may also wish to take action. When contacting KRXQ, please ensure that your emails and phone calls are civil and respectful and do not engage in any kind of name-calling or abusive behavior."

Dance of the BEA Virgin

2009-06-01T15:04:00.009-04:00

Although I feel like Paul Sheldon from MISERY after his hobbling, I’ve returned from my maiden BookExpo America adventure with connections made, books to read (see my own haul to the left), and more than a few fun tales to tell. I’m probably going to be one of the few BEA participants out there who attended the event and was pleased by the experience. There was a universal sigh over how the annual booksellers’ convention has downsized, how the participating publishers gave away less swag, and how this whole thing seems to portend the end of publishing as we know it. My overall lack of perspective having never before attended blessed me with blissful ignorance and I simply enjoyed the dance. It was like going stag to the junior prom – no worries and no preconceived expectations.

I was there in support of the Horror Writers Association (HWA), having volunteered to take the reins from the far more capable hands of our Treasurer extraordinaire, Lisa Morton, who initiated HWA’s presence at BEA last year in Los Angeles. After the schedule of volunteers and fellow authors was completed and the booth set-up, there really was little to do but network, connect with old and new friends alike, and talk up horror and the HWA to anyone who’d listen. And listen they did. There were booksellers who stopped by and librarians who happily found a resource in us – interestingly, a few mentioned how interested their patrons were in horror but how it was so hard to select horror titles for their collections because the publishers are calling the genre anything but horror these days. There were book and film festival organizers who stopped by and an inquiry or two from publishers. We probably snagged a new member or two or three for the organization – staking the crisp Shane Briant out on his autograph line to pitch the HWA to him and picking up a hardback copy of his new book in the process. Briant’s an interesting fellow – a British actor of more than 60 films (including THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, CAPTAIN KRONOS – VAMPIRE HUNTER, and FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL) who has taken to writing horror. WORST NIGHTMARES is his fifth novel (he’s more widely published in Australia where he now lives) and his first US release.

The HWA booth was lots of fun. Finally getting to meet fellow HWA Board members Ellen Datlow and Deborah LeBlanc was terrific. Ellen was a gas, bringing an authentic cannibal’s utensil used to eat brains (civililized cannibals, anyone?) with her for show-and-tell and an interesting array of snacks ranging from Apricots to pretzels to peanuts. I highly advised her against putting the latter out on the counter for passersby, noting that folks with strong peanut allergies could suffer a strong reaction from just a whiff. Public safety be damned, Ellen put them front and center anyway in what I suspect was hopeful research for a new allergy-themed horror anthology. Deb LeBlanc is just all Southern charm, gorgeously tanned, and the epitome of professional.

So who else did I meet for the first time? Well, there is the fabulous with a capital “F” Alexandra Sokoloff, who is a whirlwind of blond hair and energy whom I have adored for some time through our correspondences and with whom I am now as totally smitten as a respectable gay man can be. Alex was there to promote her latest paranormal suspense novel, THE UNSEEN, and was very generous with both her time and with all those who stopped by our booth. There were fellow dark scribes Gary Frank and Kim Paffenroth, who each stopped by for signings. Both are easy-going, unassuming guys who you feel like you know after about thirty seconds in their presence. Funniest moment: When Ellen Datlow was introduced to Dr. Paffenroth and said “Gee, I thought you were taller.” It was also a pleasure to connect with one of the HWA’s international members, Aaron Sterns, who graciously stepped up to help man the HWA booth while on vacation here from Australia. Admittedly, it’s a bit hard to get past his Hugh Jackman good looks and that accent at first (some minor synchronized swooning from Alex and me at one point), but he’s a terrific, talented guy with his head screwed on right and a career plan he’s very likely to achieve with his level of commitment to the craft.

Meeting some of my own gay literary heroes like Dennis Cooper and William Mann (whose eyes are as impossibly blue as they seem in photos) was a real pleasure; walking away with signed copies of their newest books (Cooper’s UGLY MAN collection and Mann’s new Liz Taylor biography) was icing on the cake. I also had the distinct pleasure of meeting the charming Victor J. Banis, who is, quite frankly, a GLBT literary pioneer. It was delightful chatting with him on several occasions throughout the weekend, and he is every bit the icon he’s hailed as being. This is one of the guys who was writing GLBT stuff when it was actually hard – even dangerous (just read his bio) – to do so, and both I and the countless writers who came up the ranks behind him owe him a great debt of gratitude for his courage and commitment to telling the GLBT story. Banis is a real inspiration, demonstrating with his wit and charm and a playful hint that he’s still up for anything that maturity is not the gay man’s foe and that the 70’s are sensational.

High point of the BEA was finally meeting another of my literary heroes, Jameson Currier (WHERE THE RAINBOW ENDS), in person. I count myself so fortunate that Jim contributed to UNSPEAKABLE HORROR that I still pinch myself, and I largely credit his masterful “The Bloomsbury Nudes” with setting the tone for the collection. Jim agreed to help me support the anthology by coming out for a Sunday afternoon signing at the HWA booth. Note to self: If you help organize the booth, give yourself at least a slightly better time slot than the hour before BEA shuts down(!). Despite the lack of traffic, Jim and I had a ball – first chatting with Victor Banis (Oh, the gossip about some of our naughtier literary counterparts! Are you listening, Rick Reed?) and then being submersed in what can only be described as one of the most surreal book signings I’d ever done.

First up was the man I’ll refer to as “Hooter’s Guy”, a bearish hunk in camouflage pants and a snug t-shirt emblazoned with the legendary boob fest/eatery who was dragged up to us by Banis(!), who then went on about how he once shared a limousine with a bevy of Hooter’s babes (who you can apparently rent by the hour for $10) – all the while Jim and I inscribed a copy of our queer horror anthology to him(!). Then, there was the woman who mentioned how everything she read was then donated to the library in her mother’s nursing home; we told her UNSPEAKABLE would be an unmitigated hit with the geriatric crowd. We neglected to tell her that the nursing home should, ideally, be located in P-Town or Key West. Our bad. There were a couple of unfortunates who picked up the book and asked if it’d be appropriate for kids – we smiled politely and said, “No, dear, ‘fraid not”. Audience and volume aside, in the end, I felt like I had made a new friend. Jim is every bit as delightful as I’d imagined in our email correspondences during the UNSPEAKABLE submissions process – down-to-earth, funny, with just the slightest mischievous twinkle in his eye if you look close enough. BTW, Jim shared with me the news that he’ll have THE HAUNTED HEART AND OTHER TALES, a collection of short stories – including “The Bloomsbury Nudes” – coming out from Lethe Press in the fall. Gay, straight, twisted like a pretzel…his writing is simply not to be missed by any reader with a taste for good fiction.

There was new talent galore at BEA, too. Deb and I had the pleasure of being approached at the HWA booth by a young Adelphi graduate – as handsome as he was earnest – named Vincent Bivona, right here from Long Island. Mr. Bivona’s first novel – THE JOURNAL OF PETER RUBIN – is a cautionary tale about bullying. The book’s dedication says it all: “This novel is dedicated to the ones who cannot seem to find an out. Hang in there…” Bivona appeared at one of the tables in the BEA’s vast autograph room (which is organized, like an assembly line, into a series of 30 individual signings every hour on the hour) and Deb and I promised we’d come down and support him. Standing on Bivona’s line, watching him engage the people who had come for a copy of his book, I couldn’t help but swell a bit with unexpected, inexplicable pride for this young man whom I didn’t even know. The poise, the confidence…clearly, the byproduct of some very engaged parents who nurtured and supported him throughout his childhood and (painful?) adolescence. No doubt there are countless other parents who would be gratified to see their own sons or daughters shaking off high school demons with words and not the handgun and pipe bombs that Bivona’s protagonist contemplates.

Cutest moment of the BEA: Being approached at the HWA booth by a lovely 11-year-old girl named August Edwards who presented us with a copy of her first short story collection(!). Besides having a name clearly meant to grace book covers, this young lady was just a bundle of disarming maturity and professionalism that took me completely off guard. The best part was watching her father as she spoke to us, clearly beaming with pride and giving himself a well-deserved pat on the back for a job very well done thus far. Watching this accomplished young lady and her proud Dad restored my faith in modern parenting. BTW, if you feel like helping cultivate some extraordinary young talent, Ms. Edwards’ tome is appropriately called BOOK OF SHORT STORIES and is published by PlatinumACE and available through Amazon.

Well, it's back to the daily grind for me and those last minute plans for the trip out to Burbank in a few days.

Jamie Lee Wigs Out!

2009-05-18T17:36:00.006-04:00

Say it isn’t so! Is Jamie Lee actually channeling Britney Spears — the cuckoo years?

No, it’s just my girl doing what she does best: making a statement. This time, it’s an important one.

Jamie Lee and a bunch of Hollywood A-listers headed to the Beverly Hilton Hotel this past Saturday for the 3rd Annual Noche De Ninos Gala celebrating hospital heroes and benefiting Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Her True Lies husband and current California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was on hand to present her with the 2009 Entertainment Industry Courage to Care Award for her continued support and involvement with children's hospitals and organizations.

So why the pink locks? She wore the pink wig to the event in memory of a young girl named Katie Westbrook. "Katie was a young cancer patient that I met in Pittsburgh," she told Entertainment Tonight from the red carpet. "This is what Katie wore. This is how she dealt with her cancer — she walked around challenging people to look at her. When she died I asked her mother if I could continue her work. I'm doing this because you will show this tonight and you'll tell her story."

Watch the video below to hear more from Jamie Lee and the heroes of the evening:

The Long Ride Home

2009-05-10T10:53:00.008-04:00

So today began on a sad note.

We made the heartbreaking decision to help our beloved cat, Moyet, cross the Rainbow Bridge this morning. His overall health had been declining for several weeks now, and when we went to change his cat litter earlier today we noticed that he hadn't been using it over the past few days. We found him curled up on his favorite couch, very lethargic and unable to stand.

Already knowing the inevitable outcome (having watched his three brothers go through similar declines over the years), I drove to the emergency animal hospital with a heavy heart. While I drove, I kept one hand on his tiny head, stroking his fur and talking to him. I thanked him for being a good cat, told him how very much I loved being his human dad for 16 years. I apologized for those times when I may have been short on patience or sharp in tone. I asked that he forgive me for those times when life got so busy that I may have walked by him without notice. I drove him up William Floyd Parkway, past the supermarket where I first spied him in a box amongst a handful of kittens. I asked him if he remembered how I accepted him from the little girl with the imploring eyes, how he clung to my t-shirt and meowed at my face the whole ride home. When we passed the townhouse that had been his first home, I wondered if he remembered meeting his other dad, tired and spotted with paint on that sunny day, who first regarded me with an exasperated look of "Oh, no...what did you bring home now?" and then melted the instant he spotted the little ball of fur Moyet was back then.

During that painful ride to the vet this morning, I sorted out Moyet's life, arranging our mutual memories on the pages of a mental scrapbook only I could see. My beautiful, ever-youthful Moyet, with his forever kitten-like voice. Little, red-haired devilish Moyet, who would just as soon nip a finger that found an uncomfortable spot on his belly as he would rub up against you and pur like an engine. My resilient little cat, watching as our household feline numbers dwindled from four, to three, to two as the years passed until he remained one, the lone survivor. My proud little tiger, learning to make room for not one, but two dogs. My little king of a cat who would eagerly shove his head at the younger of our Cocker Spaniels, encouraging him to lick his ears for him.

When the time came today and I held my beautiful Moyet as the kindly, compassionate veterinarian administered his gentle relief, I cried and prayed and hoped that the story of the Rainbow Bridge is true. That as I watched his heart slow, and then come to a graceful stop, that this loving creature's essence would be transported to another time and dimension where he would be made whole and young and strong again. A warm and sunny place where his arthritic limbs strengthened, his coat regained its shine, his body rid itself of disease and pain, and he came face to face with his brothers again, to forever lounge in the sun, frolic after each other like kittens, and cuddle together in a mass of brotherly love.

More than anything, as I left the animal hospital with an empty cat carrier and a broken heart, I hoped that Moyet would be there on that elusive other side someday – in whatever form it will take – ready to greet me when my own time comes to make the journey.

Pulling out into traffic this morning, I shed tears of thanks for my little Moyet, who shared life's highway with me for 16 years — never asking for anything but an occasional acknowledgment, a mere scratch on the head, yet offered me unconditional love just for the asking.

Rest in peace, Moyet.

3/17/93 to 5/10/09

Final Girls, Divas, and Nasty Nurses

2009-04-29T05:38:00.005-04:00

So the Unspeakable Horror anthology has continued to garner good reviews – most notably from Fangoria (issue #283) and the online Horror Bound Magazine. I’m really thrilled that my first outing as an anthologist has been so well-received, the experience so positive. Honestly, I even enjoyed the submissions process – reading through the slush, responding with what I hope was constructive criticism. So many editors bellyache about this aspect – about how it’s laborious and tedious – but I found it to be equal parts challenging and rewarding. I loved discovering the new voices we selected for the project and thrilled at receiving submissions from writers I greatly admire. The Bram Stoker nomination was pure icing on the cake, and I’m excited to meet up with Chad Helder (co-editor on the project) and some of our contributors – Lisa Morton, Maria Alexander, Michael Hacker – for our group signing at the famed Dark Delicacies in Burbank on June 11th before the Stoker Awards Banquet that weekend.

I received my contributor copy of My Diva: 65 Gay Men and the Women Who Inspire Them a few weeks ago and have been reading through the other contributions with great interest. Editor Michael Montlack really did a stellar job putting this collection together, and the University of Wisconsin Press produced a gorgeous looking book. In a word, this collection is celebratory – a real salute to women of all shapes, sizes, and talents from (primarily) the entertainment industry who have inspired greatness in those who love them. The book is a real revelation, exposing fan worship in a positive light and articulating the gay man’s love of strong, opinionated, sexy – often tragic – female figures. So often fandom gets relegated to the preconceived ghetto of celebrity stalking. This book will smash those misconceptions and really demonstrate the genuine affection we have for our divas. Writing my own contribution on Jamie Lee Curtis – “When the Artist Met His Muse” – was a really cathartic in some ways, a chance to articulate something that’s been part of my persona since the age of ten.

I also received my contributor copy of Malpractice: An Anthology of Bedside Terror (Stygian Publications). This is one of those themed horror anthologies that can sound great in concept but bomb in execution. Since I’ve yet to delve into the book, I can’t yet state with any certainty into which category Malpractice falls. But the few reviews that have appeared online are favorable so prospects seem good. My contribution to the anthology is “The Night Nurse of Cobblestone” which tells the tale of a bedbound nursing home patient who is subjected to terror masquerading as medical care at the hands of his sadistic night nurse. Those who know that I’m a nursing home administrator by profession may be horrified at first by the brutality of the story and wonder aloud if this is based on some true experience. Truth is, this story is a response to the prevailing public image of nursing homes as being horrible places where people lay rotting in their beds amidst squalor and abuse. Having lived and breathed nursing homes for over two decades, nothing could be farther from the truth. So “Night Nurse” is an exaggeration of the public’s collective misconception, as well as an allegory for the internal horrors of growing older and becoming reliant upon the kindness of others.

Lastly, can I just share with you how much fun working on the Butcher Knives & Body Counts project continues to be? For a slasher queen like me, this has been a dream come true. Fun with a capital “T”. We’ve accepted just over 50 essays for the collection to date, and expect to add another 10-20 in the last four weeks of the open call for submissions. There are some truly spectacular essays coming in, really insightful pieces that really celebrate the slasher genre and demonstrate an as-yet-untapped depth. I’m delighted by Adam (Going to Pieces) Rockoff’s commitment to pen the Foreword and director Adam (Hatchet) Green’s introduction.

And I really love the eleventh hour stuff that happens on projects like this – folks who hear about it and want in, ideas that springboard into expansions of the project. Although not officially announced, I can share that we’ve got Don D’Auria (editor extraordinaire from Leisure Books) onboard, have added writers Scott Nicholson and Kim Paffenroth, and have gotten interest from a certain well-known horror entertainment magazine editor in contributing something – we’re hoping for an Afterword. But the best part (and this is a scoop for my loyal blog followers that has not been officially announced anywhere yet) is that we’ve decided to intersperse interviews in between the essays. And with whom might these interviews be? I know what you’re thinking: the usual convention circuit crowd – Savini and Palmer and Soles and Hodder and that sort, right?

Nope.

No, for this project – the ultimate intellectual celebration of the slasher film – we’re digging much deeper than that. We’re tracking down those lost actors and actresses from the slasher films of yore, those victims and villains we loved but never saw again (or infrequently) after their 15 minutes of slasher movie fame. I’m talking about the obscure denizens of the slasher universe here, those whose time with us on the silver screen – brief as it was – nonetheless made an indelible mark. I can hear your frustrated screams: “Stop baiting us and spill already!”

Nope. Not just yet.

But, since I’m not a total tease, I’ll give you some hints. We’ve already chatted with a hapless ice skater, a terrified bride-to-be, a sexy sorority sister, a redhead who runs afoul of rednecks, and a killer who favors public transportation(!).

Caution. Fun stuff ahead...

I’m Not Ashamed to Admit It…

2009-04-27T05:26:00.007-04:00

I am a Pet Shop Boys fan.

There. That's feels better...to finally admit it openly.

I've actually been a fan since the British duo of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe first released “West End Girls” in 1984 right through to current day, fifty-six singles and ten albums later. To me, the Pet Shop Boys are the epitome of intellectualized electronica and have consistently crafted dance music for the thinking man. Their lyrics are smart, insightful, introspective, and even contrary at times. Their music is ever theatrical, always joyful, and at times tinged with wistful melancholia. Stylistically, they’re avant-garde with dramatic flairs and flourishes punctuating everything from their wardrobe to their album art.

They’ve bucked every commercial trend to remain loyal to their own unique sound and continue to sell albums - enough to maintain a record deal. They've taken biting pot shots at political figures like George W. Bush and Tony Blair ("I'm With Stupid") yet never suffered any Dixie Chicks-esque backlashes. They’ve even eschewed political correctness when they politely declined a request from PETA to change their name to the Rescue Shelter Boys – a petition that was designed to highlight the alleged animal welfare benefits of getting pets from shelters rather than pet stores. These guys know just where the line is and how to walk it.

And their talent goes well beyond their own music, with production work and remixes done for Liza Minnelli, the late Dusty Springfield, Boy George, Yoko Ono, Dead or Alive's Pete Burns, Tina Turner, Robbie Williams, Kylie Minogue, Elton John, David Bowie, Madonna, The Killers, Rufus Wainwright, and – most recently – Lady Gaga.

Anyway, they’ve just released their 10th proper studio album (I qualify this since they’ve also released numerous compilation albums and remix collections), simply titled Yes. It’s vintage PSB, with standouts being “Did You See Me Coming?”, “More Than a Dream” and the sublime “The Way It Used to Be” – easily their best song since 1990’s “Being Boring.”

The Pet Shop Boys have always crafted visually stunning videos to accompany their operatic dance beats. Here’s the first single. “Love, Etc.” and a few other personal favorites from their prolific catalog:

Hell's Aquarium

2009-04-20T05:32:00.004-04:00

Here is the book trailer for author Steve Alten’s Hell’s Aquarium, the fourth installment in his Meg series. I just love the power of this advertising medium. One of the slickest book trailers I’ve seen in awhile — and boasts a killer tagline!

Not familiar with Mr. Alten’s stuff. Anyone out there read any of the Meg titles or Alten’s other books?

Super-Cool FANGORIA Review!

2009-04-07T19:30:00.003-04:00

File this one under "very cool". In the new issue (#283) of Fangoria, UNSPEAKABLE HORROR gets a rave review.

Like a proud papa sporting pictures of the kids, here's an excerpt:

"It was inevitable that the narrowing portals of the publishing industry – in this case, the horror side – would yield a bevy of small presses geared at bringing new fear fiction to readers increasingly starved for quality. While books from such outfits can be a bit of a gamble, there is much to praise in Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet, a sharp, new gay-themed anthology. The 24 entries comprise a sophisticated collection of topnotch tales of terror, most of which could appear in any fright anthology without qualification, and suggest the maturing of ‘gay horror’ into a viable and solid genre indeed."

The review goes on to single out the stories by Sarah Langan, Jameson Currier, and Lee Thomas, before handing top mentions to Kealan Patrick Burke's "A Letter from Phoenix" (which the reviewer compares to Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery"!) and C. Michael Cook's "The Boys of Bald Cave", which the review characterizes as "a superb contribution to the canon of classic American supernatural Gothic fiction...".

Great way to come home to the mailbox indeed!

'Harper's Island' Mania, Take Two: Meet the Islanders

2009-03-24T04:54:00.002-04:00

So Harper’s Island is shaping up to be a cross between Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (only my favorite book of all-time!) and the 1986 slasher flick April Fool’s Day. The mystery-slasher – also one of my favorite genre hybrids – will feature a cast of 25 characters, one of whom will be murdered each week during the series’ limited 13-episode run between April 9th and July 2nd.

So just who are the hapless Harper’s denizens? Here’s the complete rundown on the ensemble cast of characters:

MADISON ALLEN - “The Flower Girl” (played by Cassandra Sawtell)
Madison Allen is Shea and Richard’s daughter. She’s cute, sweet and, at times, horribly spooky. Lots of kids enjoy mischief; Madison might enjoy it a little too much. She has a tendency to say things that indicate she has a better idea about what’s happening on Harper’s Island than the adults do. She knows something they don’t… something bad.

RICHARD ALLEN - “The Brother-in-Law” (played by David Lewis)
Richard Allen is Shea’s husband, a guy who married into the Wellington family and business and lives everyday with that fact hanging over his head. Henry sees Richard as an example of what not to become – a meek subordinate who has completely broken under the thumb of Mr. Wellington. Richard keeps his severe contempt for Mr. Wellington under wraps, but is already in the process of taking revenge on the man who has made his life so miserable.

SHEA ALLEN - “The Maid of Honor” (played by Gina Holden)
Shea Allen is Trish’s big sister and the Matron of Honor. From the outside, she appears to have it all – a great husband, a beautiful daughter and all the money in the world. But nothing is as it seems. There are problems in her marriage and her daughter Madison is acting out. The stress of keeping up appearances has Shea trapped in a life she never wanted for herself.

BETH BARRINGTON - “The Single Girl” (played by Amber Borycki)
Beth Barrington is a bridesmaid and Trish’s former college roommate. She’s beautiful, energetic and athletic. Though she didn’t grow up as privileged as Trish, she’s very comfortable in that world.

NIKKI BOLTON - “The Biker Chick” (played by Ali Liebert)
Nikki Bolton is an old friend of Abby’s who lives on the island and manages The Cannery, a bar on the island. She’s a tough, sexy, straight-talking local who doesn’t back down from confrontation. She’s thrilled Abby’s back on the island, and looks forward to having fun while the wedding party’s in town.

JOEL BOOTH - “The Nerd” (played by Sean Rogerson)
Joel Booth is a groomsman. Everyone calls him “Booth.” He is a loyal friend who lacks some of the social graces of the other groomsmen. His hypochondria amuses his friends to no end.

DANNY BROOKS - “The College Buddy” (played by Brandon Jay McClaren)
Danny Brooks is a groomsman and one of Henry’s best friend’s from college. Danny is the sensitive guy in the group. He’s thoughtful and always wants to do the right thing. Danny feels things deeply, and when he senses injustice, he can’t walk away, but has to try and make things right.

CHLOE CARTER - “The Flirt” (played by Cameron Richardson)
Chloe Carter is one of Trish’s bridesmaids. She’s sexy, playful, impulsive and always looking for ways to live life to the fullest. She has a surprising curiosity about serial killers, especially John Wakefield. But beneath the blonde bombshell exterior is an intelligent woman searching for romance and love.

LUCY DARAMOUR & GIGI - “The Socialite” (played by Sarah Smyth)
Lucy is a bridesmaid and one of Trish’s childhood friends. Their families traveled and summered together. Though Lucy is more of a socialite than the other bridesmaids, she’s trying to find her own way in the world by attending law school. Gigi is Lucy’s handbag dog.

HENRY DUNN - “The Groom” (played by Christopher Gorham)
Henry Dunn is a pauper marrying a princess. While growing up, Henry worked summers on Harper’s Island, tending to the boat of real estate mogul Thomas Wellington. Now he returns to the island as the fiancé to the mogul’s beautiful daughter, Trish Wellington. Henry may have won the heart of Trish, but he still faces stern resistance from his soon-to-be father-in-law who disapproves of Henry and would love nothing more than to see this wedding never happen.

J.D. DUNN - “The Black Sheep” (played by Dean Chekvala)
J.D. Dunn is Henry’s brother. He’s a dark and brooding loner with tattoos all over his body that speak more to his true nature than he ever lets on in conversation. Being the only brother of the groom should have made him a lock for “best man,” but J.D.’s barely a guest at the wedding and wouldn’t mind just missing it all together. His childish antics make Henry’s life more difficult, and sometimes there’s a malevolence in them that makes everyone wonder if J.D. has some secret endgame.

UNCLE MARTY DUNN - “The Uncle” (played by Harry Hamlin)
Uncle Marty is a surrogate father to Henry, the only family besides J.D. he has at the wedding. Uncle Marty loves being the center of attention; he started partying sometime in the `70s and just never stopped. But behind his blithe demeanor is someone who cares deeply for Henry, who would do anything to protect him. And behind that is a guy who pops pills when no one is looking while toting around a bag stuffed with bundles of cash and a gun.

HUNTER JENNINGS - “The Other Man” (played Victor Webster)
Hunter Jennings was Trish’s college boyfriend. He’s from a family as affluent as the Wellingtons. He’s exciting and passionate and every bit her equal. He’s also selfish and completely unreliable, which is why Trish broke up with him. But now that she’s getting married, Hunter has shown up uninvited, hoping to convince Trish that he’s the one she should be marrying.

MAGGIE KRELL - “The Wedding Planner” (played by Beverly Elliott)
Maggie Krell is the energetic manager of The Candlewick Inn. She knew Abby, Henry and Trish when they were kids and couldn’t be happier to have them all back… especially for such a special occasion. She’s meticulously planned the week’s events and has more than just a few surprises in store for the wedding party.

JIMMY MANCE - “The Old Flame” (played by C.J. Thomason)
Jimmy Mance is a local fisherman who couldn’t be happier about the Wellington-Dunn wedding coming to Harper’s Island because it brings Abby, his high school sweetheart, back to the island. Jimmy immediately renews his pursuit of Abby, even though he harbors some resentment toward her; in seven years she never wrote or called. The years have been difficult for Jimmy, and he did some things that Abby will find very surprising.

ABBY MILLS -“The Good Girl” (played by Elaine Cassidy)
Abby Mills is a natural beauty in her mid-20s who hails from Harper’s Island. She is the groom’s best friend and his wedding brings her back to the island for the first time since her mother was murdered seven years ago. Abby’s father, the local Sheriff, gunned down the psychopath at the end of his killing spree, but the event shattered Abby’s relationship with her dad and left her haunted by her mother’s death and the memory of the man who killed her.

SHERIFF CHARLIE MILLS - “The Sheriff” (played by Jim Beaver)
Sheriff Mills is the law on Harper’s Island, the man who killed John Wakefield, and Abby’s father. He ended Wakefield’s deadly rampage seven years ago, but not before Wakefield took the life of his wife, Sarah. In his grief, Mills sent Abby away, and now that she’s back for the wedding, he hopes to reconcile with her. But times have changed, and Sheriff Mills has some dark secrets he has no intention of sharing with his daughter.

SHANE PIERCE - “The Townie” (played by Ben Cotton)
Shane Pierce is a Harper’s Island local who pretty much dislikes everyone. He works on a boat with his best friend, Jimmy Mance, and hates that the return of Abby Mills has turned Jimmy into her little whipping boy. He has a particular distaste for Henry Dunn’s brother, J.D., especially after J.D. starts flirting with his ex-girlfriend. Shane’s got a short temper and a history of violence, which makes him capable of just about anything.

MALCOLM ROSS - “The Hustler” (played by Chris Gauthier)
Malcolm Ross is a groomsman. He’s a big, boisterous guy who not only brings his own beer to a party, but he brews it himself. Malcolm is trying to start up a business to mass-produce his microbrew, Sacred Turtle. His friends are very supportive emotionally, but lack the funds to finance his endeavor. His inability to raise capital has put a lot of stress on Malcolm, and made him desperate enough to do things his friends would never suspect.

KELLY SEAVER - “The Outcast” (played Ana Mae Routledge)
Kelly Seaver has a unique connection with Abby; both of their mothers were killed by John Wakefield. But where Abby left the island, Kelly stayed behind and has never gotten over her mother’s murder. She’s struggled with depression and suicide attempts and a secret belief that John Wakefield is still alive and coming back for her.

CHRISTOPHER “SULLY” SULLIVAN- “The Best Man” (played by Matt Barr)
Sully is Henry’s best man. All of his friends call him Sully, and he has lots of friends. He’s a fun-loving frat boy at heart whose good buddies live vicariously through his many sexual escapades. He’s been Henry’s best friend since high school, but it’s questionable if he’s at the wedding more for Henry’s benefit or for the bachelor party and bridesmaids, particularly when he gets and eyeful of Chloe.

CAL VANDEUSEN - “The Outsider” (played by Adam Campbell)
Cal Vandeusen is Chloe’s boyfriend and a doctor. He’s a charming British outsider who doesn’t know anyone in the wedding party, but tries to fit in with the tight knit group. He treats Chloe like gold, and bought an engagement ring before ever stepping foot on Harper’s Island. As he waits for the right moment to pop the question, things keep getting in the way and at times the frustration causes his “nice guy” demeanor to fall away and reveal something darker.

KATHERINE WELLINGTON - “The Stepmother” (played by Claudette Mink)
Katherine Wellington is the very definition of a trophy wife; a sexy woman closer in age to her stepdaughters than her husband. Trish resents her, but Shea tolerates her because she makes their dad happy. But considering Katherine’s secret dark desires, that might not be for long.

THOMAS WELLINGTON - “The Father of the Bride” (played by Richard Burgi)
Thomas Wellington is the father-of-the bride. He’s a conservative real estate mogul. He only wants the best for his daughter; but as far as he’s concerned that doesn’t involve marrying Henry Dunn. Mr. Wellington is accustomed to getting his way, and plans on stopping this wedding at all costs.

TRISH WELLINGTON – “The Bride” (played by Katie Cassidy)
Trish Wellington is the radiant bride-to-be who loves Henry Dunn with all of her heart and can’t wait to marry him. Money is no object for a Wellington, so Trish’s perfect wedding comes in the form of a grand week-long stay on Harper’s Island, full of activities, food and fun for her family and closest friends. Trish doesn’t care about Henry’s lack of pedigree, but she is “Daddy’s Little Girl” and finds herself torn between the two men in her life.

A Stoker Finalist!

2009-03-23T20:30:00.009-04:00

File this one under "humbled" and "grateful" and then color me tickled.

Nominations were announced today for the 2008 Bram Stoker Awards, and I was proud to discover that UNSPEAKABLE HORROR: FROM THE SHADOWS OF THE CLOSET was named a finalist for Superior Achievement in an Anthology. Cloud 9 stuff, for sure.

It may be a cliché, but I'm humbled to be amongst the other nominees in our category — LIKE A CHINESE TATTOO edited by Bill Breedlove (from Dark Arts Books), HORROR LIBRARY, VOL. 3 edited by R. J. Cavender (from Cutting Block Press), and BENEATH THE SURFACE edited by Tim Deal (from Shroud Publishing). Even more cliché (Hey, I'm a freakin' Stoker finalist now — I'm entitled!) is the fact that I think all of us are already winners for helping keep the venerable short story format alive and viable. As editors and publishers, we've contributed something meaningful toward sustaining this literary staple.

An anthology is truly the sum of its parts, and I'd be remiss if I didn't thank Jameson Currier, Lee Thomas, Sarah Langan, Kealan Patrick Burke, Lisa Morton, Rick R. Reed, Scott Nicholson, Livia Llewellyn, LA Fields, C. Michael Cook, Gary McMahon, Reesa Brown, Elissa Malcohn, Erin MacKay, CJ Lines, Jan Vander Laenen, Christopher Fox, Michael Hacker, Maria Alexander, Joy Marchand, Kevin Reardon, Michelle Scalise, and Jude Wright for their unique and absolutely brilliant literary creations. Having these fine writers on our maiden voyage as both a small press and as editors was a blessing.

As for Chad Helder, my co-pilot on this project, what can I say? He's been such a support to me from day one on the scene, and he was instrumental in helping craft and fine-tune this project. My editorial sounding board, my partner in queer horror.

So, now it's off to find just the right evening gown for Burbank, where the Stokers will be handed out in a gala awards banquet on June 13th.

'Harper's Island' Mania, Take One

2009-03-23T05:05:00.006-04:00

“Just because you made the guest list, doesn't mean you'll make it to the wedding.”

Ah, I love a good tagline. And if this marvelous marketing moniker is any indication of how good Harper’s Island – CBS’ edgy, experimental 13-week limited-run series that I first told you about here – will be, then slasher fans are in for a televised treat. From the CBS website:

"HARPER'S ISLAND is about a group of family and friends who travel to a secluded island off the coast of Seattle for a destination wedding. This island is famous for a streak of unsolved murders from seven years ago. Although they've come to laugh and to love, what they don't know is they've also come... to die. As the wedding festivities begin, friendships are tested and secrets exposed as a murderer claims victims, one by one, transforming the wedding week of fun and celebration into a terrifying struggle for survival.In every episode, someone is killed and every person is a suspect, from the wedding party to the island locals.

By the end of the 13 episodes, all questions will be answered, the killer will be revealed and only a few will survive."

Fun stuff, huh? And on TV! And, it starts on my birthday – April 9th! How cool is that, I ask? Like a gift from the slasher gods.

Get ready, because I’m thinking there is going to be much Harper’s ado made here at Slasher Speak. In the meantime, check out one of what promises to be many terrific fansites dedicated to the show and watch the newest trailer for the show below:

Return to 'Sorority Row'

2009-03-22T12:22:00.006-04:00

With the slasher remake trend showing no signs of abating, those who count themselves among the weary (present company excluded, although the F13 remake somewhat tested my seemingly limitless tolerance for slasher crap) may take some comfort in what can be best described as a more logical change in the tide: moving away from retreads of the classics (Halloween, Friday the 13th, When a Stranger Calls) toward the more obscure. With a remake of Tobe Hooper's Funhouse just announced, looks like another worthy slasher redux is also on its way to a multiplex near you.

Sorority Row is a reimagining of The House on Sorority Row (1983), in which a sorority prank gone wrong gives rise to slasher mayhem and murder among the coed set. I have a soft spot for the original because of the frequent good natured debates I have with my friend Jodi (who co-starred in the film and graces one of the VHS covers) over what I swear is the dubbing of her voice - a claim she has categorically refuted in the past. (She's one of the interviewees in the forthcoming Butcher Knives & Body Counts anthology, so perhaps she'll finally fess up!).

In any event, the new film looks like one of those rare exceptions when a remake actually works, maybe even improves upon the original. Lots of cool imagery going on here - from its cloaked villian (and its shades of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer) and its attractive cast of coed victims (Black Christmas 2006, anyone?) to the innocuous tire iron seemingly making its bid for iconic instrument of death status and the fun-with-a-capital-F appearance of Carrie Fisher sporting a shotgun and spouting lines you can just imagine a crowded theater of kids going crazy with nervous laughter and applause for. File this one under "Good times ahead."

SORORITY ROW Trailer in High-Definition

Drop Your Shorts, Then Turn Your Head and Scream...

2009-03-16T22:11:00.002-04:00

Tired of waiting for the new book? If so, pick up a copy of the new short story collection Malpractice: An Anthology of Bedside Terror, which features a new original short story by yours truly. “The Night Nurse of Cobblestone” is set in a senior healthcare facility and involves some unpleasantness with bedsores and bad bedside manners. “Cobblestone” is dark, allegorical take on the horrors of aging – with a howling good twist!

Published by Stygian Publications, Malpractice features eighteen original short stories and thirteen 100-word pieces of flash fiction revolving around a fictional hospital. From the back cover copy:

Are you scared about going to the doctor?

Maybe you should be.

From the outside, a hospital is a place of safety and recovery, where the injured go to regain their strength to face the world again. Sadly, within the sterile white walls of Bloom Memorial, evil burns through every room. Every lab. Every corridor. The so-called doctors are impersonators. Lab-coated viruses infecting all they touch, they labor toward their own purpose.
Death.

Be warned. With 18 short stories and 13 100-word bites from some of the best horror writers, this collection of medical terror will cut you to the bones.

Some early praise for Malpractice: An Anthology of Bedside Terror:

“There are no HMOs where you are going. Malpractice is a gut-wrenching and visceral collection of horror stories that feverishly compounds our worst hospital fears. Although I may never be able to visit a hospital again without my knees rattling, I thoroughly enjoyed these well-crafted tales. Thematically, this anthology is a brilliant concept and ultimately flawlessly executed.” – Tim Deal, Shroud Magazine

Order your copy here.

Better Late Than Never

2009-02-17T05:15:00.002-05:00

Seems that my blogging buddies over at the wonderful Kindertrauma bestowed Slasher Speak with a Premio Dardo Award last week! Yes, the Premio Dardo Award!

What the hell is a Premio Dardo Award, you ask?

Basically, it’s a virtual a chain letter or tagging meme, in the form of an award. It’s given out by bloggers to other bloggers as a gesture of admiration and then passed along by the recipients and bestowed upon other bloggers. Fun, huh? Not much out there on the origins of the award, but I was able to find this.

Nebulous origins of the award notwithstanding, it was lovely to be recognized by Unkle Lancifer and Aunt John, two ingenious bloggers whom I admire tremendously for their thematic consistency with Kindertrauma.

Now, one of the unwritten stipulations of the Premio Dardo Awards is that a recipient must, in turn, bestow the award on five more deserving blogs. So, without further adieu, the Premio Dardo Awards go to:

Unspeakable Horror – How can I not recognize the queer musings of my friend and frequent collaborator Chad Helder? After all, it was through his Unspeakable Horror blog that Slasher Speak was born. Chad does a marvelous job exploring the queer aspects of popular horror culture, with recent expansions into the world of comics and coaching for horror writers considering the indie route. Check out his amazing poetry while you’re there, too!

Billy Loves Stu – More queer musings, this time from pal Pax Romano, who explores the more homoerotic subtext in horror films with a marvelously campy sense of humor and the queerest eye this side of Fire Island.

Anchorwoman in Peril! – Ross Horsley’s blog should win for the camp-tastic title alone! Anchorwoman in Peril is a glorious tribute to damsels in distress, TV-movie mayhem, and more slashers than you can shake a machete at.

Retro Slashers – A definitive blog for everything related to slasher films, with reviews, news, and interviews galore. There is a genuine and refreshing respect for the genre conveyed by John Klyza and company here.

Storytellers Unplugged – What happens when a group of thirty authors, editors, booksellers, and publishing professionals who want to share their love of writing and “behind the scenes” tips with readers who are also interested in the magic of writing get together? The result is Storytellers Unplugged, one of the most informative and important blogs for readers and writers alike. Each day of the month a different columnist contributes a post - some are thought-provoking, some are humorous, but all are enlightening.

Movie Review: Friday the 13th (2009)

2009-02-16T07:56:00.011-05:00

Time for some word association. Some key words that you'll find in my review of the new Friday the 13th now up at Fear Zone:

mediocrity

mongoloid

lifeless

uninspired

hoity-toity

amalgamation

boobies

stud

decent

abysmal

drywall

confounding

catacombs

His Name Was Jason

2009-02-12T17:06:00.020-05:00

It’s important to take any criticism of a documentary chronicling thirty year’s worth of film with the appropriate grain of salt. After all, boiling down that much celluloid history into a tidy 90-minute running time is no small feat and one likely to leave something out.

Such is the case with His Name Was Jason, an ambitious new documentary about the iconic Friday the 13th film franchise from Anchor Bay. Produced by Anthony Masi and Thommy Hutson and directed by Daniel Farrands, His Name Was Jason is a love letter to fans of the hockey-masked, machete-wielding Jason Voorhees and his myriad victims. Beginning with the original 1980 film and its deceptively simple premise that pitted camp counselors against an unseen psychopath and continuing through its eleven subsequent sequels to the present on the eve of a franchise revamp, the documentary traces the extensive swath of Jason’s carnage, and includes interviews with everyone from final girls to film directors, from screenwriters to supporting players. It’s got the makings of a fanboy’s dream come true.

There is a litany of Friday the 13th denizens on hand to discuss, dissect, reminiscence, and recollect, and there are anecdotes and commentaries and analyses galore from those involved and a few (mostly) welcome guests. And while the F13 convention staples (Savini, Palmer, Hodder, King, Lehman, Zerner) are on hand to dole out some stories we’ve heard before, the primary joy here is having non-convention folks like Robbi Morgan (Annie, Part 1), Lauren Marie Taylor (Vicky, Part 2), Catherine Parks (Vera, Part 3), and Erich Anderson (Rob, Final Chapter) spin lesser-known campfire tales from their individual sets. Challenge: Just try to top spunky Morgan’s pure exuberance over being part of the film franchise — even if she erroneously stakes claim to being the first Camp Crystal Lake casualty. (Sorry, Annie…first victim honors belong to Willie Adams, whose Barry met with a machete to the gut after his make-out session with the nubile Claudette.)

First, the highlights:

Adrienne King, Amy Steel, and Lar Park Lincoln suggesting a survivors’ reunion movie(!).

Seeing how former Friday hunks like Bill Randolph (Jeff, Part 2), Russell Todd (Scott, Part 2), John Furey (Paul, Part 2), John Shepherd (Tommy, New Beginning), Kevin Spirtas (Nick, New Blood), and John D. LeMay (Steven, Jason Goes to Hell) have fared against the ravages of time. (Hint: Spirtas wins hands down! Yum!)

Peter Bracke’s (author of the sublime Crystal Lake Memories) surprising attestation that Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood was the most heavily edited by the MPAA, which is then eloquently confirmed by director John Carl Buechler. “The rating’s board raped my movie!”

Judie Aronson (Samantha, Final Chapter) recalling the challenge of shooting her death scene in dangerously icy waters and how that film’s Jason (Ted White) took director Joseph Zito to task for his overzealousness in what becomes a cautionary tale of actress exploitation.

Visiting the location where Friday the 13th, Part 3-D was shot 26 years earlier with the sassy Gloria Charles (Fox) serving as tour guide. Charles shares her recollections of the man-made lake and how water had to be continuously pumped in from a well on the property to keep it filled and evokes nostalgia when she revisits that film’s infamous barn in which she met with her three-dimensional demise. There is a real sense of the bittersweet passage of time when Charles points out the unrecognizable overgrown remains of the bridge Kimmel and company once drove across in flight from Jason and the now-dilapidated dock on which Jason first made his appearance in his legendary hockey mask. The clincher is when Charles stands on the burnt out ruins of the house used in the film, now reduced to rubble from a recent fire, and interviews current ranch owner Daniel Valuzat who shares the heart-tugging story of how fans wanted to send money to rebuild the house. It’s a simple, beautifully executed segment that really captures the affection that both those involved with the Friday films and the legions of fans have for the iconic franchise.

A second location tour, this time of the Jarvis House from Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter with director Joseph Zito and actor Erich Anderson (Rob). High points here include an explanation of how the once-adjacent “teens’ house” was built specifically for the film and Zito (showing greater sensitivity than he once did with actress Aaronson) sharing his reasons for not showing Mrs. Jarvis’s death on screen.

Adrienne King sharing the intensely personal (and emotional) story of the real-life stalker that derailed her Hollywood career and sent her into years of seclusion.

The pure fun of “The Camp Crystal Lake Survival Guide” segment on the bonus disc, during which cast, crew, and commentators share their insights into what it takes to avoid becoming a statistic in the Friday body count.

Commentators who are logical and augment the proceedings: Bracke, How to Survive a Horror Movie author Seth Grahame-Smith (for the most part —see below), Fangoria editor Anthony Timpone, and Hatchet director Adam Green. Big props to Masi, Hutson, Farrands and company, too, for their inclusion of notable web journalists like Ryan Rotten (ShockTillYouDrop.com) and Brad Miska (Bloody Disgusting.com). It’s nice to see hard-working webitors getting recognition for the part they play in modern journalism.

The delightful end credits doubling as a quasi-blooper reel during which some of the cast re-enact their (in)famous movie lines. While Parks and Lerner hysterically revisit their Vera/Shelley banter after Lerner pranks Parks onscreen, it’s Steel – whose hilarious “There’s somebody in this fucking room!” redo is rivaled only by Green’s dead-on Crispin Glover “Ted, where’s the damn corkscrew” impersonation – who, well, steals the show.

Farrands maintains a playful, yet respectful, tone throughout the proceedings. I mean, it’s impossible to accord the Friday the 13th mythos – complete with its almost cartoonish serial killer who resurrects and reanimates and reincarnates more times than Lara Spencer changes dresses on The Insider – with overt academic seriousness. So there’s some snark. Plenty of it, in fact. But, for the most part, all involved tow the line admirably — with the exception of author Grahame-Smith, whose unnecessarily mean-spirited misstep is the only sour note in the double-disc set. In a bonus segment entitled “Worst Monologue Ever,” Smith suggests that actress Dana Kimmel’s monologue in the film’s 3-D installment should be shown at the Julliard School as a cautionary tale for actors. Ok, bad enough, but all’s fair in love and snark, right? But when Grahame-Smith further suggests that Kimmel actually visit the school “like recovering drug addicts talk to school children,” he crosses the tacky-with-a-capital-T line and the harshness of the suggestion is as gratuitous as the gore effects in a Friday film. At least the bonus feature isn’t part of the documentary proper.

Some other misfires:

The inexplicable proliferation of actor Shavar Ross (Reggie, New Beginning). He’s like an African-American version of Dustin Diamond...the Screech of the Friday films. And he’s everywhere here.

Too many MIA final Friday girls. No Dana Kimmel. No Kimberly Beck. No Melanie Kinnaman. No Jennifer Cooke. No Kari Keegan. No Lexa Doig. Where are all these ladies of the lake?

A surprisingly lackluster chapter on the upcoming 2009 reimagining with not a single clip or trailer.

Tom Savini’s corny hosting and the equally cornball amusement park Crystal Lake set pieces that connect the various chapters.

Commentators who are illogical and detract from the proceedings: Sleepaway Camp screamer Felissa Rose, Final Destination screenwriter Jeffrey Reddick, Seth Green(!), Psych’s James Roday, and some guy named Hugh Sterbakov. File all under “W” for “why?”

Finally, my biggest gripe – thus warranting its own non-bulleted, full-fledged paragraph proper – is with the “In Memory Of” section of the end credits. Rightfully, Laurie Bartram (Brenda, Part 1) leads a list of five that includes David Cohen (writer, New Beginning), George Hively (editor, Part 3), Robert Howland (production designer, New Beginning), and actor Steve Susskind (Harold, Part 3). Anyone want to venture a guess at how the passings of two of the franchise’s most notable actors – Tom McBride (Mark, Part 2, who died tragically of AIDS in 1995) and Walt Gorney (Crazy Ralph, Parts 1 and 2, who’s possibly the most recognizable Friday character next to Jason himself) – were left off the list? While we’re at it, how about Rex Everhart (ass-grabbing Enos from Part 1) or Sally Anne Golden (Sandy, Part 1’s drag queen-esque diner waitress) or Mark Venturini (Victor from Part 5, who died of Leukemia at the age of 35) or David Wiley (Abel from Part 3) or Antony Ponzini (Vincent from the Final Chapter) or Ric Mancini (Mayor Cobb from Part 5) or Vernon Washington (George from Part 5)? Small but important details that are indicative of the inevitable sense of incompleteness that His Name Was Jason is destined to leave viewers with after their exhilaration ebbs and critical thinking skills kick back in.

It’s natural to expect fans interested enough in watching a documentary about the film franchise to lament over what’s missing. While His Name Was Jason is far from definitive, it’s closer than we’ve ever gotten. And probably as close as we’re ever going to get. Warringtom Gillette (Jason, Part 2) sums it all up rather nicely: “Thanks to Friday the 13th, my 15 minutes just keeps going.” And at the heart of His Name Was Jason, there is a genuine sense of celebration over the franchise’s seemingly never-ending 15 minutes.

Thinking of Tina...

2009-02-05T09:08:00.004-05:00

Just learned today in doing research for Butcher Knives and Body Counts that actress Lar Park Lincoln, best known to Friday the 13th fans as Tina from the iconic film franchise’s seventh “New Blood” installment, is battling breast cancer. She is currently undergoing chemotherapy for the rare (1 in 10) form of breast cancer known as Lobular and is scheduled for a double mastectomy following treatment.

Lincoln has always been one of my personal favorites from the slasher genre’s “final girl” canon. In addition to her Friday the 13th role, she also starred as Kate in House II: The Second Story and as the delicious villainess Linda Fairgate on Knot’s Landing. It was on the latter that I really gained an appreciation for her work as an actress. I threatened to boycott the show when word of her exit made the rounds (alas, CBS did not heed my warning...) and I actually remember crying when her character’s throat was slit in comeuppance for her misdeeds(!). While she’s continued to act in small roles, Lincoln moved back to her native Texas to raise her two children (from late husband Michael Lincoln who died of cancer in 1995). Since then, she’s earned a reputation as one of Texas’ most elite career coaches for actors, models and pageants and launched her own line of QVC products.

What I especially like about Lincoln is that the Texas-born blue-eyed beauty has never renounced her humble horror roots, instead embracing her notoriety by participating in numerous Friday the 13th reunions and documentaries, including the new His Name Was Jason. Even now, battling this horrible disease, she exhibits an inspirational resolve and terrific sense of humor (from her website):

“Have you heard those rumors that "Lar has cancer?” Well, yes, they are true. Early October I got the dreaded Breast cancer call - not really a call more like a moan...Darn it…I have such great boobs!! I’m the only actress in the world left with real boobs. What a terrific claim to fame!! I have a rare form called Lobular - a version that is about 1 in 10 and doesn’t show up on mammograms! Go figure! At least they have named it after me – lobuLAR. LOL!”

Sending out love and positive vibes to you, Lar. Remember: you beat Jason Voorhees. You can – and will – beat this, too.

Movie Review: Funny Games

2009-01-31T09:00:00.002-05:00

I feel the adjectives coming. Lots of them, in fact. It would be nearly impossible to write a review for Funny Games without bucketsful of limiting, qualifying, and specifying modifiers. It’s just one of those rare movie experiences that warrant them.

Funny Games is writer/director Michael Haneke’s 2007 remake of his own 1997 Austrian film. It’s a deceptively simple story of home invasion and the randomness of violence starring Tim Roth and Naomi Watts as an upwardly mobile couple who arrives at their lakeside vacation house with son and dog in tow. The family sets about re-opening the house, airing out rooms and launching their boat with the help of a neighbor and a young man named Paul (Michael Pitt) —who the neighbor identifies as a family friend staying with them. The boat is launched and the neighbor and his young guest leave. Nothing immediately triggers an alarm other than the family dog’s incessant barking at Paul and the neighbor’s odd, Stepford-like demeanor.

Soon, another identically dressed young man named Peter (Brady Corbet) shows up on the couple’s doorstep, asking to borrow eggs on behalf of the same neighbor. When the first batch of eggs is dropped just off camera, the audience experiences a gradual discomfit with Watts, who plays the drawn-out sequence to perfection. By the time Paul shows back up and the two young men are standing inside the house, decked out in crisp white tennis outfits and disconcerting white cloth gloves, the audience’s dread turns to fear. What immediately follows can only be described as the most polite home invasion on record, one that devolves into a night of unimaginable psychological and physical torture for the young couple and their son. At the heart of this home invasion is a wager that questions whether the family will be alive by 9:00 am the following morning.

Funny Games is essentially a horror movie grounded in almost unbearable reality. Haneke eschews nearly all convention and crafts a relentlessly tense, at times painfully uncomfortable movie-going experience. From his jarring choice of opening and closing music (Naked City’s frenetic “Bonehead”) to the breaking of taboos (They’d never hurt the kid, right?), Haneke crafts a profoundly affecting film that will disturb to the core. The juxtaposition of manners and wealth against the brutality of the sadistic games the two psychopaths force the family to participate in is stark and effective, and is brilliantly personified by the performances of the leads. Watts and Roth (and the remarkably good Devon Gearhart as son Georgie) are so convincing at times that you find yourself reaching for the phone to dial 911 on their behalf. They truly make the audience feel every terror, every humiliation and degradation, every physical pain they are subjected to. We see their will to survive sorely tested and watch, helpless, as their resolve crumbles under the weight of the psychological and physical torture. Pitt, in particular, turns in a masterful performance as the lead psychopath. His calculated, chilling performance is a bravado exercise in restraint. This kid’s come a long way since his days as the equal parts affable and adorable Henry on Dawson’s Creek.

Haneke is, quite simply, one hell of a gutsy director. He pulls off shocking sequences in such a measured way, with little to no lead up at times or any of the conventional horror tropes like escalating music or false scares. Even Darius Khondji’s straightforward cinematography and Rebecca Meis DeMarco’s minimalist set decoration complements Haneke’s unadorned cinematic tableau. In fact, this movie doesn’t have one sequence that will make you jump, its unbridled terror coming from Haneke’s torturously even pacing in which the mundane and horrific both occur on equal platform and in the lack of motivation for the violence that ensues. It’s in this casualness that the horror becomes so powerful, reminding the audience that true horror isn’t always dramatic or ushered in on carefully orchestrated set pieces. Although the film is likely to stay with you long after the closing credits, it’s Watts’ final scene that will leave you gasping in its minimalism and audacity.

Funny Games is a raw, honest story of violence, simultaneously shocking in its simplicity and inspired in its complexity. It’s a film that takes no prisoners, so be warned. Viewers will feel their stomachs gradually tightening, the pervasive element of suspense in the film a vice that grows tighter and tighter with each fiercely executed sequence. Don’t know how I missed this one when it was (briefly) released last April, but Funny Games would easily be included on a Top Ten Horror Movies of 2008 list had I done one.